*6 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 OF THK 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 GIKT OF* 
 
 Mrs. SARAH P. WALSWORTH. 
 
 Received October, 1894. 
 ^Accessions No . ^5> 2.. Class No. 
 

 
 
 y , 
 
 
INFIDELITY; 
 
 ITS, ASPECTS, CAUSES, AND AGENCIES: 
 
 THE PRIZE ESSAY 
 
 BRITISH ORGANIZATION OF THE EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE. 
 
 REV. THOMAS PEARSON", 
 
 EYEMOUTH, SCOTLAND. 
 
 PENSANTUR TRUTINA. Horace. 
 
 O 61 TTOIUV TT)V dhJjOeiav SKETCH rcpbs TO 0cJf. The Master. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS, 
 No. 285 BROADWAY. 
 
 1854. 
 

 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 V -v 7? .r?, 
 
 PART THE FIRST. 
 INFIDELITY IN ITS VARIOUS ASPECTS ..... 15 
 
 CHAP L ATHEISM ; OR, THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE EX 
 
 ISTENCE ..... .......... 18 
 
 IL PANTHEISM; OR, THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE 
 
 PERSONALITY ..... ........ 61 
 
 HI. NATURALISM; OR, THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE 
 
 PROVIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT ....... 97 
 
 IV. SPIRITUALISM ; OR, THE DENIAL OF THE BIBLE 
 
 REDEMPTION ............... 171 
 
 V. INDIFFERENTISM ; OR, THE DENIAL OF MAN S 
 
 RESPONSIBILITY ............. 263 
 
 VI. FORMALISM; OR, THE DENIAL OF THE POWER 
 
 OF GODLINESS . . 300 
 
 PART THE SECOND. 
 INFIDELITY IN ITS VARIOUS CAUSES 333 
 
 CHAP. I GENERAL CAUSE . .335 
 
 II. SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY 362 
 
IV CONTENTS. 
 
 PAOB 
 
 CHAP. IIL SOCIAL DISAFFECTION .... TV . . .".- 885 
 IV. THE CORRUPTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY .... 403 
 
 V. RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE 428 
 
 VL DISUNION OF THE CHURCH . . .456 
 
 PART THE THIRD. 
 INFIDELITY IN ITS VAEIOUS AGENCIES 48 3 
 
 CRAP. I. THE PRESS . . . . . .... . 485 
 
 II. THE CLUBS 525 
 
 IIL THE SCHOOLS . . V T 549 
 
 IV. THE PULPIT .... * v , r , ., % 577 
 
 APPENDIX . . .605 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THE answer given by the messengers to the angel 
 of the Lord that stood among the myrtle trees, in the 
 vision of Zechariah the prophet, does not apply to 
 our times: "We have walked to and fro through the 
 earth, and behold all the earth sitteth still and is at 
 rest." Politically and morally, in the sphere of things 
 sacred and in the sphere of things civil, Europe, in 
 the middle of the nineteenth century, is a troubled 
 sea. Numerous and mighty agencies, both for good 
 and evil, are abroad and at work. These agencies 
 may embody the same great principles that have 
 been opposing and struggling with each other from 
 the beginning. Light and darkness strove on the 
 face of the deep before this goodly universe rose out 
 of chaos, and they have their strivings still. Error 
 is not of yesterday any more than truth. They en 
 countered each other in Paradise, they have had 
 many encounters since, and they are yet in the 
 field, But periods arise which become exalted into 
 
VI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 epochs, when these ancient forces, on the one side or 
 on both, display more than usual vigor, appear in 
 new or revived forms, change their modes of attack 
 and defence, and come off with honors. Such a 
 period was the beginning of the Gospel when truth 
 in her fairest form descended from heaven, sustained 
 the combined attack of all the powers of evil, and by 
 her own inherent vigor spoiled principalities and 
 powers and went on conquering and to conquer. 
 Such a period was the dark or middle ages, which, 
 like a long and dreary night, succeeded a short but 
 bright day, when it seemed as if truth had been 
 driven from the field, and the world had been given up 
 to the reign of ignorance and terror. Such a period 
 was the Reformation of the sixteenth century, which, 
 with a voice whose sound was like the sea, awoke Eu 
 rope from the sleep of ages, mustered in fierce and vig 
 orous conflict all the powers of good and evil, and sent 
 throughout the heart of ransomed humanity a thrill of 
 joyous liberty that has echoed over the earth and down 
 the stream of time. Such a period, (to con 
 tract our view within our own England,) was that 
 august and earnest century when an oppressed 
 people rose up, resolute and majestic, against their 
 faithless oppressors when the Puritans sounded the 
 Gospel trumpet against the formalism and irreligion 
 of the age, and men awoke at once to civil freedom 
 
INTRODUCTION. VR 
 
 and that yet higher liberty wherewith the truth makes 
 men free. And to leap over the bridge that spanned 
 the dark and boisterous waters that rolled between, 
 one of those dreary intervals that ever and anon occur 
 in history, and which constituted in itself a dark age, 
 when the foe was permitted to advance and stretch his 
 sceptre over the church and the world, and, in a great 
 measure, corrupt the form and stifle the voice of truth 
 itself, such a period was the latter half of the last 
 century, when an awakening evangelism, big, and feel 
 ing-hearted, counteracted the materialistic tendencies 
 which a sceptical soulless philosophy had given to the 
 age, and blew upon the cold earthly morality that had 
 usurped the place of the Gospel in the college chair 
 and in the church pulpit. 
 
 The fruits of this latter age, fruits both good and 
 evil, we are now reaping. There is more reason, 
 however, to be thankful for its legacy of good, than to 
 deplore the inheritance of its evil. Its shining light 
 has shine d more and more unto our own day, but 
 masses of dark clouds envious and portentous have 
 followed it. We are not so moodishly disposed as to 
 call to remembrance the former days and say that 
 they were better than the present. No, the age, 
 carrying along with it much of the rich good of the 
 past is, in spite of many drawbacks, advancing on 
 ward in the right path. There is in the heart of 
 
Vlll INTRODUCTION, 
 
 humanity a much larger amount of the leaven of heav 
 enly truth than could be found at any preceding 
 period, and, notwithstanding all opposing tendencies, 
 it is spreading, and will spread. Despotism, which 
 robs man of his rights, and obstructs the progress of 
 God s truth, is losing its ground, and truth and free 
 dom are advancing. The Bible, the schoolmaster, 
 the evangelist, and the missionary, are abroad. The 
 church at home is becoming more and more alive to 
 the call of her Lord, arise, shine, her voice is be 
 coming more loud and earnest in the pulpit, her in 
 struction agencies among our home population are 
 strengthening, and thickly multiplying, and she is 
 lengthening her cords so as to embrace within her 
 pale the abundance of the sea and the forces of the 
 Gentiles. But if it is unwise to brood over the 
 maladies of an age as if it were only evil and that 
 continually, it is not less so to glory in its fair forms 
 and healthy activities as if oblivious of its wounds 
 and bruises and putrefying sores. The sun is in the 
 heavens bright and beaming, but the clouds have 
 gathered surcharged with the elements of strife, and 
 they are ever and anon darkening and troubling the 
 sky. Our age is one of intense earnestness and action 
 both for good and evil. The old truth and the old 
 error which have struggled throughout the past, 
 are in the field. But neither is slumbering, both 
 
INTRODUCTION. IX 
 
 are vigilant, extending their lines, increasing 
 their forces, devising and adopting new modes of 
 defence and attack, as if conscious that a blow was 
 about to be struck which would mark another great 
 era in the conflict between the powers of good and 
 evil. 
 
 There are giants on the earth in these days both 
 in the one encampment and in the other. A mighty 
 force is on the $ide of the friends of truth, but it is 
 sadly divided and scattered. What is wanting is the 
 strength of union, the concentration of those energies 
 in defending the citadel and making inroads on the 
 enemy, which are spent on the defence of comparatively 
 unimportant posts, or in one detachment of the same 
 corps guarding against the encroachment of another. 
 The champions of error, though not without their 
 discords and divisions, are yet wiser in their genera 
 tion than the children of light. As of old they dis 
 cern the signs of the times, and take counsel together 
 against the Lord and against his anointed. The Press, 
 to which under God we owe so much of our light and 
 liberties, wields a mighty influence on the side of evil. 
 The halls of philosophy, hallowed though they be by 
 many a name illustrious for Christian worth as well as 
 intellectual greatness, are often sending forth doctrines 
 as gross as the earth or as vague as the air, but alike 
 adverse to that truth which coming from above is 
 
X INTRODUCTION. 
 
 above all. Our current literature and works on 
 science, with not a few bright and beneficent excep 
 tions, are hostile either by their silence in reference 
 to divine truth when their subjects afford them occa 
 sions to speak out, or by their avowed opposition to 
 much of what constitutes the essence of true religion. 
 And what is peculiar in a great measure to our times, 
 and throws a vast potency into the scale of irreligion, 
 is the unceasing effort of infidels to diffuse their prin 
 ciples among the artizans and laboring classes of the 
 land. The earth is not still and at rest. Men of 
 every class are searching after an unknown good. 
 The demon of infidelity is stalking abroad, knocking 
 at the palaces of the rich and the cottages of the 
 poor,* transforming itself into this shape and that, 
 and becoming all things except an angel of good, to 
 all men. One dreary theory succeeds another, like 
 storm-cloud chasing storm-cloud over the face of the 
 sky, and yet man is not at peace. The cravings of 
 his mind are agonized, not satisfied. It becomes those 
 then who know the truth and whom the truth has 
 made free, those who having believed do enter into 
 rest, to arouse themselves for the two-fold object of 
 meeting infidelity at its various points and combatting 
 its diversified forms, and of presenting in every lawful 
 
 * " Aequo pulsat pede pauper um tabernas 
 
 Regumquc turres." Horace. 
 
INTRODUCTION. XI 
 
 way that truth which they know only can give rest to 
 a laboring and heavy-laden world. Let the antag 
 onist forces on the one side as well as as on the other 
 be pressed into the unfettered conflict, and the lovers 
 of God and the friends of man have nothing to fear 
 but much to hope. " Christianity, like Rome, has 
 had both the Gaul and Hannibal at her gates ; but 
 as the l Eternal City, in the latter case, calmly ofiered 
 for sale, and sold, at an undepreciated price, the very 
 ground on which the Carthaginian had fixed his 
 camp, with equal calmness may Christianity imitate 
 her example of magnanimity. She may feel assured 
 that, as in so many past instances of premature tri 
 umph, on the part of her enemies, the ground they 
 occupy will one day be her own ; that the very dis 
 coveries, apparently hostile, of science and philosophy, 
 will be ultimately found elements of her strength."* 
 u All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the 
 flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower 
 thereof falleth away. But the word of the Lord en- 
 dureth forever." 
 
 * "Rogers Essays, vol. ii., p. 345. 
 

 
 v 
 
 fart % |irst. 
 
 INFIDELITY IN ITS VARIOUS ASPECTS. 
 
 ATHEISM. 
 
 PANTHEISM. 
 
 NATURALISM, 
 
 PSEUDO-SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 INDIFFERENTISM. 
 
 FORMALISM. 
 
fnf&ditg in its Canons 
 
 INFIDELITY, though elaborating its own creed, is, 
 properly speaking, a system of negations. It suggests 
 rather what it seeks to demolish than what it attempts 
 to build. In this respect, it is like the palmer-worm 
 of the prophet, 1 the mere mention of which leads 
 one to think more of what it has destroyed, than of 
 what it has left to be eaten by the locust. But in 
 the work of demolition, one man or class of men 
 advances farther than another. Some sacred truths 
 which one band of fell destroyers clear away in their 
 march, another band, leagued in the same warfare, 
 leave standing. Just as we may suppose some of the 
 soldiers of Csesar, in attacking the Massilian grove, 
 went scrupulously and sparingly to work from a super 
 stitious dread of invisible power, while others, less 
 timid and superstitious, levelled to the ground every 
 thing that had for ages been counted sacred. 2 Infidel 
 ity in one age or country may be much more sweeping 
 
 1 Joel, i. 4. 2 Foster s Essay, p. 39, 15th edit, 
 
16 INFIDELITY. 
 
 than in another, and, as everybody knows, contem 
 poraneous systems of unbelief among the same people 
 may differ widely in the number of things sacred 
 which they proscribe. But there is a clearly-defined 
 body of religious truth, in reverencing which, people 
 and nations who have had and fairly used the means 
 of judging, however much differing on other points, 
 have generally been agreed. This is the ark of the 
 God of Israel; and however the Philistines may 
 outstrip each other in laying hands upon it, they are 
 yet to be numbered under one genus, on the principle 
 that depredators are but depredators, though some 
 may be braver or more successful in the work of 
 plunder than others. This body of truth comprises 
 all the commonly understood doctrines of natural 
 and revealed religion: such as the independent ex 
 istence of one absolutely perfect Being, the Creator, 
 Preserver, and Governor of all things; the doctrine 
 of the Trinity, or of three persons in the Godhead, 
 the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit ; the Incar 
 nation and Atonement of the Son for human salvation ; 
 and the necessity of the Spirit s influences to regener 
 ate the souls of men. This is God s truth, the sub 
 stance of all that material nature teaches, the purest 
 reason has ever been able to discover, and the Scrip 
 tures have revealed. There is room for a diversity of 
 opinion about modes of eccleciastical government, 
 external rites and ceremonies, and the interpretation 
 of certain Scriptural passages, but no one who has 
 ears to hear, and who humbly listens to the voices of 
 aature and revelation, can fail to discover what God 
 
IN ITS VARIOUS ASPECTS. 17 
 
 is, and what he has done, what man is, and what he 
 needs. Infidelity, then, is found to manifest itself in 
 such forms as the following: in the denial of the 
 Divine Existence, or absolute Atheism ; in the denial of 
 the Divine Personality, or Pantheism ; in the denial of 
 the Divine Providential Government, or Naturalism ; in 
 the denial of the Divine Redemption (including, as it 
 does, the doctrines of the Trinity, Atonement, and 
 Spirit s Influences,) or Pseudo-Spiritualism. And to 
 these may be added,- what belong more properly to 
 practical-, than to theoretical infidelity, the denial of 
 Man s Responsibility, or Indifferentism ; and the denial 
 of the Power of Godliness, or Formalism. These forms 
 we shall now develop. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE EXISTENCE, OR ATHEISM. 
 
 Atheism completes the negation A somewhat strange phenomenon 
 Its existence doubted No man of straw Processes by which 
 men have become atheists Prevalent in most depraved times 
 French atheism Reign of Terror An atheistical nation self- 
 destructive No lack of adverse speculations respecting the divine 
 Being, but absolute atheism comparatively rare Development 
 hypothesis not positively atheistical Atheism, however, a fact 
 Involves a monstrous assumption The existence of God an in 
 tellectual necessity Arguments a priori and a posteriori Exclu 
 sive claim for either disposed of Inductive proof from matter and 
 mind Defect of induction Bible testimony Practical Proof the 
 real one Dr. Arnold. 
 
 HEBE the negation is complete. The work of de 
 molishing things esteemed sacred, has advanced so 
 far as to leave nothing more for the destroyer to do. 
 He has reached the dreary brink from which many 
 destroyers, by no means craven-hearted, have shrunk 
 back. And from that bad pre-eminence he looks 
 upwards to the heavens, vacant at first in his wishes, 
 and now in his creed, and with as much boldness as 
 if he had travelled through the realms of space and 
 beheld all dark and desolate, says, There is there no 
 God. He looks down to the gulf of annihilation, 
 and, amid the troubles of his godless existence, feels 
 something like a morbid satisfaction in the thought 
 
THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE EXISTENCE. 19 
 
 that the grave is an eternal sleep and the present 
 scene the whole of man. He looks abroad upon the 
 mass of human society, ill at ease and yearning after 
 an enjoyment that it has never found, and to the 
 question, " Who will shew us any good ?" he has only 
 one answer. " Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we 
 die." No religion is his religion. And he struggles 
 against the aspirings of his better self, to rest in the 
 dark dogma that the highest being is man. 
 
 Atheism in this unqualified sense, is, it must be 
 admitted, a somewhat strange and startling pheno 
 menon. People in many parts would turn out and 
 look at a real and avowed atheist, just as they do at 
 some singularly huge foreign animals, with mingled 
 astonishment and alarm. Faith in God is so in 
 herent in the heart of humanity, and so essential to 
 our reason, that many wise and good men have 
 doubted if ever there lived an intelligent mortal so 
 absolutely destitute of religious belief as is implied 
 in atheism. Addison would have told a man who 
 gloried in this distinction, that he was an impudent 
 liar, and that he knew it. Bacon accounted atheism 
 to be rather in the lip than in the heart, and that a 
 contemplative atheist is a prodigy, a thing unusually 
 rare. " I confess," says Dr. Arnold in one of his 
 weighty letters, " that I believe conscientious atheism 
 not to exist." And it does appear an incredible 
 thing that a man possessed of intelligence and feeling, 
 standing amid this glorious amphitheatre of earth 
 and sky, gazing upon its grand and lovely forms, and 
 listening to its thousand voices of rapturous praise, 
 
20 
 
 can coolly deny the existence of Him who sits en 
 throned above the heavens. It does seem hard to be 
 believed that one of our race can retire into the 
 depths of his own inner nature, and familiarize him 
 self with the wondrous phenomena of his mental 
 existence, and yet come out of himself and unhesi 
 tatingly say that this great system of animate and 
 inanimate being is without a presiding and inde 
 pendent mind. It does look like a very prodigious 
 thing in the world that men should be found who not 
 only rob God of the attributes that are essential to 
 his nature, and extrude Him from the domain of his 
 own creation, but can frame and assent to the propo 
 sition that God is not. But such prodigies have been 
 and are ever and anon recurring. Every one indeed 
 is not an atheist who wishes to be so. And many 
 who would fain persuade the world that they are 
 heroes of this description, are no more to be credited 
 than the coward who, in the absence of the foe, boasts 
 of his bravery. But absolute atheism is no man of 
 straw that controversialists have set up in order that 
 they might knock him down. It is an embodied 
 breathing reality. And however much violence may 
 be implied in freeing the mind of a belief in God, in 
 thwarting and repressing those moral instincts which 
 naturally go out thither and rest in that faith, and in 
 falsifying all the signs palpably marked on the shining 
 heavens and the green earth, which have spoken from 
 the beginning to the philosopher and the peasant of a 
 supreme presiding intelligence, the violence in not a 
 few instances has been done. 
 
THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE EXISTENCE. 21 
 
 In some minds of a philosophic cast the work has 
 proceeded with something like system and deliberation. 
 From one or two principles, which in their fondness 
 they no more thought of doubting than axioms in 
 mathematics, they have wrought out, through a series 
 of inevitable developments, an independent universe, 
 governed exclusively by mechanical laws, the lawgiver 
 being fate or necessity, or some other equally vague 
 and unintelligible name. In other minds less accus 
 tomed to scale the heavens and traverse the fields of 
 space, the consummation has been reached by a felt 
 necessity of advancing after having thrown off religious 
 restraints ; just as some people are necessitated to do 
 a second wrong action because they have done the first, 
 to do a third because they have done the second, and 
 so on until the character for daring has been stereo 
 typed into something like the shape of an indomitable 
 hero. And never but in the whirlpool of revolutionary 
 frenzy, or in such circumstances as to be at once the 
 cause and effect of the corruption of a state, has 
 atheism been boldly adopted and acted upon by the 
 masses of a nation. A Diagoras, a Bion, and a Lucian, 
 are marked out from among the minds of the ancient 
 world as having made this unenviable attainment. 
 The men of Athens were wont to banish from theii 
 city the solitary sceptic that now and then appeared, 
 and dared even to doubt the existence of a supreme 
 intelligence. Ancient Rome, we know, had passed 
 the climax of her glory before atheism obtained any 
 hold of the public mind, and its prevalence was 
 followed by such a course of deger/ra oy, oppression, 
 
22 ATHEISM ; OR, 
 
 and bloodshed, as makes the reader of her history even 
 now tremble ; the age of Pericles among the Greeks 
 and the age of Augustus among the Romans had de 
 parted, and in the deluge of depravity that in either 
 case set in the monster abounded. But never was 
 atheism, whether of a philosophical or political kind, 
 more boldly manifested than in the history of modern 
 Europe. During the latter half of the last century, 
 the religious world had to contend not only with a 
 stupid deism but with the abettors of an undisguised 
 atheism. The very first principle of natural religion 
 was avowedly rejected and stoutly contended for. 
 Sensationalism reached its culminating point. The 
 materialistic school of France sent forth an infidel 
 science and literature of the broadest stamp, and that 
 school had its disciples in many lands. In the u Sys- 
 teme de la Nature," the celebrated work of Baron 
 d Holbach, the most absolute atheism is asserted as 
 openly as the existence of God is maintained in any 
 of our treatises on natural theology. " The grand 
 object of the book," to use the language of Lord 
 Brougham, " being to show that there is no God, the 
 author begins by endeavoring to establish the most 
 rigorous materialism, by trying to show that there is 
 no such thing as mind nothing beyond or different 
 from the material world." 1 This work, full though it be 
 of gratuitous assumptions and inconclusive reasoning, 
 was well fitted, as Dr. Chalmers speaking from his 
 own experience once remarked, " by its gorgeous 
 
 1 Discourse of Natural Theology, p. 172. 
 
THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE EXISTENCE. 23 
 
 generalizations on nature and truth and the universe, 
 to make tremendous impression on the unpractised 
 reader." 1 The French Encyclopaedia of sciences, 
 which numbered among its contributors some of the 
 most brilliant writers of the age, was avowedly a work 
 of atheism. Matter and its laws became the engross 
 ing subjects of investigation, the existence of God was 
 treated as the fiction of an overcredulous age, and 
 man was regarded as but an organized animal, the 
 offspring of chance, the sport of fate, and whose end 
 is annihilation. The great work of Auguste Comte, 
 which has obtained for him a wide reputation, is the 
 most celebrated of the recent productions of the same 
 school. It is a system of huge materialism which 
 " records the dread sentiment, that the universe dis 
 plays no proofs of an all-directing mind, and records 
 it too as the deduction of unbiassed reason." New 
 ton, Kepler, and others of the greatest discoverers in 
 science, have risen from nature up to nature s God, 
 and had their minds filled with religious emotion 
 when exploring the earth and the heavens, but the 
 disciples of the school to which we have referred, 
 brilliant though their reputation be in the depart 
 ments of physical research, have presented to the 
 world productions of their genius which must bear 
 the broad brand of atheism. 
 
 What has been too truly called the Eeign of Terror, 
 in France, was avowedly the reign of the most abso 
 lute atheism. Infidelity then assumed its boldest 
 
 1 Hanna s Life of Chalmers, vol. i. p. 45. 
 
24 ATHEISM ; OR, 
 
 front and lifted up its loudest voice, and it found an 
 echo in some parts of our own land. " I frankly con 
 fess that I am an atheist," said one of the members of 
 the French convention in a deliberative assembly of 
 his countrymen ; and though the declaration startled 
 multitudes by its daring, yet voices were not wanting 
 in that assembly to cry out, " You are an honest man." 
 The Revolutionary leaders, in the height of their im 
 piety, not only sought to destroy every vestige of 
 Christianity by abolishing the sabbath, altering the 
 calendar, plundering and shutting up, or converting 
 into warehouses, the various churches ; but in the 
 climax of their guilt, they brought the convention to 
 yield to the cry that the era had come when men 
 should cease to fear the Eternal, and, in the person 
 of a strumpet, enthroned with heathen orgies the 
 goddess of Reason as the object of national worship. 
 France thus presented to the world the singular and 
 appalling spectacle of a refined and civilized nation 
 openly declaring that there is no God, proscribing all 
 the acts of religious homage, and inscribing on the 
 entrance to the sepulchre that death is an eternal 
 sleep. u This," as Robert Hall remarks, u is the first 
 attempt which has ever been witnessed, on an exten 
 sive scale, to establish the principles of atheism ; the 
 first effort which history has recorded to disannul and 
 extinguish the belief of all superior powers." It had 
 been a matter of dispute in former ages whether a 
 community leavened throughout with atheistical prin 
 ciples could possibly subsist. No great powers of 
 reasoning were requisite to show that, abstractedly 
 
THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE EXISTENCE. 25 
 
 considered, the thing is impossible. It is not neces 
 sary to see the ocean shifting its bed or rapidly advanc 
 ing beyond its ancient limits, to feel persuaded that 
 were it to do so, it would carry a sweeping devastation 
 into the towns and villages that skirt the shore. 
 Let the throne in the heavens be declared vacant, and 
 proclamation be made throughout the land that there 
 is no God, and society is reft of all its safeguards, 
 crime is committed without dread of punishment, and 
 the vilest passions of the vilest men rush onward 
 without restraint. For how utterly feeble is the check 
 imposed by human laws when, by denying the Divine 
 existence, they have succeeded in exploding the law 
 of God. But the bad pre-eminence was reserved for 
 modern France, to teach in a palpable form the awful 
 lesson that when the Ruler among the nations is 
 openly disowned, the foundations of the earth are out 
 of course, the bonds of society are dissolved, human 
 life is accounted cheap and wantonly sacrificed, and 
 the most horrid deeds are perpetrated under the 
 sacred name of liberty. It was u a grand experiment 
 on human nature." Atheism had never been tried 
 on such an extensive scale before. And it was seen 
 and felt that nations, like individuals, cannot be pros 
 perous and safe, enjoy liberty and be at peace, with 
 out acknowledging the living and true God. France 
 was like a troubled sea, a sea of blood, under the 
 reign of atheism. The people at last recoiled from 
 the impious and horrid system. And the same con 
 vention which had publicly disowned the Most High 
 and proclaimed death to be an eternal sleep, was con- 
 
26 ATHEISM; OB, 
 
 strained to recognize by enactment the existence of 
 God and the immortality of the soul, and, by an im 
 pious festival, professedly to restore the Eternal to the 
 nation s faith and homage. " Vengeance belongeth 
 unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord." " The 
 republic of these men without a God," remarks La- 
 martine, " was quickly stranded." Europe has never 
 witnessed the reign of such a bold and undisguised 
 atheism since, and in all probability never will. 
 
 Infidel opinions, monstrous and many-shaped 
 enough, are ever and anon thrown up amid the 
 heavings of restless humanity, the natural tendency 
 of which is to lead men to look up to a vacant heaven 
 and down to the dreary gulf, from which, however, 
 they instinctively shrink back, and of such opinions 
 no age was, perhaps, ever more rife than our own. 
 Views of a Supreme Power, of human nature, and of 
 the material world, are emanating from the schools 
 and being diffused throughout the mass of society, 
 which are unquestionably atheistical in their lean 
 ings. But there is no broad surface of humanity on 
 which we can look and say, there is atheism absolute 
 and undisguised. Infidelity and atheism are not 
 convertible terms. Atheism is the worst form, the 
 ultimate bond of infidelity, but all infidelity is not 
 atheism. The one is, comparatively, a strange phe 
 nomenon, the other is ever floating in innumerable 
 shapes on the surface of society as well as pervading, 
 like leaven, the mass. Men in general will worship. 
 They are naturally led to recognize a Supreme Being, 
 even though he may possess in their imaginings 
 
THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE EXISTENCE. 27 
 
 none of the attributes and characteristics of the God 
 of the Bible. We would in nowise be indulgent to 
 the many adverse speculations respecting the Divine 
 Being which are afloat in their subtle and philosophic 
 form, or which are popularized so as to meet the 
 capacities of the multitude, speculations which are 
 dishonoring to God and virtually deny Him. But 
 we would distinguish between the man who believes 
 in the existence of a great First Cause, though hold 
 ing opinions that rob Him of his glory, and the 
 man who openly avows that there is no God, and 
 denounces the belief in Him as a mere chimera of 
 the understanding. A hypothesis may be atheistical 
 in its bearings and yet its assertor may be no theo 
 retical atheist. His theism, dissociated from other 
 important beliefs, may be of no moral worth whatever, 
 and in the scriptural sense of the expression he may 
 be without God in the world, yet so long as positive 
 atheism is not involved in his philosophical creed, 
 and he professes to have faith in God, it were unjust 
 to place him at the bound which he has not yet 
 reached and write him down atheist. Mr. Hugh 
 Miller justly remarks of the development hypothesis 
 of Maillet and Lamarck, that there is no positive 
 atheism involved in it. u God might as certainly have 
 originated the species by a law of development, as he 
 maintains it by a law of development ; the existence 
 of a first great Cause is as perfectly compatible with 
 the one scheme as with the other." 1 If it were a 
 
 \ Footprints of the Creator, p. 14. 
 
28 ATHEISM ; OR, 
 
 question of moral influence, and not of dogmatical 
 opinion, we might merge such simple theism in athe 
 ism, for, as the author of the "Footprints" observes, 
 u without a belief in the immortality and responsi 
 bility of man, and in the scheme of salvation by a 
 Mediator and Redeemer, a belief in the existence of 
 a God is as of little ethical value as a belief in the 
 existence of the great sea-serpent." But it is with 
 men s creed, not their practice, that we have at pre 
 sent to do. And men may be living without God 
 in the world, and yet hold that there is a God in the 
 heavens. It is the man who disowns God, who theo 
 retically and practically denies his existence, that 
 bears on his brow the self-inflicted brand, "I am an 
 atheist." Our own age does not lack such daring 
 mortals ; they may be found here and there in the 
 schools, and in the workshops, wielding the press, 01 
 spouting from the rostrum, or taking up the gauntlet 
 on the platform, but, in general, the mass of society 
 which is not Christian is infidel rather than atheistical. 
 Comparatively few are so foolhardy as to maintain 
 that there is no God, though vast multitudes are fool 
 hardy enough to deprive Him of all His distinguishing 
 glory while professing to acknowledge his existence. 
 Atheism, however, is a fact in human society, and 
 more or less prevalent in every age, and must be 
 numbered as one and the grossest of the forms of 
 infidelity. 
 
 1 As to the general character of the atheism among the people, we 
 here adduce two competent witnesses. Dr. Krummacher, in hig 
 Alliance Paper on Infidelity in Germany, remarks, " that Atheism 
 
THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE EXISTENCE. 2^ 
 
 In atheism the negation of infidelity is complete. 
 Now, before noticing the positive proof for the exist 
 ence of God, there is an initial consideration, of 
 some importance to the argument, which must be 
 adverted to. We allude to the immense knowledge 
 requisite in certain cases to establish a negative. 
 Evidence may be adduced at once to show that such 
 a thing is, or that such a thing has been done, while 
 the negation of this may demand a surprising amount 
 of research and experience. An individual, for ex 
 ample, cast upon what seemed to be a desert island, 
 might affirm that it was, or lately had been, inhabited, 
 and in proof of this he would need only to point to 
 the human footprint on the sand. One such mark 
 would of itself be sufficient to make good the affirma 
 tion. But were the companion of his misfortune to 
 contend that the island was uninhabited, and that no 
 traces of a human being having ever been there could 
 be found, it is very obvious that the proof of this 
 negative assertion would be attended with much 
 
 B 
 
 in the lower classes appears as a plant, proceeding more from 
 political interest, than as a proof proceeding from a clear self- 
 judgment. Religion is looked upon as an invention to press down 
 the people." Mr. Vanderkiste, in his deeply interesting " Notes 
 and Narratives of a Six Years Mission among the Dens of London," 
 says : " the so-called atheists with whom I have met, have proved, 
 with few exceptions, upon being closely questioned, not really 
 to be atheists at all. They have admitted some causation, and 
 when closely pressed upon the subject of intelligent causation, 
 -and . required to define terms, they have fairly broken down, and 
 .become angry. Atheism is to be regarded as the desperate shift of 
 an ill-regulated mind, determined to rid itself of responsibility at 
 the expense of all reason and argument." 
 
30 ATHEISM; OR, 
 
 greater difficulty. In the one case, the single human 
 footmark fresh upon the soil would be proof sufficient. 
 In the other case it would be necessary to explore 
 the whole region, to examine carefully every cavern 
 and locality, before the negative proposition could be 
 substantiated. The one clear print of a man s foot 
 would prove that man was, or had been, in the island, 
 but it would be requisite to see that no human foot 
 print was visible throughout its entire length and 
 breadth, that no vestige of a human inhabitant could 
 be discovered, before an individual would be entitled 
 to say, that no man was or ever had been there. And 
 the difficulty of making good the negative would in 
 crease with the enlargement of the country and the 
 number and size of the localities to be gone over. 
 
 The same principle holds with regard to extent 
 of time as to extent of space. Let it be affirmed of 
 the British monarch that, on a certain occasion, she 
 entered, in the most unostentatious manner, into a pool 
 cottage and relieved with her own hands a suffering 
 family. Nothing more would be requisite to sub 
 stantiate the affirmation than the honest testimony 
 of the favored cottagers or the truthful word of some 
 competent witnesses. But let the negative statement 
 be made, that the monarch never entered such a 
 humble abode, and never administered relief in such a 
 way, and it is obvious that very much is necessary to 
 make the statement good. No one would be war 
 ranted to utter such a negative, but an individual 
 who had closely followed the monarch through every 
 path and winding which she took in private life, 01 
 
THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE EXISTENCE. 31 
 
 who was, in some way or another, cognizant of all her 
 out-door movements throughout every day of every 
 year since she ascended the throne. Did the indi 
 vidual s experience extend so far as three hundred 
 and sixty-four days of a given year and no farther, for 
 aught he knew, the condescension might have been 
 manifested and the good deed performed on the very 
 day to which his knowledge did not reach. The dif 
 ficulty of establishing the negative would increase as 
 the time extended to the whole reign, and it would 
 be absolutely insurmountable when made to embrace 
 not only a particular monarch but all the sovereigns 
 that ever sat on the British throne. Even in the 
 absence of all proof to the contrary, what an amount 
 of presumption would be implied in saying that no 
 English monarch ever entered an humble dwelling, 
 and did a benevolent act to its poor inmates, but the 
 arrogance would be complete if the statement was 
 made in defiance of one or more well-authenticated 
 instances of such benignant doings in the annals of 
 English royalty. 
 
 These remarks will enable us to see what extraor 
 dinary attainments must have been made before an 
 individual would be entitled to say, There is no God. 
 It is a negative proposition which no finite mind can 
 enunciate without being guilty of the most astounding 
 presumption ; and the man would only betray his folly 
 who should attempt to demonstrate it. The sceptic 
 may express his doubts of the Divine existence and 
 give reasons for his doubting, but beyond this, scep 
 ticism can achieve nothing. In order to substantiate 
 
 i 
 
 ITBB3IT7J 
 
 rt-rr 
 
32 ATHEISM ; OR, 
 
 the affirmative proposition, that there is a God, 
 nothing more might be necessary than to point to 
 some of the footprints of the Creator which are 
 visible in the heavens and the earth. If there be a 
 God, only a very small amount of knowledge and 
 experience would be requisite to prove it. The evi 
 dence might lie, as we say that it does lie, in a flower 
 of the field, in a leaf of the forest, in a single hand, 
 or in a single eye. But the negative proposition 
 could be substantiated within no such compass. 
 Even were there no indications of the Creator in that 
 wondrous microcosm the human eye, or in the waving 
 leaf, or in the blooming flower, still it were an illegiti 
 mate inference and a manifestation of high presump 
 tion to conclude that there is no God. He must 
 needs have traversed not only every part of " this dim 
 spot which men call earth," but he must have wan 
 dered from star to star, made himself thoroughly 
 acquainted with all worlds, have searched into the 
 records of all ages, and have found throughout all 
 space and all time no evidence for design, before an 
 individual could be entitled to say that the universe 
 is without a God. This idea is forcibly expressed by 
 John Foster, 1 and eloquently illustrated by Dr. Chal 
 mers. 2 u The wonder then turns," says the original 
 minded author of the Essays, " on the great process, 
 by which a man could grow to the immense intelli 
 gence which can know that there is no God. What 
 ages and what lights are requisite for THIS attain- 
 
 1 Essays, 15th ed., p. 35. 2 Institutes of Theology, vol. i. p. 63. 
 
THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE EXISTENCE. 33 
 
 ment ! This intelligence involves the very attributes 
 of Divinity, while a God is denied. For unless this 
 man is omnipresent, unless he is at this moment in 
 every place in the universe, he cannot know but there 
 may be in some place manifestations of a Deity, by 
 which even he would be overpowered. If he does 
 not know absolutely every agent in the universe, the 
 one that he does not know may be God. If he is not 
 himself the chief agent in the universe, and does not 
 know what is so, that which is so may be God. If 
 he is not in absolute possession of all the propositions 
 that constitute universal truth, the one which he 
 wants may be, that there is a God. If he cannot 
 with certainty assign the cause of all that he perceives 
 to exist, that cause may be God. If he does not 
 know everything that has been done in the immeas 
 urable ages that are past, some things may have 
 been done by a God. Thus, unless he knows all 
 things, that is, precludes all other divine existence by 
 being Deity himself, he cannot know that the Being 
 whose existence he rejects, does not exist. But he 
 must know that he does not exist, else he deserves 
 equal contempt and compassion for the temerity with 
 which he firmly avows his rejection and acts accord 
 ingly." Atheism is thus shown, at the very outset, to 
 be illogical and to rest on a monstrous assumption, 
 so that we are prepared to welcome whatever evi 
 dences offer themselves for the truth of the proposition 
 that there is a God. 
 
 3 
 
34 ATHEISM; OR, 
 
 But not only is the proof of the non-existence of 
 God an intellectual impossibility, His existence is 
 felt to be an intellectual necessity. The mind of man 
 is so constituted that it cannot be satisfied without it, 
 and hence the monstrous violence done to his intel 
 lectual and moral nature when he attempts to banish 
 from him the idea of a First Cause. That there must 
 be a First Cause, is an axiom assumed in all our 
 reasoning upward from the phenomena of nature to 
 nature s God. The snow that is now quickly falling as 
 we write these pages, the stormy wind that is drifting 
 that snow against our windows and doors, are effects the 
 causes of which we investigate and the laws of which 
 we trace ; but in our upward track we are seeking after 
 a resting point, we come to the last link in the chain 
 of material causation, and from the very constitution 
 of our minds we repose in a cause essentially different 
 from all others, which is the I AM, the self-existent 
 and independent God. The idea of a great First 
 Cause is not derived originally from the phenomena 
 of nature around us, but assumed in our investiga 
 tions into these phenomena. It is an axiomatic truth 
 which every sound reasoner carries along with him in 
 his ascent from effects to their apparent causes, and 
 to which the mind from a felt necessity fully sur 
 renders itself when it has reached the last link in the 
 phenomena of nature. The Greek logician has said, 
 " all that moves refers us to a mover, and it were only 
 an endless adjournment of causes were there not a 
 primary immovable Mover." Such an endless ad 
 journment of causes can never be resorted to with- 
 
THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINI EXISTENCE. 35 
 
 out doing great violence to our mental constitution, 
 and forcibly thwarting its natural tendencies. It is 
 just a perpetual armed attempt to thrust the mind 
 away from the rest to which, from the law of its being 
 it is ever aspiring. " Our minds cannot be satisfied, 57 
 remarks Professor Whewell, 1 "with a series of succes 
 sive, dependent causes and effects, without something 
 first and independent. We pass from effect to cause, 
 and from that to a higher cause, in search of some 
 thing on which the mind can rest ; but if we can do 
 nothing but repeat this process, there is no use in it. 
 We move our limbs but make no advance. Our ques 
 tion is not answered but evaded. The mind cannot 
 acquiesce in the destiny thus presented to it, of being 
 referred from event to event, from object to object, 
 along an interminable vista of causation and time. 
 Now, this mode of stating the reply, to say that the 
 mind cannot thus be satisfied, appears to be equivalent 
 to saying that the mind is conscious of a principle in 
 virtue of which such a view as this must be rejected ; 
 the mind takes refuge in the assumption of a First 
 Cause, from an employment inconsistent with its own 
 nature." "That First Cause, indeed," observes Dr. 
 Harris,^ " must be immensely different, both in rank 
 and in nature, from the subordinate physical causes to 
 which it has imparted motion ; but still the mind 
 feels the necessity for such a cause with all the force 
 of an intellectual instinct. The mind was constituted 
 
 1 Indications of the Creator, 2d ed., p. 198-9. 
 3 Pre- Adamite Earth, p. 151. 
 
36 ATHEISM ; OB, 
 
 to feel this necessity, and thus to supply the last link 
 in the chain of reasoning from itself, as much as it 
 was made and meant to find the preceding links in 
 the phenomena of nature." 
 
 Having thus glanced at the intellectual impossi 
 bility involved in the negative proposition that there is 
 no God, and at the intellectual necessity for the axiom 
 that there must be a First Cause, we are prepared to 
 consider the real value of the arguments a priori and 
 a posteriori. And we cannot help remarking, at the 
 outset, that too exclusive an importance has been 
 attached to each of these celebrated forms of proof, 
 as if the one were absolutely independent of the other. 
 The two, in a great measure, go hand in hand, and 
 conduct us to the position that there is a God, the 
 Great Creator and Parent of the universe. The a priori 
 mode of reasoning is the exclusive idol of many of 
 the German logicians, they have an utter contempt 
 for our inductive philosophy and matter-of-fact the 
 ology. Experience, the great teacher, is professedly 
 ignored in their argumentation, the world with all its 
 palpable realities is shut out, and from mere mental 
 abstractions they evolve all existences and all truth. 
 But in their hands this kind of reasoning has com 
 pletely failed. It conducts the mind to no firm resting- 
 place. It bewilders, instead of elucidating, our notions 
 of God, of man, and the universe. It gives us no divine 
 personal existence, and leaves us floating in a region of 
 mere vague abstractions. Such reasonings are either 
 altogether vain, or are not really what they profess to be. 
 
 In our country the name of Dr. Clarke is chiefly 
 
THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE EXISTENCE. 37 
 
 associated with the a priori argument. He and many 
 others attached to it an immense importance. But 
 however highly extolled in past times, and worthy 
 to be admired as a specimen of intellect, it is now 
 generally set aside as insufficient of itself to de 
 monstrate the Being and Attributes of God. Clarke 
 himself found it necessary to stoop to the argument 
 a posteriori, and thereby acknowledged the failure of 
 attempting to reason exclusively a priori. In ex 
 amining his celebrated demonstration, it is found 
 to be really inductive, and not wholly independent of 
 experience as supposed. Our conception of a First 
 Cause is not indeed derived from experience, for it is 
 felt to be an intellectual necessity, but experience is 
 necessary to its development. The very first proposi 
 tion, that something must have existed from eternity, 
 since it assumes that something exists, is a posteriori. 
 And in order to prove that this eternal something is 
 not " a blind and unintelligent necessity, but in the 
 most proper sense an understanding and really active 
 being," in which, as he well says, " lies the main 
 question between us and the atheists," he resorts to 
 the world with its orderly arrangements, and on the 
 ground of fact and experience builds up his argument. 1 
 The fate of Dr. Clarke s pretended demonstration, 
 and the result, in so far as theology is concerned, of 
 the transcendental reasoning of the continental phi 
 losophers, show the futility of attempting to rise up 
 to the height of the great argument for the existence 
 of God on the a priori method alone. 
 
 1 Clarke s Discourse, Prop. viii. 
 
38 ATHEISM; OR, 
 
 The old a posteriori argument, while decried by the 
 German logicians on the one hand, has, it must be 
 confessed, been invested with too exclusive an import 
 ance by some of our own theologians on the other. 
 It is necessarily limited in its range. It carries us 
 upward from effects to causes, from the evidences of 
 design to a designer, but it cannot of itself carry us 
 to the throne of the Eternal, who is uncaused and 
 the cause of all. We cannot, by a strict process of 
 inductive reasoning, infer from one or more finite, 
 effects that the cause of them is absolutely infinite. 
 Design proves a designer, but it does not prove that 
 the designer is God. The argument from external 
 and visible nature leads the way, but, unaided by 
 other proofs or conceptions, would never conduct us 
 to the I AM THAT I AM. The marks of contrivance 
 which are so palpable in every thing we see in the 
 fields of creation give us the logical conclusion that 
 everything has had a contriver. They give us also 
 the idea of great wisdom and goodness and power, 
 but of themselves they do not give us the proof of a 
 Being possessed of infinite and absolute perfections. 
 The argument points, like a finger-post, in that 
 direction, but, strictly speaking, we leave the argu 
 ment or it leaves us, and we resign ourselves to the 
 necessary conviction that there is a Great First 
 Designer and that he is God. There is nothing elabo 
 rate in the process. It is simpler and easier than 
 the simplest step. From effects we ascend naturally 
 to causes, from subordinate laws we rise up to the 
 highest law ; but when the inductive philosophy has 
 
THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE EXISTENCE. . 39 
 
 carried us easily up, and placed us as it were on the 
 highest point in the series of material causation, it 
 has not given us the great First Intelligent Cause. 
 Tt has, however, conducted us so far that, by our very 
 mental constitution, we repose in the conviction that 
 beyond the series of mere mechanical causes and 
 effects, is the Infinite Cause of all. Sir Isaac Newton 
 has truly said, "though every step made in this 
 philosophy brings us not immediately to the knowledge 
 of the First Cause, yet it brings us nearer to it." 
 Let the chain of material causation be lengthened 
 out ever so far, we only feel however at the topmost 
 link, what is felt throughout all the lower links, 
 the necessity of a cause above all others in nature 
 and rank, a cause uncaused and the cause of all. 
 Induction points to this, but it does not give it. Call 
 it an intuitive sentiment, a primitive judgment, an 
 intellectual necessity, or what you will, the mind is 
 so constituted as in the reasoning process to supply 
 it and rest in it. The starting-point of the a posteriori 
 argument, which is the idea of design or causality, is 
 an a priori belief, and from the argument itself we 
 pass necessarily to the conviction that there is a First 
 Cause, differing essentially from all others, whose 
 name is God. So that it is vain to assert an exclu 
 sive claim for either argument, since they involve and 
 aid each other. 1 
 
 1 The Atheist, in availing himself of the exclusive importance 
 attached to the a posteriori argument, thus reasons : " if design implies 
 a designer, contrivance a contriver, nature s contriver must have 
 been himself contrived." The monstrous assumption, out of which 
 
40 ATHEISM; OR, 
 
 The exclusive claim for either of these arguments 
 being disposed of, we are prepared to notice the 
 indications of the Creator that lie without the field of 
 revealed truth. And here we avail ourselves of the 
 rich contributions in the way of proof, which are fur 
 nished by the phenomena both of matter and mind; 
 and in doing so, we repudiate neither argument, but 
 make use of both. The plain way in which men have 
 reasoned from the beginning, is upwards from the 
 evidences of design in the material universe to the 
 existence of the Great. Designer; upwards from the 
 orderly and beneficial dispositions of matter to the 
 Divine Hand that framed the whole. And this old 
 path is the truest and safest still. It has been 
 adorned by the eloquence of Cicero and Brougham, 
 of Paley, Chalmers, and others. It is the argu 
 ment of the royal Psalmist : " The heavens declare 
 the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his 
 handiwork." Nature in all her departments abounds 
 in such evidences. The discoveries of physical science 
 only enlarge to our view the vast magazine of contriv 
 ances, all of which point upward in the direction of 
 the great Infinite Contriver. And our progress in 
 that direction is in nowise arrested by any of the 
 theories which profess to account for the origin of the 
 universe, or to give us the beginning of its existing 
 motions and arrangements. The hypothesis of 
 Laplace, which has been so much vaunted against 
 
 arises this atheistical inference, is, that nature s contriver has in him 
 $elf marks of design. This is the reasoning of a man whose chief 
 distinction is that he is editor of " The Reasoner." 
 
THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE EXISTENCE. 41 
 
 our Natural Theology, and which would trace backward 
 the earth and the whole solar system to an extremely 
 diffused nebulosity that gradually cooled down and 
 condensed, has been very much discredited by recent 
 discoveries of the telescope. But even supposing 
 that it were verified, it would not destroy the argu 
 ment for a God derived from the collocations of 
 matter, nor prevent us "from going beyond itself to 
 an intelligent First Cause. "Let it be supposed," 
 remarks Professor Whewell, 1 "that the point to which 
 this hypothesis leads us, is the ultimate point of 
 physical science ; that the farthest glimpse we can 
 obtain of the material universe by our natural faculties, 
 shows it to us occupied by a boundless abyss of 
 luminous matter ; still we ask, how space came to be 
 thus occupied how matter came to be thus luminous ? 
 If we establish by physical proofs, that the first fact 
 which can be traced in the history of the world, is 
 that there was light ; we shall still be led, even by our 
 natural reason, to suppose that before this could occur, 
 God said, Let there be light." It is indeed true, as 
 we before hinted, that the experimental argument of 
 itself does not give us an Infinite Cause. But if it 
 carries us to the last link in the chain which is fur 
 nished by the phenomena of nature, it leaves us to 
 repose, from an intellectual necessity, in the convic 
 tion that there is an uncaused Cause which is the 
 cause of all. The old assumption of an eternal suc 
 cession of finite beings was made to get rid of the 
 
 1 Indications of the Creator, p. 63. 
 
42 ATHEISM; OR, 
 
 idea of One Eternal Being. That the supposition is 
 unphilosophical and absurd has been shown thousands 
 of times. The mind, from its very constitution, dis 
 owns it. Men may form as many links in the chain 
 of causes as they choose, but they must, at the last, reach 
 an uncaused Cause. It is strictly true that from 
 nothing nothing can proceed. Something must have 
 existed before all finite beings, or whence came these 
 finite beings into existenee ? That something must 
 be self-existent, underived, necessary, and eternal. It 
 is He who is the I AM ? and to whom we apply the 
 sublime language of the ancient seer : " Before the 
 mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst 
 formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting 
 to everlasting thou art God." It matters not whether 
 it be in the department of zoology, with its two well- 
 established principles, that there is no such thing as 
 spontaneous generation, and that there is no trans 
 mutation of the species, or whether it be in the de 
 partment of a sublime and ever-enlarging astronomy ; 
 it matters not whether we extend our survey to the 
 systems of suns that roll throughout the immensity 
 of space, or whether we centre it on that wondrous 
 microcosm, the human eye ; we meet with teeming 
 evidences of design which not only carry us to a 
 designer, but hand us over, necessarily, if we may so 
 speak, to the belief that the great First Designer is 
 God. It is no mechanical necessity that we thus 
 reach. It is Jehovah, the living, and the life-giving 
 One. 
 
 This argument has also received increasingly rich 
 
THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE EXISTENCE. 43 
 
 contributions from a closer study of the constitution 
 of the mind, and a more perfect analysis of its various 
 phenomena. To reason upwards from the laws of 
 our mental constitution to the Infinite Mind, who is 
 the Parent Source of the whole, is just as experimental, 
 (though, in neither case, dissociated from a priori be 
 liefs,) as to reason from material nature up to nature s 
 God. Some of our popular writers on natural the 
 ology have either entirely overlooked the evidences of 
 design presented by our mental constitution, or have 
 satisfied themselves with merely adverting to them. 
 Paley, who has written so admirably on the material 
 phenomena, never once extends his argument to the 
 intellectual and moral. This omission has been ac 
 counted for by the astonishing discoveries of physical 
 science, which, bringing palpably into view a vast 
 assemblage of material evidences, have, for the time, 
 thrown into the shade the proofs of the Divine exist 
 ence and character derived from the mind. And yet 
 the field of man s inner nature is as legitimate a 
 province of the inductive philosophy as the external 
 world with its manifold organizations, and furnishes 
 no less numerous and greatly more influential evi 
 dences of an intelligent Cause. Lord Brougham, in his 
 " Introductory Discourse of Natural Theology," and Dr. 
 Chalmers, in his " Institutes," have liberally supplied 
 what, in this department, was lacking in some of our 
 older writers. The rnind is a created effect, and, like 
 matter, is a proper subject of observation. It has its 
 own peculiar phenomena and laws, which we can 
 examine, and, from them, gather proofs of the Infinite 
 
44 ATHEISM ; OE, 
 
 Mind, which is the source of all. Between it and 
 matter there is a gulf fixed. The properties of the one 
 are wholly different from the properties of the other. 
 No combination of mechanical forces could ever pro 
 duce an intelligent and moral being. That mind is 
 a mere modification of matter, is no less at variance 
 with the inductive philosophy than is the exploded dog 
 ma of the transmutation of the species. Here, then, 
 is an effect endowed with intelligence, reason, and 
 moral sentiment. This effect must have had a cause. 
 And on the evident principle that no effect can possess 
 any perfection which was not in the cause, we natu 
 rally infer that the creator of the human spirit is a 
 moral and intelligent being. This is as much an 
 inductive process of reasoning, as the step we take in 
 advancing from material nature up to Him who has 
 designed it. Men have reasoned in this simple way 
 from the beginning. "He that planted the ear, shall 
 he not hear ? he that formed the eye, shall he not see ? 
 he that teacheth man knowledge, shall not he know ?" 
 And since there is an intellectual necessity for a First 
 Cause, himself uncaused, and the cause of all, his 
 seeing must be all-seeing; his knowledge must be 
 omniscience ; his moral nature must be absolutely 
 perfect. The most striking phenomenon in our men 
 tal constitution is conscience, the man within the 
 breast as it has been called. It sits enthroned amid 
 the other principles of our nature, and is invested with 
 a rightful authority over them. Its voice the voice of 
 a sovereign judge is heard above the tumult of pas 
 sion, and the rebellious uproar of the less noble pro- 
 
THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE EXISTENCE. 45 
 
 pensities. And though its high behests are not always 
 obeyed, yet its right to rule is everywhere acknowl 
 edged. It is sovereign de jure even where it is not 
 sovereign de facto. Now let it be observed, that all 
 the authority of this faculty is on the side of right 
 eousness and truth; that it has sanctions for the en 
 forcement of its utterances ; that it approves the good, 
 and denounces the evil; and in the righteous supre 
 macy of this part of our nature, we have a strong 
 proof for the existence of a just and holy God. The 
 authority of a law of right and wrong in our moral 
 constitution implies a lawgiver, the setting up of a 
 tribunal within the breast points to a yet higher 
 tribunal in the heavens, and from the felt presence 
 of a judge within us, denouncing wrong, and sanc 
 tioning right, we infer the existence of a righteous 
 Judge over us, who is at once its Author and Lord. 
 In the supremacy of this moral principle we have 
 strong evidence not only of an intelligent Creator, 
 but of one who is just and true in all his ways, and 
 holy in all his works. " And this theology of con 
 science," as Dr. Chalmers remarks, " has done more 
 to uphold a sense of God in the world than all the 
 theology of academic demonstration. 3 Conscience, 
 however, though the chief, is only a part of our men 
 tal phenomena. The mind is replete with other 
 evidences for the being and character of God. These 
 we do not stay to illustrate. Suffice it to say that in 
 the intellectual powers of man, and their adaptation 
 to external nature an amazing assemblage of bril 
 liant and magnificent phenomena in the emotional 
 
46 ATHEISM; OR, 
 
 part of his nature, with the hallowed pleasure insep 
 arable from the indulgence of good affections, and the 
 wretched disquietude attendant on evil ones, speaking 
 loudly, as they do, for a God who loves righteousness, 
 and hates iniquity; and in the supremacy of con 
 science, enthroned, as it were, above the whole, and 
 ever uttering her voice on the side of whatsoever things 
 are true, and lovely, and of good report, and against 
 their opposites ; and not only so, but rewarding well 
 doing, and punishing wrong-doing; in such mental 
 departments of natural theology as these we gather 
 no less rich contributions to the evidence of a God 
 than from the field of external nature. 1 Indeed, in 
 man himself, we have an embodiment of the whole 
 argument. He is fearfully and wonderfully made. 
 The human frame is the noblest structure beneath 
 the heavens. In the exquisite mechanism of his 
 body, and in the primitive judgments, and wondrous 
 operations of his mind, we have the clearest indica 
 tions of the Creator that lie within the range of 
 natural theology. u If you want argument from de 
 sign," says Mr. Morell, 2 " then you see in the human 
 frame the most perfect of all known organization. 
 If you want the argument from being, then man, in 
 his conscious dependence, has the clearest conviction 
 of that independent and absolute one, on which his 
 own being reposes. If you want the argument from 
 reason and morals, then the human mind is the only 
 
 I See Chalmers Institutes, vol. i., pp. 99 116. 
 
 II History of Philosophy, vol. ii., pp. 646-7. 
 
THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE EXISTENCE. 47 
 
 known repository of both. Man is, in fact, a micro 
 cosm a universe in himself ; and whatever proof the 
 whole universe affords, is involved in principle, in man 
 himself. With the image of God before us, who can 
 doubt of the divine type ?" 
 
 The argument then for the being of a God is nei 
 ther exclusively a posteriori, nor exclusively a priori, 
 but partakes of both. Men cannot declare that there 
 is no God, without being guilty of the most tremen 
 dous presumption. He is a fool who hazards the as 
 sertion, because it involves an amount of intelligence 
 which no creature can possess, the very attribute of 
 omniscience, while He, in whom alone that attribute 
 resides, is denied. And not only so, but there is an 
 intellectual necessity for a Being uncaused and the 
 cause of all. The mind cannot be satisfied without 
 it. It refuses to pass along a dependent series of 
 causes and effects, without resting in something that 
 is first and independent. That there must be a first 
 cause, is a primitive belief, a proposition that lies be 
 yond the pale of demonstration, a principle with 
 which we start in our reasoning upwards, and to the 
 full conviction of which we surrender ourselves at the 
 height of the argument. The good old way in which 
 men have reasoned from the beginning, is upwards 
 from the evidences of design to a designer, upwards 
 from the goodly collocations of matter that meet our 
 view, and the mental phenomena that come under 
 our consciousness, to the great Parent Source of all 
 the orderly relations of matter and mind. And this 
 simple way is the best still. Finite effects, indeed, 
 
 ^V*0* THIS 4*\ 
 
48 ATHEISM; OR, 
 
 can never, of themselves, give us an infinite cause. 
 The a posteriori argument, strictly speaking, cannot, 
 unaided, carry us up to the throne in the heavens, 
 and prove that beyond the circle of natural causes 
 and effects is the great First Cause of all. But it 
 leads us very far onward in that path. And then, by 
 a soft and imperceptible step, transfers us to the natu 
 ral conviction that there is an independent existence 
 who is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the 
 ending, the First and the Last. To the height of this 
 great argument we rise from the evidences furnished 
 both by matter and mind. The material universe is 
 full of indications of the natural attributes of the 
 Creator. And our mental constitution is no less full 
 of evidences of his moral nature. We weaken our 
 arguments against atheism, if we refuse to avail our 
 selves of the contributions in the way of proof which 
 are furnished by either department. Both lie within 
 the domain of the inductive philosophy. And with the 
 evidences gathered from both, we logically infer that 
 our Maker possesses transcendent attributes ; that he 
 is of great power, and wisdom, and goodness, one who 
 loveth righteousness, and hateth iniquity. From the 
 great we pass, by a different link, to the infinite ; from 
 transcendent attributes we pass to absolute perfections. 
 And that link is supplied by the mind itself. The 
 transition, in most cases, is made imperceptibly ; but 
 it is done. We have a certain primitive conviction 
 that there is a Being of necessary and unchanging 
 existence, the Maker of all things, and in whom cen 
 tres, in an infinite degree, every perfection that is 
 
THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE EXISTENCE. 49 
 
 found in His works. It is thus that we, apart from 
 the scriptural revelation, rise with a firm step from 
 nature up to nature s God. 
 
 The testimony of the Bible now comes and crowns 
 the theistic argument. It authenticates the deductions 
 of enlightened reason, and confirms those primitive 
 judgments, whereby we repose in the belief that God 
 is, and that He is what He is. The very first sublime 
 utterance of inspiration, In the beginning, God created 
 the heavens and the earth, sets its seal that our reasoning 
 upwards from matter and mind to the Infinite creating 
 Mind, is true. The Bible presupposes the Divine 
 existence, and never formally attempts to prove it. It 
 appeals to that very experimental evidence, which is 
 patent to the eyes of all men, as a witness against 
 irreligion and idolatry, and for the only living and 
 true God, while it throws a lustre, peculiar to itself, 
 around his moral character, and his relations to man 
 and the world. In the beneficial collocations of mat 
 ter, in the orderly relations of this goodly universe, 
 and in the constitution of the mind, with its intel 
 lectual powers and moral sentiments, there is a vast 
 amount of clear evidence which points upwards to an 
 infinitely perfect Mind. But it is when we reach the 
 Bible itself, u that wondrous monument of past ages, 
 with its firm place in history, and its telling power on 
 men s hearts," that we stand on an elevation, whence, 
 like the angel in the sun, we see in the clearest and 
 most impressive light the glory of Him who created 
 and controls all things. " God never wrought a mir 
 acle," says Bacon, " to convince atheism, because his 
 
 4 
 
50 ATHEISM. 
 
 ordinary works convince it." The material pheno 
 mena that lie around us, and the mental phenomena 
 that arise within us, give the lie to it. And if men 
 will not believe on the ground of this evidence and 
 the superadded evidence of revealed truth, neither 
 would they believe though the Eternal uttered His 
 voice from the rent heavens, and declared what he 
 has done in His word, " I am God, and besides me 
 there is none else." 
 
 Thus far the proof has been dogmatic. But after 
 all, to use the weighty words of Dr. Arnold, 1 " the 
 real proof is the practical one ; that is, let a man live 
 on the hypothesis of its falsehood, the practical result 
 will be bad ; that is, a man s besetting and constitu 
 tional faults will not be checked ; and some of his 
 noblest feelings will be unexercised, so that if he be 
 right in his opinions, truth and goodness are at 
 variance with one another, and falsehood is more 
 favorable to our moral perfection than truth ; which 
 seems the most monstrous conclusion which the 
 human mind can possibly arrive at." 
 
 1 Life of Arnold, vol. ii., p. 1. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE PERSONALITY, OB PANTHEISM 
 
 Pantheism distinguished from atheism The result of severing 
 two good principles Pantheism and polytheism a higher and 
 a lower grade Seduces by its comprehensiveness Its existence 
 in the past The doctrine of the Eleatics and of Buddhism Its 
 prevalence in Germany : Spinoza, Schelling, Hegel, Strauss, 
 Feuerbach French philosophy accused of it : Cousin Conti 
 nental Socialism pantheistic An exotic in England Emerson 
 and his school Intellectual pantheism of Carlyle Remarks of 
 Professor Garbett Quotation from Tennyson Bearings of pan 
 theism : Makes creation an inevitable necessity, destroys respon 
 sibility, shuts out prayer, and extinguishes individual immor 
 tality The personality of God argued from our own per 
 sonality, from consciousness and inward experience, from the 
 language of Scripture The absolute and the personal reconciled 
 in Christ. 
 
 ATHEISM is the ultimate point to which pantheism 
 tends. Both may be said to lie in the same plane. 
 But the one is not to be confounded with the other. 
 The atheist denies the primal truth that God is. 
 The pantheist, on the other hand, admits it. It is 
 in fact with him the sum and substance of all truth, 
 or rather the one great truth in the universe. The 
 atheist sees God nowhere, the pantheist sees him 
 everywhere. The one looks upon a world wondrously 
 fair and sublime, every department of which is bright 
 
52 PANTHEISM; OR, 
 
 with intelligence, and resolves the whole into mere 
 mechanical forces, and thrusts out, by a denial of his 
 being, the all-pervading energy of nature s God. The 
 other sees God really shining in the sun, moon, and 
 stars, living in the flowers and the grass of the field, 
 hears him speaking in the winds and waters, in the 
 songs of the inhabiters of the grove, and in the deep 
 emotions of the human soul. The atheist looks up 
 to the bright heavens and around on the variegated 
 earth, and coolly says, There is nature, but no God. 
 The panthesist points to all the glorious forms of 
 earth and sky, and exclaims, with something like 
 enthusiasm, There is God. The Divine Being is with 
 him indeed the only real existence. The universe 
 with its multitudinous forms of what we call matter 
 and mind, is only phenomenal. Men who have not 
 reached the utmost bound of infidelity atheism, or 
 who have not come so far within sight of it as pan 
 theism, conceive of the Creator as entirely distinct 
 from his works, though incomprehensibly present 
 with and pervading them. But the pantheist vir 
 tually makes of the twain one. Nature is absorbed 
 in Deity. God is extended beneath all that exists, 
 thinks, and moves. He is in all and all is in Him. 
 The pantheist then has a God, and, strictly speaking, 
 he has nothing else. But his God is merely an 
 infinite substance, a vague immensity the one 
 essence of Being extended everywhere, of which man 
 and all other existing things are but the modes. 
 The world and all the fulness thereof mirrors to our 
 view the glory of the Infinite, Personal, and Inde- 
 
THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE PERSONALITY. 53 
 
 pendent One. But the pantheist worships the mirror 
 itself, and sums up his creed by saying that all is 
 God. 
 
 Almost every fatal dish contains food as well as 
 poison. Every error in religion lies upon or side by 
 side with some truth. Pantheism has within it an 
 element of godliness, but, like the food in the fatal 
 dish, it is overborne and rendered destructive by the 
 element of evil. Or rather, pantheism looks like a 
 good principle severed from another which is neces 
 sary to keep it sound and healthy, and in its isolated 
 state transformed into a bad principle. The principle 
 to which we allude is the omnipresence and all- 
 pervading energy of the Creator and Governor of the 
 universe. It is a truth, the vivid recognition of which 
 is essential to piety, that God is everywhere present 
 throughout the vast creation. All nature is full of 
 Him. The luminaries of heaven and the flowers of 
 earth, the perpetual hills, and the wide sea where go 
 the ships, the various animal tribes, and intelligent 
 man, the noblest of all, proclaim the presence of 
 the living God. It might be thought that poetry has 
 carried this principle too far when it represents God 
 as shining in the sun, whispering in the winds, cloth 
 ing himself with clouds and storms, and speaking in 
 the rational nature of man. But such poetry is not 
 necessarily pantheistic. It is just an embodiment in 
 living words of sentiments and emotions that burn 
 more or less in the bosom of every man who is suscep 
 tible of the influences that come upon him from every 
 department of nature: These influences tend to 
 
 TYJ 
 
54 PANTHEISM; OB, 
 
 raise the mind from nature up to nature s God, and 
 such is the tendency of much of the poetry to which 
 we allude. The morning orison which Milton puts 
 into the mouth of Adam and Eve in Paradise, the 
 hymn which Thomson raises to the God of the 
 seasons, or Coleridge s " Hymn before sunrise in the 
 vale of Chamouny," have no tendency whatever to 
 produce or strengthen pantheistic feelings ; because 
 however much they clothe with living attributes the 
 grand and lovely forms of nature, they never absorb 
 God in these forms, but rise from the visible to the 
 Invisible, and make " earth with her thousand voices" 
 praise a living, personal, and absolutely perfect God. 
 In the last noble hymn which we have mentioned, 
 the whole of Alpine nature is grandly personified, 
 but all its utterances rise, "like a cloud of incense," 
 to Him who in his glorious personality existed before 
 the mountains were brought forth or ever He had 
 formed the earth and the world. It is this latter 
 principle, the principle of personality, that the pan 
 theist sinks or loses sight of. The world, so to speak, 
 is full of vitalities. God is present in them in the 
 immensity of His essence whereby He filleth all 
 things. That is a true devotional principle. God is 
 nevertheless as distinct from them as the soul of man 
 is distinct from his body. That is another true de 
 votional principle. Both must be held fast in order 
 to our having right views of the relation subsisting 
 between the Infinite and the finite, the Divine nature 
 and the divinely-created and divinely-sustained uni 
 verse. Seize hold of the former principle and let go 
 
THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE PERSONALITY. 55 
 
 the latter, recognize a divinity in the vitalities which 
 appear in the world around you, but withhold your 
 recognition of a divinity essentially distinct from 
 these vitalities, and what have you but these collective 
 vitalities for a God. This is pantheism. 
 
 Pantheism and polytheism are in fact but a higher 
 and a lower, a more refined and a more vulgar way, 
 which men have taken when they have ceased to 
 walk in a spiritual relationship with God. 1 Their 
 idea of Him 
 
 " who sitteth above these heavens 
 
 To us invisible, or dimly seen 
 In these his lowest works," 
 
 has lost its vivid spirituality, and they have fallen from 
 high converse with the Creator down to the creation 
 itself. In such a case, the more learned and philo 
 sophic, who were not prepared to take the leap to 
 absolute atheism, would no longer regard the life and 
 thought that appear in the visible world as merely 
 manifestations of the presence and agency of the 
 Great Spirit, but as modes or modifications of the 
 Divine essence. Those, on the other hand, " whose 
 thoughts proud science never taught to stray," who 
 had little or nothing of the speculative temperament, 
 and who could not grasp the idea of one great whole, 
 would see a distinct deity in every different depart 
 ment of nature. The one beheld the same infinite 
 substance under all mental and material phenomena. 
 What are called powers of nature or secondary causes, 
 
 1 See Tholuck on the Nature and Moral Influence of Heathen- 
 ism, p. 16. 
 
56 PANTHEISM; OR, 
 
 all of which are controlled by the supreme Intelligent 
 Cause, would be regarded by the speculatist as so 
 many modes of the infinitely-extended One. The 
 collective energies and agencies of the visible world, 
 in his estimation, constituted God. And thus he 
 became a pantheist. The other class, less compre 
 hensive and vigorous in mind, looked at creation in 
 its smaller divisions, and recognizing a distinct energy 
 in every different kind of phenomena, assigned a dis 
 tinct divinity to the hills and to the vallies, to the 
 woods and to the waters, and thus became polytheists. 
 Pantheism and polytheism, however much they diverge 
 the one from the other, are to be traced up to the 
 tendency in the depraved mind, in its estrangement 
 from the High and Holy One, to confound God with 
 nature, and to lose the pure spiritual world in the 
 phenomenal and visible. The reluctance or incapa 
 city of men to retain God in their knowledge as a 
 Person, self-existent and independent, lies at the bot 
 tom of both. The one is the fruit of a speculative 
 philosophy, the other is the grosser manifestation 
 of the same corrupt tendency, unrefined and unarrested 
 by the influence of the schools or the higher influence 
 of Christianity. 
 
 It is this very comprehensiveness, this embracing 
 nature of its principles, which distinguishes panthe 
 ism from polytheism, that renders it in Christian 
 lands the most dangerous foe to Christianity. " Never 
 did a philosophical system take such an attitude to 
 wards the Christian faith; it does not make it a 
 superstition, as did atheism ; it does not neglect it 
 
THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE PERSONALITY. 57 
 
 as does our popular philosophy ; it does not scout its 
 mysteries, as does an irrational common-sense ; nor 
 does it attenuate it in into a mere ethical system ; but 
 it grants it to be the highest possible form of man s 
 religious nature, it strives to transform its grandest 
 truths into philosophical principles ; it says that only 
 one thing is higher, and that is pantheism." 1 There 
 is no fear of men becoming polytheists in a country 
 where paganism has been rooted out, and the in 
 fluences of the Gospel have been deeply and exten 
 sively felt. But pantheism flourishes in the very heart 
 of communities called Christian, and coils its pliant 
 form around the very faith whose author and finisher 
 is the Brightness of the Father s glory and the express 
 Image of His Person. The coil indeed is fatal: for 
 however fair to look upon may be the sinuous folds, 
 it poisons the truth, and destroys everything that is 
 distinctively Christian. " It weaves its subtle dialec 
 tics around everything, that thus it may drag all into 
 its terrific vortex. It has a word for almost every man, 
 excepting for the Christian established in his faith. 
 By the very extravagance of its pretensions it seduces 
 many ; by its harmony with the life of sense it attracts 
 those who love the world ; and by its ideal character 
 it sways such as would fain be lifted above the 
 illusions of sense and the visions of imagination, and 
 the contradictions of the understanding, into a region 
 of rarer air where reason sways a universal sceptre. 
 Its system includes all things. God is all things ; 
 or rather all is God ; he that knows this system knows 
 
 1 Smith s Relation of Faith and Philosophy, p. 11. 
 
58 PANTHEISM; OR, 
 
 and has God." 1 It, accordingly, has its attractions for 
 all men who have ceased to walk in communion with 
 the living personal God, and who yet feel the want of 
 something in the shape of religious faith. The phi 
 losopher revels in it as in a region of boundless specu 
 lation ; the poet and the artist find therein a beautiful 
 dwelling-place where they can wander at their own 
 sweet will ; and the half-thinking artisan is pleased 
 with a creed which interferes so little with material 
 interests, and summons him so seldom to look at things 
 unseen and eternal. Many such persons, in our day, 
 are pantheists. 
 
 Pantheism is not, however, a thing of yesterday. 
 It has, in its essence, existed in all ages. Some would 
 persuade us that it is the latest result of human expe 
 rience, a resting-place for the long-tossed mind, 
 reserved for us upon whom the ends of the world have 
 come. But it is not so. Infidelity in our times is 
 throwing up nothing but what has been thrown up 
 before. Its different forms are only old idols in new 
 positions and arrayed in modern garbs. u In every 
 form of it, it has its ancestry, and it must not ask now 
 to be spoken to as if we had not already, and long 
 ago, made acquaintance with it." 2 "Heresies," says 
 Sir Thomas Browne, " are like the river Arethusa, 
 though they lose their currents in one place, they rise 
 up again in another." We meet with pantheism in 
 the speculative philosophy of the ancient world. It 
 
 1 Smith s Relations of Faith and Philosophy, p. 11. 
 8 The Restoration of Belief, p. 15. 
 
THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE PERSONALITY. 59 
 
 has been the faith of millions in India from a remote 
 antiquity down to the present day. Spinoza in the 
 seventeenth century, and Schelling, and Hegel in the 
 nineteenth, have only systematized and reduced to a 
 severe logical form what had been floating elsewhere 
 for ages before. This was substantially the doctrine of 
 the Eleatics. They speculated on the great problem of 
 existence, and endeavored to resolve those mysteries 
 which have baffled the human understanding in every 
 age. Zeno, the most distinguished philosopher of 
 this school, maintained that there was but one real 
 existence in the universe, that all other things were 
 merely phenomenal, being only modifications or ap 
 pearances of the Great One which existed as a sub 
 stratum beneath the whole. Pantheism, indeed, has 
 appeared in all nations where there have been minds 
 of a speculative cast, ignorant of, or in a great measure 
 uninfluenced by the revelation of Christ. It seems 
 to be the joint product of an estrangement from 
 God, the eternal and independent I AM, and an effort 
 to comprehend the essence of things and the nexus 
 which unites the Infinite with the finite, the pheno 
 mena of nature with the cause of all that phenomena. 
 The very same doctrine forms substantially the creed 
 of some Hindoo sects in the present day. India has 
 had its philosophies and has them still. And pan 
 theism is the common form which speculations on the 
 mysteries of existence have there assumed, unrestrained 
 as these speculations have been in the absence of the 
 Gospel. Hindooism and Buddhism are but philoso 
 phies of religion. The priests may have been the 
 
60 PANTHEISM ; OR, 
 
 speculatists, but the system has found a spontaneous 
 welcome with the people who were too dull of appre 
 hension to rise to the thought of a pure spiritual In 
 telligence, and too alive to a sense of dependence to 
 say there is no God. The author of the "Recollec 
 tions of British India," speaking of a philosophical sect 
 called the Gosains, tells us that, " in common with the 
 Buddhists, they believe that the Divine Being is not 
 separate from, but in himself the universe, so that all 
 its constituent parts are but parts of himself. The 
 different deities, therefore, are merely portions of the 
 same essential Godhead." This corroborates what has 
 been said of the connection between pantheism and 
 polytheism, and reminds us of the old doctrine of the 
 Stoics, according to which the spirit pervades the 
 whole world as the substratum of its activity, and re 
 ceives from men various designations according to the 
 different phenomena which it animates. There is, 
 indeed, a striking coincidence between the One sub 
 stratum of the Eleatics, the Brahm of the Hindoo, and 
 the World-spirit of the modern German. 1 
 
 Germany, of all the countries of modern Europe, 
 is the most prolific soil of Pantheism. And it is 
 imported from thence into our own among other 
 European states. It is the native fruit of her meta 
 physics. The mental habitudes of her people are 
 peculiarly thoughtful and reflective. Philosophy, not 
 the inductive and experimental as with us, but the 
 speculative and idealistic, is natural to the German 
 mind. Her schools have been absorbed in discussing 
 
 1 Dr. Vaughan s Age and Christianity, p. 255. 
 
THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE PERSONALITY. 61 
 
 the same great questions which were discussed over 
 and over again in the schools of the ancients. Those 
 mysterious problems which regard the principles of 
 things, the existence and nature of God, the relations 
 between Him and the universe, and the origin of 
 human knowledge, problems on the solution of 
 which the greatest minds in past ages have been 
 employed with so little profit, possess a peculiar 
 charm for the philosophers of the Continent. There 
 is this important difference, however, between the 
 pantheism of the old world and that of the new, 
 between that of ancient Greece and India, and that 
 of modern Germany : the one sprung up and flour 
 ished in the absence of an authoritative revelation 
 from heaven, while the other has risen and spread 
 in contempt of it. The German has become a pan 
 theist with the Bible in his hand, and his foot in 
 the birth-place of the Reformation. He has refused 
 to follow, humbly and submissively, that light that 
 has come into the world, and which alone has hitherto 
 conducted individuals or communities to rest. 
 
 The German philosophy a philosophy which seeks 
 to reach the one originating principle of all things 
 has been carried into the region of theology, and 
 there borne its bitter fruit. Spinoza has been justly 
 regarded as the father of modern pantheism. He, 
 by a stern logic, fully developed the system of Des 
 cartes. The illustrious Frenchman had endeavored 
 to demonstrate the existence of God from the phe 
 nomena of consciousness. The position he assumed 
 was, that whatever consciousness clearly proclaims 
 
62 PANTHEISM ; OR, 
 
 must be true. Descartes, in short, derived existence 
 from thought. Spinoza identified them, and referred 
 both to the one Infinite Substance of which every 
 thing else is a mode or manifestation. According to 
 his logic, God is the only reality in the universe, 
 the one universal existence that underlies all other 
 existences, so that everything is in and from God. 
 The distinction between the Creator and his works 
 was thus annihilated, and the system of pantheism 
 became complete. Others had held it as a vague 
 dreamy doctrine, but Spinoza was the first to give it 
 a rigid logical form. It is remarkable that he, too, 
 in a passage in his posthumous works, has anticipated 
 some of the disciples of the Hegelian school in their 
 interpretation of the great doctrines of the Bible. " I 
 tell you," says he in a letter to Oldenburgh, " that it 
 is not necessary for your salvation, that you should 
 believe in Christ according to the flesh ; but of that 
 eternal Son of God, that is, the eternal wisdom of 
 God, which is manifested in all things, but especially 
 in the human mind and most of all in Jesus Christ, 
 we must cherish a very different opinion." 1 It is the 
 philosophy of Spinoza, propounded in the seventeenth 
 century, and diffused over the Continent ever since 
 by his writings, that has given the greatest impulse 
 to the speculative mind of Germany, and produced 
 that wide-spread pantheism so characteristic of Ger 
 man speculations. Schelling and Hegel, whose names 
 are identified with the pantheism of the nineteenth 
 
 1 Lewes Biographical History of Philosophy, vol. iii., p. 125 
 
THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE PERSONALITY. 63 
 
 century, are the fruit of his labors. They have 
 refined and carried out the system to which Spinoza 
 gave the form. In both of these philosophic leaders 
 we see a thorough contempt for what is inductive 
 and experimental, the method by which Newton 
 attained an unprecedented eminence in physical 
 science, and Locke rose to such high distinction 
 in the science of mind. The treasures of knowledge 
 which observation contributes are professedly dis 
 carded by them, and those which abstract reason 
 furnishes are exclusively valued. The evidence from 
 design, which has been so fully illustrated by our 
 own writers on natural theology, and which is so 
 patent to the eyes of all men, is set at nought by the 
 heads and disciples of this school. And they pre 
 tend to prove all existence by laying down a priori 
 axioms, and starting from them in a course of stern 
 logical argumentation. By this process, Fichte, who 
 preceded the two philosophers referred to, brought 
 to a fatal consummation what is called Subjective 
 Idealism. Nature and God in his philosophy vanished. 
 Self became the solitary existence in the universe, 
 and the creator of everything else human and divine. 
 The moral order of the world was all that was left for 
 the world s God, and the philosopher stood on the 
 very brink of absolute atheism. From this the mind 
 of Germany shrunk back; and Schelling reproduced, 
 in an attractive form, the pantheistic system, the 
 tendency towards which is so strong in the great 
 Fatherland. He identified the subject and the object, 
 and made them manifestations of God or the Absolute, 
 
64 PANTHEISM ; OB, 
 
 Nature with him is but the self-development of Deity. 
 The whole phenomena of the universe have proceeded 
 in one strict chain of necessary evolution. And God 
 has only come to realize himself, and attain self-con 
 sciousness, in man. Everything, according to this 
 system, exists in God, and He is of necessity the 
 All One. The system, in so far as it is intelligible, 
 proclaimed the universe to be God. There was, 
 however, another step to be taken before the climax 
 was reached, and that step was boldly taken by Hegel. 
 He denied the existence of both subject and object, 
 and left only a universe of relations. Everything 
 with him is a process of thought, and God himself 
 is the whole process. The Deity is not a self-existent 
 reality, but a never-ending self-discession, which never 
 realizes itself so fully as in the human consciousness. 
 Creation, according to this, is not a single act, but God 
 is necessarily ever creating. The pantheism of the 
 Hegelian system is obvious amid much of the mysticism 
 that shrouds it. Nature is absorbed in God, and God 
 and the universe, whatever they be, are identified. 
 By this same process of pure philosophic thought, 
 Hegel pretended to deduce the whole of doctrinal 
 Christianity. Schelling before him had made the Gos 
 pel revelation one of the modes in which God is mani 
 festing himself in history. But Hegel, by his philoso 
 phy, transformed Christianity into a system of regularly 
 evolved ideas, the value of which is altogether inde 
 pendent of historical testimony. 
 
 It is at this point that David Frederick Strauss and 
 his school appear. He has put on the Hegelian 
 
THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE PERSONALITY. 65 
 
 armor, taken his stand in the very heart of the 
 Christian theology, scattered into air the grand ob 
 jective element of the Gospel, and left nothing re 
 maining except a few religious ideas or conceptions 
 of the mind. He is, strictly speaking, neither a 
 rationalist nor a super naturalist. He disavows all 
 connection with either, and proclaims war against 
 both. He is, however, a pantheist in the extreme. 
 He represents the far left of the Hegelian party, and 
 stands on the very verge of atheism, if he has not 
 fallen into the gulf. God is with him a process of 
 thought. He has no separate individual existence. 
 Apart from the universe, or out of that process which 
 is alleged to be eternally unfolding itself and which 
 attains the highest state of consciousness in the mind 
 of the philosopher himself, there is no God. No 
 room whatever is left in the system for the interven 
 tion of a personal God, and in the system a personal 
 God has no existence. Hence his mythical theory. 
 The historical Christ of the Gospels, according to 
 him, was the personified ideas of the church. The 
 Divine Redeemer was a process, a personality gradu 
 ally formed out of elements contributed by Old Tes 
 tament history, rabbinical tradition, and the state of 
 the popular mind at the time when the Messiah was 
 expected. In other words, Christ was the creation 
 of the church, not the founder of it. Such a person 
 as Jesus, it is admitted, lived and died, who believed 
 himself to be the Christ. Strauss recognised a small 
 historical element in the person of Jesus, a kind of 
 skeleton which the church gradually clothed with 
 
66 PANTHEISM; OR, 
 
 flesh and blood, the distinguishing attributes of which 
 were an investment thrown around it from the mind 
 of the church itself. The fully-developed Christ of 
 the Gospel, was thus made the embodied aggregate 
 of the conceptions of the first Christians and the 
 thoughts of the past. This is the latest shape, with 
 the exception perhaps of Feuerbach s, which German 
 infidelity has assumed, the extreme point to which 
 pantheism has been carried, and where it becomes 
 almost, if not altogether, identical with atheism. It 
 leaves no God, but a vague personification of human 
 consciousness. The existence of a divine conscious 
 ness separate from the human is ignored. It sweeps 
 the world clean of an historical Christianity. It binds 
 up all the physical and moral movements of the 
 world in one unbroken chain of necessary develop 
 ment. And having left no Supreme and Independent 
 object of worship, it takes away the Bible, and pre 
 sents us with nothing in its room but mythological 
 ideas embellishing the shadow of a reality. Pantheism 
 in Germany will be found, then, like other forms of 
 infidelity, to have a variety of shades, so that those 
 who stand at the one extreme may hold some opinions 
 that are denied by those who stand at the other. 
 Hegel himself was unquestionably a pantheist, though 
 it may be doubted if he would have gone the length 
 of his bold and admiring disciple Strauss. But Spinoza, 
 the founder of this philosophy, and Schelling, Hegel, 
 Strauss, and others, who have developed it, agree in 
 this that they sink the personality of God. 1 
 
 1 Morell s History of Philosophy, vol. ii., chap, v., sect. 2. 
 
THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE PERSONALITY. 67 
 
 Pantheism is not, however, restricted to the schools 
 and literature of Germany. The existing French 
 philosophy is by no means clear of it. While there is 
 reason to apprehend that, in its most unphilosophic 
 form, it constitutes the faith of a large portion of the 
 French people. The system of Cousin, who is re 
 garded as the founder and coryphseus of the modern 
 eclectic school of France, has met with much opposi 
 tion from various writers on account of its pantheistic 
 leanings. He holds the balance, as Dr. Chalmers has 
 remarked, between the two philosophies of Germany 
 and Scotland, neither being exclusively ontological as 
 the former, nor exclusively psychological as the latter. 
 His idealism, modified though it be, has led him, how 
 ever, in a pantheistic direction. And though he repels 
 the charge of pantheism, yet what other interpretation 
 can be put on his language, when he speaks of God as 
 " being absolute cause, one and many, eternity and 
 time, essence and life, end and middle, at the summit 
 of existence and at its base, infinite and finite together ; 
 in a word, a Trinity, being at the same time God, 
 Nature, and Humanity." Mr. Morell, an admirer of 
 Cousin s genius, justly remarks, when commenting on 
 his view of the Divinity : "even if we admit that it is 
 not a doctrine, like that of Spinoza, which identifies 
 God with the abstract idea of substance ; or even like 
 that of Hegel, which regards Deity as synonymous 
 with the absolute law and process of the universe ; if 
 we admit, in fact, that the Deity of Cousin possesses 
 a conscious personality, yet still it is one which con 
 tains in itself the finite personality and consciousness 
 
68 PANTHEISM ; OR, 
 
 of every subordinate mind. God is the ocean we 
 are but the waves ; the ocean may be one individuality, 
 and each wave another*; but still they are essentially 
 one and the same." 1 Here we have the very notion 
 of Deity which is developed in much of the current 
 literature of the day, and which leads to a system of 
 man-worship. The finite is an emanation or portion 
 of the infinite. The universe is comprehended in God. 
 Men s souls are divine. Every man is an incarnation 
 of Deity. All existences are in God, and God is in all 
 existences. 2 
 
 But the veil of mysticism which shrouds the pan 
 theism of the schools, and often renders its language 
 hard to be understood, is removed from the pantheism 
 of the people. The socialism of the Continent is, in 
 a great measure, pantheistic. The masses, who are 
 incapable of following the philosopher in his meta 
 physical investigations, readily apprehend their results 
 when popularized, and brought within the sphere of 
 man s interests and duties. This is done by the 
 socialist propaganda. And however much the various 
 sects of socialism war with each other on points of 
 
 1 History of Philosophy, vol. ii., pp. 502, 511. 
 
 2 It is but just to admit, what Cousin stoutly contends for, that 
 his system is not identical with that of Spinoza and the Eleatics. 
 " I must remind my adversaries," says he, " that the God of Spi 
 noza and the Eleatics is a pure substance, and not a cause. In the 
 system of Spinoza, creation is impossible : in mine it is necessary." 
 But when he tells us that " if Grod be not everything, he is nothing ; 
 that everywhere present, He returns, as it were, to himself in the 
 consciousness of man," who can wonder if it be looked upon as 
 pantheism of another phase? See Cousin s Phil. Essays, (Clark s 
 edition,) pp. 22, 77. 
 
THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE PERSONALITY. 69 
 
 polity, they are generally of one mind in regard to 
 man-worship. Amid the late revolutions which shook 
 continental Europe, it was not difficult to see the 
 divinity to whom the clouds of incense arose. That 
 the highest being is man, was the dogma commonly 
 taught and cordially received. In France, the teach 
 ing of Pierre Leroux, who has been counted the meta 
 physician of socialism, was undisguised pantheism. 
 He knows of no God distinct from the universe of 
 being. And humanity with him is but the incarna 
 tion of divinity. The tendency, in short, of all the 
 socialist sects in France, notwithstanding the religious 
 sentimentalism of the language of some of their leaders, 
 is towards pantheism. Hence their declamations on 
 the perfectibility of the human race, and their exclu 
 sion of all motive power but the human will. God, 
 according to them, was in Jesus Christ, and so he is 
 in the French people. And this is the faith which 
 has supplanted the infidelity of Yoltaire in the heart 
 of the nation. The diseased patient is perpetually 
 turning himself on the same bed, seeking rest and 
 finding none. The communism of Germany is ram 
 pant with the same element. Feuerbach, who is the 
 chief teacher of the more advanced form of socialism, 
 has deified the human race. According to him God 
 is not a being above man, but God is to be found in 
 man. Religion is not a thing that comes to man from 
 without, but the whole contents of religion are derived 
 from human nature itself. Man thus becomes a god 
 to himself. Theology becomes anthropology. And 
 pantheism reaches the point to which it is ever tending, 
 
70 PANTHEISM ; OR, 
 
 the very verge of atheism. Such has been, and is 
 in a great measure still, the faith of immense mul 
 titudes of people on the Continent, in the middle of 
 the nineteenth century. And if there is one lesson 
 more impressively taught than another by the recent 
 commotions, amid which such gross infidelity was 
 thrown up, it is that such a faith can never give rest 
 and happiness to the nations of the world. 
 
 Pantheism among ourselves is somewhat of an exotic. 
 The sturdy English mind is not the most congenial 
 soil for it. The philosophy from which it has sprung, 
 is alien to the mental habitudes of our people. But 
 if it does not exist as an intellectual system in our 
 schools, or widely prevail in the communistic form 
 among the masses, it has been imported into our 
 literature in the most alluring guise, and is destined, 
 we think, to prove for awhile the great foe of Bible 
 Christianity. 
 
 In some of the transatlantic productions which 
 are circulating among us, we meet with the system 
 in its poetic or most attractive form. The Emerson 
 school, which numbers many disciples in our land, 
 is unquestionably pantheistic. Emerson himself, 
 with all his gorgeous mysticism, is a pantheist. Man- 
 worship is the philosophy which pervades his specu 
 lations. He comes before the world as a reformer. 
 And whether he addresses a class of divinity students, 
 or the members of a literary society, or a mechanics 
 association, the one prominent doctrine in his 
 orations is the soul of man. Emerson finds every 
 thing in man, and he wages war with all systems that 
 
THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE PERSONALITY. 71 
 
 lead man out of himself for an object of faith and wor 
 ship. His complaint is that " the soul is not preached." 
 The doctrine of the soul, "first soul; and second, soul; 
 and evermore, soul;" is, according to him, the grand 
 truth that is to regenerate the world, and he seems to 
 consider himself commissioned to promulgate it. He 
 boldly denies the personality of God. It is the "theo- 
 logic cramp" that bound Swedenborg, one of his 
 favorite Representative Men, that otherwise "colossal 
 soul." After the manner of some of the German 
 Transcendentalists, he holds the totality of being to 
 be God, who comes to self-consciousness only in the 
 individual man. " The universal does not attract us 
 until housed in an individual. Who heeds the waste 
 abyss of possibility ? The ocean is everywhere the 
 same, but it has no character until seen with the 
 shore or the ship." Man is at once the worshipper 
 and the object of worship. " Standing on the bare 
 ground, my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted 
 into infinite space, all mean egotism vanishes. The , 
 currents of the Universal Being circulate through " 
 me. I am part or particle of God." Prayer, in perfect 
 consistency with these notions, is shut out. "It is 
 God in us which checks the language of petition by 
 a grander thought." Historical Christianity, being a 
 thing from without, is repudiated. Man is a revela 
 tion to himself. His soul becomes the fountain of all 
 truth and goodness. And Emerson and his schoo] 
 complain that "men have come to speak of the reve 
 lation as somewhat long ago given and done, as if God 
 were dead." The first defect of Historical Christianity 
 
72 PANTHEISM ; OR, 
 
 with him is, that it " dwells with noxious exaggeration 
 about the person of Jesus." For "the soul knows no 
 persons." Mr. Emerson, like many others who would 
 destroy the doctrinal system of the great Teacher, 
 professes much admiration for Jesus Christ. He is 
 no longer denounced as an impostor. He is held up 
 as the true, the model man. u He saw with open eye 
 the mystery of the soul. Alone in all history, he 
 estimated the greatness of man. One man was true 
 to what is in you and me. He saw that God incar 
 nates himself in man, and evermore goes forth anew 
 to take possession of his world. He said, in this 
 jubilee of sublime emotion, 1 1 am divine. Through 
 me God acts; through me, speaks. Would you see 
 God, see me ; or, see thee, when thou also thinkest 
 as I now think." But the doctrine of the true 
 prophet was distorted, and Mr. Emerson tells us how. 
 u Because the indwelling Supreme Spirit cannot 
 wholly be got rid of, the doctrine of it suffers this per 
 version, that the divine nature is attributed to one or 
 two persons, and denied to all the rest, and denied 
 with fury." Man, in short, is thus made the highest 
 being. Every human soul is a wave in the ocean of 
 divine existence. God is the whole sea. And we are 
 divine or a part of God. No wonder then that man 
 refuses to receive truth at second-hand, and is taught 
 to believe that all the virtues are comprehended in 
 self-trust. Know yourself, reverence yourself, rely 
 upon yourself, are the law and gospel of this school 
 that claims to regenerate the world. In this strain 
 does this poetic philosopher discourse to the youth 
 
THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE PERSONALITY. 73 
 
 connected with divinity halls, literary societies, and 
 mechanics institutes. 1 
 
 He is not a logician, but a seer ; he announces, not 
 argues ; is the language of an admiring editor of his 
 works. This witness is true. Seldom or never does 
 anything in the shape of an argument cross our path 
 in reading the orations and essays of Emerson. He 
 dreams and dogmatizes. All his responses are de 
 livered with oracular authority. " I stand here to say, 
 Let us worship the mighty and transcendent soul." 
 He is unquestionably a man of genius, endowed with 
 exquisite sensibilities and a brilliant fancy. His style, 
 though far from undefiled, is energetic and attractive. 
 It is often, however, far too mystical to be extensively 
 popular. He is, after all that has been said about 
 him, a dreamer, a glorious dreamer if you will, but 
 still a dreamer. Such seers as Mr. Emerson have 
 been in the world before, and have discoursed to young 
 and old, as he has done, about the divinity of the soul, 
 and the duty of self-reliance, and what the better has 
 the world been for such oracles ? History attests that 
 it never has been by such dreamers and dreamy sys 
 tems that society has been quickened and regenerated. 
 Look at the Hebrew prophets who ever and anon ap 
 peared, filled with the inspiring Spirit, to rebuke the 
 Israelites for their apostasy, and recall them to the 
 service of the living God. Look at John, the har 
 binger of the Messiah, the voice of one crying in the 
 wilderness, whose teaching was so influential and 
 
 1 See Emerson s Orations and Essays, passim. 
 
74 PANTHEISM; OR, 
 
 impressive for good. Look at Christ himself, who 
 " alone in all history, estimated the greatness of man," 
 and for whom Emerson and his disciples profess such 
 veneration, and where in all his discourses do you find 
 him preaching this doctrine of the soul, telling his 
 hearers that there is no atheism but the proposition 
 of depravity, that they are parts or particles of God, 
 and that they ought to rely upon themselves and act 
 a godlike part ? The conduct of Judas was honor 
 able compared with such attempts to betray the Son 
 of man with a kiss. Look at Paul and the noble 
 company of the apostles, men who turned the world 
 upside down when living, and who being dead yet 
 speak, and in vain do you seek for a single point of 
 contact between their doctrines, which alone have been 
 instrumental in the world s regeneration, and this sys 
 tem of man-worship. Look at all the mighty throng, 
 be they poets or philosophers, statesmen or divines, 
 who, by the almost universal consent of mankind, have 
 been counted, in the highest sense of the expression, 
 reformers, and who have left the salutary impress of 
 their genius and labors on their own and succeeding 
 times, and which of them ever acted on the belief that 
 in one soul, in any soul, are resources for the world, 
 and that the office of a true teacher is to show God 
 in the soul ? " The thing that hath been, it is that 
 which shall be." The world s regeneration will go on 
 as it has begun. And that is not by preaching the 
 pantheistic doctrine of the soul. Go to the heathen 
 ism that is abroad, or to the heathenism that surrounds 
 us at home ; tell the idolator in the wilderness who 
 
THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE PERSONALITY. 75 
 
 drinks out of the skulls of his enemies, or tell the 
 convict in his cell, or the half-naked wretch in his 
 hovel, that t his soul is divine, and the haggard look 
 and grovelling propensities will cry out that the doc 
 trine is a mockery and a lie. But the disciples of this 
 school never venture into such fields as these. Mr. 
 Emerson tells us that in walking abroad, he sees 
 vegetables and trees nodding to him, and he nods to 
 them. 1 But he meets with no salutation from men 
 where, if true, his doctrine would be most welcome. 
 It is only among the dreaming men and youth in 
 cities and towns, persons who have a love for the half 
 mystic and half poetic, persons whose religious senti 
 ments are vague and undefined, and who are disposed 
 to be gods unto themselves, that he finds worshippers 
 of this doctrine of the soul. There he may do some 
 mischief. But neither he nor any of his school will 
 ever by any witchery of language, gain an ascendency 
 ever the strong English mind. And of two things 
 they may be assured. Historical Christianity will 
 ever prove too mighty for them. It has overcome 
 vastly more powerful enemies, and travelled on in the 
 greatness of its strength. And this system of man- 
 worship, like every other, will miserably fail to re 
 generate mankind. The diseased patient must look 
 to the remedy without. And instead of being mocked 
 by the cry, look to yourself, hearken to the good old 
 invitation, a Behold the Lamb of God that taketh 
 away the sin of the world." 2 
 
 1 Emerson s Nature. 
 
 2 The very able author of " The Restoration of Belief," in putting 
 
76 PANTHEISM ; OR, 
 
 In speaking of Mr. Carlyle in this connection, we 
 are to be understood rather as indicating the religious 
 bearing of much of his writings, than assigning him 
 a definite place in a particular category. There is no 
 great writer in modern times who is ever speaking of 
 men s beliefs or unbeliefs, of whom it is more difficult 
 to say precisely what his own belief or unbelief is. 
 John Foster once said, (whether wisely or unwisely 
 we leave the reader to judge,) that it would at any 
 time be a great luxury to him to accompany a few 
 athletic men with pole-axes among the monuments in 
 Westminster Abbey, to be most vigorously wielded, 
 with just here and there an omission, in a process 
 which we might imagine. 1 Mr. Carlyle has a like 
 luxury in vigorously wielding his pole-axe against 
 our churches, as if they were u mere cases of arti 
 cles ;" and against our Bible creeds, as if they were no 
 better than " extinct traditions," " unbelievabilities," 
 u worn-out symbolisms, reminiscences, and simulacra." 
 We might easily conjecture what Foster s excepted 
 instances among the sculptured memorials would have 
 
 " in a distinct light what it was which the church of the early age 
 did for mankind in preparation for a new moral era, and under what 
 conditions this necessary function was discharged, and thereby con 
 structing an argument in favor of Christianity, remarks, " the ground 
 of that Christian fortitude (the fortitude of Polycarp and his con 
 temporaries) which, in the end, prevailed over the polytheism of the 
 Roman State, was a BELIEF toward a PERSON ; it was not an opinion 
 as to a doctrine," " but a belief toward a PERSON whose authority 
 they regarded as paramount to every other." (Pp. 74, 77.) This 
 belief in a personal Saviour-God is the grand lever in the world * 
 elevation. 
 
 1 Life of Foster. 
 
THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE PERSONALITY. 77 
 
 been, but we are without ground on which to con 
 jecture the exceptions, if exceptions there be, in the 
 case of Carlyle. Multitudes of good men read his 
 writings with strong suspicions that, under the cover 
 of assailing the shams, hypocrisies, and formalities, 
 of which there are unhappily too many in the church 
 as well as in the world, he is assailing the very Bible 
 truth itself ; and these suspicions are certainly not 
 weakened by his last interesting work, " The Life of 
 John Sterling." We know that he has said, " Adieu, 
 Church ; thy road is that way, mine is this : in 
 God s name, adieu !" We know that he does worship 
 in u the great Cathedral of Immensity," and acknowl 
 edges "the Supreme Silences," " the Destinies and 
 the Immensities," and "the Eternities," and that he 
 is apt to regard our Christian beliefs as a u stealing 
 into Heaven by sticking ostrich-like our head into 
 fallacies on earth." 1 But beyond this we know 
 nothing positively. We are not going, then, to write 
 him down pantheist. But he has given us occasion 
 to say that the tendency of much of what he has 
 written is pantheistical. He does not, indeed, say 
 anything so offensive on the subject of Christianity, 
 as his admirer, Mr. Emerson. He never speaks of 
 it as " an Eastern monarchy, built by indolence ana 
 fear," nor charges it with the radical defect of dwelling 
 with noxious exaggeration about the person of Jesus. 2 
 But we are at a loss to gather any better religion from 
 his pages than a kind of man-worship. He sees 
 
 1 Life of Sterling. 
 1 a Emerson s Address to a Senior Class of Divinity. 
 
78 PANTHEISM; OR, 
 
 Godlike principles in human nature, especially in 
 great and earnest men, who have made any impression 
 upon the world, and he falls down himself, and calls 
 upon others to fall down and do them homage. 
 Moses and Zoroaster, Jesus Christ and Mahomet, 
 Saul of Tarsus and Paul the apostle, were, though 
 not in the same degree, alike divinely-inspired men. 
 His hero-worship points to the Emerson doctrine of 
 the soul. He says virtually, what the American says 
 openly, that the doctrine of the Divine nature suffers 
 perversion in being attributed to one or two persons, 
 and denied to others. God in man, not exclusively 
 in the man Christ Jesus, but God in every man in 
 whom, appear greatness and earnestness, seems to be 
 the religion of this hero-worship. Literature, in 
 short, with him is religion; and u the true sovereign 
 souls" of literature, the Goethes and so on, are the 
 true prophets and Gospel preachers. The contents 
 of religion are accordingly regarded by the men of 
 this school as found within the man, not coming to the 
 man from without ; the soul is a revelation to itself. 
 Emerson has said, "it is not instruction, but provoca 
 tion, that I can receive from another soul. What he 
 announces, I must find true in me, or wholly reject ; 
 and on his word, or as his second, be he who he may, 
 I can accept nothing." And says Mr. Carlyle : u the 
 Maker s Laws, whether they are promulgated in Sinai 
 thunder, to the ear or imagination, or quite otherwise 
 promulgated, are the Laws of God ; transcendent, 
 everlasting, imperatively demanding obedience from 
 all men. This, without any thunder, or with never so 
 
THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE PERSONALITY. 79 
 
 much thunder, thou, if there be any soul left in thee, 
 canst know of a truth. The Universe, I say, is made 
 by Law ; the great Soul of the world is just and not x . 
 
 unjust Rituals, Liturgies, Credos, Sinai thunder: \ 
 
 I know more or less the history of these ; the rise, 
 progress, decline and fall of these. Can thunder 
 from all the thirty-two azimuths, repeated daily for 
 centuries of years, make God s Laws more Godlike to 
 me ? Brother, no. Perhaps I am grown to be a man 
 now ; and do not need the thunder and the terror any 
 longer ! Perhaps I am above being frightened ; per 
 haps it is not fear, but reverence alone, that shall now 
 lead me ! Revelations, Inspirations ? Yes ; and thy 
 own god-created soul ; dost thou not call that a reve 
 lation ? He tells us that religion is "no Morrison s 
 Pill from without," but a clearing of the Inner Light 
 or Moral Conscience, a reawakening of our own- 
 selves from within ; the world has looked to the reve 
 lation without, but it was " when its beard was not 
 grown as now." 1 And, with a sneer at the old churches 
 and the old creeds, he says : " What the light of 
 your mind, which is the direct inspiration of the 
 Almighty, pronounces incredible, that, in God s 
 name, leave uncredited ; at your peril do not try 
 believing that." 2 Where such talk as this is indulged 
 in, the law and the testimony is very little valued. 
 Mr. Carlyle, accordingly, is disposed to make sincerity 
 or earnestness the test of truth and moral greatness. 
 Christianity is thus reduced from its high position as 
 
 1 Carlyle s Past and Present, pp. 307312. 
 8 Life of Sterling, p. 78. 
 
80 PANTHEISM; OR, 
 
 the only true religion, to a level with the other religions 
 of the earth, and what a man honestly believes, and 
 really practises, is counted a good orthodox creed. The 
 revelation is made within the man, and the Outer 
 Light is respected only in so far as it agrees with the 
 Inner Light. All this comes from a dreamy, exagger 
 ated notion about the human soul. Mr. Carlyle 
 does not say, with Proudhon and Emerson, that the 
 highest being is man, and thus make theology anthro 
 pology, but much of what he does say looks in that 
 direction. And his style of expression is frequently 
 such as to lead many of his indiscriminating admirers 
 to that position, or to strengthen those in it who 
 already occupy it. He does not stop with scowling 
 upon the formalism of the age, and calling upon 
 men to be honest, earnest, and active, but the scowl 
 seems to be turned towards Christianity and its 
 evidences as a body of fact lying without. He is not 
 satisfied with a natural reverence for what is great 
 and good in any of our race, but the great with him 
 becomes Divine or Godlike. In a mighty intellect 
 we recognize the presence and power of the Divinity. 
 And for such he claims something like worship or 
 religious admiration. His hero-worship is just a 
 kind of intellectual pantheism. It is preaching up, 
 though in a somewhat different way from the men of 
 the Emerson school, the doctrine of the divinity of 
 the soul. Much as Mr. Carlyle is to be admired for 
 his original vigorous thinking, his liberal and indepen 
 dent cast of mind, and his wish to raise up among 
 us an earnest race of men, we cannot but deprecate 
 
THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE PERSONALITY. 81 
 
 the religious tendency of a great deal that he has 
 written, as pantheistical. 
 
 " The result," says Professor Garbett, 1 " is briefly 
 this. The human mind has wakened into a mighty 
 thrilling consciousness of its collective capacity ; * it has 
 gathered up into one great unity and organized 
 humanity, all individual intellects and hearts, all 
 genius and all inspiration ; and exulting in this great 
 corporate life, and bounding pulse, thus identified with 
 it, it is drunk with pride and worships itself. In its 
 own depths it believes all life and knowledge to lie ; 
 the meaning of all outward utterances and phenomena, 
 and the self-evolved solution of all mysteries in hea 
 ven and earth. Before the chancery of its own sub 
 jective laws and arbitrary requirements, all objective 
 truth is called to judgment. It is itself God in fact, 
 and the universe is its product and its mirror." We 
 are reminded of Tennyson s truthful and beautiful de 
 scription of mere intellectual knowledge : 
 
 " What is she, cut from love and faith, 
 But some wild Pallas from the brain 
 
 " Of Demons ? fiery hot to burst 
 All barriers in her onward race 
 For power. Let her know her place ; 
 She is the second, not the first. 
 
 " A higher hand must make her mild, 
 If all be not in vain ; and guide 
 Her footsteps, moving side by side 
 With wisdom, like the younger child : 
 
 " For she is earthly of the mind, 
 
 But Wisdom heavenly of the soul." 1 
 
 1 See an admirable sermon on the Personality of God, preached 
 before the University of Oxford. a In Memoriam, p. 177 
 
 6 
 
82 PANTHEISM; OR, 
 
 We conclude by taking a bird s-eye view of some of 
 the bearings of this form of infidelity, and with some 
 remarks in disproof of it. The doctrine of an imper 
 sonal God, as we have seen, lies at its basis. The uni 
 verse is the divinity, and men themselves, as " God-in 
 toxicated," mingle with it. Out of this fundamental 
 idea rise the following : 
 
 1. Creation, with the pantheist, is not a free act, but 
 an inevitable necessity. It is not a complete effect, but 
 a process that is going on eternally. Hegel says, God 
 did not create the world, he is eternally creating it. 
 Creation is God passing into activity, but neither 
 suspended nor exhausted in the act. Anaximander 
 said substantially the same thing ages before him. 
 And Victor Cousin has repeated it after him. " The 
 distinguishing characteristic of the Deity," says the 
 French philosopher, u being an absolute creative 
 force, which cannot but pass into activity, it follows, 
 not that the creation is possible, but that it is neces 
 sary." And the men of the Emerson school tell us, 
 that the world is " a projection of God in the uncon 
 scious." Pantheism is thus fatalistic. We, according 
 to enlightened reason and Scriptural truth, have been 
 wont to believe that God existed independently, from 
 eternity, in a state of absolute perfection, and that, of 
 his own good pleasure, he called the universe into 
 being. Moses began his historical narrative by de 
 claring, " In the beginning God created the heavens 
 and the earth ;" and he sung, " Before the mountains 
 were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the 
 earth and the world, even from everlasting to ever- 
 
THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE PERSONALITY. 83 
 
 lasting, thou art God." The pious in all ages, on 
 looking over the creation, have said, u Our God made 
 the heavens." And the heavenly inhabitants cry, 
 " Thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure 
 they are and were created." But, according to the 
 pantheist, this is all a delusion. The Divine free-will is 
 a nonentity. Creation is but the inevitable develop 
 ment of the one Being that is beneath all and in all. 
 Thus are falsified all those clear marks of design in 
 the universe on which men have looked for ages, the 
 world is robbed of all its moral grandeur, the holy 
 emotions of man s religious nature are repressed, and 
 he has nothing to behold but a creation that has 
 sprung from fate and necessity, and nothing to think 
 of behind the whole, but an absolute creative force 
 ever passing, not from a moral but a physical necessity, 
 into activity. We may theoretically distinguish pan 
 theism from atheism, but assuredly the man who 
 looks upon the universe, and says that it is " a 
 remoter and inferior incarnation of God," 1 or that it 
 is God necessarily passing into action, is as much 
 without God in the world, as the man who ascribes 
 everything to mechanical forces, and says there is no 
 God. 
 
 2. Pantheism inevitably destroys all moral distinctions, 
 and makes man irresponsible. " Evil and good are 
 God s right hand and left," is the doctrine of some of 
 our popular literature.* And if the whole phenomena 
 of the universe be one chain of necessary develop- 
 
 1 Emerson s Nature, p. 53. 3 Bailey s Festus, Proem., p. vii. 
 
84 PANTHEISM; OR, 
 
 ment, if man and his actions are strictly inevitable 
 pulsations of the one great source of being, then what 
 is properly called moral evil has no existence. And 
 the Emerson school tells us that it lives only in dog 
 matic theology. " Evil, according to old philosophers," 
 says the author of the " Representative Men," 1 " is 
 good in the making. That pure malignity can exist, 
 is the extreme proposition of unbelief. It is not to 
 be entertained by a rational agent ; it is atheism ; it 
 is the last profanation. . . . The divine effort is never 
 relaxed ; the carrion in the sun will convert itself to 
 grass and flowers; and man, though in brothels, or 
 jails, or on gibbets, is on his way to all that is good 
 and true." This may accord with the "generous 
 spirit of the Indian Yishnu," but Christianity and it 
 are wide as the poles asunder. The " Festus" of Mr. 
 Bailey, a poem of great power and of a religious spirit, 
 is pervaded by this bad pantheistic theology. The 
 following is but a specimen : 
 
 " The soul is but an organ, and it hath 
 No power of good and evil in itself, 
 More than the eye hath power of light or dark. 
 Grod fitted it for good ; and evil is 
 Good in another way we are not skilled in." 3 
 
 Hence the notion that all religions are good, but 
 that Christianity is the best. And the conclusion: 
 "all souls shall be in God, and shall be God, and 
 nothing but God, be." 3 Dr. Strauss moves in the 
 game plane, though far a-head, when he says : " hu 
 man kind is impeccable, for the progress of its de- 
 
 1 P. 68, " Swedenborg ; or, the Mystic." a Festus, p. 48. 
 
 Festus, p. 109. 
 
THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE PERSONALITY. 85 
 
 velopment is irreproachable. Pollution cleaves only to 
 the individual. It does not reach the race and its 
 history. The human race is the Christ, the God- 
 made man, the sinless one, that dies, rises again, 
 and mounts into the heavens." 1 The consciousness 
 of guilt becomes, on this system, a delusion. The 
 sense of responsibility, which is a fact in the natu 
 ral history of man, is belied. And that voice, which 
 comes from the recesses of our moral nature, point 
 ing us from a judge within the breast to a judge 
 without and above, is silenced. That God is ever 
 educing good from evil is true, and that the ministry 
 of evil, mysterious though it be, is made under his 
 benign supremacy to subserve most important pur 
 poses, agrees at once with experience and Scripture. 
 But that evil has no positive existence, that it is only 
 good in another way, is as repugnant to our moral 
 sentiments as it is opposed to Christianity. We will 
 persist in calling this course of conduct bad, and that 
 opposite course good ; and can never act on the belief 
 that both were alike things of fate and necessity, or 
 that each agent is a structure formed by inevitable 
 laws, and part or particle of God. When this creed 
 prevails, the foundations of the earth will be out of 
 course. Only let this doctrine leaven the mass of a 
 community, and the result will be a deluge of sen 
 suality and crime. 
 
 3. This system shuts out Prayer. Man will worship. 
 Here the object of worship is self. And if the soul 
 knows no persons, and is itself " wiser than the whole 
 1 Leben Jesu, (last chap.) 
 
86 PANTHEISM ; OB, 
 
 world," 1 as the thorough-going pantheist maintains, it 
 were folly to go out of itself for resources either in 
 the way of a rule of duty or of spiritual influences. 
 Coleridge s "Ancient Mariner" went much too far 
 when he said : 
 
 " He prayeth well who loveth well 
 
 Both man, and bird, and beast. 
 He prayeth best who loveth best 
 
 All things both great and small : 
 For the dear God, who loveth us, 
 
 He made and loveth all." 
 
 But Mr. Emerson and his school go much farther. 
 u As soon as the man is at one with God, he will not 
 beg. He will then see prayer in all action. The 
 prayer of the farmer, kneeling in his field to weed it ; 
 the prayer of the rower, kneeling with the stroke of 
 his oar, are true prayers, heard throughout nature, 
 though for cheap ends." Mr. Theodore Parker who, 
 though not a professed pantheist, pretends to have 
 found pantheism in the writings of John the Evan 
 gelist, discourses in a similar way. Speaking of what 
 he calls the happy condition of the religious man, he 
 tells us that his "religion demands no particular ac 
 tions, forms, or modes of thought : the man s plough 
 ing is holy as his prayer his daily bread as the smoke 
 of his sacrifice ; his home sacred as his temple ; his 
 work-day and his sabbath are alike God s day. His 
 priest is the holy spirit within him." 2 And if Mr. 
 Carlyle does not mean to countenance this pantheistic 
 dogma, why, in "The Modern Worker," does he so 
 
 1 Emerson. 3 Parker s Discourses, p. 110. 
 
THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE PERSONALITY. 87 
 
 frequently talk thus : " Work is of a religious nature.... 
 All true work is sacred ; in all true work, were it but 
 true hand-labor, there is something of divineness. 
 Labor, wide as the earth, has its summit in heaven. 
 Sweat of the brow ; and up from that to sweat of .the 
 brain, sweat of the heart ; which includes all Kepler 
 calculations, Newton meditations, all sciences, all 
 spoken epics, all acted heroisms, martyrdoms, up to 
 that c Agony of bloody sweat, which all men have 
 called divine ! brother, if this is not worship, 
 then I say, the more pity for worship ; for this is the 
 noblest thing yet discovered under God s sky." 
 No doubt all this will be hailed by many of the lis 
 teners and readers of Emerson, Parker, and Carlyle. 
 And there may be here and there, " the poor day- 
 laborer, the weaver of your coat, the sewer of your 
 shoes," who, having no inclination for prayer, may like 
 to be told that " no man has worked, or can work, 
 except religiously," and that he shall, "return homt 
 in honor, to his far distant home in honor." 2 But 
 it will not do for the millions who fail to attain to 
 such a delirium of soul as these poetic-philosophers, 
 and whom they will never get to believe that the 
 fountain of all good is in themselves, that they 
 are divine pilgrims in nature, and that everything 
 attends their steps. No. Men s minds, which have 
 not been spoiled by a philosophy falsely so called, 
 will ever, as aforetime, go out in a felt sense of want. 
 They will cry, in spite of all this delirious teaching, 
 u who will shew us any good ?" And experience will 
 1 Past and Present, pp. 268, 271. 3 Ibid, pp. 278, 272. 
 
88 PANTHEISM ; OR, 
 
 continue to attest that man will never possess tile 
 satisfying good, until as a beggar lie say, u Lord, lift 
 thou up the light of thy countenance upon us." 
 
 4. What becomes of individual immortality in such 
 a system as pantheism? It is absorbed and lost. 
 Men in all ages, even in the absence of revelation, 
 have yearned for existence beyond death and the 
 grave. The gospel, by bringing life and immortality 
 to light, has answered these yearnings. So that with 
 all our moral and religious impressions, is blended the 
 conviction of our individual existence being prolonged 
 on the other side of the tomb. We are conscious of 
 our personal being now, our moral nature points to the 
 continuance of our conscious personality hereafter ; 
 and an authoritative revelation has not only set its 
 seal to the truth of the personal immortality of man, 
 but shed an illumination all its own on the grave and 
 the world beyond. But life with the pantheist is a 
 dream, and death is absorption. It is like the return 
 of a ray of light to the sun whence it emanated, or a 
 drop of water to the great ocean from which it origin 
 ally came. The disciples of a system do not always 
 go to the full length of the system itself. And so it 
 may happen that some professed pantheists have not 
 discarded the belief of personal immortality. But 
 such is the legitimate issue of the system, and such 
 will actually be its result when descending from the 
 schools, it becomes the faith of the common people. 
 With the pantheists of the East, the consciousness of 
 separate existence is an illusion, which in a little time 
 will pass away. The souls of men being portions of 
 
THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE PERSONALITY. 89 
 
 the divine essence, u parts or particles of God," will 
 ultimately return to their source, so that, apart from 
 the great substance, there will be no conscious exist 
 ence. Whatever might be Hegel s individual view of 
 the future state of man, Hegelianism, in this respect, 
 is thoroughly pantheistic. u On the doctrine of im 
 mortality," remarks Mr. Morell, 1 " Hegel has said 
 but little, and that little by no means satisfactory." 
 But it is a part of his philosophy, that the Divine Be 
 ing is necessitated to send forth existences and to 
 absorb them again. Reinhard, who is deemed a fair 
 and competent judge of the system, says, that " accord 
 ing to Hegel s speculative decisions, the individual per 
 sonality of man is perishable in its very nature. In 
 his view, reason demands that the thinking individual 
 should acknowledge the nothingness of his individual 
 essence, and willingly meet self-annihilation in view 
 of his entering into that universal substance which, 
 like Chronos in the old mythology, devours all its own 
 offspring." 2 Strauss and others of the same school 
 have gone this length. His words are, " a life beyond 
 the grave is the last enemy which speculative criticism 
 has to oppose, and, if possible, to conquer." 3 Here, 
 as in some other points, the extremes of sensational 
 ism and idealism meet. The atheist and the pantheist 
 shake hands as believers in the same black creed. 
 Danton, on his trial, said, " My name is Danton, my 
 residence will soon be in annihilation, my name will 
 live in the pantheon of history." And the pantheist 
 
 1 History of Philosophy, vol. ii., p. 190. 
 
 a Dr. Beard s Voices of the Church, p. 12. 3 Glaubenslehre. 
 
90 PANTHEISM ; OR, 
 
 says, let us dream on the day of our existence here, 
 for the night is coming when self must return to the 
 great ocean of being and there be lost forever. Such 
 are the issues of a system that denies the living Per 
 sonal God. 
 
 1. In proof of the personality of God, we might, in 
 the first place, argue from our own personality. That 
 we are real, intelligent, and responsible persons, is a 
 matter of consciousness. There is a spirit in man. 
 He has understanding, will, moral sentiment, a power 
 to choose between good and evil, and he knows it. It 
 is this which gives us a decided pre-eminence over the 
 whole visible creation. It separates at an immeasura 
 ble distance from us the flowers of the earth however 
 beautiful, the stars of heaven however bright, and 
 the beasts and birds however wise. Were it pos 
 sible for us to be divested of our complete per 
 sonality as moral, intelligent, individual beings, the 
 crown would . fall from our heads, and we would 
 descend in the scale of earthly creatures. Personal 
 ity living, moral, and intellectual personality such 
 as man s, is clearly, then, a perfection. And in the 
 very existence of such personal beings we have an 
 argument for a Personal God. Let it be supposed 
 that by intuition, or argumentation, or both, we had 
 come simply to the knowledge of a First Cause ; it 
 is evident that the conception of the possession of 
 perfect personality by Him would render Him a more 
 glorious Being than the want of it. And this being 
 the case, he must possess it, for our conceptions of 
 
THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE PERSONALITY. 91 
 
 the greatest Being in the universe, can never surpass, 
 but must always come short of the reality. "It is 
 clear," says Professor Garbett, "that anything which 
 does not possess personality, or possesses it in a low 
 degree, whether it be like the earth, however exqui 
 sitely modelled into beauty and sublimity manifold, 
 or the beasts of the field, however marvellous their 
 living powers, must be inferior to ourselves. And, 
 therefore, Almighty God must be a person likewise. 
 For if not, He would be inferior to ourselves, contrary 
 to the supposition on which we go. And the very 
 name imports that, oil ntf icm, He is, at all events, 
 the highest of beings. You may, indeed, if you please, 
 abandon the intellect to the lawless tyranny of im 
 agination! . . . Drunk with the maddening wine of 
 intellectual licentiousness and creative speculation, 
 you may rave eloquently of a Being of infinite power, 
 who pours forth out of his exhaustless bosom, un 
 fathomable as the abyss of space itself, all glory, all 
 living things, multitudinous and diversified beyond 
 created arithmetic, such as fill the universe. And 
 yet, by the same right of unreason and self-will, you 
 may lay it down that He has not a self-consciousness, 
 nor a choice, nor anything, in short, of that which 
 makes us, to our fellow men, objects of love and hope, 
 of dread and hatred, of joy and of misery. And you 
 may then, piling postulate on postulate into the 
 empty air, till you reach, in haze and mist, the limbo 
 of utter unreality, set up this blind, and dumb, and 
 deaf abomination, with a crown upon its head, on the 
 throne of Him who is, and was, and is to be the 
 
92 PANTHEISM; OR, 
 
 living Jehovah. . . But this is not a God, according to 
 the supposition ; and, of course, is not a living, loving, 
 avenging, awful Deity. Why in such a case, though 
 the spirit within us is clothed in perishable dust and 
 ashes, WE should be far superior, in the order of 
 intelligent being, to such a Deity, with all his immen 
 sity." 1 
 
 2. Men, in general, feel, in the most solemn and 
 affecting moments of their lives, that God is a real Person. 
 Demonstration is not necessary. Consciousness and 
 inward experience, more powerfully than any argu 
 mentation, attest it. This truthful evidence is given 
 forth at times from the bosoms of the worst and the 
 best of men. How true to nature are such parables 
 as those of the Prodigal Son, and the Pharisee and 
 the Publican. And the most life-like feature in each 
 picture, is, when the Prodigal coming to himself 
 exclaimed, " Father, I have sinned ;" and the Publican, 
 conscious of his burden of guilt, cried, u God be 
 merciful to me a sinner." The very cry for help 
 which, under an irresistible impulse, ascends from 
 the human soul when in imminent danger or stricken 
 under a sense of sin, is a testimony of conscience to 
 the personality of God. It is the witness of unso 
 phisticated nature to the truth that He is a Being 
 who can save from danger, who has displeasure to 
 be dreaded, and mercy to be sought after. The 
 mind, then, unrestrained by philosophical theories 
 or other artificial hindrances, recognizes Him in the 
 personality of the judge, the sovereign, or the saviour, 
 
 1 The Personality of God, pp. 2629. 
 
THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE PERSONALITY. 93 
 
 The consciousness of the most excellent ones of the 
 earth, gives a yet clearer evidence for the Divine 
 personal existence and attributes. Men who have 
 been renewed in the spirit of their mind, and who 
 long for closer union with the best and greatest Being 
 in the universe, never think of Him as a substance 
 " stretched uncouthly through infinite space," which 
 has only arrived at self-consciousness in their own 
 souls. But they thirst for God, for the living 
 God. They, clothed with humility, bend the knee, 
 and, with hearts uplifted to heaven, say, in filial con 
 fidence, "Abba Father." They gather up, as it were, 
 into one, all the glorious attributes by which He is 
 distinguished, and contemplate Him as Creator and 
 Lord, Father and Friend, Judge and Saviour. This 
 we regard as real evidence, uttered from amid the 
 indestructible elements of man s moral nature, for the 
 perfect personality of God. 
 
 3. The Sacred Scriptures throughout are full of the 
 Divine Personality. Every page breathes or burns 
 with it. From the opening sentence of Genesis to 
 the closing chapter of Revelation, in its unadorned 
 histories as well as in its magnificent poetry, in the 
 language alike of its threatenings and its promises, 
 the Bible moves with the living Personal God. This 
 places an impassable gulf between the religion of the 
 pantheist and that of the Christian. And the Bible 
 owes much of its telling power over men s heart s, as 
 a divine instrument, to this pervading element of per 
 sonality. Be it remembered that this is the book 
 which has done vastly more than all others to re- 
 
94 PANTHEISM; OB, 
 
 generate and elevate our race, and that, under the 
 agency of the Divine Spirit, it exerts this influence by 
 bringing the mind into contact with God, not as a 
 vague immensity, but as a glorious, awful, benignant 
 Person with whom we have to do. The sinner has 
 been arrested in his wickedness, his spirit has quailed 
 within him, and he has become a new creature, by 
 hearing the living God of Holy Scripture speak to 
 him in solemn warning and melting invitation. The 
 saint has been refreshed and armed anew by the 
 thought that the same Divine Being who clothes the 
 grass of the field, and cares for the fowls of the air, 
 loves, as a father, his own redeemed children, and sur 
 rounds them with his favor as with a shield. Yes: 
 the Spirit, by whose inspiration the Word was given, 
 beareth witness with our Spirit to the perfect person 
 ality of God. And could this be separated from the 
 Bible, and a pantheistic creed substituted in its stead, 
 it would be as if the sun had been shorn of his beams, 
 and the ocean had lost his voice. "Ye shall know," 
 said Joshua to the Israelites, " that -the living God is 
 among you." "It is a fearful thing," says Paul, "to 
 fall into the hands of the living God." And in such 
 winning words as these, of which the sacred volume 
 is full, how near does the Personality of Him whose 
 name and nature are love, come to the heart: "In 
 cline your ear, and come unto me ; hear, and your soul 
 shall live." "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the 
 ends of the earth : for I am God, and there is none 
 else." The relational conception of the Most High, 
 as our Maker Kins . Father, Saviour, Judge, guards 
 
THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE PERSONALITY. 95 
 
 us as effectually against a pantheistic view on the one 
 hand ; as the absolute conception of Him does against 
 an anthropomorphic view on the other. Both con 
 ceptions blend with each other in the Bible. No 
 book gives us such exalted ideas of the Infinite Intel 
 ligence, and none is less in harmony with the system 
 of pantheism. u It is all in the same spirit: burning, 
 powerful words ; real above everything in this world ; 
 piercing, as living words must needs do, to the divid 
 ing of the very hearts and reins. They have the im 
 pression, they are stamped with the seal of the living 
 God. The tetragrammaton is on them." 1 
 
 4. In Christ Jesus we see the absolute and the personal 
 reconciled. Pantheism and anthropomorphism, though 
 traceable to the same source, are two extremes, towards 
 one of which the mind, in the absence of revelation 
 or in the want of faith in it, has ever shown a strong 
 tendency. Men have been apt either to limit the In 
 finite, and think of Him as being such an one as 
 themselves, or to conceive of Him as an infinite sub 
 stance of which all things are but the modes and 
 manifestations. How to reconcile the personality 
 with the infinitude of the Divine nature, seems to be 
 one of those sublime mysteries pertaining to the Di 
 vine existence which unaided reason cannot solve. 
 Such knowledge is too wonderful for us ; it is high, 
 we cannot attain unto it. As principles of abstract 
 theology they may be clearly made out, but really to 
 grasp them in our religious belief as attributes of the 
 Almighty, is a great achievement of faith. The two 
 1 Professor Garbett s Discourse, p. 45. 
 
 
96 PANTHEISM. 
 
 are, however, reconciled before our view in Him who is 
 the Word made flesh, at once the Son of God and the 
 Son of Man. The creation of the world was the work 
 of an infinite Being. The everlasting God, the Lord, 
 is the Creator of the ends of the earth. And by Jesus 
 Christ were all things created, that are in heaven and 
 that are in earth. The redemption of the world de 
 manded the interposition of Him who made it. It 
 was Jehovah s prerogative to say, "Behold I create 
 new heavens and a new earth." And in Emmanuel, 
 God in our nature, God with us, we see the Redeemer 
 of man. The judgment of the world is an act of the 
 Absolute. None else is judge but God. And the 
 Son of Man, coming in his glory, occupies the judg 
 ment throne. The Divine Being, without any limita 
 tion of his absolute perfections, is thus revealed in 
 the person of Christ. Great indeed is the mystery of 
 godliness. The incarnation is a stupendous fact that 
 surpasses reason, for whatever pertains to the Divine 
 nature must be incomprehensible by the human mind. 
 But it contains in itself the solution of the mysterious 
 problem how the absolute and the personal agree in 
 One. And with all its mysteriousness, it becomes a 
 resting truth to the minds of men and angels, when 
 attempting to grasp the idea of an infinite and yet a 
 personal God. The Lion of the tribe of Juda, the 
 Root of David, has opened the book and loosed the 
 seals thereof. And happy the mind that returns from 
 its wanderings, that leaves off raving about a vague 
 immensity which it can neither love nor fear, and rests 
 in Jehovah-Jesus, God manifest in the flesh. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE DENIAL OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT, 
 OR NATURALISM. 
 
 Distinctive characteristic of Naturalism Denounces every idea of 
 Divine interposition Not peculiar to any age or country Broadly 
 manifested in some works on Physical and Moral Science : System 
 of Auguste Comte " Vestiges of the Natural History of Crea 
 tion " Humboldt s " Cosmos " Combe s " Constitution of 
 Man " The Owen School Naturalism in the department of 
 Bible Theology: Anti-miracle School of Germany Spinoza 
 Paulus Strauss Miracles considered Hume and Strauss alike 
 guilty of a petitio principii Denial of Special Inspiration of 
 Scriptures Theodore Parker Inspiration viewed as a fact 
 Mr. Morell s Position General remarks upon Naturalism as a 
 whole The idea of a self-sustaining universe based upon false anal 
 ogy Chargeable with anthropomorphism Opposed to palpable evi 
 dence of Geology Assigns no adequate cause for Christianity 
 and its effects Diametrically opposed to the religion of the Bible 
 Naturalism unnatural. 
 
 NATURALISM, or, as it is sometimes called, rationalism, 
 is distinguishable enough from atheism and pantheism. 
 The rationalist is distinguished from the atheist by 
 his theoretical belief of a Supreme Power, and he is 
 distinguished from the pantheist by his denial of an 
 ever-present and all-pervading Divine energy. The 
 pantheist says, God is at hand; the rationalist says, 
 
98 NATURALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 God is afar off. Pantheism sees the Divine Being 
 in all things, and confounds the Creator with the 
 creation. Whereas naturalism, though distinguishing 
 Him from his works, banishes Him into a distant 
 solitude. It is not essential to this system that the 
 evidences of design in proof of a creative intelligence 
 be denied, however much it may tend in that direc 
 tion, and though many of its abettors may have gone 
 that length. But its distinctive characteristic, as a 
 form of infidelity, is, that while admitting the world 
 to have been originally created by God, it, as it were, 
 extrudes him from that world, by reducing it to a 
 self-sustained mechanism, and by resolving, what are 
 generally understood by the works of Providence, into 
 a regularly successive series of necessary develop 
 ments. The seed, having the vegetative power in 
 itself, is cast by the husbandman into the soil, and 
 there, aided merely by natural agencies, it is left to 
 develop itself into the full-grown plant or tree. The 
 watch, complete in its wheels and mainspring, is 
 wound up, and continues to move, though ever so 
 far distant from the maker. The ship-builder, having 
 finished and launched the ship, leaves it entirely to 
 the care of the sailors. 1 Such are specimens of some 
 of the analogies by which men would exclude God 
 from his own world, and make the universe, if not 
 independent of his creative power, altogether inde 
 pendent of his presence and control. The falsity of 
 the analogy is obvious, and will be noticed by us 
 
 1 " Ut faber discedit a navi exstructa et relinquit earn nautis." - 
 Melancthon. 
 
OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENTIAI GOVERNMENT. 99 
 
 hereafter. At present we wish to get as full-sized a 
 view, as possible, of the system itself. 
 
 Men, whose piety is both rational and scriptural, 
 have been accustomed to consider God as continually 
 present in the world with the same power by which 
 he made it. They reckon up no less numerous 
 indications of a designing providential agency than 
 of an original creating intelligence, and feel that they 
 would be as much warranted to deny the presence 
 and power of God in creating, as to deny his presence 
 and power in sustaining and controlling. The heavens 
 and the earth, in their estimation, furnish as clear 
 and impressive tokens of the agency of the Divine 
 Preserver as of the Divine Creator. The seasons roll 
 on in beautiful harmony, but God is there present 
 as the source of that harmony. We may speak of 
 the universe as a huge machine moved by natural 
 powers or mechanical laws, but it is the finger of God 
 that touches the subordinate agencies which move the 
 whole. He acts in every place, upon all things, and 
 throughout all time. And but for his pervading in 
 fluence, the world would become an inactive mass, 
 without form and void, and darkness would again 
 cover the face of the deep. The language of Thomson, 
 according to the creed of Christian piety, is as philo 
 sophically true as it is poetically beautiful : 
 
 " But wandering oft with brute unconscious gaze, 
 Man marks not Thee, marks not the mighty hand, 
 That, ever-busy, wheels the silent spheres ; 
 Works in the secret deep ; shoots, steaming, thence 
 The fair profusion that o erspreads the spring : 
 Flings from the sun direct the flaming day ; 
 
100 NATURALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 Feeds every creature ; hurls the tempest forth ; 
 And, as oft earth this grateful change revolves. 
 With transport touches all the springs of life." 
 
 This is neither pantheism nor naturalism. It dis 
 tinguishes the great Intelligent Spirit from the ma 
 terial world which he pervades, while it acknowledges 
 his presence and energy acting upon all secondary 
 causes as the primary action of the whole. Hence the 
 ample room which such a system opens for the out 
 goings of a grateful and lofty devotion. Hence its firm 
 faith in the well-attested Divine interpositions of the 
 past, and its expectation that, if need be, similar inter 
 positions will take place in the future. 
 
 Naturalism denies all this. It denounces it as 
 the progeny of ignorance and fanaticism. It de 
 molishes it at once, just as a man on awakening, 
 demolishes the airy castles which he built during 
 sleep. If naturalism admits of a special and super 
 natural interference at all, it restricts such an interfer 
 ence to the original act of creation. The Almighty is 
 allowed to come forth, create, give life, set in motion, 
 and look on the scene, but afterwards he retires, and 
 leaves the whole to nature and nature s laws. All 
 the phenomena of matter and mind however rich and 
 magnificent, all the events of history however influen 
 tial and unprecedented, all the changes that have 
 taken place in nations and individuals however 
 thorough and beneficent, have, according to this 
 system, occurred in a merely natural way, just as the 
 engine speeds along the line of rail by the natural 
 force of steam. The poet spake with a poetic license 
 
OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT. 101 
 
 or under the hallucination of genius, when, addressing 
 the God of the seasons, he said, " The rolling year is 
 full of Thee." King David, in a dark age, sang very 
 beautifully but not truly, when he said to Jehovah, 
 " Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it : Thou 
 greatly enrichest it with the river of God, which is 
 full of water : Thou preparest them corn when Thou 
 hast so provided for it: Thou makest it soft with 
 showers: thou blessest the springing thereof. Thou 
 crownest the year with thy goodness ; and thy paths 
 drop fatness." Jesus Christ merely accommodated 
 himself to the views and circumstances of his follow 
 ers, when he said to them, u Behold the fowls of the 
 air : for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather 
 into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. 
 Miracles are impossible, just because they are un 
 natural. And what in theology is called the doctrine 
 of Divine influence, is a mystery, a thing supernatural, 
 and therefore not to be believed. The rationalist 
 traverses the wide fields of space, and makes himself 
 familiar with the laws that regulate the movements of 
 suns and stars ; or he penetrates into the bowels of 
 the earth, and reads, amid its rocky beds and their 
 wreck of animal existence, the history of a past world ; 
 but neither in the heavens above nor in the earth 
 beneath, does he recognize the presence or interposi 
 tion of God. He may admit that the Creator has left 
 the impress of his finger there from a past eternity, 
 but he sees no such finger amid the continued har 
 mony of the spheres on high, or amid the convulsions 
 and up-heavings that have taken place in the depths 
 
102 NATURALISM ; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 below. He virtually, if not openly, says, the Almighty 
 was once here present, but He has withdrawn ages 
 ago ; nature reigns, and all physical phenomena are 
 the necessary result of mechanical laws. The ration 
 alist reads history too, but he sees not God in history. 
 Its marvellous events, however unforeseen by men, 
 however much they startled and baffled the calcula 
 tion of the wise who were contemporaneous with 
 them, and however mighty and protracted have 
 been their influence in succeeding times, are drawn 
 by him into that ordinary chain of modern develop 
 ment in which he binds up all things. He looks 
 too upon vast masses of men sunk in ignorance 
 and vice, so sunk notwithstanding the play of many 
 influences upon them which rationalists deem bene 
 ficial, and he will admit any or every agency into the 
 work of their regeneration but the special agency of 
 the Former of men s bodies and the Father of men s 
 spirits. " Is it not strange," remarks John Foster, 1 
 "to observe, how carefully some philosophers, who 
 deplore the condition of the world, and profess to 
 expect its melioration, keep their speculations clear 
 of every idea of divine interposition ? No builders of 
 houses or cities were ever more attentive to guard 
 against the access of flood or fire. If He should but 
 touch their prospective theories of improvement, they 
 would renounce them as defiled and fit only for 
 vulgar fanaticism. Their system of Providence would 
 be profaned by the intrusion of the Almighty. Man 
 is to effect an apotheosis for himself, by the hopeful 
 
 1 Foster s Essays, p. 177, 15th edition. 
 
OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT. 103 
 
 process of exhausting his corruption. And should it 
 take a long series of ages, vices, and woes, to reach 
 this glorious attainment, patience may sustain itself 
 the while by the thought that when it is realized, it 
 will be burdened with no duty of religious gratitude. 
 No time is too long to wait, no cost too deep to incur, 
 for the triumph of proving that we have no need of a 
 Divinity, regarded as possessing that one attribute 
 which makes it delightful to acknowledge such a 
 Being, the benevolence that would make us happy. 
 But even if this noble self-sufficiency cannot be real 
 ized, the independence of spirit which has labored 
 for it must not sink at last into piety. This afflicted 
 world, this poor terrestrial citadel of man, is to lock 
 its gates, and keep its miseries, rather than admit 
 the degradation of receiving help from God." 
 
 This form of infidelity is no novelty. It is not 
 peculiar to any age or country. And while it may be 
 said of other forms, that they slay their thousands, 
 it must be said of this that it slays its ten thousands. 
 This was the doctrine of the ancient atomists and 
 Epicureans. They were not, theoretically considered, 
 atheists. They believed in the existence of the gods, 
 but denied that they interfered with either the phy 
 sical or moral concerns of the universe. Plato held 
 the doctrine in abhorrence, and made it one of the 
 three kinds of blasphemy punishable in his republic 
 with death. Justin Martyr, speaking of the philoso 
 phers in his time, tells us they taught it to be "useless 
 to pray to God, since all things recur according to 
 the unchangeable laws of an endless progression." 
 
104 NATURALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 Some of the English deistical writers of the last 
 century, held substantially the same infidel opinion. 
 Lord Herbert, "the first and purest of our English 
 free-thinkers," who lived in the century preceding, 
 includes the doctrine of Divine providence and the 
 duty of worshipping God, in his five articles of reli 
 gion. But others of the free-thinking school advanced 
 ahead of him, and either denied that the Supreme 
 Being interposed in the affairs of men, or held such 
 a vague idea of a general providence as virtually 
 excluded him from the government of the world. 
 Chubb seems to have maintained that God kept 
 aloof from human affairs, and that whatever happened 
 to men depended entirely upon secondary causes. 
 Bolingbroke s idea of a providence that regarded 
 things collectively but not individually, was such as 
 left no room for the special interposition of God either 
 in the physical or moral world. Hume, in his essays 
 on Miracles and Providence, sapped the very founda 
 tions of natural and revealed religion, and would pre 
 clude us from believing that the same power which 
 created the world, can continue to sustain it. The 
 French Encyclopedists, who flourished during the 
 latter half of the same century, built the whole of 
 their metaphysical philosophy upon the basis of ma 
 terialism, a system that began by removing God to a 
 distance from the world, and explaining everything 
 by secondary causes, and that ended in excluding him 
 altogether from their conceptions, and elevating nature 
 to his throne. Men of science and literature were 
 then resolutely bent on disregarding everything that 
 
OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT. 105 
 
 seemed to admit the interference or idea of God, and 
 on shutting themselves up in a system of blind fatalism 
 and stern materialism. The bold scepticism and 
 gross impiety of such schools have, in a great meas- 
 ure,^passed away, yet much of. the spirit that animated 
 them is manifested in our own times. From the 
 elaborate work on science down to the cheap journal 
 that circulates among the masses of the people, there 
 is not a little, both in our own country and on the 
 Continent, that is avowedly opposed to the idea of 
 Providence, crying out upon it as a bugbear in men s 
 path, or seeking to explode the doctrine by maintaining 
 a studied silence respecting it, when it might most 
 naturally have been introduced. 
 
 Such, in an undisguised form, is the philosophical 
 system of M. Auguste Comte, w^ho has been styled 
 the Bacon of the nineteenth century. 1 He has given 
 to the world a large work of profound science, 2 built 
 entirely on palpable facts, which are said to have 
 occurred in a chain of necessary development, and to 
 need no dogma of a Divine Providence to account for 
 them. It interdicts every investigation beyond phe 
 nomena and the laws of phenomena, as without the 
 reach of the human mind. And not only so, but 
 every philosophical theory admitting the intervention 
 of the First Cause, is denounced as bearing a drag 
 that obstructs the march of science and human im 
 provement. This is very broadly laid down in the 
 law of mental evolution or human progress, which 
 
 1 Lewes Biographical History of Philosophy, vol. iv., p. 255. 
 8 Cours de Philosophic Positive, 6 vols. 
 
106 NATURALISM; OR THE DENIAL 
 
 he applies to every department of knowledge. Ac 
 cording to him, the intelligence of mankind passes 
 successively through three distinct stages: the super 
 natural, the metaphysical, and the positive. The 
 first is the lowest or infant state of human society. 
 The last is the period of progressive development, in 
 which the mind advances onward to perfection. It 
 belongs to the former, to attribute all the operations 
 of nature to a Divine cause, and to admit the inter 
 vention of supernatural power to account for every 
 unusual phenomena. It belongs to the metaphysical 
 stage, to ignore all such supernatural interpositions, 
 to bring in the idea of abstract forces, and to personify 
 them under the one agency of Nature. While it 
 belongs to the last, the age of advanced science, to 
 exclude all search into causes, and to apply itself to 
 palpable phenomena, their relations and laws, so as 
 to classify and generalize them. David, in a distant 
 age, looked upward, and said, "The heavens declare 
 the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his 
 handiwork. Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy 
 name in all the earth ! who hast set thy glory above 
 the heavens." Newton declared that " every true 
 step made in inductive philosophy, is to be highly 
 valued, because it brings us nearer to the First Cause." 
 u A God without dominion, providence, and final 
 causes," said the author of the " Principia," u is nothing 
 but fate and nature." And again, remarks that 
 greatest name in science, " it no doubt belongs to 
 natural philosophy, to inquire concerning God from 
 the observation of phenomena." But according to 
 
OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT. 107 
 
 the great French philosopher, David lived in an in 
 fantile state of society, when men sought the super 
 natural in everything ; and Newton was fettered in 
 his glorious career of discovery by the theological 
 chimera of a Providence and a God. These heavens 
 and this earth, the bare contemplation of which has 
 filled with holy rapture many of the greatest minds of 
 our race, and the investigation into the phenomena 
 of which, has drawn a Newton and others nearer to 
 God, are, in the view of Augustus Comte, and his 
 disciples, but a magnificent piece of mechanism, in 
 the harmonious movements of which, nothing higher 
 is to be recognized than mechanical laws. It is said 
 of the ancient Epicureans that they believed in the 
 existence of the gods, but neither believed them to 
 have created nor to govern the universe. And if the 
 brilliant French philosopher admits a God at all, he 
 excludes him from creation and dominion, by resolving 
 this goodly universe, both in its formation and govern 
 ment, into the spontaneous operation of purely phy 
 sical principles. The system which is impressed by 
 his great name, if not absolutely atheistical, looks 
 certainly in that direction, and is, to say the least, as 
 massive a structure of naturalism as ever scientific 
 genius exhibited to the world. 
 
 It might have been expected that such a work of 
 profound science, characterized as it is by high intel 
 lectual powers, would be greatly prized by the scien 
 tific men of our own country. But assuredly it is to 
 be regretted that the author of so useful a book as 
 "A Biographical History of Philosophy," should be 
 
108 NATURALISM; OR THE DENIAL 
 
 found identifying himself with so much of its most 
 objectionable principles. Speaking of Comte s system 
 as the key to decipher past History, Mr. Lewes says. 1 
 "when we see so great a writer as Niebuhr unable to 
 give any other explanation of the stability and pro 
 gress of the Roman people, than that of destiny 
 unable to read any signs but those of the finger 
 of God it is high time to bestir ourselves to rid the 
 world of this supernatural method of explaining facts." 
 It is striking and gratifying that about the same time 
 that this little work, in a cheap form, is endeavoring 
 to propagate such principles among us, one of the 
 most graphic historical works 2 that was ever given to 
 the world, and embracing one of the most remarkable 
 portions of the world s history, should follow as its 
 guiding star, the sentiment u God in history." And, 
 to say the least, it is surely more philosophical to 
 believe that the Supreme Being operates through the 
 medium of natural laws, than that these laws are 
 independent of the Law-makers, that the world with 
 all its grand and beautiful phenomena, and that his 
 tory with all its marvels, bear traces of the directing 
 finger of God, than that all should be wrapped up in 
 an iron chain of necessary development. u The finger 
 of Providence was on me," said the Duke of Welling 
 ton, in one of the brief notes that he despatched from 
 the field of Waterloo ; and this sentiment, expressed at 
 the close of the dreadful fight that decided the fate of 
 nations, and under a solemnizing impression of the 
 
 1 Vol. iv., p. 258. 2 D Aubigne s History of the Reformation. 
 
OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT. 109 
 
 many brave that had fallen, belongs, we are told, to 
 the lowest stage of human intelligence ! "I had 
 rather," said Bacon and the remark is as applicable 
 to the denial of Divine Providence as to the denial of 
 the Divine Existence " I had rather believe all the 
 fables in the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Al 
 coran, than that this universal frame is without a 
 mind." 1 
 
 A work producing considerable excitement, call 
 ing forth a storm of opposition from the man of 
 science and the divine, and which excludes God as 
 effectually from the concerns of the universe, as that 
 to which we have just adverted, has, but a few years 
 ago, proceeded from the press of our own country. 
 We allude to the " Yestiges of the Natural History of 
 Creation." The naturalism of this anonymous publi 
 cation, notwithstanding the term Providence is occa 
 sionally on the author s lips, appears without disguise. 
 The theory is one of those extreme systems of devel- 
 
 1 M. Comte is not inactive in carrying out his principles. He 
 knows that man will worship. But he is determined, as much as 
 in him lies, to lead France and the other European nations from the 
 worship of the supernatural to an idolatry of science or a systematic 
 worship of humanity. With a view of utterly exploding the theo 
 logical element, he has recently constructed a " Positive Calendar " 
 of Infidel Worship, on the model of the festivals and saints days of 
 the Romish Church. It is nothing more than a public periodic com 
 memoration of great men ; and while Moses and Paul have a place 
 in it with such heroes as Confucius and Mahomet and Voltaire, the 
 divine man, the, model man, Jesus Christ, is ignored. These be thy 
 gods, France, and this worship of "Positive Philosophy" is first 
 to regenerate thee and then the world ! ! See North British Review, 
 May, 1851. 
 
110 NATURALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 opment, according to which, the world with all its 
 varied phenomena, moves on in its stern necessary 
 course, guided only by physical laws, to the exclusion 
 of the Divine agency. It assumes the nebular hypo 
 thesis an hypothesis which, resting originally on 
 insufficient data, is falling more and more into dis 
 credit as science steadily advances and from the 
 nebulous matter of space, which u must have been 
 a universal fire-mist," it evolves, on the principle of 
 pure physical law, the whole system of worlds. This 
 universal fire-mist being granted, we have, as it were, 
 the original germ of the material universe. The germ 
 may have been created by God, and have received 
 from him its first impulse, but out of itself, and solely 
 through the operation of physical laws, have been 
 gradually unfolded those forms of magnificence and 
 beauty which we see in the heavens and the earth. 
 The theory may admit of a Divine interposition in 
 calling the original constituents of the universe into 
 existence, but it dispenses with or extrudes all Divine 
 interposition in giving to matter its wondrous and 
 richly-varied collocations. It may allow God in the 
 beginning to utter His fiat, summon matter forth in 
 its shapeless form from the void, and impress on it 
 certain laws, but it allows not the Creator henceforth 
 to interfere with his creation or even to touch any of 
 its springs of motion, so that, after the first creating 
 act, he might as well have ceased to be. The uni 
 verse, according to this theory of naturalism, has 
 moved on in its glorious path of evolution, from the 
 hour of the creation of the nebulas, without the inter- 
 
OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT. Ill 
 
 position of God ; his existence and agency being 
 deemed necessary to give it beginning, but not neces 
 sary to fashion, dispose, continue, and control it. 
 To the questions, whence this universal fire-mist, this 
 nebulous matter, diffused throughout space, and the 
 natural laws with which it has been endowed, you 
 may get the answer, " from God." But you get no 
 such answer when you ask who fashioned matter into 
 such grand and beautiful forms, and disposed them so 
 orderly and beneficially. The Most High seems now 
 to have abdicated, and to have enthroned the physical 
 laws, and left them to mould and govern the worlds. 
 The Bible, in its sublime simplicity, tells us that 
 " God made two great lights ; the greater light to rule 
 the day, and the lesser light to rule the night : he 
 made the stars also." But the author of the " Yestiges " 
 declares, u the masses of space are formed by law ; 
 law makes them in due time theatres of existence for 
 plants and animals." l " It is impossible," he says, 2 
 u to suppose a distinct exertion or fiat of Almighty 
 Power for the formation of the earth, wrought up as 
 it is in a complex dynamical connection, first with 
 Yenus on the one hand, and Mars on the other, and 
 secondly with all the other members of the system." 
 And not only so, but he endeavors to interpret the 
 first chapter of Genesis so as to discountenance 
 " special efforts of the deity." The sublime expression, 
 u Let light be," indicates no special interposition of the 
 great Creator, but merely a process of law. And such 
 
 1 Vestiges, p. 372, 5th edition. 2 Ibid., p. 204. 
 
112 NATURALISM ; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 statements as God made the firmament, God made 
 the beast of the earth, &c., are said u to occur subor 
 dinate! y.... not necessarily to convey a different idea of 
 the mode of creation, and indeed only appear as alter 
 native phrases in the usual duplicative style of the 
 east." This is naturalism without a cloak. 
 
 We dwell not here on the strong presumptive proof 
 which advancing science is bringing against the 
 nebular hypothesis. The fact that so many of the 
 supposed nebulas have been resolved into starry sys 
 tems, makes it highly probable that all are resolvable. 
 Lord Rosse s powerful telescope has revealed suns and 
 systems where nothing but dim nebulas were supposed 
 to exist. And could another instrument of consider 
 ably greater magnifying power be constructed, the 
 hypothesis, already so much damaged, might be com 
 pletely destroyed. u As thrown out by Laplace," 
 remarks Professor Whewell, 2 " it was a mere conjec 
 ture. It is a mere conjecture still. Hitherto it has 
 lost ground in the progress of astronomical researches." 
 But let us suppose it to be true, " that the primary 
 condition of matter was that of a diffused mass, in 
 which the component molecules were probably kept 
 apart through the efficacy of heat ; that portions of 
 this agglomerated into suns, which threw off planets; 
 that these planets were at first very much diffused, 
 but gradually contracted by cooling to their present 
 dimensions:" 3 still, on this supposition, we demand 
 
 1 Vestiges, p. 167, 5th edition. 
 
 * Indications of the Creator, p. 27, 2d edition. 
 
 1 Vestiges, p. 43, 5th edition. 
 
OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT. 113 
 
 the presence and agency of God. The orderly and 
 varied dispositions of matter bespeak a Divine inter 
 position, as well as the origination of matter itself. 
 In view of the collocations and motions of the mate 
 rial system, we no less naturally infer a Divine Provi 
 dence, than in thinking of the existence of matter 
 we infer the agency of the creating God. The a pos 
 teriori argument has as firm a footing amid these col 
 locations, as it has on the existence of matter and its 
 laws. Yea, more ; it is in these collocations that we 
 see the most legible evidences of design, and it is not 
 so much from the bare existence of matter, as from 
 its dispositions and motions that we rise up to the 
 Great Designer. The nebulous mass diffused through 
 out space, supposing such to have existed, came not 
 there without the fiat of the Almighty ; and suns and 
 planets were not formed out of that mass without the 
 intervention of Infinite Wisdom. The Book of Crea 
 tion, beautifully written and well arranged, points up 
 to the Divine Hand that garnished and disposed it, 
 no less than it proclaims the Divine Power that called 
 from nothingness the materials of which it is com 
 posed. The author of the u Vestiges " tells us that law 
 formed the masses of space into goodly theatres of 
 existence for plants and animals. But what are na 
 tural laws without a Divine intelligence working in 
 them and by them ? Not realities but merely abstrac 
 tions. The existence of law not more truly presup 
 poses the Lawgiver, than does the harmonious and 
 uniform operation of law indicate the presence and 
 control of the Governor. It is quite an illusion to 
 
114 NATURALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 speak of the laws of nature as if they were things 
 distinct from the natural phenomena, and to invest 
 them, like independent deities, with fashioning and 
 regulating powers, "It is a perversion of language," 
 says Dr. Paley, 1 " to assign any law, as the efficient 
 operative cause of anything. A law presupposes an 
 agent ; for it is only the mode, according to which an 
 agent proceeds : it implies a power, for it is the order 
 according to which that power acts. Without this 
 agent, without this power, which are both distinct 
 from itself, the law does nothing ; is nothing." 
 " Opus," remarks Lord Bacon, " quod operatur Deus 
 a primordio usque ad finem." 
 
 But this theory of progressive development explains 
 how the world was peopled, as well as how it was 
 formed. It includes within its sweep both the ani 
 mate and inanimate phenomena of the universe. It 
 would not only evolve from a universal fire-mist, and 
 by the exclusive operation of physical law, all the 
 forms which matter has assumed, but it would trace 
 the whole organized system, in a regularly advancing 
 series, up from an infusorial point to the noblest 
 being, man. " No organism is, nor ever has one been 
 created," is the language of a chief philosopher of 
 this school, 2 " which is not microscopic. Whatever 
 is larger has not been created but developed. Man 
 has not been created but developed." " We call in 
 question," says the author of the " Vestiges," 3 " not 
 
 1 Natural Theology, vol. ii., pp. 9, 10. (Knight s edition.) 
 9 Professor Oken. 3 Vestiges, p. 161, 5th edition. 
 
OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT. 115 
 
 merely the simple idea of the unenlightened mind, 
 that God fashioned all in the manner of an artificer 
 seeking by special means to produce special effects, 
 but even the doctrine in vogue amongst men of sci 
 ence, that c creative fiats were required for each new 
 class, order, family, and species of organic beings, as 
 they successively took their places upon the globe, or 
 as the globe became gradually fitted for their recep 
 tion." According to the Bible, " God said, Let us 
 make man in our image, after our likeness. So God 
 created man in his own image, in the image of God 
 created he him." But, according to this theory, God 
 created only microscopic monads or embryotic points, 
 and from these, by a process of natural development 
 extending through cycles of ages, arose all the ani 
 mated tribes. Creatures of "the simplest and most 
 primitive type gave birth to a type superior to it in 
 compositeness of organization and endowment of 
 faculties ; this again produced the next higher, and so 
 on to the highest; the advance being, in all cases, 
 small, but not of any determinate extent." 1 Man was 
 not then the special workmanship of the living God. 
 Moses is to be understood as speaking of ordinary 
 law when he says, " The Lord God formed man of the 
 dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the 
 breath of life." David s devotion is to be set down 
 as enthusiasm, when, addressing God, he exclaimed, 
 u Thou madest man a little lower than the angels." 
 We must go back to the infusorial point, " whose seed 
 
 1 Vestiges, p. 232, 5th edition. 
 
116 NATURALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 was in itself," for the germ of human existence, and 
 then, in retracing our steps, notice how throughout 
 the whole marvellous process there is no mixture of the, 
 supernatural. The Creator is thus bidden to retire to 
 the utmost bound of creation. No room is left for 
 Him to interpose and create new species. He gave the 
 first impulse at a dateless period in the past, and all 
 subsequent formations and dispositions, however won 
 drous and varied, are the necessary results of fixed 
 laws. This is the order of God s universe ! Yea : 
 u the system ought to be described as a System of 
 Order in which life grows out of dead matter, the higher 
 out of the lower animals, and man out of brutes. m 
 
 The theory is no less opposed to the well-ascer 
 tained facts of science than it is to the scriptural re 
 cord. The most illustrious names in the scientific 
 world have condemned it. Geology, as it unfolds leaf 
 after leaf of the u great stone book," gives the lie to 
 it. The maxim is indeed true : Natura non operatur 
 per saltum, understanding that " Nature is but a name 
 for an effect, whose cause is God." 2 But it is a wild 
 fancy, a reckless mode of philosophizing, to conclude 
 that since there are no gaps in nature, there have 
 been no interpositions of the Creator from the period 
 when He formed the first and smallest organism. 
 The stars in their harmonious courses have been called 
 to fight against God, and now the orderly gradations 
 of the vegetable and animal kingdoms are summoned 
 to give evidence against his agency and dominion. 
 
 1 Whewell s Indications, p. 12, 2d edition. 
 8 Cowper. 
 
OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT. 117 
 
 But the earth beneath and the heavens above refuse to 
 be perjured. And, as Dr. Chalmers has remarked, 
 "these two doctrines, the all but universal faith of 
 naturalists, that there is no spontaneous generation 
 and no transmutation of the species, are two denials, 
 in fact, of nature s sufficiency for the origination of 
 our races, and shut us up unto the faith of nature s 
 God." Had the development theory been founded in 
 truth, it is obvious that the earlier fossils would have 
 been very small in size and very low in organization. 
 But such is not the case. We meet with giants where 
 we should have found dwarfs, and creatures of a high 
 organization instead of creatures of a low one. In 
 the last, and one of the ablest replies to this fanciful 
 hypothesis, Mr. Hugh Miller shows that the oldest 
 ganoids yet known are, both as to size and organization, 
 in direct opposition to it. u Up to a certain point 
 in the geologic scale we find that the ganoids are not 
 and when they at length make their appearance upon 
 the stage, they enter large in their stature and high 
 in their organization." 1 The Fossil Flora also con 
 tradicts it. At the base of the Old Red Sandstone 
 where, according to the development theory, u nothing 
 higher than a lichen or a moss could have been ex 
 pected, the ship-carpenter might have hopefully taken 
 axe in hand to explore the woods for some such stately 
 pine as the one described by Milton." 2 The stubborn 
 facts of science thus conflict with this baseless theory, 
 a theory adopted before ever geology had a place 
 among the inductive sciences, and which no eminent 
 
 1 Footprints, p. 105. a Ibid., p. 120. 
 
118 NATURALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 geologist is found to advocate. We are warranted, then, 
 with the author of the u Footprints," to say : " Had 
 an intelligent being, ignorant of what was going on 
 upon earth during the week of creation, visited Eden 
 on the morning of the sixth day, he would have found 
 in it many of the inferior animals, but no trace of 
 man. Had he returned again in the evening, he 
 would have seen, installed in the office of keepers of 
 the garden, and ruling with no tyrant sway as the 
 humble monarchs of its brute inhabitants, two mature 
 human creatures, perfect in their organization, and 
 arrived at the full stature of their race. The entire 
 evidence regarding them, in the absence of all such 
 information as that imparted to Adam by Milton s 
 angel, would amount simply to this, that in the morn 
 ing man was not, and that in the evening he was. 
 There, of course, could not exist, in the circumstances, 
 a single appearance to sanction the belief that the 
 two human creatures whom he saw walking together 
 among the trees at sunset, had been i developed from 
 infusorial points, not created mature. The evidence 
 would, on the contrary, lie all the other way." 1 Such 
 is at once the evidence of Scripture and geology. 
 The " vestiges of the natural history of the creation" 
 become the u footprints of the Creator," and vain be 
 comes the attempt to explain the world s genealogies 
 so as to banish from it the Omnipotent Father and 
 Sovereign Lord. 
 
 In the domain of physical research, the " Cosmos" 
 of Humboldt, a work of considerable value and popu- 
 1 Footprints, p. 104. 
 
OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT. 119 
 
 larity, bears on it the stamp of naturalism. Unlike 
 the book on which we have been animadverting, it 
 propounds no theory to account for the formation 
 and peopling of the world, though the author favors 
 the nebular hypothesis, but gives, what it professes 
 to do, a physical description of the universe. It is 
 more guilty by its omissions than by its assertions, 
 though in some of these the naturalism is obvious 
 enough. It is the most striking illustration, with 
 which we are acquainted, of a work setting aside the 
 doctrine of Divine Providence by maintaining a studied 
 silence respecting it, when the author, if a believer 
 in the doctrine, would have been naturally led by his 
 subject to advert to it. It is just as if one were to 
 give a glowing description of the pictures of Raphael 
 without alluding to the genius of the artist ; just as 
 if Addison and Macaulay, in their dissertations on the 
 grand poem of " Paradise Lost," had never mentioned 
 Milton, "that mighty orb of song," or, as has been re 
 marked, 1 just as if a critic were to give a correct and 
 eloquent account of the contents of u Cosmos" itself, 
 without referring to its illustrious author, and the 
 mental manifestation which he has made of himself 
 in its pages. Baron Humbolt, in this work, makes 
 no reference to a living omnipresent God. He sinks 
 the spiritual in the material. He can, with much 
 picturesque animation of style, exhibit the phenomenal 
 harmony of the heavens, and describe his path from 
 the remotest nebula, to the minutest organism, and 
 
 1 Dr. Harris Man Primeval, p. 313. 
 
120 NATURALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 ignore Him who is the source of all that life and 
 order. We perused a considerable portion of this 
 interesting book while wandering on a lovely day of 
 June over a beautiful tract of country, and were struck 
 with the contrast between its repeated references to 
 the active forces of nature and no reference to nature s 
 God, and the glorious volume of creation that lay open 
 before us, every page and line of which were radiant 
 with the Creator s glory, and spoke of His power, 
 wisdom, and goodness. We lifted the eye from the 
 page of the philosophic traveller to the grand scenery 
 above and around us, and involuntarily asked, is there, 
 then, amid this magnificent spectacle of earth and 
 sky no other power pervading and animating the 
 whole but physical forces ? We wondered to what 
 specific cause it was to be attributed, that so keen 
 and enthusiastic an observer of natural phenomena, 
 could, " in the late evening of an active life," present 
 a sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe, 
 " whose undefined image had floated before his mind 
 for almost half a century," in which no reference is 
 made to the Eternal One, but in the outset of which, 
 as if to prevent disappointment, he uses such language 
 as the following : "In reflecting upon physical phe 
 nomena and events, and tracing their causes by the 
 process of reason, we become more and more con 
 vinced of the truth of the ancient doctrine, that the 
 forces inherent in matter, and those which govern 
 the moral world, exercise their action under the con 
 trol of primordial necessity, and in accordance with 
 movements occurring periodically after longer or 
 
OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT. 121 
 
 shorter intervals." 1 The illustrious German, after 
 having travelled over a considerable portion of the 
 earth s surface, and made himself acquainted with all 
 that is at present known of the physical phenomena 
 of the universe, thus acknowledges, in the midst of 
 his fourscore years, no higher agency than inherent 
 material forces, acting under the government of a pri 
 mordial necessity. Divine Providence is thus inter 
 dicted, and this goodly universe moves onward, un 
 folding its forms of life and grandeur, without the 
 hand of Him that made it. This may consist with 
 Hegelianism, or with some other form of the trans 
 cendental philosophy, but it does not consist with the 
 deeper philosophy of man s inward nature. It might 
 do if we had heads and no hearts. The intellect may 
 rest in it for awhile, but the soul with its capacities 
 and cravings cannot repose there for a moment. Our 
 very heart-strings must be torn out, the emotional 
 part of our nature must be over-borne, and all our 
 upward aspirations repressed, before we can be satis 
 fied with this thing of fate, this primordial necessity, 
 in the room of the living and ever-ruling God. Even 
 in an aesthetic view this method of philosophizing 
 stands condemned. Robert Hall has truly said : 
 u The exclusion of a Supreme Being and of a superin 
 tending Providence, tends directly to the destruction 
 of moral taste. It robs the universe of all finished and 
 consummate excellence, even in idea." 
 
 Combe s " Constitution of Man," a work of vastly 
 wider circulation, and more adapted to the masses of 
 1 Cosmos, vol. i., p. 30. 
 
122 NATURALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 the people, than any to which we have referred, is, 
 notwithstanding much that is valuable in the book, 
 notorious for its naturalism. Mr. Combe and his 
 school are not satisfied with discarding ignorant and 
 superstitious notions about Providence. But their 
 philosophy explodes the very idea of a Providence who 
 controls and orders all things, and without whose 
 permission not even a sparrow can fall to the ground. 
 We meet, in such writers, with much that is worthy 
 of attention respecting the influence of natural laws 
 both on physical health and mental and moral train 
 ing, and the evil consequences of disregarding or vio 
 lating these laws. And we are quite willing to admit 
 with the author of the " Vestiges," that to Mr. Combe s 
 Essay, among other publications, u may be ascribed 
 no small share of that public movement towards im 
 proved sanitory regulations which is one of the most 
 cheering features of our age." 1 But the good in this 
 respect is more than counterbalanced by the evil of 
 erecting the natural laws into a sort of independent 
 control, and holding out this principle as the true key 
 to the government of the world.* It is a good service 
 to rescue the natural laws from the hands of ignorance 
 and superstition, and to set forth their operations in 
 a clear light. Mr. Combe has, in some measure, 
 done this. But evil is done when these laws are 
 taken, as it were, out of the hand of the superintending 
 Lawgiver, when either a studied silence about God 
 is working in and by them is preserved, or intimations 
 
 1 Vestiges, p. 397, 5th edition. 
 
 2 Constitution of Man, p. G, People s edition, (Gth.) 
 
OF THE .DIVINE PROVIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT. 123 
 
 given thaf they are all in all, and that God does not 
 interfere with their operations. And Mr. Combe and 
 his school have done this. 
 
 It is the extreme of superstition or fanaticism, to 
 repose implicit faith in Divine Providence while neg 
 lecting or going counter to the clearly- defined laws of 
 the human constitution, or those which regulate the 
 physical and moral worlds. The type of such fanati 
 cism is to be seen in the man who expects, as it were, 
 bread to drop from the clouds into his mouth, or treas 
 ures to fall into his pockets from the same source, while 
 doggedly refusing to work. But it is rushing to a 
 godless extreme, the extreme of naturalism, to rest in 
 mere secondary agencies without rising upward to 
 Him who touches all the springs of action, or to ig 
 nore his presence in and superintendence over the 
 world. It is confessedly mysterious how human in 
 strumentality and Divine agency blend in bringing 
 about events. But the mystery of things is not a 
 whit lessened in cutting the link that connects the 
 two together, in virtually saying, let us loose our hold 
 of the heavens above, and attach ourselves exclusively 
 to the earth and the things therein. Is the world s 
 history, or is individual history, less mysterious, by 
 shutting out from the sphere of human things the 
 Divine Providence, and leaving room for nothing but 
 the operation of natural laws ? Or rather is not all 
 history, by such an exclusion, made much more 
 mysterious than ever? In the one case, we have the 
 human agency moving freely under the moral control 
 of the Divine, we have in full play the elements of 
 
124 NATURALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 human action and piety, and yet mysterious "relations. 
 In the other case, we have only the human agent and 
 the physical and moral laws, we have excluded the 
 hand of God and taken away the elements of piety, 
 and still the relations are mysterious. The choice 
 then lies between a mysterious world in which God 
 is ever present and ever felt, and a mysterious world 
 that moves onward in its glorious evolutions without 
 his continued agency. He is the better philosopher 
 and the happier man who prefers the former, and holds 
 a key to things inscrutable which can never be solved 
 by the man who chooses the latter. 
 
 Mr. Combe sets up for a reformer, the advocate of 
 a philosophy which would turn the pulpits of our 
 churches and the chairs of our schools upside down. 1 
 Spiritual religion must be supplanted " by teaching 
 mankind the philosophy of their own nature and of 
 the world in which they live." Human depravity is 
 a doctrine which he cannot away with, and it is set 
 down to "an age when there was no sound philosophy, 
 and almost no knowledge of physical science." 2 That 
 Christianity is u a system of spiritual influences, of 
 internal operations on the soul," is the representation 
 " of men who knew extremely little of the science of 
 either external nature or the human mind." 3 Prayer 
 has no power with God, but is merely reflex in its 
 influence, affecting only the mind of the petitioner. 4 
 And death is not, 5 as Moses and Paul have written, 
 
 1 Constitution of Man, pp. 99, 100. 
 4 Ibid., p. 95. 6 Ibid., p. 58. 
 
 Ibid., p. 4. 9 Ibid., p. 92. 
 
OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT. 125 
 
 and Milton sung, the penal effect of man s first dis 
 obedience. Hence the necessity, as he asserts, of the 
 religious instructors of mankind being taught over 
 again, and of " a new direction " being given to their 
 pursuits. He means modestly to insinuate, that 
 were it possible to summon such men as Butler and 
 Edwards, Howe and Charnock, Hall and Chalmers, 
 " men who knew extremely little of the science of 
 either external nature or the human mind," back 
 again to this world, they would have to learn, in his 
 own school, the philosophy of human nature and 
 material things, in order to prove, in this age, effective 
 instructors of mankind! Not to dwell, however, on 
 the inconsistency of such statements with facts, we 
 readily grant that there is much in them consistent 
 with naturalism or the denial of Divine Providence. 
 It is with such a denial that we have now to do. If, 
 as Mr. Combe asserts, 1 " supernatural agency has 
 long since ceased to interfere with human affairs," 
 then it were time that spiritual Christianity should 
 give place to a philosophy of nature, and that the 
 worshippers of God were asking what profit should 
 we have if we pray to Him ? 2 But if, as seems to be 
 admitted, such an agency once interposed in the con 
 cerns of the world, why may not that agency be 
 there still, operating through the medium of those 
 
 1 Constitution of Man, p. 99. 
 
 a Cicero, speaking of the philosophers of this school not the 
 "magni atque nobiles," asks: "quorum si vera sententia est, quaa 
 potest esse pietas ? quae sanctitis ? quae religio ?" De Nat. Deorum, 
 lib. i. 
 
126 NATURALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 natural laws which the school of Combe would exalt 
 into a sort of independent dominion ? 
 
 There is a double illusion into which writers of 
 this class fall when speaking of natural phenomena. 
 In the first place they represent the laws of nature, 
 not, as they really are, modes of the Divine procedure, 
 but as if they were real and independent existences. 
 And then they suppose that because things happen 
 acdording to fixed laws, the Divine agency cannot be 
 in them. This, viewed merely as a philosophy, not 
 to speak of its utter repugnance to Scripture, is ex 
 tremely superficial. Men, by knowing, and adapting 
 themselves to, fixed laws, can often work out their 
 own will. But this does not warrant the conclusion 
 that the Divine Lawgiver cannot or does not, in such 
 cases, make them subservient to the accomplishment 
 of his higher will. An army, at the will of a monarch, 
 bent on enlarged dominion, is marched into a foreign 
 state ; or a voyage of discovery is made for mere com 
 mercial ends. The designs of men in both instances 
 are served. But the accomplishment of a much 
 higher design, to which these inferior ones are ren 
 dered tributary, follows. The gospel of peace enters 
 into the respective territories, civilization comes in 
 its train, and by the truth multitudes are made free. 
 God s will was thus paramount ; and, under his moral 
 control, the human will, acting by the fixed laws, 
 was made the pliant minister of the Divine. Take 
 one of Combe s own examples. In the reign of 
 Charles the Second, London was, in a great measure, 
 depopulated by the plague. " Most people of that 
 
OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT. 127 
 
 age," says he, 1 u attributed the scourge to the inscru 
 table decrees of Providence, and some to the magni 
 tude of the nation s moral iniquities." But, according 
 to his views, u there was nothing inscrutable in its 
 causes or objects. These appear to have had no 
 direct reference to the moral condition of the people ;" 
 and the calamity " must have arisen from infringe 
 ment of the organic laws, and have been intended to 
 enforce stricter obedience to them in future." Now, 
 we ask, can disease or suffering not be an infringement 
 of organic laws, and also a dispensation of Providence ? 
 Mr. Combe assumes that it cannot ; and because an 
 individual or a community, neglectful of sanitary 
 conditions, falls a victim to plague, we are to believe 
 that the natural violation leaves no room for the 
 Divine operation. This, however, is nothing less than 
 an assumption, an assumption too, which fails to 
 account for much of the afflictive both in the history 
 of individuals and communities. The human or sec 
 ondary agencies do not exclude the Divine or first 
 agency, the natural laws by no means supersede the 
 presence and interposition of the Lawgiver. Mr. 
 Morell, speaking of these secondary agencies, justly 
 remarks : " They are all under the moral control of 
 Deity from first to last, so that the penalty, which 
 seems at first to be simply the result of breaking a 
 natural law, is really an effect of that providential 
 power which governs the world." And what he says 
 of the world s history, may be said of the history of 
 many a community and individual : " To the man 
 1 Combe s Constitution of Man, p. 36. 
 
128 NATURALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 who looks unbelievingly upon Divine Providence, the 
 world s history is a problem that can never be solved." 1 
 Combe s view of prayer, bolstered-up though it be 
 by such names as Lord Kames, Dr. Hugh Blair, and 
 Professor Leechman, 2 men of no high authority, verily, 
 in such matters, stands condemned also as most un 
 natural, not to say most unscriptural. It is, indeed, 
 quite of a piece with his philosophy, but it consists 
 not with the deeper philosophy of the heart and the 
 Bible. Men have never prayed under the persuasion 
 that the sole efficacy of prayer is reflex, that it has an 
 influence only upon the mind of the worshipper. The 
 wisest and best of the Greeks and Romans, the un 
 sophisticated children of the desert, as well as the 
 most enlightened and devout Christians, have resorted 
 to prayer under the conviction that it is effectual to 
 secure blessings directly from above. The reflex in 
 fluence of prayer is valuable, but the value is realized 
 just in proportion as the heart goes out after the direct 
 influence. A rational theory it truly is, which would 
 thus make the value of men s devotions to arise from 
 men s illusions ! The reflex influence supposes the 
 direct influence, and for men to enjoy the former 
 without faith in the latter, resembles, as Isaac Taylor 
 remarks, 3 u the supposition that we might continue 
 to enjoy the accommodation of moonlight, even if the 
 sun were blotted from the planetary system." As to 
 the stale objection, which is ever and anon brought 
 
 1 MorelPs History of Philosophy, vol. ii., p. 571. 
 a Combe s Constitution of Man, pp. 95, 96. 
 8 Spiritual Christianity, p. 51. 
 
OP THE DIVINE PROVIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT. 129 
 
 forth, 1 that the direct influence of prayer supposes 
 that we can alter the Divine determinations, it is 
 sufficient to reply, that it is according to these deter 
 minations that men must ask in order to receive, and 
 knock in order to the door being opened. God dis 
 closes unto us the treasures of his grace, and says, 
 " I will yet for these be inquired of." 
 
 What is insidiously taught by such a writer as 
 Combe, has been advocated more boldly, and with 
 less fear of giving offence, by the Owen School 
 Rationalism is here defined to be the science of ma 
 terial circumstances. And the philosophy of Owen- 
 ism ignores everything else. It denounces other 
 systems for having spiritualized man, and it professes 
 to look upon him, to all practical purposes, as a ma 
 terial being. Humanity, in its estimation, contains 
 within itself the germs of indefinite moral improve 
 ment, and needs only to be brought under the genial 
 influences of earth to ripen into perfection. Super 
 natural aid is interdicted at the threshold, lest it 
 should beget an indifference to self-exertion, and 
 foster a habit of dependence. The first and last 
 lesson given to its disciples is, that men s opinions 
 and actions result exclusively from their original sus 
 ceptibilities, and the influences of the world around 
 
 1 Mr. R. "W. Mackay, who, after the manner of Combe, confines. 
 " the circle of our real knowledge to phenomenal succession and its 
 laws," with all the coolness of the sensational school, serves up this 
 oft-refuted objection. He falsely assumes that prayer presupposes 
 changeableness in God, and then settles the matter by telling us that 
 the Creator is not " to be diverted from his purposes by entreaty." 
 T/ie Progress of the Intellect, vol. i., pp. 25, 109. 
 
 9 
 
130 NATURALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 them, over which they have no control. Hence its 
 oft-repeated injunction, Study yourself and mind 
 external circumstances. This is the sum and sub 
 stance of its commandments. It admits the existence 
 of error and vice in humanity, for these are too pal 
 pable to be denied, but it charitably calls them mis 
 fortunes, and, as a remedy for all moral ills, insists 
 on a rational education. The favorite analogy of 
 this system is derived from the influence which the 
 sun exerts upon the earth. This is at once the grand 
 image in its poetry, and the grand illustration of its 
 philosophy. Human nature is compared to the earth, 
 and external influences to the sun which vivifies and 
 adorns it. Rationalism says, bring a man of good 
 susceptibilities into a favorable position as regards 
 external circumstances, and hence results a good 
 character. This is the system, ushered forth with 
 big pretensions, and propounded in innumerable 
 little books and pamphlets, which is "to renovate 
 the social state, recast and elevate humanity !" 
 
 The crude elements of the system have been found 
 floating on the surface of society in every age. Its 
 modern form may be said to have been cut out by 
 Rousseau and French philosophy, and to have assumed 
 a still more palpable shape in the hands of Owen 
 and his followers. It is gross naturalism, naked and 
 not ashamed, and as such, though now fast in the wane, 
 it has been greeted by masses of the people who were 
 disposed to throw off every species of religion as an 
 intolerable yoke. Such writers as the author of the 
 " Vestiges," do not more effectually exclude Providence 
 
OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT. 131 
 
 from the government of the spheres, and from the 
 whole domain of natural history, than do the dis 
 ciples of the "new moral world" shut out the idea 
 of supernatural interference in educating man. Ra 
 tionalism in this form, and what is called communism, 
 are often associated, though they are by no means 
 to be identified or confounded. Its politics rise out 
 of its philosophy. The great lesson of its philosophy 
 is, external circumstances are the agents of fate, look 
 well to them. Its politics may be summed up in 
 ascribing demoralization and crime to the factitious 
 arrangements of society. It cries out, alter these, 
 place society in a favorable position, educate man 
 aright, and then will be realized the new heavens 
 and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. 
 
 Viewed merely as a system of philosophy, it is the 
 shallowest that rationalism ever offered to the world. 
 No one denies the vast influence of external circum 
 stances upon the human character, and the import 
 ance of attending to them. It will also be admitted 
 that improved systems of education, and altered ar 
 rangements in civil society, would tend greatly to 
 lessen crime, and ameliorate the condition of man. 
 But to rest the world s regeneration on these alone, 
 exposes the system to the charge of being one-sided 
 and empirical, as unphilosophical as it is ungodly. 
 It takes up one idea, an important and a true one, 
 but, to the neglect of other ideas no less true and 
 important, this is exalted, 1 carried everywhere forth, 
 and all men and things are called to fall down and 
 worship it. Material circumstances are something, 
 
132 NATURALISM; OB, THE DENIAL 
 
 but the school of Owen makes them everything. 
 The human will is no doubt influenced by them, but 
 our rationalists maintain, in opposition to conscious 
 ness, that it is controlled by them. Man is made a 
 passive creature. This is plainly implied in the fond 
 analogy of the sun acting upon the earth. Emerson 
 has said, 1 " man is here, not to work, but to be worked 
 upon." And the men of this school tell us that our 
 characters are the necessary result of our organization 
 at birth, and subsequent external influences over 
 which we have no control. " The germs of intelli 
 gence and virtue are expanded or blasted by them," 
 and thus the whole human character is formed. It 
 is not so. Our subjective constitution is not such 
 an inert, helpless thing. We are conscious of pos 
 sessing a faculty which gives us control over external 
 circumstances ; so that, taking this into account, 
 it is true that character is the result of our sub 
 jective nature, and of the objective influences 
 acting upon it. But in this system of naturalism, 
 the great facts of man s moral nature are ignored. 
 One portion of the field of phenomena is dwelt upon 
 as if it were the whole, and the other portion, 
 which to a reflective mind is no less obvious, is over 
 looked. The eye is turned outward and lost in 
 material things. It does not direct its glance down 
 into the depths of human consciousness, and fails to 
 perceive the more wondrous things of the spirit. A 
 sense of responsibility, and moral sentiment, are 
 great truths in the natural history of man. They 
 
 1 Representative Men, p. 92, Bonn s edition. 
 
OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT. 133 
 
 are phenomena just as palpable to the eye that looks 
 inward, as any of the material circumstances are to 
 the eye that looks outward. But the Owen School 
 either loses sight of these phenomena in human 
 nature, or would assign them to a blind necessity, a 
 source from which the unsophisticated mind refuses 
 to receive them. Then there is the stubborn, though 
 mysterious fact of human depravity, which it either 
 winks at, or entirely overlooks, and for counteracting 
 which it accordingly makes no provision. The wonder 
 is how the abettors of such a system can read history, 
 or look upon the world around them, without per 
 ceiving, on the one hand, how individuals and com 
 munities, placed amid the most favorable external 
 circumstances, have continued corrupt and corrupters ; 
 and how, on the other hand, persons more unfavor 
 ably situated have, notwitstanding, become exem 
 plars of virtue. A theory that ascribes so much to 
 the mere outward relations, and leaves no room for 
 an influence counteractive of bad ones or efficacious 
 to good ones, is condemned by experience as well as by 
 religion. But perhaps its advocates would remove it 
 from such a tribunal, by affirming that no community 
 has ever yet been placed in such a paradisiacal state 
 as rationalism would place it. In such a case, it 
 must bear the double stigma of being godless and 
 Utopian. 
 
 Hitherto we have viewed naturalism as broadly 
 manifested in some works on physical and moral 
 science, and now we have to notice its appearance in 
 the department of Bible theology. Germany, in this 
 
134 NATURALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 respect, though not exclusively its seat, has attained 
 a bad pre-eminence. Thousands of men, professing 
 to be Christ s ministers and expounders of his word, 
 have, during the last half century or more, propounded 
 from the halls and pulpits of Germany a creed which 
 no more admits of supernatural influence than any of 
 the philosophical systems to which we have adverted. 
 In their teaching, God is as effectually excluded from 
 the province of the Bible, as in the "Vestiges" and 
 similar works He is excluded from the solar system. 
 The brilliant and beneficent miracles which ushered 
 in the Gospel dispensation, are exploded, or explained 
 away on purely natural principles. And what is prop 
 erly meant by Divine influence is denied a place 
 either in the mode of inspiring the sacred writers, or 
 in the mode of enlightening and renewing the minds 
 of the readers. Spinoza, whose philosophy has 
 exerted such a mighty influence on the thinking of 
 Germany, had said, " all that is recorded in the books 
 of revelation, took place in conformity with the estab 
 lished laws of the universe." On this principle, 
 interpretation after interpretation has been given, 
 until the sacred record has been swept as clear of its 
 mighty signs and wonders, as some would sweep the 
 starry firmament of the evidences of an ever-present 
 and all-controlling God. In Germany, speculative 
 philosophy and theological doctrine are more closely 
 linked together than in any other country in Europe. 
 The pervading principle of its speculative philosophy, 
 that God never intervenes specially, but that all things 
 move on in a chain of necessary development, has 
 
OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT. 135 
 
 been carried into the region of its theology. Hence 
 the axiom laid down at the threshold, " miracles are 
 an impossibility." The very first principle which 
 Strauss brings to the study of the evangelists is, that 
 when the events narrated are incompatible with known 
 and universal laws, it must be maintained that they did 
 not happen in the manner recorded. Divine Providence 
 is thus interdicted at the outset. 
 
 We have been accustomed to consider Christianity 
 as a second creation, and to conceive that as the first 
 creation took place by a special intervention of Divine 
 Power, so did the second. The philosophy of the 
 rationalist will not admit this, and therefore his theol 
 ogy must be shaped so as to exclude it. The first 
 miracle in Christianity, is the birth and manifestation 
 of the Saviour. This cannot be a true literal history, 
 says the rationalist, for it is incompatible with the 
 laws that regulate the succession of events. The 
 miraculous texture of the gospel narrative may be 
 admitted, but the wonders recorded must be ac 
 counted for in accordance with the assumed principle 
 that there is no supernatural intervention in the 
 world s history. Hence the theory, formerly adverted 
 to, 1 that Christ did not make the church, but the 
 church made him. He is represented as a pious 
 Israelite, educated in the bosom of a pious family in 
 Nazareth, who endeavored to realize in himself the 
 Messianic conceptions that prevailed among the peo 
 ple. He believed himself to be the Messiah of prom- 
 
 1 Chaptel II p. 53. 
 
136 NATURALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 ise ; the Jews, in the process of time, transferred their 
 conceptions to him, and recognized him as the ex 
 pected deliverer. Thus, out of the existing Messianic 
 notions, and the impression which Jesus made by his 
 personal qualities and actions, does rationalism derive 
 the first miracle of Christianity the birth, incarnation, 
 and appearing of the Son of God. The great mystery 
 of godliness having been thus stripped of its grandeur 
 and made to assume the shape of a natural event, 
 the whole train of mighty works wrought by Christ 
 and his apostles must undergo a similar denuding 
 process. Rationalism admits that, according to the 
 conceptions then prevalent among the Jews, the Mes 
 siah was to be a worker of miracles ; and it infers that, 
 in consequence of these conceptions, they ascribed 
 to him the power of performing them. u The chain 
 of endless causation," says Strauss, u can never be 
 broken, and a miracle is an impossibility." They 
 must be resolved therefore into purely natural prin 
 ciples. 1 
 
 The earlier school of rationalists, which took hold 
 of Spinoza s principle, endeavored to show that the 
 gospels were not miraculous in their texture, that the 
 writers never intended to assert a miracle, and that the 
 events recorded were simple facts magnified by the 
 impression which they made on the senses, or exag- 
 
 1 It may be here noticed that the " Progress of the Intellect " goes 
 on the pantheistic assumption that a miracle is God at variance with 
 himself; and, then, taking a leaf out of Strauss, accounts for the 
 development of a supernatural Messiah. See vol. i., p. 20, and vol. ii 
 chap. 8, 
 
OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT. 137 
 
 gerated by the false coloring of copyists and others. 
 This school of rationalism has well-nigh become obso 
 lete. It was too materialistic for the ideal tendencies 
 of Germany. Strauss assailed it. He declares in 
 that misnomer, the u Leben Jesu," u that it was time to 
 substitute a new method of considering the history of 
 Jesus for the worn-out idea of a supernatural inter 
 vention, and a naturalist explanation." He is, how 
 ever, but a naturalist in another shape. He admits 
 the gospels to be miraculous narratives. And in this 
 admission there is assuredly no more virtue than in 
 the recognition, on a clear frosty night, of the stars 
 that shine out of the depths of the blue sky. Mira 
 cles, as Dr. Newman has well said, 1 "form the sub 
 stance and groundwork of the narrative, and, like 
 the figure of Phidias on Minerva s shield, cannot be 
 erased without spoiling the entire composition." But, 
 while admitting the gospels to be supernatural in 
 their texture, or to have miracles interwoven with 
 them, he aims to show that they nevertheless origin 
 ated without an historical foundation; as if the stars 
 of night were mere mental illusions, and the form of 
 Phidias on the shield a fiction not a reality. His 
 fundamental position is a naturalist one: "miracles 
 are not and never were." Every narrative that sur 
 passes the ordinary course of events proves itself not 
 to be historically true. The allegory, the legend, the 
 myth, must explain all the bright and beneficent 
 miracles that astonished the Jews before whom thei 
 
 1 Newman s Dissertation on Miracles, Encyclop. Metrop. 
 
138 NATURALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 were wrought, and that have drawn forth the homage 
 of the church in every age. The naturalism of 
 Strauss and his followers may differ in some features 
 from that of Paulus and the older rationalists, but it 
 is sheer naturalism still. 1 
 
 Is the feeding of five thousand men with five loaves 
 and two small fishes to be accounted for? This has 
 generally been regarded as one of the most striking 
 manifestations of the divine power of Christ, and so 
 great was the impression produced on the multitudes 
 who witnessed it, that they cried, " This is of a truth 
 that Prophet that should come into the world." But, 
 according to our rationalist, this great miracle dwindles 
 down to the event of Christ having had such an in 
 fluence over the minds of men, as that the more 
 wealthy in the crowd who were well supplied with 
 provisions, were constrained to distribute of their 
 abundance to the destitute multitudes ; or it may be 
 regarded as a copy of the story of the manna in the 
 desert. The calming of the storm on the sea of 
 Galilee, is another of those mighty works that have 
 strikingly displayed the supernatural power of the 
 Saviour. It led the observers in wonder and awe to 
 exclaim, u What manner of man is this, that even the 
 winds and the sea obey him!" Rationalism, however, 
 has the explanation at hand. Jesus, by his calm and 
 dignified demeanor, tranquillized the troubled minds 
 of his disciples. By a happy coincidence, the raging 
 elements of nature at the same time became still. 
 And the event was thus magnified into the miraculous. 
 
 1 See Dr. Beard s Voices of the Church, p 35. 
 
OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT. 139 
 
 In short, is it the most magnificent of all miracles, 
 the resurrection of Christ, that is to be accounted for ? 
 The rationalist acknowledges that the surprising revo 
 lution in the minds of the disciples from the deep 
 despair into which they had sunk at the death of 
 Jesus, to the fearless energy with which they shortly 
 afterwards pleaded his cause, shows that during the 
 interval something extraordinary had happened. What 
 that something was, the Gospel narrative tells us: 
 the miraculous resurrection of Christ which powerfully 
 declared Him to be the Son of God. But naturalism 
 admits no miracle. Strauss says, the return of a 
 dead person to life is impossible. And the change 
 which took place in the minds of the disciples is 
 resolved into visions, and these visions are resolved 
 into their own excited feelings. The most stupendous 
 vents in the world s history are thus made to vanish 
 before a naturalist explanation. 1 And Strauss coolly 
 and remorselessly looks on, as the bright train of 
 beneficent and mighty deeds, which have drawn forth 
 men s faith and reverence, disappear. No wonder that 
 the German mind, on reflecting, drew back from, or 
 refused assent to such critical principles as these, 
 inasmuch as they were seen to uproot all our hold 
 upon the past, and to involve all history in a mythical 
 illusion. 
 
 Pantheism and naturalism may be said to meet in 
 this theory, which we denounce as one of the most 
 unphilosophical that was ever attempted to be imposed 
 upon the world. Its dogged adherence, in spite of 
 
 1 See Tholuck, in Dr. Beard, p. 151. 
 
140 NATURALISM; on THE DENIAL 
 
 all evidence, to the position that miracles are im 
 possible, is consistent only with absolute atheism or 
 pantheism. Men who adopt, as a fundamental prin 
 ciple, the impossibility of supernatural intervention, 
 must either deny that God is, or deprive Him of his 
 personality. Strauss, as we have already noticed, is 
 a pantheist in the extreme. He stands at that point 
 where atheism and pantheism face each other, and 
 shake hands. And just as one impiety naturally 
 follows another, does his theory of Christianity arise 
 out of his other infidel views. But admit the existence 
 of a first Intelligent Cause, the creator of heaven and 
 earth, the living God, a necessary truth granted by 
 all sound reasoners and where is the rationality in 
 denying that he either does or can interpose in the 
 system of things which he has established? Reason 
 ing a priori, and in accordance with a pure theism, 
 we would have been led to conclude that He who 
 made the worlds would continue to govern them, and 
 that, for great and special ends, he would interpose in 
 a special and extraordinary manner. Whether he has 
 done so or not must be decided on the broad ground 
 of evidence. The axiom of Strauss contravenes the 
 very foundation principles of the inductive philosophy. 
 A miracle is neither impossible nor incredible, on the 
 supposition of a God. 
 
 Miracles are supernatural facts, things which be 
 speak the intervention of a cause superior to and 
 having a supreme control over all natural causes. It 
 matters not, in our present argument, whether we 
 strictly define them as lying beyond the sphere of 
 
OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENTIAL GOVENMENT. 141 
 
 natural laws, or as involving the idea of suspension of 
 or opposition to these laws. In either case we demand 
 the interposition of God. To raise a dead man to 
 life, or to walk upon the sea, may be viewed either as 
 above the range of the established laws of nature, or 
 as directly contrary to them; but, on either suppo 
 sition, the operation is divine. The latter point of 
 view is commonly, though not universally, taken 
 by evangelical men in our country; the former 
 is the stand-point of distinguished Christian divines 
 on the Continent. Strauss and his school lay down 
 the position that nature is but a development of 
 God. He says the chain of endless causation cannot 
 be broken ; and taking the common idea of miracles, 
 as violations or suspensions of natural laws, he de 
 clares a miracle to be impossible. Neander, Muller, 
 D Aubigne, and other Continental divines, without 
 conceding anything to the rationalists, oppose them, 
 by maintaining that miraculous phenomena lie be 
 yond the sphere of those laws, and are not violations 
 of them. And in this theory they are joined by some 
 of our own eminent evangelical writers, such as Trench, 
 Vaughan, Westcott, and the author of " The Resto 
 ration of Belief." 1 The idea of supernatural inter 
 vention is prominent, however, in either view, and that 
 is not to be tolerated by naturalism. Miracles may 
 be perfectly natural, viewed in reference to a higher 
 world, but they are supernatural viewed in reference 
 to this. " At the establishment of Christianity," says 
 D Aubigne, "the superior world acted upon the infe- 
 
 1 Page 232. 
 
142 NATURALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 rior world, conformably to the laws which are peculiai 
 to it; a miracle is nothing more than this." 1 Be the 
 miracle contrary to, or lying beyond, the subordinate 
 laws of physical nature, it is doubtless in conformity 
 with the moral and supreme law of the universe. 
 " God, therefore," says Gioberti, u far from disturbing 
 universal harmony, maintains it, by interrupting the 
 course of physical forces in certain determinate cases, 
 and for a most wise end." 2 
 
 Hume and the older deists, said a miracle is incred 
 ible. Strauss and the modern rationalists, affirm a 
 miracle to be impossible. Hume s fallacy, as has often 
 been shown, lay in confounding two distinct expe 
 riences, the uniform experience of the individual, and 
 
 1 The Miracles ; or, Two Errors. 
 
 2 Dr. "Wardlaw, in his recent able work " On Miracles," advo 
 cates what may be called the old view, and offers some strictures on 
 Drs. Vaughan and Beard, and Mr. Trench, who contend that miracles 
 are not " contra naturam, but prater naturam, and supra naturam." 
 And yet he says of the miraculous event, " it does not to me seem 
 very material, whether we speak of it as beyond nature, or above 
 nature, or beside nature, or against nature, or contrary to nature, 
 whether as a suspension, an interruption, a contravention, or a 
 violation of nature s laws ; provided we are understanding na 
 ture and nature s laws as having reference to the physical economy 
 of our own system." (P. 31.) This we presume, is just tlmr un 
 derstanding when, according to Mr. Westcott, they say, " that there 
 is nothing in miracles contrary to nature, while all is above nature ; 
 that the laws of existences around us are not broken, but resolved 
 into higher laws." Gospel Harmony, p. 17. We are disposed to 
 regard this discussion as not "much more than a logomachy," for 
 the great idea of supernatural intervention is unaffected by it. At 
 the same time, the " above and beyond nature" view seems the 
 more advantageous one in cutting away the ground from beneath 
 the German anti-miracle school. 
 
OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT. 143 
 
 the uniform experience of mankind viewed as a whole. 
 He reasoned as if his own experience embraced a 
 knowledge of all causes, and as if his knowledge of 
 the power of all causes was so complete that he was 
 warranted to say, there is not a cause able or willing 
 to work miracles. His own uniform experience, as 
 an individual, bore testimony to the constancy of the 
 laws of nature. And the fallacy consisted in exalting 
 that experience into the experience of the human 
 race. In short, the argument is based upon a gross 
 assumption. By it he, arrogates to himself a knowl 
 edge which no finite intelligence can possess. The 
 argument fails also in the principle on which it would 
 set aside the testimony of witnesses adduced to prove 
 a miracle. Hume reasons thus: there are two tes 
 timonies in the case the testimony of uniform ex 
 perience in affirming the constancy of the laws of 
 nature, and the testimony of witnesses in favor of 
 a miracle or deviation from these ordinary laws. NG 
 number of witnesses for the miracle can equal the 
 evidence for the constancy of nature. It is more pro 
 bable that the witnesses should have been deceived, 
 however apparently strong their testimony, than that 
 the laws of nature should have been departed from. 
 Thus, all miracles are denied, without any regard to 
 the kind or quality of proof by which they are sup 
 ported. The rationalist entrenches himself behind 
 the position of the incredibility or impossibility of 
 miracles, and levels to the ground the whole structure 
 of Christianity. Now, it is sufficient to say to this, that, 
 in the ordinary concerns of life, we value testimony 
 
144 NATURALISM; OB, THE DENIAL 
 
 rather for its quality than for its quantity. If a few 
 witnesses of known veracity attest an extraordinary 
 occurrence, we confide in their testimony as naturally 
 as we do in the testimony of thousands of persons 
 who had previously deposed to the ordinary course 
 of events. On the very same principle, then, we 
 should, as has been satisfactorily argued, credit testi 
 mony unexceptionable in its quality when it is adduced 
 not only in proof of the extraordinary, but when it 
 carries us a step higher to the supernatural or 
 miraculous. Well-attested miracles can consistently 
 be denied only on atheistical, or, what in this case 
 amounts to the same thing, pantheistical principles. 
 Once admit the existence of a Personal God, himself 
 uncaused and the cause of all, and you cannot 
 rationally deny that He may interpose in the con 
 cerns of the universe. Grant that the Almighty in 
 tervened in calling into existence the first creation, 
 and you cannot reasonably withhold your assent, that, 
 if evidence in support of it exist, he may have inter 
 vened in originating Christianity, the second creation. 
 The rationalist who, in the face of all evidence, takes 
 up the position that miracles are impossible, must 
 be driven back to another position, viz. the non-exist 
 ence of a Being who can perform supernatural works. 
 Strauss, in maintaining the impossibility of miracles, 
 as well as Hume in asserting their incredibility, has 
 been flagrantly guilty of a petitio principii a begging 
 of the question. It is nothing more than his ipse 
 dixit. The world has had more than enough of this 
 philosophy, falsely so called, which would supersede 
 
OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT. 145 
 
 all investigation into the testimony for miracles by- 
 proclaiming it as an axiom that miracles are impos 
 sible, or that no evidence can substantiate them. It 
 is alike opposed to the cautious philosophy of Bacon, 
 and to the facts and principles of Holy Scripture. It 
 is the taking of a one-sided, and consequently a very 
 erroneous view of God s universe. The moral system 
 is ignored, a system as real and palpable as the phys 
 ical, though immeasurably superior to it. And the 
 remark is as applicable to the men of the Strauss 
 school as to the men of the Hume school: their 
 antecedent objections against miracles "will be found 
 nearly all to arise from forgetfulness of the existence 
 of moral laws. In their zeal to perfect the laws of 
 matter, they most unphilosophically overlook a more 
 sublime system, which contains disclosures not only of 
 the Being but of the Will of God." 1 
 
 But Scripture itself, under this system of natu 
 ralism, is, as a whole, disrobed of its glory. The 
 special interposition of God in inspiring the sacred 
 writers, is as much excluded as his interposition in 
 working the Bible miracles. And, if the mighty 
 deeds recorded sink down to the level of common 
 events, why should not the Holy Book itself descend 
 to the level of a common treatise ? J ohn Foster has 
 said: "surely it is fair to believe that those who 
 received from heaven superhuman power, receive< 
 likewise superhuman wisdom. Having rung the great 
 bell of the universe, the sermon to follow must be 
 extraordinary." Naturalism having denied the super- 
 
 1 Newman s Dissertation, Encyclop. Metrop. 
 10 
 
146 NATURALISM ; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 human power, consistently with its own principles, 
 denies the superhuman wisdom. The bell, according 
 to it, was nothing uncommon, and the sermon that 
 followed was nothing transcendent. The denial of 
 the miracles has, in fact, led to the denial of the in 
 spiration. It must be admitted that the Bible records 
 miracles. It must be admitted also that the Bible 
 claims special inspiration. Naturalism cannot admit 
 the miracles, and consequently it cannot concede 
 that the prophets and apostles, holy men of God, 
 spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. De 
 Wette and others attacked the Old Testament, and 
 Strauss has made a similar onslaught on the New, 
 from the same naturalist position. The books must 
 be treated as spurious because they narrate predictions 
 and miracles, things which naturalism cannot away 
 with. We find, accordingly, in the writings of the old 
 English deists, in the Wolfenbuttel Fragments, and 
 in a succession of such like productions down to that 
 paragon of honest book- writing u Phases of Faith," 
 a heap of apparent contradictions raked together from 
 all quarters, the fruit of a shallow criticism and an 
 irreligious spirit, in order to falsify the Book which 
 claims to have been given by inspiration of God, 
 Hatred of the supernatural, which is interwoven with 
 every page of Scripture, has led to the various disin 
 genuous attempts to depreciate the testimony of the 
 inspired writers. It is related that a Swedish traveller, 
 in looking through the library of Yoltaire, found 
 Calmet s Commentary with slips of paper inserted, 
 on which were written the difficulties noticed by Cal- 
 
OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT. 147 
 
 met, without the slightest reference to the solutions 
 given by the commentator. The Swede, who, in other 
 respects, admired the brilliant Frenchman, denounced 
 this conduct as dishonorable. And yet, as Hengsten- 
 berg remarks, 1 our modern rationalist critics have 
 acted in a similar manner. Theodore Parker, Francis 
 William Newman, and Robert William Mackay, 2 who 
 make no secret of the Gamaliels at whose feet they 
 have been sitting, serve up the often-refuted ob 
 jections against the infallibility of the sacred writers, 
 as if they were a fresh course, and then, on the 
 assumption of their gross mistakes and contradictions, 
 conclude against their miraculous inspiration. 
 
 The age in which we live is universal in its tenden 
 cies. It must have all things in common. The mind 
 has become intolerant of monopolies. And not a few 
 writers in our own and other lands are laboring to 
 bring the Bible down from its proud pre-eminence, 
 stripping it of its solitary grandeur, and allowing it no 
 other inspiration than that which is common to men. 
 The controversy may be said to have shifted its ground, 
 or to present a new phasis, in consequence of a new 
 philosophic influence. Formerly, our Christian apolo 
 gists had to contend for the very element of inspira 
 tion in the sacred books, as they had to contend for 
 the miraculous texture of the Gospel narratives ; now, 
 we have to strive for their special claim to the Divine 
 inbreathing, against those who would merge them in 
 
 1 Hengstenberg on the Pentateuch, vol. i., p. 47. 
 3 See Parker s Discourses, Newman s Phases of Faith, and Mackay s 
 Progress of the Intellect, passim. 
 
148 NATURALISM ; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 an influence common as the light or air of heaven. 
 Thus Mr. Parker, 1 speaking after the Emerson fashion, 
 tells us, u inspiration, like God s omnipresence, is not 
 limited to the few writers claimed by the Jews, Chris 
 tians, or Mahometans, but it is coextensive with the 
 race." Minos and Moses, David and Pindar, Leibnitz 
 and Paul, Newton and Simon Peter, u receive into 
 their various forms the one spirit from God most 
 high." Yea, " this inspiration is limited to no sect, 
 age, or nation. It is wide as the world, and common 
 as God." The Bible thus ceases to be the law and 
 the testimony, the only infallible directory of faith and 
 morals, and men may turn it into myths and legends, 
 receive or reject it, as they please. But this attempt 
 to confound inspiration and omnipresence goes on 
 the assumption that as God is present everywhere, 
 He cannot be specially present anywhere ; that as He 
 may be said to exert a common influence on the 
 minds of all men, He cannot be said to exert a super 
 natural influence on the minds of a chosen number 
 of men. An assumption of the same nature and 
 philosophic value as that of Strauss miracles are 
 impossible. 
 
 The Bible comes to us claiming to have been given 
 by miraculous inspiration of God an inspiration sepa 
 rated by an impassable gulf from that of mere genius 
 and, in support of its claims, presents a large amount of 
 clear and strong evidence. There is an impregnable 
 external testimony encircling it " as the mountains are 
 
 1 Parker s Discourse, pp. 161 17L 
 
OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT. 149 
 
 round about Jerusalem," and, on its pages, the fingei 
 of God is not less clearly manifested than on the starry 
 heavens. This Book stands above and apart from 
 the sublimest effusions of human genius, revealing 
 truths bearing on man s highest interests and lying 
 beyond the sphere where science and genius make 
 their discoveries, having a history quite unparalleled 
 and miraculous, and producing on individuals and 
 communities such radical and beneficent changes of 
 heart and life, as no other book in the world has ef 
 fected. It professes to have received its grand revela 
 tions directly from above, and to have transmitted 
 them under such infallible guidance as entitles it to be 
 regarded as the oracle of God. We meddle not with 
 the question of degrees of inspiration. We advocate 
 no theory of mechanical dictation. It is enough, but 
 not more than enough, that we hold a special influence 
 ranging from the highest point, or direct revelation, 
 down to the lowest limit, or superintendence as a guard 
 against error. We take the fact, as it stands all Scrip 
 ture is given by inspiration of God. The mode does 
 not trouble us. Scripture, in its rich diversity of style, 
 evinces free mental action on the part of the sacred 
 writers, while it asserts that action to have been under 
 the infallible guidance of the Divine Spirit. The 
 plenary inspiration, we hold, in perfect consistency 
 with the human peculiarities. Our position " presup 
 poses that the same providential power which gave 
 the message selected the messenger, and implies that 
 the traits of individual character and the peculiarities 
 of manner and purpose, which are displayed in the 
 
150 NATURALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 composition and language of the sacred writings, are 
 essential to the perfect exhibition of their meaning. 
 ... It preserves absolute truthfulness with perfect 
 humanity, so that the nature of man is not neutralized, 
 if we may thus speak, by the Divine agency, and the 
 truth of God is not modified, but exactly expressed in 
 one of its several aspects, by the individual mind. 
 Each element performs its perfect work, and in re 
 ligion, as well as in philosophy, we find a glorious 
 reality based upon a true antithesis." 1 This is the 
 Bible claim. And if this be not conceded on the 
 ground of the internal and external evidence, then 
 the Bible, in its structure, in its characteristic truths, 
 in the simplicity and majesty of its style, in its match 
 less character of Christ, in its influence on and 
 present position in the world, is a greater miracle 
 than the miraculous inspiration which naturalism 
 would set aside. Discrepancies we admit, such dis 
 crepancies as might have been expected to result from 
 the transmission of a book through so many hands, 
 languages, and ages, unless shielded so miraculously 
 at every point that the finger of no copyist could in 
 advertently have introduced a wrong date or omitted 
 a letter. But what is the chaff to the wheat? A 
 large number of discrepancies, on which infidel objec 
 tions were grounded, have vanished before the appli 
 cation of a true and searching criticism, and we an 
 ticipate that the residue will be still further diminished 
 till it shall be accounted as nothing. There is no 
 discrepancy in regard to the substantial contents of 
 
 1 Westcott s Elements of the Gospel Harmony, pp. 9, 10. 
 
OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT. 151 
 
 Christianity, and to found an argument against the 
 miraculous inspiration of Scripture on a few unre 
 solved variances, is no less irrational than to argue 
 against the perfections of God because of some con 
 flicting natural phenomena. 1 The Bible, in its dis 
 closures, history, and position, is as unaccountable 
 without the admission of special inspiration, as the 
 world and the fulness thereof without the creating 
 and upholding hand of God. 2 
 
 The position taken up by Mr. Morell on this ques 
 tion, however stoutly he, in other respects, denounces 
 rationalism, is little better than a rationalist one. He 
 indeed admits supernatural agency, but it is a mere 
 vivifying operation, a heightening or clearing of the 
 power of intuition, not generically different from the 
 inspirations of genius or the spiritual elevation com 
 mon to Christians. " Inspiration," according to him, 
 " depends upon the clearness, force and accuracy of 
 a man s religious intuitions. 3 ... It does not involve 
 any form of intelligence essentially different from what 
 
 1 Butler s Analogy, p. 8. (Dublin, 1849.) 
 
 2 We make no use of the petitio principii in the above remarks. 
 We do not say to our opponents, The Scriptures are inspired, and 
 therefore their statements must be true. But we ground an argument 
 for their inspiration on their internal structure and external position 
 The author of " The Restoration of Belief," observes, " We arc 
 often told that we timidly hold up this Inspiration, as a screen, 
 lest the documents of our faith should come to be dealt with severely, 
 in the mode that is proper to historic criticism." With him we say, 
 " Only let this Historic Severity take its free course, and Dis Belief 
 will be driven from its last standing-place. ... It would witl er 
 like the grass of the tropics." P. 127. 
 
 3 Morell s Philosophy of Religion, p. 176. 
 
152 NATURALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 we already possess. 1 . . . It is a higher potency of a cer 
 tain form of consciousness, which every man to some 
 degree possesses." 2 Indeed, if his theory be true, in 
 spiration is not only a much less extraordinary thing 
 than the church has imagined, but there is nothing to 
 hinder it taking place again and a supplement being 
 made to the volume of revelation. Let the religious 
 consciousness be elevated, the moral nature purified, 
 and the power of spiritual vision increased, and, as 
 he asks, what do we require more in inspiration ? 
 He denies that any special Divine commission to 
 write was given to the sacred penmen, " that each 
 book came forth with a specific impress of Deity upon 
 it," 3 or that the providence of God watched over the 
 composition and construction of the Bible in any 
 other sense than Providence superintends every event 
 bearing upon the welfare of man. 4 The inspired 
 word, with him, is just a transcript of the religious 
 consciousness of the writers, a representation of u the 
 bright impressions of apostolic men," the result of 
 u the Divine light which was granted to the age, and 
 to the mind of the author a gift which he was left 
 to make use of as necessity or propriety might sug 
 gest." 5 He thus cuts up infallibility by the root, that 
 error which, he and Mr. Newman hold, has been in 
 troduced into the idea of inspiration. And then he 
 thinks that, without irreverence, he can speak of mis- 
 statements made by the Evangelists, and of false 
 reasoning in Paul the most logical of the apostles. 
 
 1 Morell s Philosophy of Religion, p. 151. 2 Ibid., p. 166. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 160. 4 Ibid., p. 183. B Ibid., p. 161. fl Ibid., p. 173. 
 
OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT. 153 
 
 It is the strangest part of this unsatisfactory theory, 
 that inspiration cannot apply to processes of reason 
 ing, that u it can neither give any certitude, nor guard 
 against any errors which an accurate thinker could 
 not detect for himself." 1 He confounds logic as an 
 instrument with the understanding that employs it 
 when he speaks of inspired logic as an absurdity. Let 
 us suppose a reasoner so accurate that he errs only 
 once in a hundred times. That one error, however, 
 may have been very important. What impossibility is 
 there in the supposition of a supernatural influence 
 carrying up the mind from general to universal accu 
 racy as effectually excluding error from the hun 
 dredth process as it had been excluded up to the 
 ninety-ninth ? God, assuredly, can suggest a train of 
 reasoning to the mind of an individual, and control 
 that mind so as to lead it to a right conclusion, and 
 extend that control over the writer so as to enable 
 him to convey to others both the process and the 
 result in terms free from error. This, we maintain, 
 has been done in the case of Paul. In this, there is 
 no absurdity. Without this, we have no security that 
 Scripture is inspired of God. 
 
 All the inspiration which Mr. Morell allows, is re 
 stricted to brightening and elevating the intuitional 
 faculty so as to render it receptive of truth. He 
 leaves the whole after-process, involved in giving a 
 formal expression to the intuitions, to the natural 
 working of the human faculties ; and denounces the 
 idea of Scripture being written under the special 
 1 Morell s Philosophy of Religion, p. 174. 
 
154 NATURALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 direction of the Spirit as a pernicious and indefensible 
 dogma. This we regard as nothing less than an 
 attempt to strip Scripture of its supernatural character. 
 Inspiration is denied to the written word contrary to 
 its own claims, and it is attributed exclusively to a 
 certain form of man s own consciousness. The Bible, 
 in this case, is not God s word but man s. The writers 
 may have seen visions and had the truth revealed in 
 their minds, but we have no security that they have 
 been kept from error in recording what they received, 
 or that they have conveyed the truth purely to us. 
 The idea that they had no special commission to write 
 and no special guidance in writing, does not harmo 
 nize with the solemn announcement with which they 
 often begin their oracles, u Thus saith the Lord ;" 
 or with the statements, "holy men of God spake as 
 they were moved by the Holy Ghost," and, u all Scrip 
 ture is given by inspiration of God." The elevation 
 of the religious consciousness, by special and extraor 
 dinary agencies, may account for the divine conceptions 
 of the sacred penmen. But, without a continued 
 supernatural agency, under which the minds of the 
 writers were allowed to develop their characteristic 
 peculiarities, it is difficult to account for the structure 
 of the books, the " halo of Divine glory," in which 
 these conceptions are expressed. The internal evi 
 dence shows that in the work of composition the hand 
 of the Lord was with them. 
 
 Mr. Morell fails to substantiate the old charges 
 adduced to weaken that evidence. He urges 1 the 
 1 Morell s Philosophy of Religion, p. 167. 
 
OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT. 155 
 
 imperfect morality of the Old Testament, as if the 
 word of God necessarily implied approval of all that it 
 records. He urges 1 discrepancies between some of 
 the scriptural statements and scientific truth, as if the 
 book of Genesis pretended to give a scientific account 
 of the creation, or as if it were in open conflict with 
 the results of geological research. He charges Paul 
 with errors in reasoning, without specifying a single 
 instance ; and Peter with arguing perversely about the 
 circumcision, whereas everybody knows that Peter only 
 acted against his own conviction. 2 In this way he 
 backs his assertions that it would not be very reverent 
 to suppose the Spirit of God had anything to do with 
 such statements, and that the writers of them were 
 left to the influence of the imperfect religious, moral, 
 and scientific ideas of their times. These are things 
 much more easily said than proven. The only dis 
 crepancies on which objections against plenary inspi 
 ration can be raised, are but as the small dust in the 
 balance, compared with the weight of proof that the 
 book is, what it claims to be, the word of God. Even 
 that small dust, we are warranted from the past to 
 believe, will become yet smaller and may ultimately 
 vanish away. Mr. Morell s theory of inspiration may 
 naturally result from his own philosophical principles, 
 but it explains nothing, is at variance with palpable 
 evidence, at open conflict with scriptural claim, makes 
 room for the most latitudinariari interpretations, and, 
 if brought to bear upon the progress of the church, 
 
 1 Morell s Philosophy of Religion, p. 170. * Ibid., p. 176. 
 
156 NATURALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 would be long in ushering in the brighter day, of 
 which he speaks, when the gospel would come to us, 
 not in word only, but in demonstration of the Spirit 
 and in power. 
 
 Our investigation into naturalism has led us from 
 the point where Divine Providence is ignored in sus 
 taining and garnishing the material universe, to the 
 point where his presence is excluded from the Bible 
 his holy temple. We might have passed on to notice 
 the denial of Divine influence in regenerating the souls 
 of men. But this will find a place in the next chapter, 
 when speaking of the denial of the Divine redemption. 
 We have tracked the rationalistic spirit up to the very 
 shrine of the holy oracle, and found it there lurking 
 under the Christian name and professing adherence 
 to the Christian faith. Between the two points there 
 is doubtless a gulf, but it is not an impassable one. 
 The man who excludes miraculous inspiration from 
 the Bible, may admit supernatural agency in the 
 heavens and the earth, and even in giving birth to 
 Christianity; but, in that exclusion, he occupies a 
 naturalist position. On reviewing our track, then, we 
 see that, in physical science, naturalism has given 
 rise to the mechanical theory of the universe; in 
 moral philosophy, it has led men to attach an exclu 
 sive importance to external circumstances as influenc 
 ing human conduct ; and in theology, it has banished 
 the supernatural from the sphere of Christianity, so 
 as to account for its origin and influence on ordinary 
 
OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT. 157 
 
 principles, or has left but partial room for its opera 
 tion. With a few summary remarks upon the theory 
 as a whole, we shall close our notice of it. 
 
 1. The idea of an entirely self-sustaining universe is 
 based upon a false analogy. The regularity of nature s 
 operations may have given rise in some minds to the 
 opinion. And not a few of its abettors may main 
 tain, that it is a more exalted conception of God to 
 represent the multiplicity of effects which take place 
 in nature as the result of a single original act of his 
 power, than to conceive of Him as ever interposing in 
 the affairs of the world. Order is the law of heaven. 
 The very regularity which is adduced to favor the 
 mechanical theory, is adduced more justly in proof of 
 the Divine presiding agency. And it is surely more 
 exalting to God to view the universe as directly de 
 pendent on his arm, and ever pervaded by his pre 
 sence, than to compliment him out of it by attributing 
 to it a self-sustained action. The falseness of the 
 analogy, however, is obvious. The movements in a 
 piece of mechanism do not, properly speaking, origin 
 ate with the mechanist. He only employs pre 
 existing forces, such as gravity, elasticity, cohesion, 
 and repulsion. Now, these powers are the very things 
 to be accounted for in the theory which likens the 
 universe to a machine. 1 In a piece of human 
 mechanism, we can account for these properties 
 irrespective altogether of the workman. They were 
 there before he existed, and they continue after he is 
 
 1 Dugald Stewart. 
 
158 NATURALISM; OR THE DENIAL 
 
 gone. But, that the universe, after having been con 
 structed and set m motion by the Almighty, has 
 continued to revolve and develop itself ever since, 
 without his providential agency, is a theory that is 
 unsupported by any analogy whatever. And in the 
 absence of all true analogy, it is more rational to view 
 the creation as always directly dependent on the 
 Creator, than to view it as self-sustained. In fact, it 
 is as easy to conceive a self-originated world as of 
 a self-subsisting world. The thing is an impossibility. 
 Dr. Harris says, 1 " The reasoning which compliments 
 God out of the material universe not unfrequently 
 ends in excluding Him from the throne of His moral 
 government." May it not be said that the one is done 
 for the sake of the other ? 
 
 2. This theory, as it is often advocated, is chargeable 
 with anthropomorphism. While professing to exalt 
 God, it virtually degrades Him. It thinks of Him as 
 if He were such an one as ourselves. The piece of 
 human mechanism saves the labor of the artist. 
 He can set it in motion and go his way. And the 
 machine is considered to be more ingenious and 
 complete, the more that it dispenses with the inter 
 position of the constructor. But to reason in a similar 
 manner regarding the Almighty and His works, is to 
 ascribe unto Him the limitations and imperfections 
 of the human faculties. His presence in one part of 
 his dominions does not imply his absence elsewhere. 
 An infidel philosophy has often, by the anthropo- 
 
 1 Pre- Adamite Earth, p. 128. 
 
OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT. 159 
 
 rnorphism of its reasoning, endeavored, with a 
 feigned homage, to exclude the Eternal from the 
 management of the universe. This was involved 
 in the astronomical objection against Christianity, 
 which has been so eloquently repelled by Dr. Chal 
 mers in his " Astronomical Discourses." The modern 
 astronomy has wonderfully enlarged our conceptions 
 of the magnitude and extent of the material universe, 
 and shown that this earth occupies but a small place 
 in the vast creation. Philosophical infidels urged 
 that our world, being comparatively so insignificant, 
 could not have had centered upon it such special 
 regards of the Almighty as the Christian scheme 
 represents. At the very root of this objection, lay the 
 principle of conceiving of the Most High as acting- 
 after the manner of men. It is just clothing the 
 Divine Being with the impotency of the human. 
 "It is our imperfection, that we cannot give our at 
 tention to more than one object, at one and the same 
 instant of time ; but surely it would elevate our every 
 idea of the perfections of God, did we know, that 
 while his comprehensive mind could grasp the whole 
 amplitude of nature to the very outermost of its 
 boundaries, he had an attentive eye fastened on the 
 very humblest of its objects, and pondered every 
 thought of my heart, and noticed every footstep of 
 my goings, and treasured up in his rememberance 
 every turn and every movement of my history." 1 And 
 as this would be the most glorious conception of 
 God, it must be the true one, for as John Foster 
 
 1 Ghalmer s Astronomical Discourses. 
 
160 NATURALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 remarks, 1 "to say that we can, in the abstract, con 
 ceive of a magnitude of intelligence and power which 
 would constitute the Deity, if lie possessed it, a more 
 glorious and adorable Being than he actually is, could 
 be nothing less than a flagrant impiety." The anthro- 
 pomorphising view of the Almighty, is brought out 
 very palpably in some of our modern books of science 
 which advocate the natural development hypothesis. 
 The author of the "Vestiges" speak of it as " nothing 
 less than a mean view of the Great Author, to sup 
 pose Him obliged to come in on frequent occasions 
 with new feats or special interferences." And the 
 question is asked, "is it conceivable, as a fitting 
 mode of exercise for creative intelligence, that it 
 should be constantly paying a special attention to the 
 creation of species?" 2 Here, the Divine Being is 
 assimilated to the human. He is stripped of the 
 attributes of omnipresence and omniscience which 
 enter into the glories of His incomprehensible cha 
 racter. This a damning evidence against this theory 
 of naturalism. It makes God like to corruptible 
 man. Whereas, on the supernatural theory, while 
 His name is excellent in all the earth, His glory is 
 set above the heavens. 
 
 3. The theory which excludes the Divine agency 
 from the universe, and abandons it to natural laws, 
 is opposed to the palpable evidence of geology. This 
 science has established, beyond a doubt, not only that 
 our globe has repeatedly undergone great changes 
 
 1 Foster s Contributions to the Eclectic. " Review of Chalmers." 
 a Vestiges, pp. 165, 169, 5th edition. 
 
OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT. 161 
 
 previous to its becoming the habitation of man, but 
 that during these changes several successive creations 
 of animal and vegetable life have taken place. The 
 organic remains imbedded in strata, that had been 
 formed ages anterior to the existence of the human 
 race, (these strata being separated from each other by 
 considerable periods of duration,) furnish evidence of 
 whole groups having been swept away by some violent 
 agencies, and of entirely new races having been 
 called into being to supply their place. Geology 
 tells us that the temperature of the globe in a remote 
 antiquity was such, that our present races of animals 
 and vegetables could not then have existed, and that 
 the creatures then existing, could not have lived now. 
 This being the case, the inference is obvious, that 
 new creations of animal and vegetable life must have 
 occurred, between whose natures and the changed 
 earth there subsisted a nice adaptation. Now, it is 
 for the production of these new races that we demand 
 the interposition of God. There is no power in the 
 laws of nature to produce them. u The growth of 
 new systems out of old ones," says the great Newton^ 
 " without the mediation of Divine Power, is absurd." 
 Man, compared with the ages that elapsed before his 
 creation, is but a very recent being on the earth. 
 For the production of a creature so distinct in his 
 intellectual and moral qualities from the whole animal 
 creation, a new exertion of the creative power of 
 God was necessary. Theories of spontaneous gene 
 ration and of transmutation of the species have not 
 been wanting. But the#$ theories have never risen 
 
 11 
 
162 NATURALISM; OR THE DENIAL 
 
 any higher than vague fancies. The records of 
 geology furnish no indication of such phenomena. 
 And, as Cuvier asks, why, if such transmutations 
 have occurred, do not the bowels of the earth pre 
 serve the records of such a curious , genealogy ? In 
 the domain of fossil geology, we discover abundant 
 remains of distinct species, but not a single specimen 
 of any species being in a state of transmutation has 
 been met with. The faith of the most distinguished 
 geologists and anatomists is very unanimous on this 
 point. The first proposition which Cuvier establishes 
 is, that the species now living are not mere varieties 
 of the species which are lost. "For myself," says 
 Agassiz, "I have the conviction that species have 
 been created successively at distinct intervals, and 
 that the changes which they have undergone during a 
 geological epoch are very secondary, relating only 
 to their fecundity, and to migrations -dependent on 
 epochal influences." 1 Lyell gives it as the result of 
 a careful inquiry, " that species have a real existence 
 in nature, and that each was endowed at the time of 
 its creation with the attributes and organs by which 
 it is now distinguished." 2 "Everything," says Sir 
 Charles Bell, in his " Bridgewater Treatise," "de 
 clares the species to have its origin in a distinct 
 creation, not in a gradual variation from some original 
 type; and any other hypothesis than that of a new 
 creation of animals suited to the successive changes 
 in the inorganic matter of the globe the condition 
 
 1 Dr. Harris Pre- Adamite Earth, p. 287. 
 
 8 Lyell s Principles of Geology, vol. ii., p. 65, 1st edition. 
 
OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT. 163 
 
 of the water, atmosphere, and temperature brings 
 with it only an accumulation of difficulties." On 
 the strength of all this high testimony, we may say 
 with Dr. Chalmers, that it places our argument for 
 the interposal of God, on firm vantage ground, to 
 assert, that were all the arrangements of our existing 
 natural history destroyed, all the known forces of our 
 existing natural philosophy could not replace them. 
 The records of geology are thus shown to be the 
 records of a special Providence. And, as Conybeare 
 justly remarks, the geological evidence strikes at once 
 at the root of every sceptical argument against mira 
 cles. If God has specially interposed in the ages 
 preceding the present state of the globe, is there not 
 a strong presumption that he has done so at the 
 most wondrous epoch of our earth s history the 
 introduction of Christianity ; and that, at some future 
 period, he will again interpose for the accomplishment 
 of his high purposes. Geology convicts naturalism 
 of falsehood, while it warrants us to credit the mira 
 cles and revelations of the Bible, if authenticated on 
 the broad ground of evidence. The Almighty had 
 not withdrawn from the world in the remote past, 
 but presided over it as sovereign Lord, and, on befit 
 ting occasions, made bare his arm in new exertions of 
 creative energy. And why should it be questioned 
 that he is there still, touching all the springs of life 
 and motion, and upholding all things by the word of 
 his power? 
 
 4. Christianity and its effects are phenomena for 
 which naturalism assigns no adequate cause. The 
 
164 NATURALISM ; OB, THE DENIAL 
 
 theory of Strauss that the church made its founder in 
 the natural progress of events, and out of the Messianic 
 conceptions existing at the birth of Jesus, that the 
 grand miracles which signalized his history were 
 merely a kind of mythological clothing gradually 
 thrown around him by his followers in order to exalt 
 their hero, is a more idle fancy than any of the hypo 
 theses of spontaneous generation and transmutation 
 of the species, which have been formed to account 
 for the origin of our races. Geology gives not a more 
 decided negative to the one theory than historical 
 facts do to the other. It is a foolhardy attempt to 
 account for a creation without the intervention of the 
 Great Creator. Christianity is a new creation, and 
 naturalism ascribes it to a cause which did not at the 
 time exist, and which, if it had existed, would have 
 been altogether inadequate to the effect. The con 
 ceptions of the Hebrew nation respecting the mission, 
 character, and kingdom of the Messiah, were far 
 from being realized in him who claimed to be the 
 Son of the Highest and the Christ of promise. 
 Indeed, the notions of his immediate disciples, up to 
 the time of his leaving the world, were ever coming 
 into conflict with his sayings and doings ; and their 
 attachment to his cause, notwithstanding, can only 
 be accounted for on the belief of an evidence and 
 agency that lay beyond the influence of these con 
 ceptions. The character of Christ, it has generally 
 been admitted even by infidels, is altogether unique ; 
 and some of them have granted that the invention of 
 such a noble character by the first disciples would 
 
OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT. 165 
 
 have been a greater miracle than any that is recorded. 
 It is magnifying the effect much above the cause, 
 it is investing the creation with a glory that did not 
 belong to the creator, to assert, that a character so 
 absolutely complete in all the elements of moral 
 grandeur, and standing alone in its majesty on the 
 pages of history, originated in Jewish conceptions 
 thrown around the skeleton of an historic reality. 
 " The author of a new creation," remarks D Aubigne, 1 
 " must not himself come of the old creation which he 
 is to change. The regenerator of the human race 
 must not himself be a polluted member of the cor 
 rupt body which he is going to purify. He who 
 comes to bring a divine life into the world must 
 himself emanate from that life and possess it in its 
 fulness ; for how otherwise can he communicate it ? 
 The first man of the new creation must issue from 
 the hand of God, as did the first man of the old 
 creation." There are two stubborn things which the 
 theory of Strauss cannot solve. The first is, why, if 
 Christ answered to the conceptions of the Jews, was 
 he persecuted by them, and the more in proportion as 
 he manifested himself ? The second is, why, after 
 his death, the death, according to them, of an im 
 postor and blasphemer, was he received by so many 
 thousands of the people who had formerly rejected 
 him ? To ascribe all this to the mere natural course 
 of things, exclusive of a Divine interposal, is, if pos 
 sible, more absurd than to account for the creation of 
 the universe without the agency of the Gi ^1 First 
 
 1 D Aubigne s Discourses and Essays, p. 336. 
 
166 NATURALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 Cause. Whether we consider the age an age of 
 unbelief and derision in which Christianity as a 
 " myth" is said to have arisen, or the men with their 
 strongly-rooted adverse prejudices, to whom the origin 
 of the myths is assigned, we see the wild unphiloso- 
 phical character of the Straussian theory. It accounts 
 still less for the success of such a myth as Christianity 
 among the Gentiles, opposed as it was at all points 
 to their systems of superstition and philosophy. " In 
 truth," as Mr. Henry Rogers remarks, 1 " nothing less 
 than a universal lunacy of the nations will account, 
 under such circumstances, for its reception by them." 2 
 
 1 Appendix to Rogers Reason and Faith. 
 
 2 " German theories, though they have broken down in quick 
 succession at home, have been imported as if still good, and have 
 been done into English without scruple." To this remark of the 
 author of " The Restoration of Belief," the theory of Strauss is no 
 exception. Germany is getting ashamed of it. Yet this is sub 
 stantially the theory, though Gfrorer is the great authority referred 
 to, that Mr. Mackay has reproduced in his " Progress of the In 
 tellect," chap, viii., vol. 2. He fathers the idea of a superhuman 
 Messiah on " a visionary suggestion " that rose in the Hebrew mind 
 when suffering under Persian oppression this suggestion or wish 
 k filled up the blank of political disappointment" this wish, in due 
 time, assumed " the fixity of dogmatical theory " and this wish 
 threw around " the Messianic champion " miraculous glories and 
 Godlike qualities. In other words, the church created its founder. 
 Mr. Mackay has no doubt of it. He describes the process as coolly 
 and deliberately as if it were a piece of art, the fashioning of 
 which he had witnessed in the artist s studio. Like some of his 
 German prototypes, however, he overshoots the mark, when he tells 
 us, in the face of historical evidence to the contrary, that the record 
 of Christ s life, having " a supernatural coloring," was given to the 
 world " when the generation of his contemporaries was extinct." 
 He makei? Christ to have been an ingenious impostor, the evangelists 
 to have been very clever knaves, and the sceptical age in which 
 
OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT. 167 
 
 And as the origin of Christianity cannot be ac 
 counted for, except on the belief of a supernatural 
 interposition, so it is impossible to account for the 
 mighty effects of Christianity, except on the belief 
 of an accompanying supernatural influence. It has 
 been soundly argued that the marked contrast between 
 the writings of the apostles and those of the most 
 ancient fathers, can only be explained on the suppo 
 sition that the sacred penmen wrote under the in 
 spiration of the Spirit of God. 1 And the radical and 
 beneficent change which the progress of Christianity 
 has wrought on individuals and communities, argues 
 that it has come in demonstration of the Spirit and 
 in power. Human depravity is a stubborn fact which 
 no theory of naturalism can get rid of. Individuals 
 and nations have been placed in the most favorable 
 external circumstances, and yet their depravity has 
 grown with their growth, and strengthened with their 
 
 Christianity was received to have been an age of great simpletons. 
 All this has been said over and over again long ago. There is here 
 no " Progress of the Intellect." 
 
 1 " The interval between the Scriptures and the very best of the 
 Fathers is so immense, that not a few have testified that it forms to 
 them the most convincing proof of the inspired origin of the former ; 
 it being, in their judgment, absurd to suppose that any man much 
 less a number of men could have composed sucn a volume as the 
 Bible, in an age in which their immediate successors, many of them 
 possessing undoubted genius and erudition, and having the advan 
 tage of such a model, could fall into puerilities so gross, and errors 
 so monstrous. For ourselves, we could sooner believe that Jacob 
 Bohmen could have composed the c Novum Organum, or Thomas 
 Sternhold the Paradise Lost. Rogers Essays from tlte Edin 
 burgh Review, vol. ii., pp. 123, 124. 
 
168 NATURALISM ; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 strength. The power of mere natural influences has 
 failed to reach the depths of that depravity, and 
 elevate man to a high and holy character. The 
 Christian revelation, accompanied by that Divine 
 energy which originated it, has been brought to bear- 
 on human nature, and that nature, in thousands of 
 instances, it has thoroughly renewed, and maintained 
 in its moral dignity in a world where so many natural 
 influences tend to debase it. This fact, taken along 
 with another, viz., that the best men in every age 
 have been firm believers in the doctrine of Divine 
 influence, goes to prove that Christianity and its 
 benignant deeds are effects which point to the agency 
 of the Great Spirit that at first moved upon the face 
 of the waters and garnished the world. 
 
 5. It need scarcely be remarked, that naturalism, 
 whether viewed as excluding Divine Providence from 
 the government of the spheres, or from interposing 
 in the concerns of men, is diametrically opposed to the 
 religion of the Bible. The constant concurrence of 
 the Divine will with the operation of secondary 
 causes, is alike the doctrine of sound reason and 
 scriptural truth. u My Father worketh hitherto, and 
 I work," said the Great Teacher, an expression 
 which seems to refer to the conjunct agency of the 
 Father and Son in producing the Christian miracles, 
 and the works of Providence in general. It is said 
 of Him who is God manifest in the flesh, that u by 
 him all things consist, and that he upholdeth all 
 things by the word of his power." Passages like 
 these, with which the Book of God is thickly strewed, 
 
OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT. 169 
 
 show that any attempt to remove God to a distance 
 from the creation, or to explode the idea of Providence, 
 wars with the record of revealed truth. The Scrip 
 tures, as we have seen, assert their own inspiration. 
 And their testimony is clear in regard to the necessity 
 of Divine influence to regenerate men. This is a 
 great mystery, who then can believe it ? Its rnys- 
 teriousness is admitted in the very passage that asserts 
 its necessity. 1 Strip Christianity of its mysteries, 
 and you strip it of its glory. " A religion without 
 its mysteries," says Robert Hall, " is like a temple 
 without its God." 
 
 But you cannot get rid of the mysterious. Nat 
 uralism banishes the Creator to a distance from the 
 creation, resolves everything into the unaided opera 
 tion of established laws, and thinks that the mystery 
 is greatly lessened. But, in truth, it is greatly in 
 creased. The stupendous system of worlds on worlds 
 moving in harmony throughout the fields of space, 
 without the ever-present agency of Him who made 
 them, is a mystery more baffling and less sublime 
 than the same system viewed as directly dependent 
 on the presidency and power of God. It is confess 
 edly mysterious how the Divine Spirit works on the 
 human mind, so as in the case of inspiration to allow 
 free intellectual action, and in the case of regeneration 
 not to infringe on moral liberty. But so it is. Scrip 
 ture attests it, and the subjects of Divine influence 
 in either case have been conscious of it. Naturalism 
 guards the human mind and human concerns from such 
 1 John, iii., 7, 8. 
 
170 NATURALISM. 
 
 an interposal, and thinks that it has cleared the moral 
 world of a mystery. But it is not so. The Bible, 
 in its grand disclosures and robe of solitary majesty, 
 is much more inexplicable without inspiration than 
 with it. And how moral evil that most insoluble 
 of all mysteries should be counteracted, and men 
 rescued from its power, by the mere play of natural 
 influences, is assuredly more mysterious and unac 
 countable than that it should be accomplished by the 
 Spirit of God. 
 
 In fine, naturalism, viewed in all its bearings, is 
 most unnatural. It has a universe independent of 
 Him who created it. It has a Christ, a Gospel, and 
 a Church, for the existence of which no higher cause 
 is assigned than Jewish conceptions and traditions. 
 It has a world in which moral evil abounds, and de 
 praved human hearts exist, for overcoming and regen 
 erating which, it ignores all but natural influences. 
 In attempting to get rid of mysteries the most sublime 
 and ennobling, it falls into mysteries far more per 
 plexing but less elevating. Were the two systems to 
 be tested by the attribute of mysteriousness, we would 
 prefer supernaturalism with its mysteries to rational 
 ism with its mysteries. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE DENIAL OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION, OR 
 SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 Change in the enemy s tactics Rationalism confessedly beaten on 
 the field of Biblical criticism Coleridge s remark The doctrines 
 of redemption granted, by rationalistic theologians and philoso 
 phers, to be in the sacred text The warfare shifted from the 
 ground of critical interpretation to that of speculative philosophy 
 Change that has come over Unitarianism : its pretensions 
 philosophical rather than exegetical The " School of Progress " 
 Parker s " Discourse on Religion " Newman s " Phases of Faith " 
 Mackay s " Progress of the Intellect " Tendency of Mr. Morell s 
 speculations Examination of the moral argument against the 
 evangelical doctrines The argument stated Refutation of it : 
 unsupported by analogy View given by it of the Divine character 
 is one-sided and partial Scripture doctrine of depravity accords 
 with actual condition of man Pardon on the ground of an atone 
 ment consistent with the paternity of God Reasonableness of the 
 Scripture doctrine of spiritual regeneration Sustained by an appeal 
 to three undeniable facts Charge of gloominess against the doc 
 trines of redemption shown to be unfounded Quotations from 
 Jonathan Edwards and Cowper. 
 
 MORE than half a century ago, the battle raged keenly 
 between the defendants and assailants of the New 
 Testament doctrines on the field of Biblical criticism. 
 Neology and rationalism in Germany brought a large 
 though unhallowed amount of scholarship to the 
 attempt to expel from the sacred volume those doc- 
 
172 SPIRITUALISM ; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 trines which have been generally regarded as its 
 distinguishing truths. And the same warfare was 
 prosecuted with much vigor in our own country. 
 The cool daring of the French atheistical philosophy 
 infected men s minds ; and individuals who professed 
 to interpret the Divine Book, set about demolishing 
 one text after another that favored the obnoxious 
 articles of atonement and spiritual regeneration, as 
 men set about destroying the underwood of a forest 
 in order to build them houses on the clear ground. 
 Christendom for awhile looked on appalled. But the 
 work of destruction was soon seen not to be the work 
 of interpretation. And, after the alarm and heat of 
 the first onset were past, the attempt to expunge the 
 doctrines of the incarnation, atonement, and regener 
 ating influences of the Spirit, from the sacred record, 
 was pronounced a more complete failure than the 
 attempt in France wholly to explode the idea of God 
 from the heart of society. On the ground of criticism, 
 then, the dispute, as is generally admitted, has been 
 decided in favor of the great doctrines of redemption. 
 It is only such a man as Mr. Foxton, late of Oxford, 
 that ventures now to say that " in the teaching of 
 Christ himself, there is not the slightest allusion to the 
 modern evangelical notion of an atonement." 1 It is 
 only such a kindred spirit as Mr. Newman, formerly 
 fellow of Balliol, whose faith, having passed through 
 so many phases, has at last got into the eclipse, that 
 " can testify that the atonement may be dropt out of 
 
 1 Foxton s Popular Christianity, p. 67. 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 173 
 
 Pauline religion without affecting its quality." 1 Such 
 a style of writing as this is only to be rivalled by as 
 serting that Hamlet would still be Hamlet though the 
 part of Hamlet were omitted. Nothing but a system 
 of monstrously forced interpretation so forced that, if 
 applied to extract a meaning from any human compo 
 sition, it would raise the shout of dishonesty could 
 expel these doctrines from Holy Writ, strip the text of 
 all that is peculiar to the Gospel, reduce its theology to 
 a mere theism, and the teaching of Jesus to a morality 
 somewhat elevated above the best of the heathen. 
 The mode of attack, accordingly, has been changed, 
 the ground of warfare has been shifted. But there is 
 the sacred text speaking as loudly and clearly for the 
 atonement and the doctrines inseparably connected 
 with it, as the stars in their courses and the earth with 
 its teeming productions, speak for the existence and 
 providential agency of God. Coleridge spoke strongly, 
 but not more strongly than truly, when he said that 
 u Socinians would lose all character for honesty, if 
 they were to explain their neighbor s will with the 
 same latitude of interpretation, which they do the 
 Scriptures." " I told them," at a time when he was 
 far ahead of them, as he himself informs us u I told 
 them plainly and openly, that it was clear enough 
 John and Paul were not Unitarians." 2 
 
 1 Newman s Phases of Faith, p. 103. 
 
 8 Mr. Theodore Parker thus speaks of the " Old School " of unita- 
 rians, which he has outgrown, though in a very different way from 
 Coleridge : " If the Athanasian Creed, the thirty-nine articles of the 
 English church, and the pope s bull Unigenitus, could be found 
 
174 SPIRITUALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 Such has become the opinion of many of the ra 
 tionalistic theologians, and philosophers of Germany. 
 Christianity with them may be either true or false, 
 but they are constrained to admit that what are 
 usually regarded as its peculiar doctrines, are con 
 tained in the sacred volume. Schelling and Hegel * 
 assume the existence of the doctrines of the Trinity, 
 incarnation, atonement, the lapsed condition of man. 
 and the regeneration of the soul by the Holy Spirit 
 and attempt, in the true rationalistic mode, to deduce 
 the whole from philosophical principles. Their Christ 
 ology, in so far as doctrinal articles are concerned, 
 differs but little from the evangelical creed. The 
 Trinity and incarnation may be explained according 
 to a theory of development which denudes them of 
 their surpassing glory, but that they are in the Bible 
 is not denied. The idea of the doctrine of the fall 
 and of redemption by Christ, as enunciated in their 
 philosophy, agrees in the main with evangelical prin 
 ciples, however contrary to these may be the attempt 
 to deduce them on principles of pure science. The 
 doctrine of the fall is explained as being the disunit 
 ing of the human will from the Divine will. And 
 redemption is regarded as the reunion of man s will 
 to God. The rationalism of the system is broad and 
 palpable. But it is something in, advance of former 
 
 in a Greek manuscript, and be proved to be the work of an inspired 
 apostle, no doubt unitarianism would in good faith explain all three, 
 and deny that they taught the doctrine of the Trinity or the fall of 
 man." Discourse on Religion, p. 357. 
 
 1 Morell s History of Philosophy, vol. ii., pp, 152, 190. 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 175 
 
 speculations, that the Christian doctrines are admitted 
 to be in the text of the Bible. Such intrepid thinkers, 
 the very spirit of whose philosophy is destructive of 
 the influence of the Gospel, virtually declare that the 
 attempt to extrude the evangelical doctrines from the 
 sacred record is vain, and that, be they true or false, 
 they must be recognized as occupying a prominent 
 place in that book which claims to be from heaven. 
 
 Strauss, who is a true Hegelian, and who, as we have 
 seen, has exploded an historical gospel for the sake 
 of a philosophical creed, has adopted and more fully 
 developed the same view of the leading Christian 
 doctrines. He denounces as strongly the old ration 
 alistic method of interpretation as he does the idea of 
 a supernatural intervention. He denies the histori 
 cal truth of the New Testament, but he admits the 
 gospels to be miraculous in their texture, and that the 
 orthodox tenets are contained in them. His principle 
 is, not that there are no miracles in the sacred record, 
 but that the miracles there related cannot be literally 
 true, for miracles are an impossibility. His principle 
 is, not that the dogmas of the Trinity, incarnation, 
 atonement, the fall of man, and his regeneration by 
 the Spirit, have no place in the Scripture text, but 
 that they are a series of myths or philosophical fig 
 ments, which can be explained on the principles of 
 Hegelianism. Thus, in Germany, the attempt to in 
 terpret the New Testament so as to expunge from it 
 the peculiar doctrines of the Gospel, and reduce it to 
 little more than a mere theism, the attempt to make 
 John and Paul Socinians, has been for the most 
 
176 SPIRITUALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 part abandoned. The hostility to these doctrines, as 
 principles of evangelism, may not a whit be abated, 
 but it is granted that they are in the sacred canon. 
 And the warfare against them is, to a considerable 
 degree, shifted from the ground of critical interpreta- 
 tation to that of speculative philosophy. 
 
 It has been said that Unitarianism gravitates 
 towards rationalism. And, accordingly, the change 
 that has come over German rationalism, has, in some 
 measure, influenced English and American 1 unita- 
 rianism. It is assuming something like the shape of 
 a religious philosophy. We seldom meet it in the 
 field of critical exegesis, and, generally, wherever we do 
 meet it, the weapons of the new philosophy are found 
 in its hands. It was from the sensational philosophy 
 that the unitarianism of the last century took its 
 character. In the time of Priestley and subsequently, 
 it was deeply stamped with his own fatalism and ma 
 terialism. And everybody knows how D Alembert 
 and Voltaire exulted in its progress, and hailed it as 
 an ally in the war in which they themselves were 
 engaged. A writer in the Encyclopedic remarks : 
 
 " It is probable," say* Dr. Baird,. " that unitarianism in the 
 United States will disappear in process of time very much as it 
 arose gradually. The more serious will return, if proper measures 
 be pursued, to the evangelical churches many have done so within 
 the last twenty years. Those who have embraced the transcenden 
 tal and pantheistic views will go further astray, until they end in 
 downright infidelity and deism. Indeed, that is their present posi 
 tion, so far as concerns their opinions of the inspiration of the Scrip 
 tures and the Divine nature." The Religious Condition of Chris 
 tendom, p. 605, 1852. 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 177 
 
 u The Unitarians have always been regarded as Chris 
 tian divines, who had only broken and torn off a few 
 branches of the tree, but still held to the trunk; 
 whereas they ought to have been looked upon as a 
 sect of philosophers, who, that they might not give 
 too rude a shock to the religion and opinions, true or 
 false, which were then received, did not choose openly 
 to avow pure deism, and reject formally and unequi 
 vocally every sort of revelation ; but who were con 
 tinually doing, with respect to the Old and New 
 Testaments, what Epicurus did with respect to the 
 gods; admitting them verbally but destroying them 
 really. In fact, the Unitarians received only so much of 
 the Scriptures as they found conformable to the natural 
 dictates of reason, and what might serve the purpose 
 of propping up and confirming the systems which 
 they had embraced. . . . From Socinianism to deism 
 there is but a very slight shade, and a single step to 
 take : and the Socinian takes it." 1 And not only the 
 French encyclopaedists, but the German rationalists 
 looked favorably on the progress of Socinianism 
 both in our own country and on the other side of the 
 Atlantic, as helping them in their attempt to extrude 
 from the Gospels the miraculous and supernatural 
 element. But the reign of the sensational philosophy 
 having passed, and the idealistic philosophy having 
 gained the ascendant, unitarianisin, at least among 
 many of its adherents, has, without losing any of its 
 virulence toward evangelical truth, undergone a some- 
 
 1 Dr. Smith s Scripture Testimony, vol. i., pp. 135, 136. 
 12 
 
178 SPIRITUALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 what corresponding change in its character. It has, in 
 a great measure, laid aside the old rationalistic method 
 of attempting by forced interpretations to thrust out 
 from the Bible text the doctrines of redemption. Its 
 pretensions are philosophical rather than exegetical. 
 It exhibits Christianity as a system of spiritual phi 
 losophy founded in the nature of things, rather than 
 a body of truth derived from the New Testament 
 fairly and literally interpreted. It does not so much 
 deny that the evangelical doctrines are there, as 
 assume that if they were they could not be literally 
 true. Accordingly, the more modern Unitarianism 
 pays less deference to the Bible, viewed as a revelation 
 from heaven, than even did the old. It heeds far less 
 what saith the Scripture, than what says human rea 
 son, or this and that oracle of the speculative schools. 
 The chiefs of this system of religious philosophy 
 consequently rid themselves of many of the embar 
 rassments which their predecessors had to encounter. 
 Holding an increasingly lax theory of inspiration, or 
 tossing aside the idea of inspiration altogether, the 
 doctrines of the Trinity, incarnation, atonement, and 
 Spirit s influences, become not so much a question of 
 scriptural truth as of philosophical possibility. The 
 stubborn texts have been abandoned, and the weapons 
 of transcendentalism have been resorted to. Reason 
 is to be the umpire in every dispute. There are laws 
 of the mind, say the disciples of this school, which are 
 exact and uniform. These are absolute tests to 
 man, and by means of them the pretensions of every 
 doctrine must be decided. " What is of use to man 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 179 
 
 lies in the plane of his own consciousness, neither 
 above it nor below it." 1 This is the motto of the class 
 of writers referred to. Strauss takes up the position, 
 " miracles are impossible ;" and, being pinned there as 
 firmly as a man in the stocks, proceeds to examine the 
 miraculous Gospel history. In like manner, the more 
 liberal Unitarians fix themselves on the assumption 
 that the Trinity and atonement cannot rest on evidence ; 
 and then, either deny that they are to be found in the 
 Bible, or finding them there, discard them as false 
 because not according with their own sense of fitness. 
 
 Socinianism, then, properly so called, is not the 
 goal in which such speculations terminate. Emerson, 
 Parker, Blanco White, F. W. Newman, and others, 
 have touched at this point, but they have passed 
 beyond it. There is no great gulf, indeed, fixed 
 between them and their former associates. It is 
 only the difference between men who seeing clearly 
 whither the road leads have shot along it, and men 
 halting dubiously at an intermediate post yet looking 
 onward to the advanced station. The "school of 
 progress," conscious of a common linking principle 
 between itself and unitarianism in all its shades, is 
 calling upon it to come on. u It must do this, or 
 cease to represent the progress of man in theology. Then 
 some other will take its office; stand God-parent to 
 the fair child it has brought into the world, but dares 
 not own." 2 Mr. Parker, in America, has taken the 
 office ; and Mr. F. W. Newman aspires to it in England. 
 
 1 Parker s Discourse on Religion, p. 33. 3 Ibid., p. 357. 
 
180 SPIRITUALISM; OB, THE DENIAL 
 
 Our amazement is that such persons should still pro 
 fess a vague reverence for Christianity, clothe them 
 selves so frequently in the language of its cast-off 
 Bible, and claim the privilege of being accounted 
 Christians. "A certain man," we read, "went down 
 from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, 
 which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded 
 him, and departed, leaving him half dead." Had 
 such depredators turned again upon their victim and 
 professed friendship, it would have been somewhat 
 parallel to the conduct of many in our day, who, 
 while stabbing Christianity in the heart, speak of it 
 as something divine. 
 
 Mr. Parker, as a member of the Unitarian body, 
 grew too fast for the body itself, and has been de 
 tached from it, His writings are highly appreciated 
 by the men of the new school, and they seem not 
 unwilling to acknowledge him as a leader. He is a. 
 strenuous advocate of what he calls " absolute reli 
 gion," or those simplest elements of moral and 
 religious truth which are supposed to underlie all 
 theologies, Pagan, Jewish, and Christian. His talk 
 on this point is not unlike the rhapsodies of Emerson. 
 "There is but one religion," he tells us, "as one 
 ocean." 1 And again, " there can be but one kind of 
 religion, as there can be but one kind of time and 
 space." Of course, the different names given to it 
 indicate "our partial conceptions," or distinctions 
 belonging "to the thinker s mind, not to religion 
 
 1 Parker s Discourse on Religion, p. 6. 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 181 
 
 itself." 1 Just as in looking over the world, we see 
 only one race of men, taking the name of Britons or 
 Esquimaux, &c., according to artificial or local dis 
 tinctions; or just as it is one and the same element 
 of water though parts of it be named the Pacific, the 
 Atlantic or the German Ocean. Two things follow 
 from this view which occupy a prominent place in 
 Mr. Parker s writings. The one is, that " there is no 
 difference but of words between revealed religion and 
 natural religion." 2 All religions being more or less 
 true, and the essence of Christianity being made 
 independent of all circumstances, "all those extra 
 neous matters relating to the person, character, and 
 authority of him who first taught it." 3 The other is 
 that each man possesses in his own mind the power 
 of discerning the absolute truth, so that everything 
 supposed to be included in religion is to be tested by 
 this intuitive susceptibility or power. " Christianity 
 is dependent on no outside authority. . . . We verify 
 its eternal truth in our soul." 4 He in common with 
 some of our own men of progress, resolves, after the 
 example of Schleiermacher, the religious element in 
 man into a sense of dependence. This religious 
 sentiment or sense of dependence, supposed to exist 
 at the root of all religions, is made everything ; while 
 the character, nature, and essence of the object on 
 which it depends, are made of little or no importance. 
 The objects of worship are " accidental circumstances 
 
 1 Parker s Discourse, pp. 33, 34. a Ibid., p. 33. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 183. * Ibid., p. 209. 
 
182 SPIRITUALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 peculiar to the age, nation, sect, or individual." This 
 religious sentiment is the " eternal element," all else 
 is "mutable and fleeting." The problem of our 
 times which he deems himself commissioned to solve, 
 is: "To separate religion from whatever is finite, 
 church, book, person, and let it rest on its absolute 
 truth." 1 Mr. Parker is a sort of Luther in his own 
 way " Protestantism delivers us from the tyranny of 
 the church, and carries us back to the Bible." 2 Phi 
 losophical spiritualism is to effect the next Reforma 
 tion. "Our theology," he says, 3 "has two great idols 
 the BIBLE and CHRIST." And Mr. Parker is the 
 iconoclast who would break them in pieces. It is, 
 after all, however, but the exchange of one infallibility 
 for another an infallible Bible for an infallible Self 
 the outward for the inward oracle. There is an 
 idol still. 
 
 We meet with strange reasoning and a confounding 
 of things in "A Discourse of Matters pertaining to 
 Religion." Thus, in order to cut away the external 
 evidences, he argues, that if it could be shown that 
 Christianity rested on miracles, it would prove nothing 
 in its favor, because other religions appeal to the 
 same authority: which is something like saying that 
 because there is a great deal of counterfeit coin in 
 the world there can be no genuine, or because there 
 are multitudes of knaves there can be no true men. 
 It is overlooked that Christ has "done the works 
 that none other man did," that his miracles, in their 
 simplicity and sublimity, in their power and benevo- 
 
 1 Parker s Discourse, p. 372. 2 Ibid., p. 364. 3 Ibid., 369. 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 183 
 
 lence, stand apart from and in contrast to all the 
 pretended miracles alleged in support of false religions. 
 The character of Jesus is a link in the chain of proof, 
 and, in order to rend it asunder, it is sophistically 
 argued, 1 that as the truth of a demonstration in Euclid 
 is independent of Euclid s character, so what is true 
 in Christianity is independent of the character of 
 Christ. "If it depends on Jesus, it is not eternally 
 true ... if not eternally true, it is no truth at all. . . . 
 Personal authority adds nothing to a mathematical 
 demonstration." Now, in the first place, we protest 
 against the infidel assumption that Christianity rests 
 exclusively on this or that thing which forms only a 
 part of the whole ground of evidence. 2 And, then, 
 secondly, we can conceive nothing more unphiloso- 
 
 1 Parker s Discourse, pp. 181, 198. 
 
 a Our opponents, with great unfairness, charge us with resorting 
 to a sophism when we hold that the external and internal evidences, 
 the miracles and the doctrines corroborate each other. This is well 
 met by trying it in a simple case. "You have to do with one who 
 offers to your eye his credentials his diploma, duly signed and 
 sealed, and which declare him to be a Personage of the highest rank. 
 All seems genuine in these evidences. At the same time the style 
 and tone, the air and behavior, of this Personage, and all that he 
 says, and what he informs you of, and the instructions he gives you, 
 are in every respect consistent with his pretensions, as set forth in 
 the Instrument he brings with him. It is not, then, that you alter 
 nately believe his credentials to be genuine, because his deportment 
 and his language are becoming to his alleged rank ; and then that 
 you yield to the impression which has been made upon your feelings 
 by his deportment, because you have admitted the credentials to be 
 true. Your belief is the product of a simultaneous accordance of the 
 two species of proof: it is a combined force that carries conviction, 
 not a succession of proofs in line." The Restoration of Belief^), 103, 
 
184 SPIRITUALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 phical than this attempt to place mathematical and 
 moral truth, in point of evidence, on the same plane. 
 Mathematical truth has no influence on moral cha 
 racter; and the bad or good life of a mathematical 
 teacher does not affect the truth of his demonstra 
 tions. But the character of one who claims to be a 
 teacher sent from God, enters into that amount of 
 evidence by which his message is substantiated. 
 Common sense never thinks of a connection between 
 a man s life and the truth of his theorem, but it does 
 think of such a connection between moral truth and 
 the character of him who reveals it. The Jews felt 
 the force of this, and in order to resist his doctrine r 
 they endeavored to fasten upon the Great Teacher 
 the charges of being a blasphemer and in league with 
 Beelzebub. Besides, religious doctrines may be true 
 without being eternal such is the doctrine of the 
 incarnation. And a doctrine may be eternal and yet 
 historical such is the doctrine of the Trinity. Mr. 
 Parker should know that eternally true and eternally 
 known are quite different things. It is a similar 
 fallacy, and adduced for the same end ridding the 
 world of a fixed doctrinal standard which is involved 
 in the assertion that "the phenomena of religion 
 like those of science and art must vary from land 
 to land, and age to age, with the varying civilization 
 of mankind." 1 The progress of physical truth no 
 more indicates a similar progress in religious truth, 
 than a man s bodily growth indicates the enlargement 
 of his soul. And to conclude that, as we have out- 
 
 1 Parker s Discourse, p. 37. 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 185 
 
 grown the geology of a past age, we ought to outgrow 
 its religious belief, is as good as saying that a people 
 who have railways and huge reflecting telescopes, 
 must be sounder in the faith than those who ride 
 upon asses and never have resolved the nebulae in 
 Orion s belt. u lt may be shown," remarks an able 
 reviewer, 1 "that while what is merely historical 
 in physics may be of small value; the historical in 
 morals and in religious faith may embrace all the 
 truth of that nature the world will ever need, and 
 greatly more than the world would ever have dis 
 covered had it been left to itself." 
 
 But the great fallacy in this theory of spiritualism 
 that which lies at the very core of the system 
 consists in making the religious principle in man find 
 its proper object, in the same way that the senses 
 the eye or the ear find theirs. Two things are here 
 confounded : the capacity for receiving religious truth 
 and the capacity of unaided reason to discover it. 
 "This theory," says Mr. Parker, 2 "teaches that there 
 is a natural supply for spiritual as well as for corpo 
 real wants; that there is a connection between God 
 and the soul, as between light and the eye, sound and 
 the ear, food and the palate, truth and the intellect, 
 beauty and the imagination." He thus cuts off the 
 miraculous provision. And then, "as we have bodily 
 senses to lay hold on matter, and supply bodily wants, 
 through which we obtain, naturally, all needed ma 
 terial things; so we have spiritual faculties to lay 
 
 1 British Quarterly, No. XXI. 
 8 Parker s Discourse, p. 160. 
 
186 SPIRITUALISM; OR THE DENIAL 
 
 hold on God, and supply spiritual wants; through 
 them we obtain all needed spiritual things." He 
 thus excludes the supernatural influence which opens 
 the heart to receive the miraculous supply. Here is 
 a point of fact. Do men obtain peace of conscience 
 and rest for the soul, as naturally as their eyes obtain 
 light or their palate obtains food? Do the spiritual 
 faculties and the spiritual objects come together in 
 the merely natural way here represented ? We trow 
 not. Universal history, and individual history dis 
 claim the analogy. "Each animal, in its natural 
 state, attains its legitimate end, reaches perfection 
 after its kind." 1 Yes. But man is the anomaly here. 
 He fails of reaching the perfection that is proper to 
 him. It is easy to descant, as our author does, on 
 the relation of supply to demand in the animal 
 kingdom, and on the sufficiency of instinct in the ox 
 and the sparrow. But to conclude that because the 
 natural circumstances attending them are perfect, it 
 must be so in the case of man; that because they 
 obtain rest and satisfaction in a natural and not 
 miraculous supply, by a natural and not supernatural 
 guide, therefore the human race needs no miraculous 
 provision and no other than natural guidance ; is as 
 consistent with fact as to infer that since the fowls of 
 the air fly, man must have wings. It is true that we 
 find a race of men, though " we never find a race of 
 animals, destitute of what is most needed for them, 
 wandering up and down, seeking rest and finding 
 
 1 Parker s Discourse, p. 136. 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 187 
 
 none." That capacity implies the object, and that 
 there are supplies to meet the spiritual wants of man 
 are truths. But the fact, however mysterious, in 
 reference to man, is, that the capacity and the object 
 do not, as in the irrational animals, come naturally 
 together. There is no discrepancy between the proper 
 destiny and the actual condition of the sparrow, but 
 there is much between the proper destiny and the 
 actual condition of man. A sense of guilt is a real 
 and powerful element in man s religious conscious 
 ness which this theory of spiritualism ignores, and for 
 which, consequently, it makes no provision. That 
 sense of guilt is a fact in the natural history of man, 
 which remains in spite of all such teaching, and to 
 talk, amid this felt discordance between actual con 
 dition and proper destiny, of throwing man upon 
 himself or upon the religious sentiment at the bottom 
 of his heart, is something like bidding a man brood 
 over his disease when he feels the need of going 
 out after a remedy. Mr. Parker tells us that u for 
 the religious consciousness of man, a knowledge of 
 two great truths is indispensable ; namely, a knowl 
 edge of the existence of the Infinite God, and of 
 the duty we owe to Him." 2 These, of course, may 
 be known, independently of all revelation and super 
 natural influence, by intuition and reflection. Now 
 supposing that man needed no more than this knowl 
 edge, it is asked, does his own unaided intuition 
 furnish it, or is he found in this state of nature dis 
 charging his duty ? Let the world s history, actual 
 1 Parker s Discourse, p. 136. a Ibid., p. 158 
 
188 SPIRITUALISM ; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 observation, and personal experience answer. Our 
 question is answered when we think of u many a 
 swarthy Indian, who bowed down to wood and stone 
 many a grim-faced Calmuck, who worshipped the 
 great God of Storms many a Grecian peasant, who 
 did homage to Phoebus- Apollo when the sun rose or 
 went down many a savage, his hands smeared 
 all over with human sacrifice," although Mr. Parker 
 assures us, in his catholicity, that they shall sit 
 down with Moses and Jesus in the kingdom of 
 God. 1 But much more than this knowledge is 
 wanting. Men who have it are wandering up and 
 down seeking rest and finding none ; they know that 
 the infinite God exists, but they want to know how 
 He can pardon guilt and justify the ungodly; they 
 know their duty, but there is the want of inclination 
 or moral power to act up to it. And, amid all this 
 fine talk about the light of nature, world-wide in 
 spiration, and the power of intuitive sentiment, the 
 actual condition of the race, without the external 
 teaching of Christianity, rises up in dark contrast, 
 and forces from us the exclamation, Has this intuitive 
 power given to the soul its proper object, as instinct 
 has given to the beast and bird theirs ? 
 
 It will be seen, then, what is the attitude taken by 
 this system of spiritualism towards the Christian 
 revelation. " It bows to no idols, neither the church, 
 nor the Bible, nor yet Jesus, but God only. ... Its 
 redeemer is within its salvation within; its heaven 
 
 1 Parker s Discourse, p. 83. 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 189 
 
 and its oracle of God." 1 The intuitive susceptibility 
 or power of the mind is placed on the judgment seat, 
 and made the sovereign cleterminator of what is truth 
 or the u absolute religion." The Bible, irrespective 
 altogether of its evidences, is stripped of its authority 
 as the law and the testimony, and is received as 
 a help only in the degree that its utterances accord 
 with the sentiment of the mind. The claims of 
 Christianity are settled, not on the ground of its grand 
 divine peculiarities, but in proportion as its statements 
 are found to contain the simple unchanging principles 
 of the religion called absolute. It " sponges out nine- 
 tenths of the whole ; or, after reducing the mass of it 
 to a caput mortuum of lies, fiction, and superstitions, 
 retains only a few drops of fact and doctrine, so few 
 as certainly not to pay for the expenses of the critical 
 distillation." 2 Christianity, or what is generally under 
 stood to be its distinguishing principles, is, of course, 
 well blackened and grossly misrepresented, in order 
 to insure its condemnation. Spiritualism, we are 
 told, " calls God father, not king ;" whereas popular 
 Christianity " makes God dark and awful ; a judge, not 
 a protector ; a king, not a father ; jealous, selfish, vin 
 dictive. He is the Draco of the universe ; the author 
 of sin, but its unforgiving avenger." 3 This we can 
 characterize only as a great untruth, and, we cannot 
 help thinking, that Mr. Parker knew it. The design 
 is to array man s moral nature against the external 
 
 1 Parker s Discourse, p. 361. 
 
 9 Rogers Essays from the Edinburgh Review, vol. il, p. 330. 
 
 9 Parker s Discourse, pp. 5 42, 359. 
 
190 SPIRITUALISM ; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 divine revelation, and to represent the doctrines of 
 atonement as conflicting with the imperishable re 
 ligious sentiments common to the race. But, as we 
 shall afterwards show, spiritualism is as much at vari 
 ance with analogy in calling God father and refusing 
 to call him also king, as it is dishonest in making 
 evangelism call Him king only and not father also. 
 
 Mr. Parker, like many others, would shift the con 
 test from the field of the external evidences, (by affect 
 ing to despise them as, even if true, of no value,) to 
 the matter of Christianity itself ; the intuitive suscep 
 tibility or power of the mind being supreme arbiter. 
 We, without abating a jot of our regard for these evi 
 dences being more and more disposed to tell these 
 towers and mark these bulwarks are willing to abide 
 by a fair trial of the contents of the revelation itself. 
 It is part of the disingenuousness of infidelity, to repre 
 sent us as fixed on the one ground, and reluctant to 
 do battle on the other. The nature of the doctrine 
 must be taken into account, as well as the external 
 evidence which attests it. But we demur to making 
 any inward power of depraved man, be it called in 
 tuition or religious sentiment, a sufficient guide or 
 test in such a question as this. It is enough that 
 our moral nature, in its clear imperishable utterances, 
 be not overborne or brought into collision. But it is 
 not entitled to demand that it should be made the 
 revealer of truth, or that an external revelation should 
 disclose nothing but what lies within the range of our 
 natural faculties, for that were to deny the possibility 
 of a revelation properly so called. This, however, is 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 191 
 
 the high claim of modern spiritualism. Common sense 
 refuses to yield to any such intolerable dogmatism. 
 It is inconsistent with our dependent condition in 
 this world, and with the felt wants of the human 
 spirit. We are led to look for a revelation from with 
 out, and if attested by sufficient evidence, if its docu 
 ments be proved genuine, and if its contents, though 
 above the power of our moral nature to discover, be in 
 harmony with its broad principles and with what we 
 otherwise know of the Divine government, nothing 
 on our part should hinder its reception. It is the al 
 leged discordancy between the two that runs through 
 out the whole of Mr. Parker s illogical and intolerant 
 book, and which is the sharp sword in the hands of 
 philosophical spiritualism. But, let us hear another 
 chief of the same school, before we turn the weapon. 
 
 " Modern spiritualism has reason to be deeply 
 grateful to Mr. Newman." So says a London journal 1 
 that numbers among its contributors men of like 
 stamp. He seems to have done great things for 
 them whereof they are glad. His recent work, 
 " Phases of Faith ; or, Passages from the History of 
 my Creed," is looked upon as having thrown up a 
 highway on which the u new reformation " may safely 
 advance. People, in certain regions, are thankful for 
 what in other places would be counted but very bad 
 roads. And surely the pathways of spiritualism must 
 have been loose and insecure that it needed Mr. 
 Newman s work to tread on, and for which it is so 
 grateful. We willingly accord to this book the praise 
 
 1 The Leader. 
 
192 SPIRITUALISM ; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 of a simple and good English style ; but we deny it 
 the merit of cleverly sustaining the part of honesty 
 which it assumes. There is reason to suspect that 
 a man has not overmuch of this virtue, when, at the 
 end of every paragraph in his speech, he is making 
 loud professions of it. Mr. Newman becomes an 
 unbeliever, and then he writes a book to tell us that 
 he could not help it. He would have us to look upon 
 him, in passing through these "phases," as a man 
 whose sympathies were mainly in favor of the old 
 doctrines, but who, under a strong sense of duty, 
 had to sacrifice them and suffer loss. And these pro 
 fessions, be it observed, are not unfrequently made 
 after grossly perverting Scripture, or misrepresenting 
 the evangelical creed. He "struggled to the last, to 
 rest on the practical soundness of Paul s eminently 
 sober understanding. . . But Paul also proved a broken 
 reed." 1 And why ? Because, in his treatment of the 
 gift of tongues, he speaks, according to Mr. Newman, 
 like an Irvingite ; and because the Christ of Paul s 
 epistles is a different being from the Christ of the 
 evangelists ! Again, he tells us that the 53d chapter 
 of Isaiah and some of the other Messianic prophecies 
 " were the very last link of his chain that snapt." 
 After severe tugging, u it still remained strange that 
 there should be coincidences so close with the suffer 
 ings of Jesus ; but he reflected that he had no proof 
 that the narrative had not been strained by credulity.... 
 And herewith (he adds) my last argument in favor 
 of views for which I once would have laid down my 
 1 Phases of Faith, p. 177. 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 193 
 
 life, seemed to be spent." 1 We are thus to judge of 
 the way in which he has made such mighty sacri 
 fices. And our conclusion is, that Mr. Newman s 
 statements must be taken with some qualification, 
 when he assures us of being forced, against all his 
 prepossessions, to yield to the authority of Strauss; 
 or, of being thrown every now and then into great 
 disquietude, because his "moral sentiment and the 
 Scripture were no longer in full harmony." 2 
 
 The impression made on most minds in reading 
 the "Phases," we are persuaded, will be that its 
 author never was, in the proper sense of the expres 
 sion, a Christian. Indeed his ignorance or perversion 
 of Christian doctrines and evidences is manifested in 
 almost every page. He divides the progress of his 
 creed into a number of periods. In the first period, 
 or what he calls his "youthful creed," we have the 
 picture of a young man sent to Oxford without armor, 
 and wounded by all the little fighters that surround 
 him. We may sympathize with his detestation of 
 formalism and of priestly assumptions. But he lacks 
 judgment to discern the things that differ. In the 
 second period, or "strivings after a more Primitive 
 Christianity," he occupies the position of a man in 
 open conflict with other men s opinions, and yet cha 
 grined that they do not hug and embrace him. He 
 is caught and tossed about by every wind. He throws 
 aside the leading Christian doctrines as intellectual 
 propositions or dogmas, while pretending much rever 
 ence for Scripture. In the third period, his religion 
 
 1 Phases of Faith, p. 197. 2 Ibid, p. 81. 
 
194 SPIRITUALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 has assumed the shape of moral sentiment, ("if shape 
 it might be called that shape had none,") which is 
 independent of our belief in the Bible. The inward 
 power of judging is here made everything. He touches 
 at Unitarianisrn, but it cannot afford him "half an 
 hour s resting place." 1 And before this inward power 
 "whether called common sense, conscience, or the 
 Spirit of God," 2 he brings, after having in a great 
 measure perverted them, the doctrines of depravity 
 and the fall, election and future punishment, the 
 atonement and divinity of Christ, and having sur 
 rendered them, indorses them " Galvanism Aban 
 doned." And yet he would have us believe that in 
 all the workings of his mind about these doctrines, 
 they had little to do with the inward exercises of his 
 soul towards God. "He was still the same, immu 
 tably glorious: not one feature of his countenance 
 had altered to my gaze or could alter." 3 Surely, then 
 a dishonest man might say, after his work of plunder, 
 what has this to do with my integrity ? The fourth 
 period, or "the religion of the letter renounced," 
 represents him afloat far from land. He lays hold of 
 all the old objections to the Bible, grounded for the 
 most part on such things as wrong dates and names, 
 most of which have been refuted a thousand times. 
 He would have us infer, that as John and Paul did 
 not understand astronomy so well as Sir W. Herschell, 
 that as their science as men might be at fault, so 
 might their teaching as inspired apostles. 4 It is in 
 
 1 Phases of Faith, p. 101. 2 Ibid., p. 82 9 Ibid., p. 
 4 Ibid., p. 121. 
 
 104. 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 195 
 
 vain to tell Mr. Newman, it is not in their cha 
 racter as men, but in their peculiar character as 
 apostles, that we claim for them inspiration and in 
 fallibility; that as they were not comissioned to 
 teach human science, they might have been wrong 
 in astronomy; but that, as they were commissioned 
 and inspired to teach Christian truth, they could not 
 have been wrong in theology. He has here reduced 
 the Bible to almost nothing, being greatly aided, he 
 confesses, 1 by some German divines, especially by De 
 Wette, and yet he professes to hold by Christianity. 
 He would have us to imagine him "resting under an 
 Indian fig-tree, which is supported by certain grand 
 stems, but also lets down to the earth many small 
 branches, which seem to the eye to prop the tree, but 
 in fact are supported by it. If they were cut away, 
 the tree would not be less strong. So neither was 
 the tree of Christianity weakened by the loss of its 
 apparent props. I might still enjoy its shade, and 
 ,eat of its fruits, and bless the hand that planted it." 2 
 This may seem beautiful, but it is not true. The 
 tree, in so far as Mr. Newman is concerned, has 
 disappeared with all its props and stems. And that 
 under which he is sitting is as like the tree of Chris 
 tianity as the bramble bush is like the oak. In re 
 nouncing the letter he has renounced the spirit. 
 And the flagrancy is, after having openly done the 
 deed, to vaunt of his innocence. In the fifth period, 
 or " faith at second-hand found to be vain," he has 
 reached the position that miracles cannot be admitted 
 
 1 Phases of Faith, p. 138. 2 Ibid, p. 143. 
 
196 SPIRITUALISM ; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 as evidence of moral truth. He does not attempt so 
 much to deny the miracles as to depreciate them. 
 The assertion on which he lays stress is, "that 
 miraculous phenomena will never prove the good 
 ness and veracity of God, if we do not know these 
 qualities in Him without miracle." 1 Granted: but 
 this does not preclude miracle attesting a special 
 manifestation of the Divine goodness. That God 
 is good is indeed a truth " discernible by the heart 
 without the aid of miracle ;" but that He would mani 
 fest his goodness in the way implied in the Christian 
 redemption is not so discernible. And though such 
 a manifestation, after it has been made, may answer 
 the yearnings of the heart, yet the want of special 
 evidence to attest the special and extraordinary inter 
 position is felt. Mr. Newman and his school can 
 never make good the proposition that moral truth 
 cannot be substantiated by miracles of sense. Men 
 are so constituted as to associate (unless willfully 
 blinded by prejudice) the truthfulness of the mora\ 
 teaching with the undoubted manifestation of mi 
 raculous power on the part of the teacher. And 
 what he does to weaken or nullify them, is to repre 
 sent Jesus as "solely anxious to have people believe 
 in Him, without caring on what grounds they be 
 lieved;" 2 to represent the logical notions of the 
 apostles as at variance with ours, and to speak of our 
 moral judgments as at conflict with the Gospel and 
 its evidences. 3 Did he never read the Scripture, how 
 that Christ, resting his claims on his miracles, said, 
 
 1 Phases of Faith, p. 157. a Ibid. p. 146. Ibid., p. 147. 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 197 
 
 " The works that I do in my Father s name, they 
 bear witness of me. If I do not the works of my 
 Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye be 
 lieve not me, believe the works ; that ye may know 
 and believe, that the Father is in me and I in him ? 
 And when he assumes, that because the astronomy of 
 Paul s day was defective, so was the logic ; or asserts, 1 
 that because we cannot cross-examine the apostles, 
 we have no means of assuring ourselves that they 
 held correct principles of evidence, we tell him that 
 though men may have different data in different ages, 
 it by no means follows that they must have different 
 principles of reasoning ; and we ask if he is prepared 
 to set aside all but contemporaneous history, to place 
 no confidence in Thucydides or Josephus, because he 
 cannot interrogate them? And then he assumes, 
 what never has happened, and never can happen, the 
 existence of a miracle that would authorize him to 
 violate his moral perceptions. It is, we repeat, a dis 
 ingenuous resort of infidelity, to separate two things 
 which God hath joined together the character of 
 the doctrine and the character of the external evidence 
 attesting it and to represent us as resting on the 
 latter, exclusive of the former, whereas the faith of 
 the Christian has regard to both. In the sixth phase 
 of Mr. Newman s faith, he attempts to cut up his 
 torical religion by the roots, and represents religion 
 as a state of sentiment toward God that is independent 
 of any outward creed whatever. He assumes that 
 because we contend for an historical foundation to 
 
 1 Phases of Faith, p. 148. 
 
198 SPIRITUALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 Christianity, we make it a mere problem of literature ; 
 and then argues, 1 that as he cannot solve literary 
 problems concerning distant history, and as they lie 
 beyond u the religious faculties of the poor and half- 
 educated," they can form no part of religion. Here is 
 obviously a confounding of two different things: the 
 mind s susceptibility of religious sentiment, and the 
 outward law and testimony which appeals authorita 
 tively to that susceptibility. And, to use the words 
 of Dr. Yaughan, 2 we ask, "what means this constant 
 insinuation, that historical evidence must be wholly 
 without value to men. not learned in history ? Is it 
 not manifestly the sentiment of our nature a senti 
 ment so common and rooted as to seem to be in 
 stinctive, that there is a credibility in historical testi 
 mony, even as relating to the mass of mankind, suffi 
 cient to bring the remote past into a certain and 
 living connection with the present. Not only is it a 
 fact, that the least learned are influenced by historical 
 testimony as truly, if not as immediately, as the most 
 learned, but it is manifestly a law of Providence that 
 it should be so ; and it remains to be shown why the 
 law which embraces testimony to this effect concern 
 ing Cromwell or Alfred, should not embrace testimony 
 to the same effect concerning Paul and Esaias." Mr. 
 Newman, referring we presume to some of the diffi 
 culties connected with this subject, says, 3 " If I have 
 been seven years laboring in vain to solve this vast 
 literary problem, it is an extreme absurdity to imagine 
 
 1 Phases of Faith, p. 199. 2 Dr. Vaughan s Letter and Spirit, p. 64. 
 3 Phases of Faith, p. 199. 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 199 
 
 that the solving of it is imposed by God on the whole 
 human race." Now, let him spend seven times seven 
 years in laboring to solve some of the problems that lie 
 before him in the domain of natural religion, for ex 
 ample, the problem of moral evil and what, will he 
 make out? Nevertheless, God certainly has not im 
 posed the solution upon him or upon any of the race. 
 
 But Mr. Newman s drift is to get rid of an histori 
 cal Christ. He insinuates that Jesus was far from 
 perfect that his portrait as drawn by the evangelists 
 is in a great measure imaginary and, if asked to 
 specify the faults in that matchless character, he main 
 tains that he is not bound to do so because this were 
 presuming him to be perfect until we find him to be 
 imperfect. 1 Yes. If a man is generally reported to 
 be honest and claims to be accounted so, you, if you 
 deny it, are obliged to establish the charge of dis 
 honesty. It is generally acknowledged that every mere 
 man is imperfect every sane mind admits it. The 
 onus prolandi, therefore, lies on him who denies it. 
 So with the man who denies the sinless character of 
 Jesus. We meet with another strange thing here. 
 Mr. Newman represents 2 it as moral suicide to sit in 
 judgment on the claims of Jesus and then to submit 
 our judgment to his authority, first to criticise and 
 then to cease our criticism, first to exercise free 
 thought and then to abandon it. We say, that to 
 yield the mind up to Christ, after having been con 
 vinced of the divinity of his claims, is alone worthy of 
 
 1 Phases of Faith, pp. 210 212. 2 Ibid., p. 210. 
 
200 SPIRITUALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 the name of free thought. And we ask, do you act 
 thus in common life in selecting a friend, for ex 
 ample ? You criticise at first. Do you go on with 
 your criticism ? Mr. Newman would have us believe 
 that it is with pain he gives up u sentiments towards an 
 historical person, which have been tenderly cherished 
 as a religion." 1 But, with his book before us, we refuse 
 to do so. 
 
 In concluding the " Phases," he deems himself 
 warranted, from his previous "passages," to consider 
 it as a settled point that the external revelation is in 
 collision with the moral sentiments. We have here 
 Spiritualism versus Christianity. " If the spirit within 
 us," says he, " and the Bible (or Church) without us 
 are at variance, we must either follow the inward and 
 disregard the outward law ; else ive must renounce the 
 inward law and obey the outivard.^ Matters have been 
 brought to no such pass. The child has not received 
 " discordant commands " from his father and mother, 
 and is not reduced to "the painful necessity of disobey 
 ing one in order to obey the other." Mr. Newman, 
 throughout his book, has given such representations 
 of the atonement and the doctrines connected with 
 it, not to speak of the old refuted objections which he 
 brings against many parts of the sacred record, as to 
 remind us of the coarseness and unfairness of the 
 school of Paine, He has first perverted the outward 
 law, and then set over against it the inward. He has 
 exalted the one to the judgment seat, and then brings 
 
 1 Phases of Faith, p. 214. 2 Ibid, pp. 227, 228. 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 201 
 
 the other blackened and deformed before it, to be 
 condemned. And what, after all, does he mean by 
 "the spirit within us," but individual feeling? One 
 man s spiritualism may differ widely from another 
 man s. Judging from some recent manifestations, 
 the inward oracle is far from being harmonious in its 
 utterances. " The authoritative unity, claimed for 
 it, is a fiction. Newman s Personal Spiritualism, in 
 place of being a centre of rest, must be a perpetual 
 battle-field between the claims of feeling and the 
 claims of the understanding." 1 And then what wilful 
 blindness to, or ungrateful reading of, the world s 
 history, to speak of the world s religious progress as 
 having been intercepted or turned back by the claim of 
 Messialisliip for Jesus. And what a miserable delusion 
 to anticipate, that if the world was swept clear of 
 intellectual creeds and an historical Christianity, and 
 men were thrown on their own inward sentiments, 
 having no doctrine in common but the vague thing 
 called u God s sympathy with individual man," the 
 race would move steadily onward! 2 But for the his 
 torical Christianity which he contemns, Mr. Newman s 
 religion, most assuredly, would not have differed in the 
 degree that it does, from the religion of the Greek and 
 Roman philosophers. The " progress " would not have 
 been quite so " spiritual." 
 
 Mr. Mackay s " Progress of the Intellect," though 
 differing in- many respects from Newman s "Phases" 
 and Parker s u Discourse," is a production of the same 
 
 1 British Quarterly, No. XXIII 2 Phases of Faith, pp. 225, 234. 
 
202 SPIRITUALISM ; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 school, and assumes a like hostile attitude towards the 
 doctrines of the Christian redemption. These doc 
 trines, with him, are "a petty sanctuary of borrowed 
 beliefs." And he has much more admiration for the 
 times when men saw " serious meaning in the golden 
 napkin of Rhampsinitus, nay even in the gush of 
 water from, the jaw-bone of Samson s ass," than for 
 our age with its doctrinal articles and creeds. 1 A 
 floating, ever-changing sanctuary of faith, is, in his 
 view, more beautiful than a fixed one. If the Bible 
 would only submit to be regarded as a part of this 
 shifting cloud-land, one of the many phases of our 
 ideal creations, it would, like the other " playful 
 rnythi," be attractive to Mr. Mackay and his school ; 
 but it cannot be tolerated in its claim to be the law 
 and the testimony. The ancients, with their mythical 
 legends, " were as the eagle intently gazing on what 
 he wants strength to reach ;" we, with our Bible creeds, 
 "are the owls blinking at the first daylight, which, 
 however, we are slowly learning to support."" 
 
 Our author places the polytheistic systems of the 
 Greeks and the Jewish and Christian Scriptures on 
 the same plane ; both, according to him, being the 
 mind s own weaving, the results of investing the in 
 ward conceptions with an outward and divine authority. 
 He assumes that all religion is a form of symbolism ; 
 Christianity and material idolatry being in this respect 
 on the same level, only the one is deemed a higher 
 product of the intellectual law of development than 
 
 1 The Progress of tM Intellect, vol. i., p. vii. 
 
 2 Ibid., vol. i., p. xi\ 
 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 203 
 
 the other. Like Mr. Parker and his fellow disciples, 
 he holds that Christianity has two aspects. The first 
 is "the moral conception, which, as eternally good 
 and true, is not so much its own peculiarity as an 
 essential part of all civilization." And secondly, its 
 u special dogmas and forms," such as the atonement 
 and Spirit s influences, " which making up its acci 
 dental expression or clothing, have never ceased to 
 accompany its development, though often threatening 
 to obscure or supersede the vital meaning connected 
 with them." 1 This is something like taking a man s 
 soul for his clothes, or depriving him of reason and 
 intelligence in order to reduce him to the mere ani 
 mal Mr. Mackay, in short, like his fellow on the 
 other side of the Atlantic, is a resolute disciple of 
 what is called u absolute religion " " an eternal never- 
 failing principle," of which all religious symbols or 
 dogmas are but the temporary livery. 2 By this eter 
 nal indestructible principle, we are to understand some 
 such vague thing as a sense of dependence, or a feel 
 ing of Divine sympathy, which, as an ultimate fact, is 
 supposed to underlie all the religions that the world 
 ever saw, a sort of universal soul pervading all sys 
 tems, Pagan, Hebrew, and Christian, a kind of pan 
 theistic element, to which all "artificial forms of 
 ritual or creed" bear the same temporary relation that 
 the leaves of the forest, or the grass of the field, bear 
 to the principle of life that pervades the universe. 
 Mr. Mackay would, without scruple, indorse Mr. Par- 
 
 1 The Progress of the Intellect, vol. ii. p. 393. 
 
 2 Ibid., vol. i., p. 17. 
 
204 SPIRITUALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 ker s statement u there is but one religion, as one 
 ocean; though we call it faith in our church, and 
 infidelity out of the church." 1 And he would shake 
 hands with brother Newman in affirming " religion 
 was created by the inward instincts of the soul : it had 
 afterwards to be pruned and chastened by the sceptical 
 understanding." 2 
 
 The pruning and chastening process goes on ; and 
 Mr. Mackay is resolved, in relation to Christianity, that 
 spare the knife who will, he will not. The Bible 
 doctrines of the fall of man, atonement by Christ, 
 and regeneration through the Spirit, are, according 
 to his theory, excrescences threatening to obscure or 
 supersede the vital element, and he lops them off. 
 The work, of course, required no little daring, and 
 something very different from shamefacedness. It 
 did not consist with the humility professed in the 
 first sentence of his preface. And, accordingly, Mr. 
 Mackay, on entering the temple, instead of leaving 
 his shoes, after the Eastern manner, at the door, left 
 his humility. 3 And then the fall and the atonement, 
 not denied to be in the Bible, are dismissed as mere 
 " tricks of fancy," " ancient superstitions," "subjective 
 facts in the writer s mind," in short, only a projection 
 of the inward consciousness into the outward world. 4 
 
 Dr. Strauss, in dealing with the evangelical histories, 
 has been spoken of as without an equal in the nil 
 admirari vein. But we warrant our author, in his 
 
 3 Parker s Discourse, p. 6. 2 Newman s Phases, p. 232 
 
 3 The Progress of the Intellect, vol. i., p. 18. 
 
 4 Ibid., vol. ii., pp. 396, 465, 466. 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 205 
 
 manner of treating Jesus and Paul, to match him. 
 He admits that there existed the notion of atonement 
 in the Hebrew mind, but he " cannot admit the atone 
 ment doctrine to have been authorized by Jesus as 
 part of his religion." He is aware, however, that 
 the teaching of Christ had something to do with the 
 doctrine, and that the evangelists in recording his 
 sayings are not altogether silent in reference to it. 
 But the "foolishness" cannot be tolerated, the "stum 
 bling-block" must be removed, though it be at the 
 expense of Christ s character and the credit of the 
 sacred record. Jesus, accordingly, is represented 2 as 
 having eventually been influenced, contrary to his 
 original intentions, by the prevailing idea of meri 
 torious suffering, in order " to uphold his sinking 
 cause." " He used the terms and symbols of his 
 age." These the disciples applied literally, " thereby 
 creating a superstitious mystery never deliberately 
 contemplated by their master." 3 That there are 
 " distinct announcements by Jesus of his propitiatory 
 death," recorded in the gospels, Mr. Mackay does not 
 venture to deny. But he easily disposes of them. 
 Just as Mr. Newman, after putting the fifty-third 
 chapter of Isaiah on the rack, and failing to extort a 
 confession to his liking, settled the matter by saying 
 that he " had no proof that the narrative had not been 
 strained by credulity," so Mr. Mackay declares that 
 none of the distinct announcements referred to " can 
 
 1 The Progress of the Intellect, vol. ii., p. 464. 
 a Ibid., ii., p. 395. 8 Ibid., vol. ii.. p. 464 
 
206 SPIRITUALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 be relied on as authentic ;" or, lest this should be 
 going too far, " it seems needless to ascribe to them 
 more than the figurative sense." Miracles are impos 
 sible, says Strauss. The doctrine of atonement is 
 incredible, says Mackay. And nothing remains but 
 to falsify the record, or to bring myths and symbolism 
 to account for them. 
 
 Mr. Mackay does not say, with Mr. Newman, that the 
 atonement might be dropt out of "Pauline religion" 
 without affecting its quality ; any more than he says, 
 with Mr. Foxton, that in the teaching of Christ there 
 is not the slightest allusion to the doctrine. On the 
 contrary, this doctrine is made an essential part of 
 the " Pauline development " a development very dif 
 ferent indeed from the scriptural one which took place 
 in the minds of the apostles after the resurrection and 
 ascension of their Lord. Christianity, according to 
 him, had now shifted its ground. " The Christianity 
 of Paul differs from that of Jesus as an imparted in 
 fluence from without differs from moral effort from 
 within." 2 In other words, Christ is represented as, on 
 the whole, discouraging the idea of vicarious atone 
 ment, though using its symbolical terms ; and pleading 
 simply for amendment, sincerity, and moral purity. 
 While Paul is spoken of as having been the first to 
 make the necessity of atonement felt by proving the 
 inefficacy of the law for justification, and then as 
 having supplied it. 3 Thus it is, according to " the 
 
 1 The Progress of the Intellect, vol. ii., pp. 394, 463. 
 3 Ibid., vol. ii., p. 391. 3 Ibid., vol. ii., p. 396. 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 207 
 
 Progress of the Intellect," that " the Hebrew Palla 
 dium" has been "inherited by Christians." 1 The 
 atonement then, even in the estimation of Mr. Mackay, 
 could not be sponged out of Paul s religion without 
 affecting its quality. He scorns it, however, as an 
 excrescence, a special dogma that loads and obscures 
 the moral conception or the simple element called 
 absolute religion. The atonement, which in Scrip 
 ture is represented as the brightest manifestation of 
 God s love to our fallen race, and which has ever been 
 regarded as such by the Christian world, is conse 
 quently made hideous, and spoken of, after the Parker 
 fashion, as u practically giving to Christianity, a 
 character, which though it have an ill sound it would 
 be vain as well as dishonest to dissemble, that of a 
 religion of Moloch." 2 
 
 Had we been reviewing Mr. Mackay s work as a 
 whole, we would have felt ourselves called upon to 
 show the untenableness of his mythical theory, the 
 baselessness of his assumption that all religion is and 
 can only be a form of symbolism. He accounts for 
 the origin of Christianity, as we have already noticed, 
 in a way somewhat similar to that of Strauss. His 
 " Progress of the Intellect" is just the reproduction 
 among us of what has had its day elsewhere. So 
 that the answer to Strauss is substantially the answer 
 to be given to his notions of the Messianic develop 
 ment. 3 But it is only with what bears on the atone- 
 
 1 The Progress of the Intellect, vol. ii., p. 465. 3 Ibid., vol. ii., p. 466. 
 
 9 We should also have taken Mr. Mackay to task in regard to a 
 
 considerable number of his Scripture references. It was truly 
 
208 SPIRITUALISM ; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 ment that we have at present to do. And here his 
 development theory is at fault. History is opposed 
 to it. And it is only by the most gross assumptions, 
 that the conflicting evidence of history is set aside. 
 Any writer who should deal with the Hebrew Scrip 
 tures as he has done, could not be expected to feel 
 much scruple in twisting the New Testament record. 
 It serves his theory of symbolism, to make out idolatry 
 or Moloch- worship to have been the practice of the 
 early Hebrews. The ancient Hebrew God, according 
 to him, was only one of the many gods of the nations, 
 and cannibalism was associated with the rites paid to 
 him by the people. The sacred record is at open 
 conflict with this, the fact being that in the earliest 
 Hebrew writings we have some of the sublimest 
 descriptions of the glory of the one God that are to 
 be found in the Bible. Mr. Mackay feels this. But, 
 in order to preserve his theory, he is forced to come 
 out with the assertion that the Bible writers have 
 
 difficult to account for many of these references, or to see how they 
 bore out his statements, till we reflected that he had beforehand 
 warned us of his intention to be guided more by German (neological) 
 criticism than by the English version of the Bible. For example, 
 it serves Mr. Mackay s theory, to maintain that Christ " was uncon 
 scious of his own mission " till he was baptized of John ; and for 
 proof he refers us to John i. 26, 33 ; vii., 27. Why did he not 
 tell us how the ignorance of the Baptist and of the people proved 
 unconsciousness on the part of Christ? Again, as an evidence 
 that the " ancient Hebrew God " was only one of the many Gods, 
 and that He acknowledged their existence, we are referred to Deut. 
 xxxii. 17 21. On the same principle, it might be maintained that 
 missionaries acknowledge the real existence of the gods of the heathen 
 and are jealous of them. Vol. ii., pp. 315, 416. 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 209 
 
 transferred to olden times improvements of newer 
 date, ancient Moloch practices having been cleansed 
 by modern white-wash, and then impressed with the 
 stamp of antiquity. 1 And if we ask for evidence in 
 support of this "borrowed belief," we receive no 
 better answer than that it must have been so because 
 his development theory requires it. Having in this 
 way made out a Hebrew development from mere 
 nature-worship up through polytheism to the recog 
 nition of a personal and independent God, it could 
 not be difficult for him to make out a Christian 
 development in which Christ and Paul stand at anti 
 podes a development, however, according to his own 
 showing, in the contrary direction, from better to 
 worse. 
 
 But this is no more the development of the New 
 Testament than the other is of the Old. There 
 was development throughout the period embraced by 
 the New Testament record, but it was like the 
 morning light which shineth more and more until 
 the perfect day. Men must presume very much 
 upon the unreasoning unbelief or intense hatred of 
 our age in regard to evangelical religion, who can say 
 either that there is not the slightest allusion in the 
 teaching of Jesus to the evangelical doctrine of atone 
 ment, or that he on the whole discouraged the idea 
 of it. That the doctrine is not so fully enunciated 
 in the discourses of Christ as in the letters of his 
 apostles must be admitted. But this is just what 
 
 1 The Progress of the Intellect, vol. ii., pp. 405 445. 
 
 14 
 
210 SPIRITUALISM ; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 might have been expected. In the one case, the 
 work of atonement was unfulfilled ; in the other case, 
 it was finished and had become matter of history. 
 Besides, the strain of Christ s teaching pointed to 
 the time when the germs of truth which he had 
 thrown out among his disciples would be fully un 
 folded, when, under an increased effulgence from on 
 high, they should see the truth enshrined in his 
 sayings which their prejudices prevented them from 
 now doing. The atonement was embraced in Christ s 
 teaching. What can be more explicit than his own 
 words words which are felt to be a difficulty even 
 by Mr. Mackay u The Son of man came not to be 
 ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life 
 a ransom for many." The " Pauline development " 
 was not different from this, nor anything added to 
 this, but it was this very truth more fully unfolded, 
 and made, as it was designed to be, the grand central 
 fact of the Gospel of Christ. The progress of the 
 New Testament was no more u the Progress of the 
 Intellect " than was the progress of the ancient He 
 brews. And Mr. Mackay fails in giving us anything 
 more than assumption for his bold denial that the 
 doctrine of Paul s epistles is countenanced by the 
 prophets and the Great Teacher, as completely as he 
 does in finding a basement for his assertions that 
 idolatry was the established religion in Israel up to 
 the reign of Josiah that the prophets then, in adapt 
 ation to the wants of the age, remodelled the system, 
 made Jehovah, who had hitherto been only one among 
 the many Gods, now the Universal Power, and then 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 211 
 
 represented this better religion as the religion of 
 Moses and the early Hebrews. We are constrained 
 to say, that Mr. Mackay, in thus dealing with history, 
 is guilty of the very deception which he would charge 
 upon the "holy men of God," and our wonder is how 
 he can attempt to palm it upon the world. But the 
 atonement must be got rid of. The Gospel doctrines 
 must be deprived of their historical basis. And, since 
 the attempt to expel them from the sacred page has 
 confessedly failed, nothing remains but to resolve 
 them into the conceptions of a past age, to bring 
 them before the chancery of the mind s own decisions, 
 and to dismiss them as unfit for this stage in "the 
 Progress of the Intellect." 
 
 In noticing Mr. Morell in this connection, we 
 wish to be understood as indicating the tendency of 
 his speculations on religion rather than their actual 
 results. Wide indeed is the difference between the 
 spirit in which he treats of such matters, and that of 
 Messrs. Parker, Newman, and Mackay. And yet the 
 "School of Progress," as if conscious of some links 
 of sympathy between him and them, regard him as 
 advancing on the same path, only keeping a little 
 behind. He, in common with them, resolves re 
 ligion into a peculiar mode of feeling. And though 
 not, like them, seeking utterly to demolish the ob 
 jective element, he reduces it to comparatively little 
 value. The subjective or intuitional consciousness 
 has in his speculations a province assigned to it that 
 can scarcely consist with the claim of Scripture to be 
 accounted the law and the testimony. It is not what 
 
212 SPIRITUALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 history has attested to be authentic that we are 
 to receive, but what we feel to be morally and re 
 ligiously true. " The Philosophy of Religion" is but 
 a form of spiritualism. 
 
 Mr. Morell attaches much importance to the philo 
 sophical groundwork that he has laid in the first two 
 chapters of his book. And it is found to influence all 
 his subsequent speculations on the subjective nature 
 of religion. Into a minute examination of that 
 groundwork, it would be out of place for us here to 
 enter. With much of it we find no fault. But the 
 broadly prominent principle that runs throughout it, 
 is, in our apprehension, unsound and mischievous. 
 We refer to his development of the " principal points 
 of distinction between our logical and intuitional 
 faculties" a distinction, as he says, of vital import 
 ance, and which he carries along with him when 
 arguing on the relation of philosophy to religion. He 
 says, 1 u there is one state of our intellectual con 
 sciousness by virtue of which we define terms, form 
 propositions, construct reasonings, and perform the 
 whole office that we usually attribute to a mind that 
 acts logically ; but there is also another state of our 
 intellectual consciousness, in which the material of 
 truth conies to us as though by a rational instinct a 
 mental sensibility an intuitive power a c communis 
 sensus, traceable over the whole surface of civilized 
 humanity." These two classes of phenomena are de 
 nominated the logical and the intuitional consciousness. 
 
 1 Philosophy of Religion, p, 33. 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 213 
 
 That there is a distinction between these two states 
 of consciousness a distinction recognised before the 
 times of Mr. Morell we readily admit. But we 
 demur to the way in which he disparts the one from 
 the other, exalting the power of intuition at the ex 
 pense of the understanding, and assigning it an inde 
 pendence and efficiency which do not belong to it. 
 "With regard to higher truths and laws," he tells us, 
 "the understanding furnishes merely the subjective 
 forms, in which they may be logically stated, while 
 intuition brings us face to face with the actual matter, 
 or reality of truth itself." 1 We open our eyes and we 
 see at once the blue heavens and the green earth. 
 In like manner, Mr. Morell would have us to believe, 
 the mind by its simple spontaneous power of intuition 
 looks out, "and the absolute stands before us in all 
 its living reality." Now we maintain, in opposition 
 to this, that the understanding has much to do in 
 enabling us to reach the mount of vision, and that it 
 is not restricted to the humble function of giving log 
 ical expression to the supersensual truth we gaze upon 
 there. Mr. Morell would kick away the ladder by 
 which he had been helped upward, and then refuse to 
 admit that it had rendered him any assistance. "It 
 is not enough for our author to say, as all sensible 
 men have ever said, that our knowledge of the true, 
 the beautiful, and the good," 1 comes to us in part from 
 our intuitions, he is peremptory in asserting that it 
 comes to us only from that source a doctrine which 
 
 1 Philosophy of Religion, p. 19. 
 
214 SPIRITUALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 can never be made to harmonize with anything de 
 serving the name of philosophy; and which must 
 prove eminently hostile to the purity of religion." 12 
 
 In applying this philosophy to the fundamental 
 questions involved in his subject, Mr. Morell very 
 naturally considers in the first place, what is the 
 peculiar essence of religion? He here treats the 
 matter subjectively not as a system of truth or form 
 of doctrine, but simply as a fact or phenomenon in 
 human nature. He lays down the position "that 
 there are just three great and fundamental forms of 
 man s inward consciousness expressed by the terms 
 
 1 British Quarterly, No. XIX., p. 149. 
 
 3 The author of "the Eclipse of Faith," a work that carries 
 very destructive fire into the enemy s camp in commenting " on a 
 prevailing fallacy," thus addresses our modern " spiritualists." 
 " You do not sufficiently regard man as a complicated unity ; you 
 represent, if you do not suppose, the several capacities of his nature 
 the different parts of it, sensational, emotional, intellectual, moral, 
 spiritual, as set off from one another by a sharper boundary line 
 than nature acknowledges. . . . What can be more obvious 
 than that whether we have a distinct religious faculty, or whether 
 it be the result of the action of many faculties, the functions of our 
 { spiritual nature are performed by the instrumentality, and involve 
 the intervention of the very same much-abused faculties which 
 enable us to perform any other function ? . . Religious truth, like 
 any other truth, is embraced by the understanding as indeed it 
 would be a queer kind of truth that is not ; is stated in propositions, 
 yields inferences, is adorned by eloquence, is illustrated by the 
 imagination, and is thus, as well as from its intrinsic claims, ren 
 dered powerful over the emotions, the affections, and the will. . . 
 Hence we see the dependence of the true development of religion on 
 the just and harmonious action of all our faculties. They march to 
 gether ; and it is the glorious prerogative of true religion that it 
 makes them do so." The Eclipse of Faith, p. 305, &c. 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 215 
 
 "knowing, willing, feeling. m And, in determining to 
 which of these generic forms of consciousness re 
 ligion belongs, he, of course, fixes on feeling. The 
 great error in his philosophy in parting off the intui 
 tional from the logical consciousness, has here its 
 counterpart in the separation between religious knowl 
 edge and religious feeling. It is not enough for him 
 to say, u that there may be many gradations of religious 
 intensity in men, whose amount of knowledge is as 
 nearly as possible identical ; and on the other hand, 
 that there may be about an equal manifestation of 
 religious intensity where the degress of -knowledge are 
 immensely at variance." No sane mind denies this. 
 But he concludes that u religion is really cradled in 
 some phenomenon lying without the region of what we 
 may term intellectual activity;" and, "that although 
 the co-operation of knowledge may be necessary to 
 the perfection of our religious life," yet it does neces 
 sarily enter into the " essential germ" of religion. 2 
 We do not much object to the statement, that religion, 
 subjectively considered, consists in the feeling of de 
 pendence upon God ; but we deny that any emotion 
 worthy of the name of religion can exist without some 
 knowledge of divine things. Mr. Morell obviously 
 felt himself entangled here by his philosophy, for 
 while the drift of the chapter is to assert the inde 
 pendence and exclusive importance of feeling as he 
 had done that of the intuitional consciousness, he yet 
 asserts that the co-operation of knowledge may, "in a 
 
 1 Philosophy of Religion, p. 66. a Ibid., p. 69. 
 
 ; 
 
216 SPIRITUALISM; on, THE DENIAL 
 
 subordinate sense," be necessary to the very existence 
 of our religious life. If the scholastic and many of 
 the rationalistic theologians made too much of the 
 mere form of knowing, Mr. Morell assuredly makes 
 too much of the mere form of feeling. It results, 
 as we have seen in such men as Parker and New 
 man, in attaching no importance whatever to an ob 
 jective revelation ; and, as we will see, in the case of 
 such as Morell, in assigning a very subordinate place 
 to it. 
 
 In treating of the Essence of Christianity, which is 
 done in the next chapter, the subjectivity of our au 
 thor becomes more and more manifest. We reckon 
 this chapter a complete misnomer. It is as if an 
 astronomer were to give us an historical description 
 of the thoughts and feelings awakened within him 
 during his surveys of the heavens, and to designate 
 it a treatise on astronomy, instead of giving us a dis 
 course on the magnitudes, distances, and revolutions 
 of the planets. The Essence of Christianity is a 
 phrase which conveys to an English reader the idea 
 of those grand doctrines which distinguish it from all 
 other forms of religion. But Mr. Morell generally 
 here puts the effect for the cause, and sometimes 
 plays on the two different senses of Christianity as 
 objective and subjective. He says, u The only mode 
 in which we can assign the true nature of Christianity, 
 relatively to all other religions in the world, and show 
 wherein its essential and distinguishing feature con 
 sists," is to consider "what is the distinguishing fea 
 ture of man s religious nature, when it has come 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 217 
 
 properly under the Christian influence." 1 He denies 
 that what are esteemed the prominent facts and mail) 
 doctrines of Christianity determine the essence of 
 Christianity itself. This, he tells us, " does not con 
 sist in any development of thought, but in the flow 
 of holy affections." 2 The outward revelation, accord 
 ing to this system, is not Christianity, it is only a 
 means to awaken it. The Gospel is viewed rather 
 as an external provision for cultivating certain states 
 of feeling, than as an authoritative communication 
 from heaven designed to build us up in the knowledge 
 of Divine things. Christianity, as a distinct spiritual 
 life, is made to occupy the place of Christianity as a 
 body of inspired truth by which the spiritual life is 
 organized. The true state of matters is completely 
 reversed. And this Philosophy of Religion tends, 
 like the systems of Parker and Newman, to make 
 everything of the feelings within, and to reduce to 
 little or almost nothing the objective truth that lies 
 without. 
 
 Mr. Morell, though chiefly engrossed with the 
 subjective point of view, does not, however, ignore 
 the objective. He defines Christianity, viewed as an 
 outward condition of the religious life, to be u that 
 religion which rests upon the consciousness of the 
 redemption of the world through Jesus Christ." 3 He 
 very properly notices two great and essential points 
 here u the exclusiveness of Christianity as the sole 
 appointed means of human recovery, and the concen- 
 
 1 Philosophy of Religion, p. 100. 2 Ibid., p. 256. 
 
 8 Ibid., p. 118. 
 
 12 
 
218 SPIRITUALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 tration of the agency for such, recovery in the life and 
 person of Christ, historically considered." 1 But be 
 yond this we have no explanation. He does not say 
 what is implied in the redemption of the world, or 
 what was the nature of the moral expedient devised 
 for its accomplishment. And he is silent also as to 
 the truth about the personal Redeemer. This is un 
 pardonable even in a philosophical discussion of the 
 essence of Christianity, and while professing to look 
 at the objective side of the question. Mr. Morell 
 knows very well that the redemption of the world 
 through Christ is about one of the vaguest expressions 
 current in modern times. It would cover the whole 
 "school of progress." Under its ample shade would 
 come multitudes of teachers in Germany, America, 
 England, and elsewhere, whose ideas of redemption 
 and the Redeemer are as far apart from the Christian 
 doctrines as the east is from the west. This vague 
 and brief allusion to the objective element can only 
 be explained on the principle, so dear to our modern 
 sentimentalists, of unduly magnifying everything 
 within man and lessening whatever comes to him in 
 the shape of religion from without. What Mr. Morell s 
 views are of the process through which the redemption 
 of the world has been effected, and of the personal 
 constitution of the Redeemer we know not. But he 
 has laid himself open to the suspicion of making the 
 essential elements of the Christian life independent 
 of those grand peculiar doctrines which have been 
 
 1 Philosophy of Religion, p. 119. 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 219 
 
 generally understood to be the truth as it is in 
 Jesus. 1 
 
 It is foreign to our purpose to review the whole of 
 " The Philosophy of Religion." We only point out 
 some of its strongly-marked tendencies towards that 
 philosophic spiritualism which is so destructive of the 
 essence of Christianity. These are, indeed, to be found 
 in every chapter of the work. In passing on, for ex 
 ample, to speak of the method by which Christianity 
 was first communicated to the human mind, he defines 
 revelation to be u a process of the intuitional con 
 sciousness gazing upon eternal verities." 2 He denies 
 that the Bible, strictly speaking, is a revelation, "since 
 a revelation always implies an actual process of in 
 telligence in a living mind." 3 And he asserts that 
 " the power which that book possesses of conveying a 
 revelation to us, consists in its aiding in the awaken- 
 ment and elevation of our religious consciousness." 
 We have here, as throughout the whole treatise, a 
 systematic undervaluing of objective truth. Christ 
 and His apostles are represented as giving no exposi- 
 
 1 " No philosophy of religion that assumes to embrace Christianity 
 can be complete if it does not show that salvation was effectuated by 
 a process alike congruous with the Divine character, and with man s 
 constitution and moral necessity. It may be replied that this is the 
 province of Christian theology, and not of internal subjective Chris 
 tianity. We incline, however, to the opinion that the idea of ; a 
 just God and a Saviour, through the atonement of Christ, is the 
 meeting-place, the point where Christianity as a theology loses itself 
 in Christianity as a religion." Mr. Morell and the Sources of his 
 Information, p. 38. 
 
 2 Philosophy of Religion, p. 141. s Ibid., pp. 143, 144. 
 
220 SPIRITUALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 tion of Christian doctrine to the understanding, but 
 as seeking to awaken man s power of spiritual intui 
 tion ; and, since it cannot be denied that Paul gives 
 such a systematic inculcation of truth, we are re 
 minded that " his writings were designed not so much 
 to be a revelation of truth, as a further explication of 
 it." 1 He would make Paul the theologian, and John 
 the intuitionist. Now, in reply to this, it might be 
 said, in the first place, that it is not true, that Christ 
 and the apostles gave no systematic exposition of doc 
 trine. The sermon on the mount, and the discourse 
 on the way to Emmaus when u beginning at Moses 
 and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all 
 the Scriptures the things concerning himself," not to 
 mention other discourses, contradict the statement in 
 so far as the Great Teacher is concerned. The book 
 of Acts falsifies the statement in reference to the 
 apostles. And, in the logical expositions of Paul, we 
 have as many new ideas revealed as in John, which 
 proves that truth may be given first in a systematic 
 or theological form. Besides, it is a mere play on 
 words to say that the revelation was made in the mind, 
 not in the Book. The Bible is the actual revelation 
 imparted to the minds of the sacred writers. It brings 
 us in contact with knowledge which, in its origin, lay 
 beyond both the intuitional and the logical conscious 
 ness ; and, in conveying the truth to us, it addresses 
 the understanding, and, through it, rises higher into 
 the. region of actual experience. God disclosed the 
 
 1 Philosophy of Religion, pp. 139141. 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 221 
 
 revelation originally in the minds of Isaiah and Paul, 
 and the inspiring Spirit so guided them that the oracle 
 came forth unchanged to us. What Mr. Morell, then, 
 calls special and Divine arrangements for elevating the 
 religious consciousness, we persist in calling the revela 
 tion of God. 
 
 The preceding remarks have prepared us for con 
 sidering what our author s views are as to the true 
 bond of religious fellowship and as to the true basis 
 of religious certitude. And here, also, the man of 
 mere feeling appears very prominent/ Things which 
 God hath joined together are here put asunder. 
 "The ground of all true union amongst Christians," 
 he tells us, u is to be found, not in the common 
 consent of the understanding to certain theological 
 definitions, but in the common development of the 
 intuitional consciousness as regards man s religious 
 life." 1 It is not enough for Mr. Morell to say, that 
 no system of theological doctrine can of itself secure 
 religious fellowship, he must maintain that the latter 
 is independent of the former. He reasons on the 
 assumption that if the basis of fellowship be moral in 
 its character it cannot be theological, or that if it be 
 theological it cannot be moral. We have always 
 thought that the moral power of Christianity lay in 
 its doctrines understood and believed, and that 
 Christian fellowship, or a true evangelical alliance, 
 must depend upon unanimity of religious feeling and 
 adoption of common doctrines combined ; and not 
 only so, but that the influence of the two things 
 
 1 Philosophy of Religion, p. 288. 
 
222 SPIRITUALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 would be reciprocal, the belief in the common doc 
 trines strengthening the common feeling, and the 
 common feeling strengthening the belief in the 
 doctrines. But u The Philosophy of Religion," in 
 accordance with its previous speculations, separates the 
 one from the other. 
 
 Mr. Morell s first reason for rejecting a fixed the 
 ological test of fellowship, is the want of authority 
 for it in the apostolic church. " The bond of 
 union," he says, 1 u amongst the early churches was, 
 the powerful awakening of the religious conscious 
 ness, originating in and maintained by an intense 
 belief of the great facts connected with the life, 
 the death, and the resurrection of Christ." And 
 what, we ask, were these great facts but a doctrinal 
 basis ? His second reason, which he anticipates 
 will startle us, is, that theological statements do not 
 contain any essential element of Christianity. 2 This 
 arises out of the false principle that the essence of 
 Christianity is only cognizable directly by the intui 
 tional consciousness, and is supported only by telling 
 us of persons who "take the sign for the thing; the 
 counter for the money." But his principal objection, 
 u and one which admits of historical verification," is, 
 that a fixed logical or doctrinal basis, "tends inevita 
 bly to the gradual extinction of all that is positive in 
 Christianity." 3 Mr. Morell s historical evidence only 
 proves that churches, despite their doctrinal standards, 
 have often lost the life of true religion, a thing 
 
 1 Philosophy of Religion, p. 271. a Ibid., p. 273. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 278. 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 223 
 
 which no one denies, but against which the mere 
 flow of feeling, irrespective of objective truth, affords 
 no guarantee. He appeals, among other places, to 
 Geneva and Scotland, 1 and so do we. And we tell 
 him that there is a church in Geneva though it be 
 little among the thousands of Judah possessed of 
 life and power, which adhere firmly to a doctrinal 
 basis ; and that no country has ever enjoyed more of 
 the religious life than Scotland, which has always 
 attached much importance to theological doctrines. 
 We have as little sympathy as Mr. Morell with lifeless 
 forms and a barren orthodoxy. But the idea that 
 men, or communities, can be knit together in holy 
 love, while *at variance on great essential doctrines, 
 is perfectly Utopian. There is much in this talk of 
 leaving doctrinal matters undetermined in view of a 
 broad and general fellowship, that reminds one of 
 Parker s "absolute religion" and Newman s "doctrine 
 of divine sympathy," over each of which might be 
 inscribed, u wide is the gate and broad is the way, 
 and many there be which go in thereat." 
 
 Mr. Morell s basis of religious certitude accords 
 with his basis of religious fellowship. He removes 
 it from the Bible page to the religious consciousness 
 of humanity which it awakens. u The basis of cer 
 titude," he says, "lies in the essential characteristics of 
 the intuitions themselves in their distinctness, in 
 their uniformity, and, under due influences, in their 
 universality ; not in their symbolical representation 
 upon the sacred page." 2 The test is thus shifted 
 
 1 Philosophy of Religion, pp. 284286. 3 Ibid., p. 337. 
 
224 SPIRITUALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 from the inspired Book the law and the testimony 
 to a comparison of inward experiences. The ultimate 
 appeal is not, what saith the Scripture? but, what is 
 the catholic feeling and thinking of the Christian 
 community? Such an appeal may, in certain cir 
 cumstances, serve to corroborate, but can never afford 
 a sure criterion. And tnen, how could it be applied 
 in cases where the teachers of Christianity have stood 
 almost alone, their intuitions of spiritual things being 
 very partially experienced by others? Besides, how 
 are distinct, uniform, and universal intuitions to be 
 secured, except through a living faith in the great 
 Christian doctrines as revealed in the Bible ? So that 
 the catholic feeling and thinking of the whole 
 Christian community must fall back on the Scriptures 
 as at once a ground and test. The want of uniform 
 ity in the results of Bibilical interpretation, is urged 
 by our author as a formidable objection against making 
 the Scriptures the basis of religious certitude; and 
 the doctrine of private judgment is falsely represented 
 as if rationalism were its inevitable landing-place. 1 
 It were easy to retaliate the charge of want of uni 
 formity, and to show that we have no security for it 
 in mere inward experiences ; but the charge is unduly 
 exaggerated. There is a wonderful harmony in the 
 several sections of the Christian church, in regard to 
 the bearings of Scripture on the great doctrines of 
 salvation; and our complacency in that harmony is 
 not disturbed, any more than our confidence in the 
 principle of private judgement is shaken, by pointing 
 
 1 Philosophy of Religion, pp. 334, 335. 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION". 225 
 
 us to such reckless unbelieving interpreters as Paulus 
 and Strauss. We deny that the doctrine of private 
 judgment necessarily cuts us off from the Christian 
 consciousness of mankind, while we assert that its 
 legitimate exercise is in searching the Scriptures to 
 see whether or not these things are so. But the 
 " Philosophy of Religion" will not allow "that the 
 data of Christian theology lie before us fixed and 
 complete in the Bible." 1 And imitations are given 
 as if Christian ideas were subject to the same laws of 
 development as the truths of astronomy. It is a 
 fallacy to speak of Christian doctrine as a germ which 
 received its first great unfolding in the apostolic age, 
 and which goes on receiving other unfol dings. The 
 Christian doctrine is not more fully unfolded in the 
 mind of a believer now than it was in the days of 
 Paul. The progress made from the day of Pentecost 
 till the apostles finished their course, does not find its 
 parallel in the progress subsequently made in the 
 church. In the former period, the revelation was 
 going on ; the latter period received it complete. And 
 the only kind of progress that awaits Christianity, is 
 the glorious one of seeing nation after nation coming 
 to this "sempiternal source of truth divine," and all 
 the sections of the church deeply influenced by, and 
 united together in, the belief of the " common sal 
 vation." Mr. Morell s hopes for the world and for 
 unity and peace to the church, rest, however, on the 
 power of the intuitional consciousness, and on the 
 development of a new philosophy which shall smite 
 
 1 Philosophy of Religion, pp. 375, 376. 
 
226 SPIRITUALISM; OB, THE DENIAL 
 
 all our theological dogmas and elevate us to the region 
 of catholic feeling. The spiritualism of Mr. Morell 
 wants the bold oifensiveness of Parker and Newman, 
 but it has this feature, in common, that it unduly 
 magnifies everything within man, and leaves little or 
 no authority to the objective truth lying without. 1 
 
 Such speculations as the above, surrender Chris 
 tianity into the power of mere sentiment. That, as 
 we have seen in the case of Parker, Newman, and 
 
 1 It is with this principle of subjectivity, that the Evangelical 
 Church in Geneva have now to contend. There is much in Scherer s 
 letter to D Aubigne that reminds us of some of our own spiritualists, 
 all of whom have drank of the philosophy beyond the Rhine. He 
 says, " the Scriptures are the productions of Great saints, or of great 
 religious heroes." "The inspiration of the apostles is purely relig 
 ious." " For the simple believer, the Bible is no longer an authority, 
 but it is a treasure" " Biblicism is not merely a theological error, 
 but it is a plague upon the Church." Calvin, Beza, and the other 
 Genevese theologians, had to combat the same errors three centuries 
 ago. The President of the Theological Institute, who is now fighting 
 the same good fight, says in his well-timed treatise : " I dread this 
 subjective tendency in our times. I dread it, convinced that it 
 cannot fail to have the same developments, and the same conse 
 quences, that it had in the sixteenth century. You have remarked 
 the sad progression of this opinion. Chatillon simply taught the doc 
 trine which substitutes the authority of the individual spirit for the 
 authority of Divine Scripture. But every seed bears its fruit. This 
 doctrine, soon after professed bySocinus and Servetus, first overthrew 
 all the doctrines of faith ; then, interpreted by Coppin, Pocquet, Gruet, 
 and the libertines, overthrows all the precepts of morality. It thus 
 brought forth great heresies and frightful irregularities. The pro 
 gression is terrible, but inevitable, . . . The foundation of Christian 
 dogma and Christian morality, is involved in these opinions. The 
 Autlwrity of God, by D Aubigne, pp. 189, 190. 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 227 
 
 Mackay, is made the test and arbiter of truth. And 
 the tendency of much in the " Philosophy of Religion," 
 is to bring matters to the same standard. Mr. Morell 
 imagines, that under such custody, we would be led 
 "from the barren region of mere logical forms, into 
 the hallowed path of divine life." The men of the 
 "School of Progress" know full well what these paths 
 are, and hence their complacency in his speculations. 
 He has not urged the moral argument against the 
 evangelical doctrines, nor do we charge him with 
 denying them, but those who do urge it are disposed 
 to look upon him as an auxiliary in the same warfare. 
 It is this argument that runs throughout, or under 
 lies, many of the writings of our philosophical spirit 
 ualists. It extends, like a broad belt, through 
 Parker s "Discourse," and Newman s "Phases." It 
 is involved in very much of Mackay s "Progress." 
 And, in some other productions, it is supposed to 
 receive a tacit, if not an avowed, support. Texts of 
 Scripture, involving the obnoxious doctrines of re 
 demption, which will not bend before a neological 
 exegesis, are reduced under the weight of what is 
 called the moral argument. We shall scrutinize it 
 for a little. 
 
 The argument is grounded on the supposed con 
 tradiction between men s moral sentiments and the 
 peculiar tenets of the evangelical creed. ^God is the 
 author of our moral nature, and his revealed will 
 must harmonize with its utterances. The voice of 
 the Immutable One within the breast, pronouncing 
 decisively on right and wrong, can never be falsified, 
 
228 SPIRITUALISM; OR THE DENIAL 
 
 or disputed, by the voice speaking in the word. Man s 
 reason and moral consciousness, it is alleged, are 
 opposed to much of what currently passes for the 
 Christian theology. In the latter, views are given of 
 God and man so dark and awful as to be repulsed by 
 the former. There is a collision, it is maintained, 
 between the dark creed of depravity, the vindictive 
 justice of God as exhibited in the atonement, and the 
 indestructible judgments and feelings of the human 
 heart. Christ has revealed unto us the Father, and 
 it sufficeth us. He has taught us to look up to 
 heaven, and inspired with filial confidence, to say, 
 " Our Abba, our Father." He has inculcated love to 
 our enemies, that we may be the children of our 
 Father in heaven, who maketh his sun to rise on the 
 evil and on the good. He has bidden us behold God 
 as a Father feeding the fowls of the air, clothing the 
 lilies of the field, and much more caring for men his 
 own children. These are sentiments which meet 
 with a welcome response in every human bosom, and 
 they proclaim themselves divine. They are in unison 
 with those genial currents of thought and feeling 
 which flow through the soul of every man of sen 
 sibility, when looking on the shining heavens and the 
 green earth, and which move him to say, "My Father 
 made them all." It is in this endearing character, 
 that we must view Him as presiding over the universe, 
 pitying men even as a father pitieth his children, 
 and making all things to work together for their good. 
 And, it is in this character, that we would expect to 
 meet Him, in making a special revelation of himself 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 229 
 
 to the world. But the doctrines of what is called 
 evangelism, continues the objector, conflict with such 
 sentiments as these. Man is therein represented as 
 a most wretched object, a creature shapen in iniquity, 
 and a child of wrath. The God of mercy is exhib 
 ited as incensed against his own offspring, making a 
 heavy exaction for their guilt, and being appeased 
 only by the interposition of his well-beloved Son. 
 Repentance does not suffice to procure forgiveness, 
 as, from the fatherly character of God, we would 
 have been led to suppose. But an atonement must 
 first be made to turn away God s wrath, and a super 
 natural power must be exerted to raise man up from 
 his degradation. 
 
 These are strong statements. There is in them 
 much gross misrepresentation. But it is in some 
 such way as this, that the religion of the moral senti 
 ments and the orthodox creed are arrayed against each 
 other. It is not, as in the old rationalistic controversy, 
 a warfare waged on the ground of critical exegesis. 
 But it is an attempt to set the moral nature of man 
 over against what the general mind of Christendom 
 has pronounced to be the Revelation of God. Are, 
 then, the doctrines of redemption irreconcilable with 
 the paternity of God ; and do the persons who urge 
 the moral objection give a view of the Divine charac 
 ter that is adequate, and consistent with the nature 
 of things ? We trow not ; and we assign our reasons. 
 
 1st. This argument is unsupported ~by analogy. Al 
 though urged by professed theists, it is as applicable to 
 natural religion as to revealed. If it has any bearing 
 
230 SPIRITUALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 against the great facts of the scriptural record, it has 
 not less against the great facts of the book of provi 
 dence. The argument is an old and by no means an 
 invincible one. The answer is old also, and, in our 
 estimation, a truly satisfactory one. The gist of the 
 argument is, that God must always act in accordance 
 with the simple idea of his paternal character ; and 
 that the doctrines of redemption, militating, as is 
 alleged, against that idea, cannot in their orthodox 
 sense be true. Carrying along with us, then, the 
 simple and exclusive idea of paternity, suppose that 
 from the date of our creation we had dwelt in another 
 region of God s empire where sin and misery were 
 unknown, where knowledge of the most delightful 
 kind was diffused wide as the light, and where all 
 the inhabitants were perfectly holy and happy. Sup 
 pose, farther, that we had known nothing, by report 
 or otherwise, of the moral and physical condition of 
 this earth, but that at a certain period we alighted 
 on its soil and mingled with its children ; would we 
 not have found much in the condition of mankind 
 irreconcilable with the simple and exclusive idea of 
 the paternity of God ? We are far from believing 
 that there is any part of the wide universe, however 
 sinless and happy, the inhabitants of which have no 
 other idea of the Eternal than that of a Father. 
 The idea of paternity is of all others the most de 
 lightful, and, in such a province of the Creator s 
 dominions as that supposed, will be most vivid. But 
 it is not all-comprehending. It is a glory that blends 
 with other glories in the Divine character, and the 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 231 
 
 idea will consequently be associated with other ideas 
 in the minds of those beings who have the most en 
 larged and correct knowledge of God. But, for the 
 sake of argument, we suppose ourselves to have lived 
 in some remote happy region, and then, bringing 
 along with us the exclusively vivid idea of paternity, 
 to have come into this world ; and we ask, how much 
 in its condition would we not have found apparently 
 at variance with it ? 
 
 There is the palpable fact of moral evil meeting 
 us at every step, a fact which, however much men 
 may attempt to disguise or mitigate it, cannot be 
 denied. The existence of this, in any part of the 
 earth, would be to us a monstrous anomaly, and 
 conflict mightily with our exclusive- idea of the 
 Divine paternity. Much more would this happen, 
 when we ascertained that it was neither local nor 
 temporary, that traces of it were to be found wherever 
 man set his foot, and that it had been perpetuated 
 from generation to generation ever since the existence 
 of the first family. Here, we might say, is a phe 
 nomenon, which, judging from our notions of the 
 paternal character of the Divine dispensations, we 
 would never have expected. And how account for 
 the permission at first, and for the prevalence hither 
 to, of this dreadful evil in a world under the supreme 
 control of Him whom we have been accustomed to 
 regard as the Father of his creation, the wisest and 
 best Father of his people ? 
 
 Then again, there is the moral nature of man, 
 speaking clearly, by its primitive judgments, on 
 
232 SPIRITUALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 behalf of truth and rectitude, and yet ever in love 
 with error and swerving from the right path. The 
 human soul declaring, by the wondrous natural 
 powers with which it has been endowed, that it is 
 celestial in its origin ; and yet making it evident, 
 by the manifestation of these powers, that it is allied 
 to the dust. This is what we never would have an 
 ticipated under the government of Him who is the 
 Father of spirits. And, as we travelled through this 
 world, or read its history in past ages, and became 
 acquainted with the ignorance, the irreligion, and 
 suffering that prevailed, our preconceived notions 
 would be the more scattered, and our exclusive idea 
 of paternity be brought the more into conflict with 
 actual realities. Here and there, we would perceive 
 a few minds, like tall trees studding at intervals a 
 level tract of country, rising by their intelligence and 
 attainments above the crowd; while the greater parl 
 of that crowd were grovelling, ignorant, sensual 
 The perplexities would increase, and the gloom 
 thicken upon us, as we proceeded to consider the 
 religious condition of mankind in general. Here, on 
 an insignificant spot of the world s map, would we 
 behold a small portion of the race possessing any 
 thing like worthy conceptions of God ; and, even 
 among these, an ever manifesting tendency to corrupt 
 that knowledge and to depart from Him ; while, in re 
 ference to the rest, we would find the description of 
 the sacred oracle to be by no means exaggerated, " dark 
 ness covered the earth, and gross darkness the people. 7 
 The darkness would become the more visible, and 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 233 
 
 the anomalies the more bewildering, on noticing the 
 moral and physical suffering that prevailed. What a 
 vast and varied amount of mental and bodily distress 
 meets the eye in this direction and in that ! The 
 thirst for happiness is insatiable, the cry is deep, 
 earnest, and incessant, "who will show us any good?" 
 The yearnings and strivings of the human spirit 
 indicate that happiness is " our being s end and aim," 
 and yet men in general fail of attaining to it. 
 The moral viciousness of individuals and commu 
 nities has its counterpart in dreadful and compli 
 cated sufferings. Here, we see physical ills following 
 moral transgressions with something like the certainty 
 of fixed laws ; and there, we behold ever and anon in 
 history, terrible special interpositions in the form of 
 famine or flood, pestilence or war, proclaiming to 
 those who have ears to hear, that there is verily a 
 God that judgeth in the earth. The innocent are 
 involved in these calamities, as well as the guilty. 
 The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children. 
 The good and beneficent are not unfrequently over 
 whelmed in the same national judgments that come 
 upon the evil-doers and the profane. 
 
 This is a state of matters, a complicated scene of 
 ignorance and irreligion, of moral and physical suf 
 fering, which the inhabitants of a sinless world, 
 having a vivid idea of the paternity of God, would 
 have found on their arrival, (until the explanation was 
 given,) to be awfully and distressingly embarrassing. 
 And, had it been possible for such intelligences to 
 have had no other idea of God but the paternal one, 
 
234 SPIRITUALISM ; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 they would have learned that some other must be 
 embraced, and that between them there was the most 
 perfect harmony. Here, then, we meet the objection 
 against the doctrines of the Christian redemption, 
 urged on the ground of their supposed contrariety to 
 the paternal character of God. The objector says, 
 the atonement and the system of which it forms the 
 centre, are utterly at variance with what we, judging 
 from His character as a father, would have supposed 
 God to have done had he interposed on behalf of the 
 human race. We ask the objector, is that world 
 without and around you such as you would have sup 
 posed it would be ? Had you come from another 
 sphere with no other idea about God in your head 
 than the paternal one, would you have expected to 
 have found that mysterious and mighty thing, moral 
 evil, at the heart of humanity, perpetuating and dif 
 fusing itself from age to age, and bringing in its 
 train such an amount of moral and physical wretch 
 edness as has inscribed on the world s history, 
 mourning, and lamentation, and woe ? We ask you 
 to reconcile that fact, which is patent to every eye, 
 with your preconceived notions of the paternity of 
 God ; and we tell you, that you could no more ward 
 off the objection which the supposed visitant might 
 bring against the condition of our world, than, as 
 you suppose, it can be warded off from the doctrines 
 of the Christian redemption. 1 
 
 1 Harrington the sceptic, who had been prevented from taking 
 refuge in the " half-way houses " between the Bible and religious 
 scepticism, sa} r s : " If I acquiesce, on Mr. Newman s grounds, in 
 the rejection of the Bible as a special revelation of God, I am 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 235 
 
 2d. The view of the Divine character taken by 
 this argument, is one-sided and partial. It embraces 
 a delightful and important truth, but it is not the 
 whole truth, nor the whole of the most important 
 truth. God is the common father of all his creatures. 
 "Have we not all one father, hath not one God 
 created us?" And it is in this character, that He 
 opens his hand, and satisfies the desires of every 
 living thing. The child feels the sweet power of this 
 truth, when, with bended knee and uplifted heart and 
 look, he says, u our Father which art in heaven." 
 The man of feeling, casting his eye over the varied 
 face of nature, is moved, and justly so, at the thought 
 of that immense paternity which embraces heaven 
 a?/d earth, and the whole empire of animated being 
 from the seraph to the reptile. And the Christian 
 has been taught, by the holy oracles, to look upon 
 God as being in the highest sense his Father, and as 
 thus making all things work together for his good. 
 But the regal character pertains no less to the Divine 
 
 compelled on the very same principles to go a few steps further, and to 
 express doubts of the absolutely divine original of the World, and 
 the administration thereof, just as he does of the divine original of 
 the Bible. If I concede to Mr. Newman, however we may differ as 
 to the moral and spiritual faculties of man, that these are yet the 
 sole and ultimate court of appeals to us ; that from our intuitions 
 of right and wrong, of l moral and spiritual truth, be they more 
 perfect according to him, or more rudimentary and imperfect accord 
 ing to me, we must form a judgment of the moral bearings of every 
 presumed external revelation of God, I cannot do otherwise than 
 reject much of the revelation of God in his presumed Works as 
 unworthy of him, just as Mr. Newman does very much in his sup 
 posed Word as equally unworthy of him." The Eclipse of Faith, 
 p. 147. 
 
236 SPIRITUALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 Being than does the parental ; and nature and revela 
 tion teach us to regard Him as a Sovereign no less 
 than a Parent. The two ideas blend together, and are 
 realized, in the utmost perfection, in the Divine nature ; 
 and so should they blend in our conceptions of what 
 God is, and of what are his relations to our world. 
 He is not only the best and wisest of fathers, but the 
 most righteous, benignant, and powerful of kings. 
 The same dispensation of Providence may bring 
 impressively before our mind this two-fold view of 
 the Divine relation. Afflictions, in one sense, are 
 sovereign judgments ; and in another sense they are 
 fatherly chastisements. In one view, they are punish 
 ments for sin ; and, in another view, they are tokens 
 of a father s love. They manifest at once the 
 righteous Sovereign and the benignant Parent. Jus 
 tice has been defined to be goodness regulated by 
 wisdom, and the sovereign relation may be said to be 
 the parental controlled by the same attribute. It 
 would, however, be a very defective view of the Divine 
 character, to exclude the idea of justice, and adopt 
 the bare idea of goodness, as comprehensive of the 
 whole truth about God. And it is the very same 
 defect in that theory which regards Him simply and 
 exclusively as the Parent of all. It is a gross mis 
 representation of the Christian atonement, to speak 
 of it as if the fatherly character of God was there 
 overshadowed or shut out. u Go to my brethren," 
 said the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, 
 "and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and 
 your Father; and to my God and your God." It is, 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 237 
 
 indeed, in the atonement, that we see the paternal 
 relation in its richest elements and loveliest manifesta 
 tion, not dissociated from or shrouded by the regal, 
 but the majesty of the one rendered attractive by the 
 love of the other, and the love of the one appearing 
 the more grand and costly in the union with the other. 
 " Mercy and truth meet together, righteousness and 
 peace embrace each other." We behold at once 
 a the just God and the Saviour." The theology of 
 the natural religion is no less meagre and contracted 
 than that of the revealed, and the view of the Divine 
 character as the God of providence, is no less partial 
 than the view of Him as the God of redemption, 
 which does not embrace the two-fold relationship of 
 Jehovah as the King and Father of his people. 
 Whether we contemplate Him as seated on the circle 
 of the universe, presiding over the movements of the 
 spheres, and managing the affairs of men ; or, as mani 
 fested in the cross, magnifying His law and bringing 
 redemption to a lost world ; we do not contemplate 
 Him aright, unless it be in the blended relations of 
 the righteous Sovereign and the benignant Parent. 
 " The Lord reigneth ; let the earth rejoice ; let the 
 multitude of isles be glad thereof. Clouds and dark 
 ness are round about him ; righteousness and judgment 
 are the habitation of his throne." 
 
 3d. The doctrine of depravity, as stated in Scripture 
 or applied in the atonement, is not a whit more 
 aggravated and mysterious than the actual condition 
 of man. The Bible doctrine on this subject, has been 
 denounced as dark and perplexing ; but it is not more 
 
238 SPIRITUALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 so than the palpable facts that come under observation 
 and experience. To hear some men speak about the 
 dark and mysterious doctrines of Scripture, you would 
 imagine that, without the pale of Christianity, difficulty 
 and darkness were unknown, that all was unclouded 
 sunshine, comprehensible and plain. Whereas, it is 
 just because there are mysteries in nature, that there 
 are mysteries in revelation. No one disputes the 
 existence of sin in the world. The mountain stands 
 before us, however different may be the estimates 
 formed of its origin and size. But some would 
 represent its existence in nature, and account for its 
 presence in the human soul, in such a way as to set 
 the natural religion over against the revealed. The 
 conflict takes place at two points. The Bible teaches 
 that sin is an element of positive evil in the heart, 
 consisting in the corruption of the will, and that, as 
 a depraved force, it affects all the mental powers, and 
 manifests itself in the outward conduct. Opponents 
 consider sin as a negative thing, consisting rather in 
 the defect of a positive good than in the presence of 
 a positive evil. The Bible traces all human transgress 
 ion up to the inward depraved principle, which is 
 strengthened and developed by outward circumstances. 
 The objectors, maintaining the original goodness of 
 the heart, regard sin as an accident, and the product 
 of external forces acting upon man s constitution. 
 There it is, however, in the heart of humanity, account 
 for it as you will. 
 
 The first thing we affirm respecting it is, that it is 
 not represented more darkly in Scripture than it exists 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 239 
 
 actually in the world. There is not a darker picture of 
 depravity in the Bible than that which is drawn by Paul 
 in his epistle to the Romans. He there proves, by an 
 induction of evidence, that mankind are deeply and 
 universally depraved. And the testimonies of his 
 torians, who were by no means friendly to Christianity, 
 may be appealed to in proof that the apostolic de 
 scription is not darker than the outward reality. Ex 
 perience and observation are in perfect harmony with 
 scriptural representations on this point. The book 
 declares that all have sinned, and the world sets its 
 seal to the statement as true. The book declares 
 that the heart is deceitful, and what man of self- 
 reflection will deny it? The plague raged not less 
 fearfully in the city, than Daniel Defoe describes it. 
 The desert is not less arid and cheerless than it appears 
 in the pages of the traveller. And the actual state of 
 the moral nature of man, before better influences come 
 down upon it, is no less dark and depraved, than it is 
 represented in scriptural statements, or implied in the 
 doctrine of atonement. 
 
 But we assert, further, that the Bible account of 
 the origin of sin, however mysterious, is more in 
 accordance with fact than the view given in the 
 opposite argument. The doctrine of Scripture is, 
 that all men have been involved in the fall of their 
 common parent, and that, in consequence of the first 
 sin of the first man, they have inherited a depraved 
 nature. Not that men actually sin without the con 
 currence of their own will, but that the principles of 
 depravity are inherent within them. This we hold 
 
240 SPIRITUALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 to be more philosophically true than the explanation 
 that sin is an accident, the result of external agencies, 
 a thing not proceeding from the soul within but coin 
 ing to it from without. It is true that we cannot detect 
 depravity till some time after the birth of an individ 
 ual, but neither can we detect reason or the rudiments 
 of a moral nature. The child, in process of time, how 
 ever, gives signs of the existence of the reasoning 
 faculty, and of the moral constitution, and contem 
 poraneously therewith, does it manifest tendencies to 
 evil. Now, as has been often remarked, we never 
 ascribe the existence of reason and the moral sense 
 to education or to any external influences. They may 
 develop them, but they do not produce them. Men, 
 in all circumstances, manifest reason and a moral 
 nature; and this is to us a proof that they are in 
 herent in the human constitution. Men, in all cir 
 cumstances, manifest depraved affections. These 
 circumstances may call them forth, strengthen them, 
 or even counteract them, but they do not originate 
 them, and this we take to be a proof of the existence 
 of an original depraved propensity. The uniform 
 occurrence of moral actions is not a stronger evidence 
 of moral nature, than the uniform occurrence of 
 wrong moral actions is an evidence of a corrupt moral 
 nature. 
 
 It is somewhat strange, that certain reforming pro 
 jectors, who persist in maintaining that inherent 
 depravity, is to be found nowhere but in the " dark 
 creed" of the Gospel, and that all the evils which 
 afflict man are to be traced to external circum- 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 241 
 
 stances operating on his mental and physical con 
 stitution, should, on the supposition of their theory 
 being true, never have succeeded, in those genial 
 climes whither they have removed, and amid those 
 favorable circumstances by which they were sur 
 rounded, in rearing up plants without spot or wrinkle 
 or any such thing. They have had their Utopias, 
 their Icarias, and Harmony Halls. But old Adam 
 has always proved too strong for young Melancthon. 
 The power of inward evil has sported with all their 
 fondly-cherished schemes to subdue it, and shown 
 such schemes to be visionary and vain. And, it is 
 not less strange, (on the supposition of the truth 
 of the theories of Parker and Newman,) that, not 
 withstanding the alleged virtue of the " absolute 
 religion," and the u spiritual faculty," which are 
 said to render the Gospel unnecessary, men, un 
 influenced by that Gospel, should have everywhere 
 continued corrupt and corrupters. But, it is not 
 strange, on the belief of the Scripture doctrine that 
 man is radically depraved, that the principle of evil 
 is within, and that out of the heart come the things 
 which defile the man. This doctrine, as we have 
 admitted, is dark and mysterious, standing boldly 
 forth as it does on the Bible page. But it is not a 
 whit more so than the actual condition of man in 
 the world. The account of the astounding phenom 
 enon as given in the inspired volume, is, however, 
 vastly more in accordance with observation and 
 experience, than any opposite theory. And we ask, 
 when are men of philosophical pretensions to cease 
 
 16 
 
242 SPIRITUALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 assuming, or how long is the world to tolerate their 
 assumption, that darkness and mystery belong only 
 to the theology of the Gospel which they disown, and 
 that these horrible things have no place in the 
 theology of nature of which they profess themselves 
 the disciples and friends ? 
 
 4th. The doctrine of pardon on the ground of an 
 atonement is neither unreasonable nor inconsistent with 
 the Paternity of God, as is supposed. We assent to 
 the remarks of the eloquent preacher, 1 " that there 
 is in this doctrine something extremely remote from 
 ordinary apprehension, apart from the instruction 
 derived from Holy Writ. That one of the human 
 race, by submitting to an ignominious and painful 
 death, should be the moral source of the salvation of 
 an innumerable multitude of mankind, and, if duly 
 improved, a sufficient source for the salvation of all, 
 is surely one of the most extraordinary of the Divine 
 proceedings with regard to man. Nothing like this 
 has ever existed. It seems to stand by itself, an in 
 sulated department of Divine Providence, to contain 
 within itself a method of acting which was never 
 seen before, and will never be repeated." It was 
 a mysterious exigency, altogether unprecedented, 
 that had to be met, and the expedient devised by 
 Infinite wisdom has a height and a depth that pass 
 knowledge. And yet, notwithstanding the unique 
 and unparalleled nature of this distinctive act of 
 moral mediation, the idea of moral substitution has 
 a founda ion in nature, and pardon through a mediator 
 
 1 Robert Hall. 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 243 
 
 is a principle not unfrequently exemplified in history. 
 Some men speak under a kind of horror at this 
 doctrine, because it represents the God and Father 
 of mankind as inflicting punishment on the innocent, 
 and thus reversing all our ideas of moral rectitude 
 that where there is no sin there should be no suffering. 
 But, not to dwell on the assumption involved in this 
 objection, that the objector knew all the ends God 
 had in view in the work of the atonement, or that these 
 ends are not better secured by the sufferings of 
 Christ than they could have been in any other way, 
 does it not frequently happen in God s providential 
 administration, that persons are involved in sufferings 
 in consequence of the sins of others in the com 
 mission of which they had no part; and that men, 
 possessed of little or no virtue in themselves, have 
 much respect shown to them, and many benefits 
 conferred upon them, solely on account of the virtues 
 of others? Some of the most direful calamities that 
 ever fell on individuals or communities, have been 
 the consequence of the wrong doings of others, of 
 which they themselves were innocent. And some of 
 the richest blessings that ever descended upon families 
 or nations, may be traced to the merit and suffering of 
 those who, for righteousness sake, perished in the field, 
 at the stake, or on the scaffold. 
 
 In such cases as these, we see the existence of a 
 principle, which is manifested, in a manner altogether 
 unparalleled, in the Christian redemption, the prin 
 ciple of moral Substitution, the principle of conferring 
 benefits on individuals or communities from a regard 
 
244 SPIRITUALISM ; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 to the merits of others, and of the innocent suffering 
 in consequence of the deeds of the guilty. And, that 
 this principle is in harmony with the general sen 
 timents of mankind, is abundantly testified by their 
 religious observances even in lands where the Gospel 
 is unknown. It is altogether unphilosophical, to 
 ascribe any permanent and universally diffused feelings 
 and sentiments to what have been considered a few 
 interested classes of the community. " To affirm, 
 as some have done," says Isaac Taylor, 1 " that priests 
 are the authors of religion and moral sentiment, is 
 a sort of upside-down logic, not easily understood. 
 Surely it were more philosophical to invert the terms 
 of the proposition, and to affirm that religion and 
 moral sentiment are the authors of priests/ The 
 altars which have been reared, and the sacrifices 
 which have been offered, in every age and quarter of 
 the world, show, that the idea of vicarious interposition 
 has its foundation in the constitution of nature. 
 And the same principle is evinced in cases, uncon 
 nected with religious rites and observances, of the 
 good and great in history suffering for the unworthy, 
 and the virtues of such illustrious sufferers being so 
 reckoned to others as that on account of them un 
 deserved favors have been bestowed. We never look, 
 in anything among men, for a parallelism to the 
 amazingly grand fact of salvation by the interposition 
 and sacrifice of the Son of the Highest. But, in 
 such cases as those to which we have adverted, we 
 , be the actions blameworthy or commendable, 
 1 -Man Responsible, p. 8. 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 245 
 
 that the notions of vicarious suffering and of treating 
 the undeserving kindly for the sake of the deserving, 
 are not so strange and unnatural as some persons, in 
 objecting to the atonement, would seem to suppose. 
 
 It was one of the unworthy expedients of the old 
 deistical writers, and the same is not unfrequently 
 resorted to in more modern times to misrepresent 
 and disfigure the atonement, and then hold it up to 
 the execration of mankind. The following is a 
 specimen from Bolingbroke: "Let us suppose a 
 great prince, governing a wicked and rebellious 
 people, he has it in his power to punish but thinks 
 fit to pardon them. But he orders his only and well 
 beloved son to be put to death, to expiate their sins, 
 and satisfy his royal vengeance. Would this pro 
 ceeding (asks the writer) appear to the eye of reason, 
 and in the unprejudiced light of nature, wise, or just, 
 or good ? No man dares to say that it would, except 
 it be a divine." 1 No person deserving the name of 
 a divine but would cry out on the monstrous in 
 justice as loudly as the philosopher himself. But is 
 such a case parallel to the Christian atonement? 
 Far from it. It fails in two things, and failing in 
 these, the whole is vitiated. In the first place, the 
 highest injustice would have been done to the sub 
 stitute, in the case supposed ; whereas, no injury 
 whatever was done to Christ, for, with a perfect 
 knowledge of what he would have to endure, his 
 undertaking was entirely voluntary. He is repre 
 sented in the ancient oracle as saying, when about to 
 1 Leland s Deistical Writers 
 
246 SPIRITUALISM; OR THE DENIAL 
 
 enter on the work of mediation, 4C Lo! I come, I 
 delight to do thy will, my God;" and, on earth he 
 declared, " no man taketh my life from me. I have 
 power to lay it down and I have power to take it 
 again." In the second place, no sentiment is more 
 derogatory to the Divine character, and more op 
 posed to the declarations of Scripture, than that 
 which represents God as naturally implacable to 
 wards the human race, and as being appeased by 
 the interposition of his beloved Son. The sacred 
 penman, and the adherents of the doctrine of re 
 demption, always speak of the mission and death 
 of Christ, not as the cause, but as the effect of the 
 Father s love, not as rendering Him merciful towards 
 us, but as the divinely-appointed way of manifesting 
 his self-moved benignity to the guilty. What can be 
 plainer than the golden passage in John, u God so 
 loved the world as to give His only begotten Son, that 
 whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but 
 have everlasting life." The paternal theory, as we 
 have seen, embraces only one aspect of the twofold 
 relation in which the Supreme Being stands to men ; 
 it separates the glories that blend in the Divine 
 character, and overlooks one of them as if it had no 
 existence. Whereas, it is the pre-eminent excellence 
 of the Christian doctrine of atonement that it is 
 comprehensive of the whole. In it, we see at once 
 the righteous Governor of the world maintaining the 
 integrity of his just and good laws, and the benignant 
 Parent, in perfect consistency with the holiness of 
 his character and the honor of his administration, 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 247 
 
 extending mercy to his rebellious children. We 
 behold in the theory of the atonement, what we fail 
 to perceive in the paternal theory, a high regard to 
 the cause of moral right and to the general interests 
 of the universe, and an altogether extraordinary 
 manifestation of Divine benevolence to guilty man. 
 It speaks loudly in behalf of its truthfulness, that 
 it harmonizes so wondrously the Divine relations 
 of sovereign and parent ; exhibiting, in the world s 
 great exigency, righteousness inviolable and uncom 
 promising to be the girdle of God s throne, and love, 
 unexampled and ineffable, going forth from his heart. 
 The angels embraced the blended glories of king and 
 father, when they sung over the plains of Bethlehem, 
 u Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, 
 good-will toward men." 
 
 But this is mysterious doctrine ! As if, by raising 
 up mystery as a bugbear, men are to be scared away 
 from it. We reply to the taunt by saying, there is a 
 mystery no less inscrutable and astounding before 
 your eyes, a mystery which has called this other forth 
 the mystery of moral evil. Solve that mystery, or 
 deny it, before you urge mystery as an objection 
 against the Divine provision that has been made to 
 meet it. It is the mystery of man s fall that has 
 occasioned the mystery of man s redemption. " With 
 out controversy, great is the mystery of godliness: 
 God was manifested in the flesh." But, "herein 
 he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and 
 prudence." 
 
 5th. The doctrine of Divine influence as indispensably 
 
248 SPIRITUALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 necessary to regenerate the souls of men, is a reasonable 
 doctrine ; at variance neither with the dictates of 
 nature nor the principles of sound philosophy. It de 
 serves notice, that while the earlier Unitarians shrunk 
 from boldly impugning this article of the evangelical 
 creed, their successors generally ridicule and deny it ; or, 
 in accordance with the " School of Progress," merge it 
 in the very commonest natural influence. Men may 
 think to construct a religious philosophy without it, 
 but it requires little consideration to see, that of all 
 philosophies it is the most unphilosophical. It has 
 been already shown, that, to be thoroughly consistent 
 in denying the intervention of God in preserving and 
 ruling the universe, men must take up their position 
 in atheism and deny the existence of God himself. 
 And it may as justly be affirmed, that, to be thoroughly 
 consistent in denying a Divine influence on the soul, 
 men must either hold that the soul exists indepen 
 dently of God, or is placed beyond the reach of his 
 operations. The possibility, not to say the probability 
 or actual certainty, of the Almighty Maker exerting 
 an influence on the material worlds, in accordance 
 with the laws and properties which he has impressed 
 on them, being granted ; it cannot, with any preten 
 sions to philosophy, be denied, that God may exercise 
 an influence on the souls which he has formed, so as 
 not to interfere with their free agency and responsi 
 bility. No one will venture to assert that it is more 
 difficult to conceive how the Spirit of God operates on 
 mind, than how he operates on matter. Yea, we will 
 venture to say that it is more easy to conceive the 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 249 
 
 action of mind on mind, than the action of mind on 
 matter. Many of the ancient Greek and Roman 
 philosophers, as has often been shown by quotations 
 from their writings, admitted not only the possibility 
 but the necessity and reality of Divine influences on 
 the mind for the attainment and practice of virtue. 
 Seneca declares, u it is God that comes to men, yea 
 more he enters into them, for no mind becomes truly 
 good but by his assistance." Plato has remarked, 
 " that virtue is not to be taught but by the assistance 
 of God." And he introduces Socrates as declaring, 
 "that wheresoever virtue comes, it seems to be the 
 fruit of a divine dispensation." These considerations 
 show, not only that the exercise of a divine influence 
 on the mind is possible, but that the want of it has 
 been felt, and the reality of it admitted, by the greatest 
 men living under the glimmering light of nature. 
 This augurs something in favor of its reasonableness 
 and accordance with sound philosophy. And surely, 
 if we admit a supernatural intervention in revealing 
 Christianity at the first ; it is more in accordance with 
 right reason to believe, that it makes its way through 
 this world, rife as it is with powerful principles that 
 are hostile to it, accompanied with an influence from 
 on high, than that it has been left to struggle alone, 
 unaided by the spiritual energy which gave it birth. 
 
 But the objection is, that it interferes with the 
 moral freedom of man. As if an influence coming 
 from without could not but destroy or impair the 
 freedom of the will within. It is a sufficient reply to 
 this objection, that the operation of such an external 
 
250 SPIRITUALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 cause no more implies interference with human 
 liberty than the operation of any other external 
 causes. One man exerts an influence upon another 
 by his speech or example, without it ever being sup 
 posed that the moral freedom of that other is inter 
 fered with. The orator in the senate, or from the 
 pulpit, influences men to change their opinions and 
 follow a different line of conduct, and no one ever 
 imagines that the responsibility of men is thereby 
 lessened. We are thrown into society, or brought 
 into contact with the scenes of external nature, and 
 passively receive impressions from the objects that 
 surround us, but we, nevertheless, feel that our free 
 will is not interfered with in avoiding or pursuing any 
 train of thought or course of conduct to which they 
 would lead us. And why should it be thought to be 
 otherwise with an influence coming not from earth 
 but from heaven, not from objects that are natural 
 but divine and spiritual ? Men, it has been remarked, 
 are passive in receiving natural light and bodily 
 strength from God, and yet free and active in making 
 use of them. And so it may be conceived that men 
 derive spiritual light and strength from the same 
 source, and enjoy their moral freedom in like manner. 
 If it be objected that the cases are not parallel, we 
 answer that they are perfectly parallel in the point 
 for which they have been adduced, viz., non-inter 
 ference with man s moral liberty. We are conscious 
 that the influence exerted on our minds by human 
 spirits, is according to the laws of our moral consti 
 tution. We feel that influence, and nevertheless we 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 251 
 
 are conscious that we are morally free. In like man 
 ner, the subjects of Divine influence know that it is 
 God that worketh in them, and yet they feel, too, that 
 they are free to choose the good and avoid the evil 
 
 Such are the aspects in which the doctrine is pre 
 sented in Scripture, and in that orthodox creed which 
 is objected against. It is obviously implied in those 
 inspired statements which speak of men resisting and 
 quenching the Spirit s influences, that these influences 
 do not in the least interfere with man s free agency, 
 nor diminish but rather increase his responsibility. 
 David, conscious of his moral freedom, meditated on 
 his comparatively small and dark Bible, while he lifted 
 up his heart to the heavens and said, " open thou mine 
 eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy 
 law." Paul gave the exhortation, " work out your own 
 salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God that 
 worketh in you both to will and to do of his good 
 pleasure. 7 At this point, then, the Scripture doctrine, 
 however inscrutable otherwise, accords with human 
 consciousness, and with the principles of sound 
 philosophy. We attempt not, and wish not, to strip 
 it of its mysteriousness. But mystery here, is not 
 mystification. And, as Dr. Yaughan remarks, 1 u the 
 mystery is, that men should be in a condition to need 
 regeneration, not that such being the fact, the Spirit 
 of the Lord should be sent to regenerate them." 
 
 In farther confirmation of the reality and reason 
 ableness of this doctrine, we appeal to three unques- 
 
 1 The Age and Christianity, p. 299. 
 
252 SPIRITUALISM; OR THE DENIAL 
 
 tionable facts. The first is, that where the Gospel 
 is unknown, men are morally degraded and vile. 
 Whether we look at the ancient or modern heathen 
 world, the testimony given is the same, that men, with 
 out Christianity, are unregenerate and destitute of 
 moral loveliness. Let any one read Tholuck s admir 
 able treatise "on the Nature and Moral Influence 
 of Heathenism, especially among the Greeks and 
 Romans," and he will be convinced, if unconvinced 
 before, of the truth of the proposition which he seeks 
 to demonstrate, that "heathenism, as such, did not 
 restore, but profaned the image of God in man." 
 "History," observes Maclaurin, 1 " showeth the weak 
 and contemptible efficacy of the sublirnest philosophy 
 of the heathens, when it is encountered with inveterate 
 corruptions or violent temptations. How many of 
 them that spake of virtue like angels, yet lived in a 
 manner like brutes : whereas, in all ages, poor Chris 
 tian plebeians, unpolished by learning, but earnest in 
 prayer, and depending upon grace, have, in comparison 
 of these others, lived rather like angels than men; 
 and shown such an invincible steadfastness in the prac 
 tice of virtue, as shameth all the philosophy in the 
 world." Plato represents Socrates as saying in his 
 discourse with Alcibiades, "methinks, as Homer says 
 that Minerva removed the mist from the eyes of Dio- 
 mede, in order that he might well distinguish God 
 from man, so it is needful that He (the heavenly 
 teacher), first removing from my soul the mist which 
 
 1 Maclaurin s Works, p. 78, (Collins edition.) 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 253 
 
 is now present, should then impart means by which 
 thou shalt know good and evil ; for now thou dost not 
 appear to me capable of this." And the absence of life 
 in modern heathenism to renovate and raise up man, 
 and the presence and power of it in the Gospel, are 
 strikingly illustrated in the veritable records of Chris 
 tian missions. "Why do you believe in the Divine 
 origin of Christianity?" said an officer of a British 
 ship to some converted islanders of the South Sea. 
 u We look," replied one of them, " at the power with 
 which it has been attended in effecting the entire 
 overthrow of idolatry among us ; and which, we believe, 
 no human means could have induced us to abandon." 
 If, over against all this, men will set the corruptions, 
 which have existed in the presence of Christianity, 
 and assert that the moral pollution within the pale of 
 the church has not been less than within the province 
 of heathenism, we reply in the words of Tholuck, 
 that, " The question is not, in what the Christian, 
 who is merely baptized with water, is better than the 
 heathen, but the one who is baptized with the Spirit 
 and with fire. . . . Vain would be the task of him who 
 would prove, that the mass of weeds which have luxu 
 riated within the pale of the Christian church from 
 the beginning, might have sprung from the root of 
 the Spirit of Christ." 2 It can be shown that the Di 
 vine life has been wanting wherever a native or bap 
 tized heathenism prevails, but it cannot be shown 
 that a spiritual deadness has been prevalent where 
 
 1 The Bible not of Man. By Dr. Spring, p. 156. 
 
 * Nature and Moral Influence of Heathenism, pp. 6, 7. 
 
254 SPIRITUALISM; OB, THE DENIAL 
 
 the Gospel, in its purity and simplicity, has been be 
 lieved and obeyed. This of itself is a strong presump 
 tive proof that a Divine influence accompanies, in 
 a greater or less degree, the truths of Christianity 
 among men. 
 
 The second fact, to which we appeal, is, that where 
 Christianity is exhibited, stripped of all its grand dis 
 tinctive peculiarities as a system of atonement and 
 spiritual regeneration, and reduced to a kind of re 
 ligious philosophy, it is seen to be destitute of life and 
 morally impotent to regenerate men. It is " Chris 
 tianity in the frigid zone." It contains no elements of 
 truth fitted to arouse the conscience of the ungodly, or 
 to interest the heart of the virtuous. In so far as doc 
 trinal truth is concerned, it is a negative rather than 
 positive; and Christianity in its hands, have dwin 
 dled down to little more than a code of ethics, is sup 
 plied with no power to counteract the stubborn prin 
 ciple of depravity, and to infuse a holy, heavenly life 
 into the soul. Having shorn the Gospel of its mys 
 teries, it has, in a great measure, deprived it of its 
 strength, and left it to move a cold, meagre, uninflu- 
 ential thing among men. Let it be carried, accord 
 ingly, into the lanes and hovels of our cities where 
 ignorance and vice hold their ancient reign ; or let it, 
 if it has the zeal, cross the seas and be brought to 
 bear on the malignant and inveterate forms of hea 
 thenism ; and it is alike powerless in reclaiming the 
 vicious, and in turning men from idols to serve the 
 living and true God. It is by their fruits that we are 
 to judge of systems as well as of men. And may it 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 255 
 
 not be asked, (without breach of charity,) is the power 
 of godliness manifested, does a lofty, unearthly piety 
 prevail, are the duties of religion generally attended 
 to, do works of faith and labors of love begin and 
 progress, do real conversions to God and a radical 
 reformation of heart and life take place, under a 
 system of religious teaching that expunges from its 
 creed the doctrines of atonement and Divine in 
 fluence ? Is there not rather a great congeniality of 
 spirit between this system of an impoverished Chris 
 tianity, and the scepticism and indifference of men 
 who wish to retain an outward form of religion, 
 while destitute of its inner life ? Dr. Priestley 
 honestly acknowledged that infidelity and unitarian- 
 ism were not very far from each other. The little 
 state of Geneva, under the predominance of such 
 principles the progress of which afforded such de 
 light to D Alembert and Voltaire was characterized 
 by its depravity, its neglect of public and domestic 
 religion,, and the dissoluteness of its manners in 
 general. And though the system, in the hands of 
 some of its chiefs, has recently begun to assume a 
 more spiritual aspect, and " to represent the progress of 
 man in tlieology" it is not the spiritualism of the 
 revelation that has come from above, but that of the 
 idealistic philosophy ; and, being as destitute as ever 
 of the great distinctive elements of the Gospel, it is 
 as ineffectual to make men holy and happy. But it 
 is of little consequence what shape systems may 
 assume, or what name their abettors may take, go 
 forth as they may, avowing themselves to be religious 
 
256 SPIRITUALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 teachers, so long as they have the corruptions of the 
 heart to contend with, they will be seen to be vision 
 ary and powerless, and will leave the race, as similar 
 systems have left it, depraved and unrenewed, be 
 cause they have not the Spirit. And this we take 
 to be another presumptive proof of the reality and 
 reasonableness of the doctrine of Divine influence. 
 
 The third fact, to which we appeal, is, that where- 
 ever the Gospel has been influential in working a 
 radical change on masses of men, or in adorning the 
 individual character with the beauties of holiness, 
 strong faith in the doctrine of Divine influence has 
 existed in the minds of its teachers and disciples. It 
 was so in the beginning of the Gospel age. The 
 whole machinery of means had been completed, the 
 atonement had been finished, the apostles had been 
 chosen and instructed, the Lord had risen from the 
 grave and ascended up on high, but life in the wheels 
 was wanting, and no remarkable success followed the 
 movements of the moral machinery, till a supernat 
 ural influence came down from heaven. The first 
 teachers of Christianity waited in expectation of such 
 an influence. It descended, according to the promise 
 of their Lord, and they had power in converting, 
 sanctifying, and saving men. Paul and his fellow- 
 laborers never fail to acknowledge, in any distin 
 guished success that attended their preaching, the 
 presence and power of the Spirit of God. And a 
 similar devout recognition of the regenerating Spirit, 
 has been made, in every succeeding epoch of revival 
 and missionary achievement. It was so at the Re- 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 257 
 
 formation when the Gospel trumpet sounded anew 
 and awoke the nations. It was so in the times of 
 the good and brave Puritans, men of whom the world 
 was not worthy, and who were instrumental in bring 
 ing about an age of strong faith and reviving earnest 
 ness. It was so in the age of Whitefield, and Wesley, 
 and Romaine, men born to summon the dead to life, 
 and quicken again the things that were ready to die. 
 It has been so in the brilliant successes that have 
 crowned modern missions, and in the times of 
 refreshing that have ever and anon come upon the 
 church of God. The most honored instruments in 
 advancing the world s regeneration have been persons 
 who had firm faith in the doctrine of the regenerating 
 influences of the Holy Spirit. And a like testimony 
 is obtained, on perusing the memoirs, or in mingling 
 in the society, of eminent private Christians. The 
 choicest spirits of our race, whether in the public or 
 retired walks of life, whether standing forth before 
 the world and battling with its vices and errors, or 
 shedding noiselessly a hallowed influence in the 
 domestic circle, have been men who looked up to 
 God for the high life of the soul, and for success to 
 their benignant labors. 
 
 This doctrine has often been stigmatized as chimer 
 ical and visionary. But such epithets are misapplied, 
 unless they are kept to brand projects and systems 
 which count on the world s regeneration while un 
 accompanied with a power that can overcome the 
 world s depravity. " Their work," says John Foster, 1 
 
 1 Foster s Essays, p. 173. 
 17 
 
258 SPIRITUALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 " is before them ; the scene of moral disorder pre 
 sents to them the plagues which they are to stop, 
 the mountain which they are to remove, the torrent 
 which they are to divert, the desert which they are 
 to clothe in verdure and bloom. Let them make 
 their experiment, and add each his page to the 
 humiliating records in which experience contemns 
 the folly of elated imagination." The world s regen 
 eration, meanwhile, goes on. And it must go on, 
 with the same system of moral means, and accom 
 panied by the same heavenly energy, (though it may 
 be with greater potency,) as it has proceeded hitherto, 
 until the glorious consummation shall have come, 
 when voices in heaven will be heard saying, u the 
 kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms 
 of our Lord and of his Christ." 
 
 6th. The charge of gloominess which opponents 
 bring against the doctrines of redemption, is unfounded. 
 Some men are incessantly speaking of these doctrines 
 as if they tended to hang the world in mourning, 
 and to repress every genial impulse of the soul. 
 They taunt us, in no measured terms, with the 
 u dark and horrible creed of depravity," as if this 
 article were a shade darker in the Gospel than in the 
 book of nature. The hideous thing has its origin 
 in the world, not in the Scripture, and it is dark in 
 the one just because it is dark in the other. They 
 taunt us with the doctrine of sacrifice and atonement 
 as if it clothed the Divine Being with the most 
 unamiable attributes. But we repel the taunt as a 
 gross misrepresentation, and maintain the atonement 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 259 
 
 of the Gospel to be the most illustrious manifestation 
 of Him who is at once inflexibly just, immaculately 
 holy, and inconceivably kind. They taunt us with 
 the doctrine of the Divine influence as implying that 
 man is unequal to his duties and destiny, as inter 
 fering with his moral freedom, and tending to 
 unnerve all his energies. But we reply that man s 
 moral impotency is a fact that lies within the range of 
 observation and experience, that Divine influences no 
 more necessarily interfere with his moral freedom than 
 other external influences, and that the doctrine, scrip- 
 turally understood, instead of unnerving, rouses and 
 quickens the energies with which man has been en 
 dowed. And not only do the doctrines of redemp 
 tion, abstractedly considered, falsify the charge under 
 consideration ; but the fact is undeniable, that persons 
 in every age who have yielded themselves up to the 
 influence of these doctrines have generally been the 
 best and happiest of men. The tree is known by its 
 fruits. In rebutting the charge of gloominess, then, we 
 appeal to palpable testimony. The power and charac 
 ter of principles are especially manifested in circum 
 stances of fierce opposition and severe trial. In such 
 circumstances were the early Christians placed, men 
 who were of one heart and of one soul in reference to 
 the doctrines of redemption, and to them we appeal 
 for evidence of their power to elevate man above his 
 depraved condition, and to assimilate him to the 
 holiness and happiness of heaven. They gladly re 
 ceived the word the word about the person and work 
 of Him who had suffered and died the Just One in 
 
260 SPIRITUALISM ; OB, THE DENIAL 
 
 the room of the unjust, they continued daily with 
 one accord in the temple, and did eat their meat with 
 gladness and singleness of heart ; they departed from 
 the councils, whither they had been summoned, re 
 joicing that they were counted worthy to suffer for 
 Christ ; in the prisons into which they had been cast, 
 they prayed at midnight and sung praises to the God 
 of heaven ; and, of the generality of primitive believers, 
 Peter could say, when speaking of their Lord, u whom 
 having not seen ye love, in whom, though now ye see 
 him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeak 
 able and full of glory." Paul was no dreaming 
 visionary, no weak enthusiast, but a man of towering 
 intellect and acute powers of reasoning, and yet who 
 ever grasped these doctrines more firmly, and what a 
 well of joy sprung up within him under their influence. 
 " I would to God," said he to king Agrippa, " that 
 not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, 
 were both almost, and altogether such as I am, except 
 these bonds." 
 
 There have been, and may be, many melancholy 
 Christians; but, passing over the fact that all the 
 melancholy in the world is not to be found within 
 the pale of the church, it requires little philosophy 
 to perceive that that melancholy is no part of their 
 Christianity. It may be resolved into a natural 
 gloomy temperament, into weak faith, into partial 
 views of divine truth, or into a want of devotedness 
 in the life , but the Scripture says, and the cross says, 
 l it is not in me. Solemnity is not to be confounded 
 with gloom ; seriousness and joy are quite compatible. 
 
OF THE BIBLE REDEMPTION. 261 
 
 Hume, sporting on his death-bed, was liker a fool 
 than a philosopher. The world in which we dwell is 
 fitted to make men grave and thoughtful. But, it 
 may be unhesitatingly affirmed, that the believers in 
 the atonement are not less sensible to the grand and 
 beautiful in nature, and not less capable of appro 
 priating to themselves the good that is to be found in 
 the world, than any other class of men. Yea, we go 
 beyond this, in asserting that the truth as it is in 
 Jesus is better fitted than any other to expand every 
 intellectual power and to purify and strengthen every 
 moral feeling, and that in the view of the mind in 
 whom it dwells, creation is the more radiant and 
 lovely, and God, even our own God, " sits enthroned 
 on the riches of the universe." The recorded expe 
 rience of Jonathan Edwards has, in some degree, 
 been the experience of many, who, being originally 
 endowed with susceptibilities to receive impressions 
 from external nature, have had the eyes of their 
 understanding enlightened at the foot of the cross. 
 But we appeal specially to it as an illustration of a 
 mind, second to none in acuteness and vigor, hold 
 ing with a strong faith the doctrines of redemption/ 
 in what some men count all their repulsiveness, and? 
 yet sunning himself as it were, amid the light and ^ 
 beauty of God s world. u The appearance of every 
 thing," says he, in speaking of the influence produced 
 on his mind by the clearer views which he had ob 
 tained of the work of Christ, " the appearance of 
 everything was altered; there seemed to be, as it 
 were, a calm, sweet cast, or appearance of divine glory, 
 
262 SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 in almost everything. God s excellency, his wisdom, 
 his purity, and love, seemed to appear in everything ; 
 in the sun, moon, and stars, in the clouds, and blue 
 sky; in the grass, flowers, and trees; in the water 
 and all nature ; which used greatly to fix my mind. I 
 often used to sit and view the moon for a long time, 
 and in the day spent much time in viewing the clouds 
 and sky, to behold the sweet glory of God in these 
 things ; in the meantime singing forth, with a low 
 voice, my contemplations of the Creator and Re 
 deemer." 
 
 " He looks abroad into the varied field 
 Of nature, and, though poor perhaps, compared 
 With those whose mansions glitter in his sight, 
 Calls the delightful scenery all his own. 
 His are the mountains, and the valleys his, 
 And the resplendent rivers. His to enjoy 
 With a propriety that none can feel, 
 But who, with filial confidence inspired, 
 Can lift to heaven an unpresumptuous eye, 
 And smiling say * My Father made them all ! * 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE DENIAL OF MAN S RESPONSIBILITY; OR 
 INDIFFERENTISM. 
 
 A diluted kind of scepticism Not necessarily implying open 
 hostility to the generally-received body of truth A weakened 
 sense of responsibility, or an actual denial of it, lies at the bottom 
 of indifferentism Indifferentism on the Continent Remarks of 
 Dr. Krummacher Continental Churches Characterizes much of 
 our own literature Man s responsibility for his dispositions, 
 opinions, and conduct, maintained : A matter of Consciousness 
 Rests on the fact of man s free agency Measured by ability and 
 privilege Remains indestructible amid all objections from original 
 temperament and external influences Phrenology Case of 
 Alexander the Sixth Men individually, and societies in general, 
 advance morally, in proportion as the sense of responsibility is 
 high. 
 
 IN this case, no hostile attitude to the generally-re 
 ceived body of truth may be taken. The doctrines 
 respecting the Divine existence, personality, provi 
 dential government, and the Bible redemption, may 
 theoretically be admitted, but there is a want of stern 
 fidelity to these doctrines. The truth is not, like a 
 fortress, stoutly assailed and bravely defended. But 
 it happens, either that those who are without pass by 
 and turn toward it a look of indifference ; or that some 
 
264 
 
 of its professed guardians would shake hands alike 
 with friends and foes, persuade them that their 
 variance is a mere trifle, and receive the one as well 
 as the other within the citadel. The man does not 
 go forth before us fully equipped and boldly defying 
 the armies of the living God, but he shouts for a 
 truce, alleges that mere matters of opinion are not 
 worth contending for, and that a man is no more 
 responsible for his belief than he is for the color of 
 his skin or the height of his stature. This diluted 
 kind of scepticism is large in its toleration. Not 
 attaching much importance to any kind of religious 
 belief, it is indulgent towards all. It cares not to 
 assail by argument, or otherwise, this -creed or that; 
 and it cares as little about defending what it may 
 have adopted as its own. It says, leave me alone to 
 the indulgence of my opinion, and I will leave you to 
 the indulgence of yours. Different forms of religious 
 belief are much the same in its estimation, as the dif 
 ferent shaped or different colored coats which men 
 wear. And it is disposed to think that the one sits 
 with as little responsibility on the conscience as the 
 other does on the back. It will stand up resolutely 
 for a political creed, and unsparingly denounce its 
 opposite ; it will have its favorite theory in science, 
 and argue keenly for it against every other ; it will be 
 engrossed with its land or merchandise, and suffer 
 nothing to interfere with the most intense devotion 
 thereto. But it has no zeal to spend on religious 
 opinions, it has no article in theology so dear as to 
 muster up an argument in its defence, and it will 
 
OF MAN S RESPONSIBILITY. 265 
 
 suffer itself to be engrossed with anything or every 
 thing rather than with the system of truth which it 
 professes to believe. It is indifferent itself toward 
 religion, and it cares little what quiet shape it may 
 assume in others. Gibbon, speaking of the paganism 
 of ancient Rome, says, "the various modes of worship 
 which prevailed in the Roman world were all consid 
 ered by the people as equally true, by the philosopher 
 as equally false, and by the magistrate as equally useful." 
 The comment of some one is, "after eighteen centuries 
 of the Gospel, we seem unhappily to be coming back 
 to the same point." 
 
 A very weakened sense of responsibility, or an 
 actual denial of it, lies at the bottom of that indif- 
 ferentism which is so extensively prevalent in the 
 present age. On the Continent, especially in Germany 
 and France, not only are opinions destructive of the 
 sense of responsibility widely diffused among the 
 masses, but in the case of vast multitudes, who would 
 not wish to be counted the foes of Christianity, there 
 is an utter absence of anything like the religious obli 
 gation of belief. This state of matters the showing 
 a kind of civil deference to religion while utterly 
 heedless of the obligation which rests upon the indi 
 vidual conscience in reference to religion itself exists 
 among all classes from the higher ranges to the low 
 levels of society. " We find especially," says Dr. 
 Krummacher, speaking of Germany, "an indifference 
 to all that is called religion in that mass of people 
 with whom care and anxiety for daily bread exists. 
 In this so-called proletariat, particularly in large towns, 
 
266 INDIFFERENTISM ; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 this indifference often borders on animal stupidity; 
 the material wants fill the whole soul. . . . The 
 number of the indifferent are, however, unhappily not 
 less in the circles of the well-instructed, and particu 
 larly among State functionaries. Besides that time 
 which is necessary for the fulfilment of their official 
 duties, they have but barely sufficient left for the more 
 trivial dissipations which they find in literary and 
 political lectures, and in social intercourse. In re 
 gard to all higher interests, Pilate s question reigns 
 4 What is truth ? They believe that they are able to 
 infer from the religious controversy, by which they 
 are on all sides surrounded, that in the region of 
 supernatural things nothing certain is to be learned. 
 They therefore consider it wiser not to enter upon 
 their consideration, and passively to await what is 
 once to be revealed as truth or as a lovely dream." 1 
 This picture is too true a description of other parts of 
 Europe besides Germany. It is obvious that such a 
 state of things can only consist with an avowed rejec 
 tion or with the very faintest recognition of the princi 
 ple that man is responsible for his religious belief. 
 
 Indifferentism as to the real import of evangelical 
 truth the result, it may be, of an indiscriminate 
 recognition of widely- differing churches by the political 
 powers is sadly prevalent in some of the continental 
 religious bodies at the present day. It is no uncom 
 mon thing, to find men of all shades of opinion, from 
 simple deism up to the dry skeleton of an orthodox 
 
 1 The Religious Condition of Christendom, (1852,) p. 423. 
 
OF MAN S RESPONSIBILITY. 267 
 
 creed, blended together as parts of tlie same pro* 
 fessedly Christian church. Recent events have shown 
 an unwillingness, on the part of the ecclesiastical 
 authorities, to moot the subject of a confession 
 grounded in its details on the law and the testimony, 
 and to insist on a personal adherence to the articles 
 of evangelism as an indispensable condition of mem 
 bership. The liking of some of the continental 
 Protestant churches for a coat of many colors has 
 long been evinced ; and the same ecclesiastical robe is 
 made to cover the man whose Christianity consists 
 merely in a bare recognition of the New Testament 
 and a respect for Jesus as a better moral teacher than 
 Socrates, and the man who professedly holds the 
 divinity of Christ, the atonement, and the regenerat 
 ing influence of the Spirit. This state of things in 
 dicates an enfeebled sense of responsibility, or the 
 existence, somewhere, of the notion, that religious 
 belief is not a matter of personal obligation for which 
 we are accountable to God. It was against such 
 indifferentism that Arndt, Spener, Bengel, Franke, 
 and others, lifted up their voice in the two pre 
 ceding centuries. And on the side of a spiritual 
 Christianity, of a sound doctrinal faith, and man s 
 responsibility for the same, have their illustrious suc 
 cessors, Tholuck, Hengstenberg, Midler, Neander, 
 D Aubigne, Monod, and others, fought valiantly in 
 our own times. 
 
 This vague sort of infidelity, sometimes asso 
 ciated with a professed respect for Christ and the 
 Scriptures, and, at other times, allied with unbelief 
 
268 INDIFFERENTISM ; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 in some of its bolder forms, is often to be -met with 
 in the workshops, and in the higher circles of our 
 own land. It has not lacked advocacy on the part 
 of some whose position and talents give them in 
 fluence. It is stated, or implied, in much of our 
 current popular literature, that a man s creed does 
 not depend upon himself. This dogma pervades the 
 writings of Mr. Emerson, 1 Napoleon, one of his 
 Representative men," of whom he tells "horrible 
 anecdotes," must not, in his view, u be set down as 
 cruel ; but only as one who knew no impediment to 
 his will." He depicts him as an " exorbitant egotist, 
 who narrowed, impoverished, and absorbed the power 
 and existence of those who served him ;" and concludes 
 by saying, "it was not Bonaparte s fault." He thus 
 condemns and acquits in the same breath, sends forth 
 from the same fountain sweet water and bitter. Mr. 
 Theodore Parker makes each form of religion that 
 has figured in the history of the world, "natural and 
 indispensable." " It could not have been but as it was." 
 And, therefore, he finds truth, or the "absolute re 
 ligion," in all forms; "all tending towards one great 
 and beautiful end," 2 Of course, the idea of the re 
 ligious obligation of belief resting upon the individual 
 conscience, is here quite out of question. Mr. F. W. 
 Newman, who is so fond of parting off things that 
 most men connect together, would persuade us that 
 there may be a true faith without a true belief, as if 
 the emotional part of our nature was independent 
 
 1 Emerson s Representative Men, pp. 114, 127. 
 * Parker s Discourse, p. 81. 
 
OF MAN S RESPONSIBILITY. 269 
 
 of the intellectual. "Belief," says he, "is one thing, 
 and faith another." And he complains of those who, 
 on religious grounds, are alienated from him because 
 he has adopted "intellectual conclusions" different 
 from theirs "the difference between them and him" 
 turning merely " on questions of learning, history, 
 criticism, and abstract thought." 1 The philosophy is 
 as bad here as the theology. In the view of common 
 sense and Scripture, a living faith is as the doctrine 
 believed. But Mr. Newman, in common with Mr. 
 Parker and others, can lay down his offensive weapons 
 when he wills, and take up a position on the low 
 ground of indifference as to religious belief. Then, 
 creeds become matters of meer moonshine, and re 
 sponsibility is regarded as a fiction invented by priests. 
 This is part of the bad theology of Mr. Bailey s "Fes- 
 tus," as we formerly noticed. The hero of the poem 
 is made to say : 
 
 " Yet merit or demerit none I see 
 In nature, human or material, 
 In passions or affections good or bad. 
 We only know that God s best purposes 
 Are oftenest brought about by dreadest sins. 
 Is thunder evil, or is dew divine ? 
 Does virtue lie in sunshine, sin in storm ? 
 Is not each natural, each needful best?" 2 
 
 And to come down to the lower levels of our litera 
 ture, it is an avowed principle of the Owen or Holy- 
 oake school, that a man who does wrong is not to be 
 blamed but pitied; and, if restraint be necessary, he 
 must be restrained like a wild bull merely that society 
 
 1 Phases of Faith, Preface. 2 Bailey s Festus, p. 49. 
 
270 INDIFFERENTISM ; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 may be uninjured. Man is thus degraded, in the 
 attempt to set him free from the Divine moral govern 
 ment. And these philosophers are every day acting 
 an absurdity, in speaking of u wrong" or "bad" ac 
 tions ; since, in their view, men cannot help performing 
 them, and these actions are but parts of one har 
 monious whole. 
 
 But, to rise up in the scale, a greater name than 
 any yet mentioned has, in an "inaugural discourse," 
 lent his authority to the pernicious doctrine of non- 
 responsibility for belief. Many of our ingenuous 
 academic youth were startled, some years ago, on 
 hearing it given forth, with something like oracular 
 authority, from the halls of science, as a great truth, 
 that man has no control over his belief, that he is no 
 more responsible for his opinions than he is for his 
 color or his height, and that an infidel or an atheist 
 is to be pitied but not blamed. This, we are per 
 suaded, is a piece of flimsy sophistry, which no man 
 durst utter, and which would not be listened to for 
 a moment, in connection with any other subject but 
 that of religion. It would be condemned in the 
 senate, and at the bar, it would be drowned in the 
 tumult of the exchange and the market-place. Com 
 mon sense, and a regard to worldly interests, would 
 rise up and hoot down the traitor. Unfortunately, 
 however, in the province of religion, the natural in 
 disposition of the mind to things unseen and spiritual, 
 allies itself with the pleadings of the sophist, and 
 receives his doctrine of irresponsibility with some 
 thing like flattering unction. Nothing more than this 
 
OF MAN S RESPONSIBILITY. 271 
 
 is requisite, to undermine the foundation of all re 
 ligious belief and morals, to let open the floodgates of 
 immorality, and to make the restraints of religion like 
 the brittle flax or the yielding sand. In opposition 
 to such latitudinarianism, we maintain that man is 
 responsible for the dispositions which he cherishes, 
 for the opinions which he holds and avows, and for 
 his habitual conduct. This is going the whole length 
 of Scripture, but no farther, which affirms that every 
 one of us must give an account of himself unto God. 
 And this meets with a response from amid the ele 
 ments of man s moral nature, which sets its seal that 
 the thing is true. 
 
 1. Our first remark, then, on this subject, is, that 
 responsibility is a matter of consciousness. A sense of 
 moral responsibility naturally springs up in the mind 
 of man. It does not depend upon processes of rea 
 soning, nor does it arise originally out of the truths 
 of revelation. But it is itself a fundamental truth 
 in moral science, a primary principle of our mental 
 and moral constitution. Like the doctrine in physics 
 of the existence of a material world, or that in meta 
 physics of the free agency of man, it is not to be 
 brought to the bar of reason, but it is a simple 
 question of fact to be determined by observation and 
 experience. Revelation takes it for granted, and rea 
 sons, and exhorts upon it. And we often find it healthy 
 and vigorous in men whose reasoning powers are feeble 
 and little exercised. Every man knows and feels 
 that he is a moral agent, that he is placed under a 
 system of government which takes cognizance of right 
 
272 INDIFFERENTISM ; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 and wrong, and that he is accountable for his dispo 
 sitions and conduct to his fellows here and to the 
 Supreme Being hereafter. We may be told that 
 travellers have described savage nations so degraded 
 and brutalized, as to have no such consciousness as 
 that of which we speak. We may be pointed to 
 individuals living and moving amid civilized society, 
 so besotted and sunken in vice as apparently never to 
 be disturbed with the idea that they are the subjects 
 of invisible government and accountable to God. 
 Yea, we may be directed to those few philosophers 
 who stood out from the crowd in persuading them 
 selves, and in endeavoring to persuade others, that 
 the notion of moral responsibility is a mere chimera 
 invented by priests and fanatics for frightening and 
 enslaving men. And we may be asked, how, in 
 the face of all these exceptions, we can maintain 
 that the consciousness of responsibility belongs to 
 all mankind? Why, suppose that a man with a 
 iaundiced eye were to hold that the fleecy clouds 
 which float over the face of the sky, or the pure snow 
 that covers the sides of the hills, or the white paper 
 on which he looks, were yellow. What would that 
 prove? Not that these objects, which everybody else 
 believed to be white, were of a different color ; not 
 that men s eyes were organs which in general conveyed 
 false impressions, but that the eyes of the individual 
 himself were diseased. We would never think of 
 going among savage nations which have become bru 
 talized by a long course of sensuality and ferocity; 
 we would never appeal to this individual or that 
 
OF MAN S RESPONSIBILITY. 273 
 
 individual, who, by vicious indulgences, has sunk 
 himself below the level of the brutes ; nor would we 
 sit at the feet of sceptical philosophers, in order to 
 obtain any very strong proofs of the universality and 
 force of those moral convictions which we assert to 
 be fundamental principles in man s nature. But we 
 would make our appeal to minds where conscience 
 sits invested with some authority, and where she is 
 listened to with some degree of deference ; where 
 the moral sense, so to speak, is not drowned in 
 sensuality, nor bewildered and led astray by a false 
 philosophy ; and, in such minds, we would find that 
 the consciousness of moral responsibility springs up 
 naturally, and is strong. We are not disposed, how 
 ever, to exclude these exceptions, as they are called, 
 altogether. We might appeal to these very savage 
 tribes, and amid their brutal degradation, and in 
 their cruel and superstitious rites, discover the rudi- 
 mental principles of man s moral nature. We might 
 follow the man whose conscience seemed seared, and 
 whose heart seemed reprobate, whose perceptions of 
 right and wrong were severely blunted, and who 
 appeared never to be troubled with the idea of 
 responsibility, we might follow him into his retire 
 ment, and, in his hours of calm reflection, we would 
 see conscience asserting her supremacy and avenging 
 her wrongs, the banished idea of responsibility re 
 turning in its vividness, and the dread of a Supreme 
 and Omniscient Being forcing itself upon the soul. 
 We might appeal to the sophist himself, and, not 
 withstanding all the refinements of his false philoso- 
 
 18 
 
274 INDIFFERENTISM ; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 phy, we would see that at times lie could no more 
 divest himself of his moral nature, than he could of 
 his belief in matter and a material world, when he 
 walked the streets, jostled the crowd, or came in 
 contact with the pillars that stood by the way. Men 
 are responsible, they know it and feel it, and it is 
 only by a long-continued process of vicious indul 
 gences, or by the refinement of an unreasonable 
 philosophy, that their sense of accountability is 
 deadened or subdued. 
 
 Now we affirm that men are responsible for the 
 dispositions which they cherish, and that this is a 
 matter of consciousness. Look at that man who is 
 ever and anon hurried into scrapes and calamities by 
 a proud, ambitious, and hateful temper. And you 
 will see that, when the storm of passion has passed, 
 and reflection has succeeded to fury, the individual 
 blames himself, and suffers keenly in his own bosom. 
 His own unsophisticated mind never tells him that 
 over his temper he had no control, that it was as 
 purely the result of physical causes as the swoln 
 river that chafes and foams in its bed, or as the 
 ebbings and Sowings of the sea. No. The con 
 sciousness of responsibility rises naturally in his 
 bosom, and, under its influence, he bewails his folly 
 and condemns himself. We affirm, too, that men 
 are responsible for their opinions, and that this also 
 is a matter of consciousness. Men s opinions are 
 generally very much influenced by their dispositions, 
 their belief on most subjects is in a great measure 
 controlled by their inclination. And of this every 
 
OF MAN S RESPONSIBILITY. 275 
 
 man is conscious. We feel that we cannot believe 
 otherwise than that two and two make four. And 
 were an individual, without jesting, stoutly to main 
 tain that two and two make five, we would set him 
 down for an idiot, and pity not blame him for the 
 aberrations of his understanding. But we know 
 that we may, if we will, reject or receive this and the 
 other moral truth ; and we not merely pity, but 
 blame the man, who, in spite of the strongest and 
 clearest evidence, refuses to believe. Now, it may be 
 asked, how is this fact to be accounted for, a fact in 
 the natural history of man that men feel that they 
 can embrace or reject this opinion or that opinion if 
 they will, and that they commend or condemn others 
 for embracing or rejecting it, except on the principle 
 that God has made man a moral and responsible 
 agent, and that man himself is conscious of it ? 
 " His creed may be his crime ; and surely none 
 ought to see this more clearly than the writers who 
 deny it ; for why their eternal invectives against 
 4 dogmas, and especially the tolerably universal 
 dogma that men are responsible for the formation of 
 their opinions, except upon the supposition that 
 men are responsible for framing and maintaining 
 them ? If they are not, men should be left alone ; 
 if they are, they are to be thought of as c worse and 
 better for their intellectual creeds. " 1 We affirm, 
 too, that men are responsible for their conduct in 
 general, and that this also is a matter of conscious- 
 
 1 The Eclipse of Faith, p. 115. 
 
276 INDIFFERENTISM ; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 ness. Our conduct is very much, the result of our 
 dispositions and opinions. So that, if it be admitted 
 that we are responsible for the one, it must be 
 admitted that we are responsible for the other. But 
 it is not so much with the philosophy of the fact, as 
 with the fact itself, that we have at present to do. 
 There is the feeling of remorse bearing witness to 
 this truth. " Remorse," says Isaac Taylor, 1 " is man s 
 dread prerogative, and is the natural accompaniment 
 of his constitution as a knowing, voluntary agent, 
 left in trust with his own welfare and that of others. 
 Remorse, if we exclude the notion of responsibility, 
 is an enigma in human nature, never to be ex 
 plained." 
 
 It will not do to say, as has been said, that these 
 feelings are altogether factitious, that they have been 
 instilled into our minds by our fond mothers who have 
 spoiled us, or by the ministers of religion who, from 
 policy or self-interest, would frighten us ; and that, but 
 for such artificial training, the spendthrift, the sen 
 sualist, and the criminal, would never shrink from 
 the fear of present God, and the anticipation of a 
 future reckoning. For, besides remarking with the 
 author of the u Natural History of Enthusiasm," that, 
 " nothing can be more unphilosophical than to attrib 
 ute any permanent and universally diffused modes of 
 feeling to the influence and interested teaching of 
 some one class of the community," we ask, how comes 
 it that men who never crossed the threshold of the 
 
 1 Man Responsible, p. 25. 
 
OF MAN S RESPONSIBILITY. 277 
 
 sanctuary, and never sat at the feet of the teachers of 
 religion, who have despised a good mother s counsels, 
 and whose lives have run contrary to the parental ex 
 ample, how comes it that they, in their calm moments 
 of reflection, cannot divest themselves of the unwel 
 come idea of responsibility, of an invisible Power, and 
 of a coming account ? It is a fact, then, in the natu 
 ral history of man, not to be proved by reasoning, but 
 to be decided simply by observation, that the con 
 sciousness of responsibility attaches to him. Independ 
 ent of all external teaching, the conviction is naturally 
 produced in his mind that he has, in a great measure, 
 a control over his opinions and conduct, and that for 
 these he is accountable here and hereafter. And it is 
 only when he has unmanned himself, as it were, by 
 vicious indulgences, or been led astray by a corrupt 
 philosophy, that he becomes dead to the feeling that 
 he is the subject of moral government and responsible 
 to God. 
 
 2. Our second remark is, that Responsibility rests on 
 the fact of man s free agency. The ground has been 
 denied. But what has not ? We appeal to every man s 
 conscience and unsophisticated sense in proof of it. 
 " It moves for all that," said Galileo, after signing his 
 memorable recantation. And endeavor to persuade 
 men, as you will, that they are driven on by irresisti 
 ble physical causes, they declare in spite of all your 
 reasonings, we are free after all. Now, it is obvious, 
 on the slightest reflection, that our will, and our will 
 only, is the proper object of command ; and that we 
 are no otherwise responsible, or susceptible of moral 
 
278 INDIFFERENTISM ; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 government, than as we are the subjects of voluntary 
 powers. Man is accountable because he is a free 
 agent. And the dispositions which he habitually 
 cherishes, the opinions which he holds, and the con 
 duct which he pursues, are, in a great measure, un 
 der his control, and as he wills them to be. The 
 distinction between moral and natural inability is a 
 sound and useful one. Moral inability lies in the 
 want of disposition, inclination, or will, to do that 
 which a man has natural faculties to perform. Natu 
 ral inability, on the other hand, arises from the want 
 of natural faculties and means to do that which the 
 individual, it may be, would very gladly do. This 
 distinction is before us, when we notice that man is 
 responsible for his dispositions, his belief, and his 
 conduct, in so far as they are the result of his own 
 free agency. 
 
 Man is responsible for his dispositions, because the 
 Creator has endowed him with faculties in the right 
 exercise of which he can bring them under his con 
 trol. We make all reasonable allowances for original 
 temperament, or peculiarities in the organic structure 
 of individuals. These, however, are not altogether 
 beyond the reach of moral culture. On the contrary, 
 it is a chief business in education, to study these 
 peculiarities, to bring proper motives to bear upon 
 them, and thus, in some measure, gain a mastery over 
 the original temperament. In asserting that man 
 can, to a considerable extent, make himself master 
 of his dispositions, and that for their state he is re 
 sponsible, we do not mean to say that he can, at any 
 
OF MAN S RESPONSIBILITY. 279 
 
 given moment, by a direct volition of his mind, call 
 forth this emotion or that emotion, this kind of tem 
 per or that kind of temper. But what we mean to 
 say is, that he can, at his will, attend to those truths 
 or come in contact with those objects, the natural in 
 fluence of which is to excite certain emotions, and 
 produce such a disposition of the mind and heart. 
 Take an example in illustration of this principle. 
 Benevolence toward the suffering poor is an excellent 
 disposition of the soul. I may not be able, by a di 
 rect effort of the mind, to call up this emotion at 
 any time or in any place. But I can, if I will, listen 
 to the honest tale of distress, which the virtuous poor 
 have to tell ; I can, if I will, visit the fatherless and 
 widows in their afflictions. And thus, by a voluntary ex 
 ercise of my own power, place myself in circumstances 
 that will excite or strengthen compassion and benevo 
 lence towards the wretched. The frequent repetition of 
 this voluntary process of attending to, and impartially 
 examining scenes of distress, results in the production 
 of the man of feeling and of a benevolent disposition. 
 Whereas, in the case of the man who meets every sup 
 pliant with a surly look, and refuses to listen to the tale 
 of the stranger, who, like the Levite in the parable, 
 coldly and unconcernedly passes by the sufferer on the 
 wayside ; that callous and unfeeling disposition is form 
 ing which is not only proof against compassion, but 
 which even delights in producing scenes of woe. 
 
 It is just, in like manner, with the devout emotions. 
 One man moves day after day amid the glories of 
 earth and sky, without a pious sentiment or feeling 
 
280 INDIFFEBENTISM ; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 toward Him who stretched out the heavens like a cur 
 tain, and clothed the grass of the field, because he 
 does not attend to them as manifestations of the wis 
 dom and goodness of God. Another individual, of no 
 greater strength of intellect it may be, directs his at 
 tention to these evidences of the character and presence 
 of the Divinity, habitually meditates on them, and feels 
 that 
 
 " these declare 
 God s goodness beyond thought, and power divine." 
 
 In these and similar cases, men are responsible for 
 the moral state of the heart, because they have the 
 power of attending to those truth and objects which are 
 fitted to produce such impressions on the soul. We say 
 to the ferocious man, to the avaricious man, to the sen 
 sualist, and to the revengeful, and to the man all whose 
 mental tendencies are away from the absolute good, 
 that for these dispositions you are responsible, because 
 you voluntarily sought and familiarized your minds 
 with those objects and scenes that produced and 
 strengthened them, and turned away from those other 
 objects and scenes that would have counteracted 
 them, and produced dispositions of a different and 
 nobler kind. It is thus that a man is brought in re 
 sponsible for those ungodly emotions and dispositions, 
 which, having grown with his growth, and strengthened 
 with his strength, have carried him captive and hold 
 him in fetters which nothing but a mighty spiritual in 
 fluence can rend asunder. 
 
 It is on the very same principle, that we hold man 
 to be responsible for his belief. In our opinions, in so* 
 
OF MAN S RESPONSIBILITY. 281 
 
 far as they are influenced by our dispositions, our 
 beliefs, in so far as they are controlled by our in 
 clination, are legitimate subjects of responsibility. 
 Inclination has nothing whatever to do in believing 
 that two and two make four, or that the three angles of 
 a triangle are equal to two right angles. A man in 
 his senses could not believe otherwise. But inclina 
 tion has much to do in receiving or rejecting moral 
 and religious truth. All enlightened belief depends 
 upon evidence, the effect of the clearest and strongest 
 evidence depends very much on attention, and at 
 tention is a mental exercise over which we have a 
 complete control. This being the case, it is very 
 obvious that a man may contract deep moral guilt, by 
 neglecting to attend to evidence in support of a sub 
 ject of intrinsic magnitude and bearing on man s 
 highest interests. The case of the Jewish people is 
 in point. When Jesus of Nazareth appeared among 
 them, he claimed to be the Son of God and the 
 Messiah of promise. In support of these claims, He 
 openly wrought miracles of surpassing grandeur and 
 benevolence. He did not call on them to believe on 
 the ground of his own bare assertions, but he pointed 
 them to his mighty deeds in proof that he had come 
 from God. He said, if ye believe not me, believe 
 the works. Now, we do not assert that the Jews 
 were under a moral obligation to believe at the very 
 first that Jesus was the Messiah, but we do assert 
 that they were morally bound to attend to that clear 
 and strong evidence, to weigh it fairly, and to let it 
 have its full influence on their minds. Those of 
 
282 INDIFFERENTISM ; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 them that did so, hailed him as the deliverer and con 
 solation of Israel. While the vast majority of them, 
 because his doctrines thwarted their fondest wishes 
 and frowned on their grovelling expectations, ridiculed 
 his pretensions, ascribed his works to Satanic agency, 
 and treated him as the vilest of impostors. That incli 
 nation had much to do with this, is evident from the 
 fact that the multitudes, at his first appearing, would, 
 on the ground of his miraculous deeds, have made him 
 their king ; and it was not till they saw his designs to 
 be running counter to their wishes, that they rejected 
 him and cried out, u crucify him." It was in their re 
 fusal honestly and impartially to attend to that evidence, 
 that the Israelitish nation incurred deep moral guilt in 
 the sight of heaven. 
 
 A messenger from majesty arrives in the condemned 
 cell of some gaol, and presents the doomed criminal 
 with a document containing a full and free pardon, 
 to which is affixed the royal seal. He is skeptical 
 at first as to the truth of the document. But he 
 carefully examines the seal. He is convinced that 
 it is the sovereign s, and on that evidence he joy 
 fully and gratefully receives the pardon. The Bible 
 is such a document. It claims to be divine. It 
 contains important statements on subjects of vast 
 magnitude. It presents itself to our notice under 
 the highest of all authority. It declares that on its 
 reception or rejection depend our greatest interests 
 in time and eternity. And, in support of- all these 
 claims and assertions, it exhibits an amount of 
 evidence which, for weight and clearness, can be 
 
OF MAN S RESPONSIBILITY. 283 
 
 produced by no other book in the world. It says, 
 attend to that evidence, look at it fairly and impar 
 tially. And it dreads not the consequence. We do 
 not say that a man is morally bound to believe the 
 volume, on the naked assertion that it is divine. 
 But we do say that he is responsible for whatever 
 opinions he forms in reference to it, be these opinions 
 friendly or hostile. He can, by a voluntary effort, 
 examine the evidence ; he can search the book, he 
 can look at the seals, he can question the witnesses. 
 This he can do, and must do honestly. And, in this 
 intellectual process over which he has a direct con 
 trol, in this effort of the attention which he has at 
 his will, lies his responsibility for his belief. -The 
 very fact that the Book, irrespective altogether of its 
 truthfulness, claims to have come from the throne of 
 the Eternal, the very fact that the subjects of which 
 it treats are of vast moment, the very fact that it 
 presents such a brilliant array of evidence in proof 
 of its divinity, these place all men, among whom it 
 comes, under a moral obligation to attend to it, and, 
 in the face of the evidence, impartially to form their 
 opinions regarding it. One man may refuse to do 
 this, because his mind is habitually so listless and 
 indifferent as never to care about having any settled 
 opinions on such subjects. Another man may be so 
 profligate and sensual as, like the beast in his lair, to 
 be unwilling to be disturbed by the approach of the 
 light. While another man, from pride of intellect, 
 or station, or self-sufficiency, may never bend his 
 mind humbly and fairly to consider whether or not 
 
284 INDIFFERENTISM ; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 the Gospel is the truth of God. Hume, the celebrated 
 infidel, tells us that his readings in the New Testament 
 were but scanty. Yoltaire and Paine betrayed gross 
 ignorance of the Christian system which they thought 
 to banish from the world. But whatever be the specific 
 moral cause that keeps men from attending to the 
 Gospel testimony, or induces them to examine it in a 
 frivolous and prejudicial manner, it is in the attention, 
 over which they have a direct control, that lies their 
 responsibility for their belief. 
 
 This point being established in reference to dis 
 positions and opinions, nothing need be added to 
 show that the principle holds good in reference to 
 actions. Our conduct, as already said, is very much 
 the result of our opinions and dispositions. I cherish 
 such dispositions and form such opinions in reference 
 to my neighbor and the Supreme Being, and I act 
 accordingly. If I have a control over my dispositions 
 and opinions and am responsible for them, I have a 
 control over and am responsible for the actions that 
 proceed from them. This is never questioned in the 
 sphere of worldly concerns. It is only when you 
 venture within the sphere of religion that skepticism 
 is thrown over it. Some men who talk and act 
 rationally enough in their ordinary intercourse with 
 the world, would doff that rationality and play the 
 fool, when they touch upon man s relation to things 
 unseen and eternal. They assail and condemn men 
 of a different political creed from their own for the 
 opinions which they advocate, and the thought never 
 occurs to them that it is folly so to do, because over 
 
OF MAN S RESPONSIBILITY. 285 
 
 their belief they have no control. But no sooner 
 does the politician become a moral teacher, than, (as 
 in a well-known instance, not, we trust, to be re 
 peated,) he announces it as a great truth which has 
 gone out through all the earth, that man has no con 
 trol over his belief, and that an atheist is to be pitied 
 but not blamed. True philosophy, and man s unsophis 
 ticated nature, common sense, and revealed religion, 
 tell us, that we have such a control, and that for our 
 sentiments and conduct we are responsible to God. 
 
 3d. Our third remark is, that responsibility is to 
 be measured by ability and privilege. Responsibility 
 springs, as we have seen, from the structure of the 
 human mind as endowed with faculties in the exer 
 cise of which man can direct his thoughts to a given 
 subject, compare all the facts and considerations 
 bearing upon it, and thus arrive at an honest and 
 impartial decision regarding it. But the measure of 
 responsibility, in the case of particular communities 
 or individuals, is to be estimated by such things as 
 the following: the capacity of their understanding, 
 the means and opportunities of information, and the 
 force of evidence. The poor harmless idiot who fancies 
 himself a king, and declares the reigning monarch a 
 usurper ; who talks day after day of raising armies, 
 and marching on to London to take possession of the 
 crown; is never accounted a traitor, tried and con 
 demned as such. The man whose intellect is naturally 
 so imbecile as scarcely to comprehend the ideas of a 
 God, of his own moral relations, and of a future life, 
 occupies a vastly lower position in point of respon- 
 
286 INDIFFERENTISM ; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 sibility, (if he occupies any position on that ground at 
 all,) than the man whose intellect is naturally sound 
 and vigorous, but who, in reference to moral and 
 religious truth, is a child in understanding. 
 
 It is, in like manner, with the means and opportu 
 nities of information. No one would ever say that 
 the Bechuana of the desert, who lived like his 
 forefathers, remote from civilization, who had never 
 seen the face of a missionary, nor heard a word about 
 the Saviour of mankind, is responsible in the same 
 degree as a Briton living in this land of light and 
 liberty where knowledge runs to and fro and is in 
 creased. 
 
 Responsibility takes its measure, not only from the 
 capacity of the understanding, and the means and 
 opportunities of information, but also from the force 
 of evidence. This is strikingly illustrated by Paul in 
 the first two chapters of his epistle to the Romans, 
 and the inspired illustration accords with uninspired 
 testimonies and man s moral sentiments. Look 
 abroad, then, upon the ancient heathen world, upon 
 the seats of intellectual refinement, Egypt, Greece, 
 and Rome. And what do we witness? Men pro 
 fessing themselves to be wise, claiming to be philo 
 sophers, worshipping images in the shape of men, and 
 birds, and beasts, and creeping things; debasing and 
 dishonoring God, and debasing and dishonoring 
 themselves. But some will say, they were not re 
 sponsible for this; over their dispositions, their 
 opinions, and their conduct in this matter, they had 
 no control. They were to be pitied, not blamed ; no 
 
OF MAN S RESPONSIBILITY. 287 
 
 more to be blamed than for the color of their skin 
 or the height of their stature. Yes, says Paul, 
 they were to be blamed, they were responsible in this 
 matter, they were guilty in cherishing these vile af 
 fections, in holding these erroneous opinions, and in 
 manifesting such degrading conduct. They had 
 evidence which, if they had duly attended to it, would 
 have led them to feel, to think, and to act differently. 
 There was a sufficiency of evidence in the works of 
 creation, in the shining heavens above them, and 
 in the fruitful earth around them, to have convinced 
 them that one Almighty, and all perfect Being had 
 made and presides over the whole. It is not the 
 want of evidence, but the want of relish for the 
 truth about the Creator, that accounts for their idol 
 atrous opinions and practices. " For the invisible 
 things of him from the creation of the world are 
 clearly seen, being understood by the things that are 
 made, even his eternal power and godhead; so that 
 they are without excuse." 1 
 
 The heathen, then, were responsible; and that 
 responsibility took its measure from the means of 
 information, and the force of evidence, which they 
 possessed. But the measure of our responsibility 
 is vastly greater than theirs. We walk amid a 
 clearer light than what is emitted from these resplen 
 dent heavens, we hear louder, fuller, and more im 
 pressive voices than any which proceed from the 
 hills and the valleys, the woods and the waters. The 
 
 1 Romans, i. 20. 
 
288 INDIFFERENTISM ; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 revelation which has come to us direct from the 
 throne of the Eternal, containing, as it does, ample 
 information on subjects of supreme importance, 
 information which none of the wisest of the heathen 
 could have evoked from the material heavens and 
 earth, this places us on a ground of responsibility 
 higher far than that occupied by the most gifted sage 
 of the Grecian schools, who had no other light but the 
 glimmering light of nature. This is what the apostle 
 means when he says, " as many as have sinned without 
 law, (that is, without a special revelation of the divine 
 will,) shall also be condemned without law (or by 
 a different standard) ; and as many as have sinned In 
 the law shall be judged by the law." 1 All who, with 
 out a divine revelation, have erred from the truth and 
 done wrong, will be condemned by the evidence 
 afforded by the light of nature; and all who have 
 sinned under the revelation of God s will shall be 
 judged by that revelation. Reason and Scripture 
 thus unite their testimonies, in establishing the po 
 sition that responsibility is in proportion to the 
 means of information and the weight and clearness 
 of evidence. 
 
 An individual may be very unwilling to avail him 
 self of these means, and to look calmly and im 
 partially at that evidence ; but this indifference only 
 adds to his guilt, and does not, in the least, lessen the 
 measure of his responsibility. Responsibility takes 
 its measure not from an individual s inclination, but 
 
 ii. 12. 
 
or MAN S RESPONSIBILITY. 289 
 
 from an individual s capacity of understanding, his 
 opportunity of arriving at the truth, and the suf 
 ficiency of evidence which he enjoys. Were an 
 individual to hold that responsibility takes its measure 
 from the inclination, or what is called moral ability, 
 he would be landed in the very strange, position that 
 a man is under an obligation only to do that which 
 he is inclined to do. In other words, he would tear 
 up responsibility, root and fibre, and cast it to the 
 winds. Suppose that, in reference to some disturbed 
 district, a royal proclamation were issued forbidding 
 the inhabitants, under severe penalties, to go abroad 
 after sunset. The proclamation is read aloud at the 
 market-cross, it is posted up on the church doors and 
 all other places of public resort. None who wished 
 to become acquainted with the purport of the royal 
 decree, could remain ignorant of it. But some in 
 dividuals who gave no heed to royal proclamations, 
 and would not trouble themselves to ascertain the 
 meaning of this particular one, venture abroad in the 
 time prohibited, are captured, charged with breaking 
 the law, and put upon their trial. Would any judge, 
 knowing the capacity of the men, and the means of 
 knowledge within their reach, listen for a moment to 
 the plea, we never heard the proclamation, and were 
 utterly ignorant of the law in this matter. No. The 
 judge would say, you are persons who can read and 
 understand ; this proclamation was published in your 
 streets, and placarded in the most frequented places ; 
 you were indisposed to become acquainted with it, 
 you are responsible for the consequences, and must 
 
 19 
 
290 INDIFFERENTISM ; OR THE DENIAL 
 
 endure the stated penalty. Now, it is on this prin 
 ciple, we hold, that men, having available means of 
 coming to the knowledge of the truth, and yet indis 
 posed to avail themselves of them, having the Bible 
 within their reach and yet refusing to read it, having 
 the Gospel at the very threshold of their doors and 
 yet unwilling to come out and hear it ; it is on this 
 principle, we maintain, that their responsibility is little 
 less than if they knew that Bible, and understood the 
 truths of that Gospel. A man may say, I did not 
 know that the Book prohibited such a course of con 
 duct, and threatened such penalties against those who 
 pursued it. I did not know that it prescribed such a 
 path to be followed, and promised such blessings to 
 those who entered upon and prosecuted it. There 
 would be force in such a plea coming from an 
 individual so situated as that it was physically im 
 possible for him to have access to the divine record, 
 to read and understand it. But the answer to an 
 individual having access to ample means, and urging 
 such a plea, would be : you had the volume near you 
 and could have read it, you had the Gospel within 
 hearing and could have listened to it, you were 
 indisposed to come to the knowledge of the truth, 
 sin lies at your own door, your responsibility is to be 
 measured not by your inclination but by your privi 
 leges. "Unto whomsoever much is given, of the 
 same much shall be required." 
 
 4th. Our fourth remark is, that responsibility remains 
 indestructible amid all objections from original tempera 
 ment and external influences. It is not necessary that 
 
OF MAN S RESPONSIBILITY. 291 
 
 we here pronounce any judgment on the claims of 
 phrenology to be regarded as a system of intellectual 
 philosophy. We would only say, that as long as any 
 of the results of comparative anatomy disagree with 
 it, and physiologists of the first rank can urge some 
 strong objections against it, so long must we regard 
 it as far from being a fixed and settled science. But 
 assuming that the physiological facts upon which it 
 is grounded are correct, that the feelings or faculties 
 of the mind are in proportion to and determined by 
 the protuberances in the cranium, human liberty and 
 accountability are not, as some have alleged, affected 
 thereby. Mr. George Combe, who advances such 
 high claims for the science, obviously thought it con 
 sistent with responsibility, when he says, u to the 
 animal nature of man have been added, by a bountiful 
 Creator, moral sentiments and reflecting faculties, 
 which not only place him above all other creatures 
 on earth, but constitute him a different being from 
 any of them, a rational and accountable being." 1 But 
 some men, with the phrenological map of the human 
 skull before them, and knowing it to be a funda 
 mental principle of the science that mental disposi 
 tions are determined by the form, size, and constitu 
 tion of the brain, leap at once to the conclusion that 
 an individual s character is made for him not by him, 
 and that for it he is not responsible. It were vain to 
 deny an original difference of temperament and organ 
 ization in different individuals, or to underrate the 
 
 1 Constitution of Man, p. 2. (People s edition.) 
 
292 INDIFFERENTISM ; OB, THE DENIAL 
 
 difficulties arising thence in reference to man s moral 
 agency, but the admission of these can be made while 
 firmly holding the doctrine of responsibility. That is 
 a matter of consciousness, a fact in the natural history 
 of man, of which it were needless to seek any further 
 explanation, and it consequently must harmonize with 
 all the other facts and principles of the human con 
 stitution. But this is not all. Some men have 
 originally, it is admitted, powerful tendencies to 
 certain vicious dispositions and practices. Such pro 
 pensities may be said to ally them to the brutal 
 tribes ; and, were they not possessed of a higher 
 order of faculties, they would stand on the same 
 level of irresponsibility. But man is distinguished 
 from the lower animals, by the possession of facul 
 ties, and a susceptibility of motives, of which they are 
 destitute and incapable. These raise the worst of 
 men above the level of the brutes, place them within 
 the sphere of moral agency, and give them a power 
 of counteracting or controlling an original bad tem 
 perament. We take an extreme case for illustration. 
 It was said, by Spurzheim, of Alexander the sixth, the 
 most infamous man that ever sat on the papal chair, 
 that his " brain was no more adequate to the mani 
 festation of Christian virtues, than the brain of an 
 idiot from birth to the exhibition of the intellect of a 
 Leibnitz or a Bacon." 1 Here were great difficulties 
 arising from original temperament and organization ; 
 but these difficulties were not of the same kind, nor 
 insuperable in the same manner, as the difficulties 
 
 1 Combe s Constitution of Man, p. 42. 
 
OF MAN S KESPONSIBILITY. 293 
 
 that beset the mind of the idiot. Alexander was 
 endowed with mental faculties, and a susceptibility 
 of moral motives, which gave him a power counteract 
 ive of the evil propensities, and rendered him, in 
 some measure, the trustee of his own well-being, and 
 responsible for his moral character. It may have 
 been a vastly more difficult thing for such a man to 
 manifest Christian virtues, than it was for Philip 
 Melancthon ; but conscience must have been torn 
 wholly out of his breast, and he must originally have 
 been utterly incapable of moral sentiment, before he 
 could have been divested of the character of a moral 
 and responsible agent. The pontiff, though carried 
 along in a vicious course by powerful depraved 
 tendencies, was doubtless conscious of his moral 
 freedom ; and, unless given up to a reprobate mind, 
 must at times have had a sense of his responsibility. 
 It is as natural for such men, amid all their depravity, 
 to have a sense of desert before the process of searing 
 the conscience has been completed, and for others to 
 hold them responsible for their dispositions and con 
 duct, as it is for the idiot to be undisturbed by such 
 a feeling, and to be accounted guiltless of the evil 
 that may arise out of his actions. 
 
 The remarks made in reference to organization are 
 substantially applicable to external influences. Both 
 may modify human responsibility, but neither of 
 them destroys it. The temperament and situation of 
 one man may be much more favorable for mani 
 festing whatsoever things are lovely and true than the 
 temperament *and situation of another, but respon- 
 
294 INDIFFERENTISM ; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 sibility is an attribute of the character and circum 
 stances of both. If there is power on the side of 
 individual organization and outward influences, so 
 that some men are less favorably situated in a moral 
 point of view than others, there is power also in 
 those energies supplied by the moral world which 
 are counteractive of evil and productive of good, and 
 which men are under an obligation to study and 
 employ. They may refuse to acquaint themselves 
 with these moral forces, or to avail themselves of 
 them, and thus be carried away without a struggle 
 on the current of depraved propensity or external 
 vicious influences ; but in that refusal lies their guilt, 
 as in the availableness of the moral power lies their 
 responsibility. It is an easy thing to muster up 
 arguments against human liberty. Let the doctrine 
 of the Divine prescience and foreordination of all 
 things be asserted, and some men at once conclude 
 that no room is left for man s moral freedom. The 
 doctrine does not paralyze their energies in the work 
 shop or in the field, and they never dream that it 
 renders them irresponsible for the operations of their 
 hands. And yet the objection is as tenable in the 
 one case as in the other. In like manner, let the 
 force of original temperament and external circum 
 stances be admitted, and man, by some, is represented 
 as helpless and destitute of moral freedom, as a raft 
 carried irresistibly down the river on which it floats. 
 It is not so easy, however, to destroy the argument 
 grounded on the facts that man is possessed of facul 
 ties and susceptible of motives that give him, in some 
 
OF MAN S RESPONSIBILITY. 295 
 
 measure, a control over original temperament and 
 external circumstances. Far less easy is it to destroy 
 that consciousness of moral freedom which every 
 man possesses, whatever be his mental conformation, 
 and the influences that are brought to bear upon 
 him. If, then, the sense of responsibility cannot be 
 destroyed, without falsifying the testimony of all our 
 primitive beliefs, it may be said to remain truly 
 indestructible. 
 
 5th. Our fifth remark is, that men individually, and 
 societies in general, advance morally in proportion as 
 the sense of responsibility is high. No one doubts the 
 absolute necessity of a belief in this doctrine, in the 
 daily business of life. The dealings of the shop and 
 the exchange could not be carried on without it. We 
 would not intrust a servant with a letter, or admit a 
 professed friend into the confidence and hospitalities 
 of the domestic circle, if they avowed themselves to be 
 irresponsible and acted on the avowal. From the 
 first minister of an empire which kisses the hand of 
 majesty on receiving office, down to the private soldier 
 who takes the oath of allegiance on entering the 
 ranks, the necessity and reality of responsibility are 
 acknowledged. And not only so, but it is just in 
 proportion as the notion of responsibility in indi 
 viduals, or in societies, assumes a decidedly religious 
 aspect that it is powerful for good. France, a country 
 where experiments on human nature, on a large scale, 
 have often been made, gave at the close of the last cen 
 tury a fearful illustration of what the social system 
 becomes when it loses its hold of moral obligation. 
 
296 INDIFFERENTISH ; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 The philosophers and wits of the Yoltaire school 
 jestingly cried out " what is truth," declared the moral 
 system to have been superseded, ridiculed the notion 
 of responsibility as an antiquated fiction, taught that 
 the only causes in the world are physical and irre 
 sistible, and that men are the offspring of an invinci 
 ble necessity. It was this doctrine of irresponsibility, 
 propounded by the encyclopaedists, countenanced by 
 statesmen, and propagated throughout the masses, 
 that was expressed in the torrents of blood that flowed 
 during the reign of terror. Men being looked upon 
 as creatures of physical necessity, were no more ac 
 counted of than stumps of trees or ruined houses, 
 when they stood in the way of the revolutionary 
 movement. They were levelled to the ground and 
 torn up by the roots. The principle, laid down by 
 Diderot, was acted upon, a principle that rose out of 
 the ruins of man s moral agency, that those who 
 encumbered the social system should summarily be 
 destroyed. And what more is necessary to let loose 
 the reins upon fury, corruption, and massacre, than to 
 instil into men s minds the notion that they are the 
 creatures of fate, and no more responsible for their 
 belief than for the color of their skin and the height 
 of their stature ! 
 
 It is very much with the doctrine of man s respon 
 sibility as it is with sabbath observance. Public men 
 in our country generally acknowledge the moral and 
 physical advantages of the weekly day of rest, just as 
 they recognize the utility and necessity of a sense of 
 accountability being diffused throughout the State. 
 
OF MAN S RESPONSIBILITY. 297 
 
 But, as by far the most valuable benefits of the sab 
 bath result only from its religious observance as a day 
 sacred to the memory of the resurrection of Christ; 
 so the real and high advantages of responsibility are 
 only experienced when the doctrine is felt to link 
 earth with heaven, man with his Maker, and the 
 judgment of conscience with the judgment of the 
 great white throne. u This practical doctrine of re 
 sponsibility," says Isaac Taylor, 1 "can rest on no ful 
 crum short of the centre of the universe the throne 
 of God. Rest it at any intermediate point, and 
 though it may bear some stress, it will not bear every 
 stress; and it fails where most it will be needed." 
 Take an individual, or a communky, in which the 
 sense of responsibility is weakened, or associated 
 merely with worldly calculations; and take anothei 
 individual or community in which it is religious and 
 vivid ; and it will be found that while the one is un 
 stable as water, the other is steadfast as a rock ; that 
 while the one is ever in danger of sacrificing principle 
 to selfish gain, the other counts nothing dear that 
 comes into competition with principle itself. It is 
 the man deeply imbued with the religious sense of 
 responsibility that stands firm amid all temptations, 
 while another is driven with the wind and tossed; 
 and it is in the former that even men, who have no 
 vivid sense of religion themselves, prefer reposing 
 confidence. 
 
 It will also be found that in societies professedly 
 religious, where the dry skeleton of a creed remains, 
 1 Man Responsible, p. 63. 
 
298 INDIFFERENTISM ; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 but where men nominally adhering and others avow 
 edly opposing are gathered under one ecclesiastical 
 organization around it, the doctrine of responsibility, 
 in its high import, is either denied, or fluctuating and 
 feeble. Wherever religious belief comes to be re 
 garded as an accident of the mind just as color is 
 of the hair of the head, or wherever responsibility, 
 though admitted, is languid, doctrinal articles are 
 counted as of little worth, the standards are either 
 deserted, or friends and foes proclaim a truce, and 
 shake hands around them; and the distinction be 
 tween the church and the world, a distinction so 
 much insisted on in the New Testament, disappears 
 and is lost. 
 
 Individuals of the brightest moral excellence have 
 been those who were influenced by a high and relig 
 ious sense of responsibility. Men, to whose instru 
 mentality the world owes its reformations, and the 
 church its life and purity, would never have struggled 
 as they did, and could never have effected the regen 
 erations which they have effected, had they not had 
 firm faith in the truth that we are responsible to our 
 fellows here and to God hereafter. And those com 
 munities in which the truth shines conspicuous as a 
 star, and who have faithfully guarded the church from 
 the abomination of desolation, have been mightily 
 influenced by the idea of their stewardship and the 
 prospect of rendering an account. Is then a doctrine 
 so influential for good both on individuals and so 
 cieties, on churches and states; a doctrine that has 
 been the guardian of so much that is true and holy, 
 
OF MAN S RESPONSIBILITY. 299 
 
 and the spring of so many grand and benignant en 
 terprises ; a doctrine that is beneficent in proportion 
 as it is believed and acted upon, is it to be regarded 
 as a beautiful and useful fiction, necessary for the 
 well-being of society, but having no foundation in 
 truth? This were something like yielding to the 
 tempter, and falling down and worshipping him. But 
 it cannot be. It is written upon the heart and 
 nothing but a long process of vicious indulgence can 
 cover or efface it ; it is written upon the social system 
 under which men live safely and happily ; and it is 
 written more legibly and impressively in the inspired 
 page, that every one of us must give an account of 
 himself unto God. Happy the individual, or the 
 community, who moves under a felt sense that the 
 Great Searcher of hearts is in the heavens and looks 
 down upon men, and that he will hereafter judge the 
 world in righteousness, and render to all according to 
 their works. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE DENIAL OF THE POWER OF GODLINESS; OR, 
 FORMALISM. 
 
 Not Infidelity in theory, but in practice Nature of formalism Prev- 
 alency of it Philosophy of formalism Religions of ancient 
 heathen world generally of this description Many of our men of 
 taste and science chargeable with it Remark of Foster Strong 
 tendency to formalism in the ancient Hebrews Pharisees of the 
 Christian age Formalism in the Christian Church Result of 
 Romish theory of fellowship The Oxford Ritual Remarks of 
 Morell, D Aubigne, and Taylor Formalism not peculiar to 
 Romanism or Tractarianism General remarks on it: Its utter 
 worthlessness to satisfy the great wants of human nature The 
 pleasure found in spiritual religion not experienced Its tendency 
 to intolerance Diametrically opposed to the spirit and precepts of 
 the Gospel. 
 
 HERE we advance from the region of speculative into 
 that of practical infidelity. All the body of truth 
 previously noticed, which some men have denied 
 wholly or in part, is supposed to be admitted; but 
 the grand influence of that truth on the conscience 
 and conduct is virtually disowned. The primal truth 
 that God &, the self-existent, independent, and all- 
 perfect One, is unhesitatingly assented to ; but the 
 practical testimony to that truth, which is given in 
 enduring as seeing Him who is invisible, is withheld. 
 
FORMALISM. 301 
 
 The proofs of the being and character of God, drawn 
 from the phenomena of mind and matter, convince 
 the understanding ; but, amid all the light that beams 
 from these phenomena, the heart is alienated and 
 darkened. That God is really a Person not a merely 
 infinite substance a Person related to us as Father and 
 Lord, Saviour and Judge, is not questioned ; but there 
 is no devout recognition of Him as being, in these 
 relations, the glorious and gracious One with whom 
 we have to do. The no less well-attested truth that 
 God is ever-present with and exercises a minute in 
 spection and control over his creatures, has a place 
 willingly assigned to it among the things believed ; 
 but there is an utter absence of the manifested power 
 of that truth, in (as Scripture significantly expresses 
 it) walking with God. The Bible doctrines of re 
 demption, including and presupposing as they do, 
 the guilt and depravity of man, the atonement of 
 Christ, and the regenerating influences of the Spirit, 
 are essential parts of the creed ; but that creed is like 
 the dry lifeless skeleton, the body without the spirit. 
 The man never thinks of questioning the dark doc 
 trines of sin, but he is not penitent and humble under 
 the conviction of his own sinful character. He mus 
 ters up no argument against the work that expiates 
 and the influences that sanctify, he no more doubts 
 that they are truths in the Bible than he doubts that 
 the sun is in the heavens ; but he is not found stand 
 ing on that work, or living under the power of those 
 influences, any more than if their existence and effi 
 cacy were restricted to some distant world. He would 
 
302 FORMALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 no more think of denying that man is responsible for 
 his dispositions, opinions, and conduct, than of deny 
 ing that he thinks, feels, and acts. Words implying 
 moral agency and accountability are ever flowing over 
 his lips, and yet his habitual sentiments and conduct 
 are such as could only be formed under an habitual 
 forgetfulness of Him whose eyes behold and whose 
 eyelids try the children of men. There is no infi 
 delity in theory, but there is abundance of it in prac 
 tice. In so far as the mere letter of a creed is con 
 cerned, all may be evangelical and correct ; but the 
 inner and outer man are as little influenced by it as 
 by the abrogated notions of the Ptolemaic system. 
 There is religion, but it is merely professional and 
 verbal. " The sign is taken for the thing, the counter 
 for the money." The structure is complete as regards 
 shape, size, and bones; but the flesh and blood, the 
 sparkling eye and the agile limbs are wanting. This 
 is what the Scripture means when it speaks of men 
 having the form of godliness, but denying the power 
 thereof. 
 
 Formalism is the tendency of the mind to rest in 
 the mere externals of religion, to the neglect of the 
 inner life of religion itself. It is just as when a child 
 runs his lessons rapidly over without heeding the im 
 port of the story which he reads. It is just as if our 
 knowledge of a man was confined to his stature, to 
 the shape and color of his coat ; so that, when his 
 name is mentioned in our presence, we immediately 
 think of his size and dress but nothing more. It is 
 the folly of valuing the tree for its bark, instead of its 
 
OF THE POWER OF GODLINESS. 303 
 
 goodly timber ; the folly of choosing a book for its 
 binding, irrespective of the nature of its contents ; the 
 folly of delighting in painted windows and adorned 
 walls, regardless of the character of the society and 
 the accommodation within. It is the very essence of 
 formalism to set the outward institutions above the 
 inward truths, to be punctilious in going the round 
 of ceremonial observances while neglectful of those 
 spiritual sacrifices with which God is well pleased, to 
 substitute means in the room of ends, and to rest in 
 the type and symbol without rising to the glorious 
 reality. It will stand up for the skeleton creed, though 
 the life be as little influenced by it as by a mummy ; 
 it will, in the strength of its zeal, put on armor, 
 brandish weapons, guard the courts of the sanctuary 
 from unhallowed intrusion, and shout lustily, " the 
 temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are we ;" 
 while it lacks heart for fighting the good fight of faith, 
 and wrestling with spiritual wickednesses. The church 
 and the sacraments, the symbol and the lettered creed, 
 fill the sphere of its vision, and draw forth its devotion, 
 to the almost utter exclusion of those grand spiritual 
 objects that are unseen and eternal. Such, in general, 
 is the character of formalism. 
 
 It is not a thing peculiar to any age or country, 
 though it may be more prevalent at one time and in 
 one place than in another. Wherever there is a field, 
 we meet with weeds or thorns ; and wherever humanity 
 dwells, we witness, to some extent or another, for 
 malism. We may travel over a large tract of inhabited 
 country, and find there no such monster as absolute 
 
304 FORMALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 atheism ; we may meet with large masses of men 
 among whom pantheism, or naturalism, has scarcely 
 a local habitation ; we may enter into one crowded 
 congregation after another, and hear the doctrines of 
 Socinianism, of a false spiritualism, and of irrespon 
 sibility, repudiated ; but formalism is a thing at hand 
 as well as afar off, it lies everywhere about us, many- 
 colored and many-shaped, sometimes gorgeously 
 decked and at other times meanly clad, sometimes 
 prominently manifested and at other times scarcely 
 perceptible. Man will worship. It seems to be as 
 natural for him to have something in the shape of 
 religion as it is for him to have a place to dwell in. 
 And there may not be a greater variety in the habita 
 tions which he constructs, than in the religions which 
 he adopts. The gradation, in the one case, varying 
 from, the gorgeous palace to the hole dug in the earth, 
 may not be more than the gradation in the other, 
 varying from a purely spiritual Christianity, to the 
 lowest form of fetichism or nature-worship. And not 
 more true is it that man will have a religion, than, if 
 left to himself, he will choose a corrupt one, or corrupt 
 a spiritual one into a system of formalism. 
 
 Here is a principle in man which leads him out of 
 himself to worship and perform religious services. 
 That principle, in a holy being, would fix his thoughts 
 and affections on the most excellent glory ; and the 
 forms which he employed would only be used as sym 
 bols of eternal realities, or means by which to rise up 
 to the Supreme Good. But that principle in man, as 
 he now is, participates in the depravity of his nature ; 
 
 
OF THE POWER OF GODLINESS. 305 
 
 and while it goes forth after a religion, it is one which, 
 though demanding much bodily service, lies very 
 lightly on the conscience and heart ; one which says, 
 go this round and that, but seldom or never summons 
 the soul to an earnest conflict with the power of evil. 
 Man will have a religion, but depraved man will have 
 a formal instead of a spiritual one, one consisting 
 in mere outward observances, in preference to one re 
 quiring the homage of the heart and the consecration 
 of the life. The philosophy of formalism is, therefore, 
 easily explained. It is the result of two opposing 
 forces. The one of which will not let man live with 
 out a religion, and, if undisturbed by hostile influences, 
 would lead him spiritually to worship God who is a 
 spirit. The other is of the earth earthy, and, by its 
 greater potency, prevents the former in the natural 
 man from rising above rites and ceremonies, above the 
 symbol and the lettered creed. An adjustment or 
 compromise of the claims of two rival parties takes 
 place. The one pointing the thoughts and affections 
 upward to God, and the other seeking to draw them 
 away from him. Both are persuaded to meet and 
 shake hands over a religious form, and thus the former 
 is hoodwinked while the latter triumphs. 
 
 Our object, more especially, is to notice the for 
 malism that lies within the domain of revealed 
 truth, or that is thrown up within the pale of the 
 visible church. But before doing so, we may glance 
 at some of the formalism that lies beyond. In fact, 
 that is formalism, be it baptized pagan or Christian, 
 
 natural religion or revealed, which, though bearing 
 
 20 
 
306 FORMALISM ; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 the name of a religious belief, exerts no influence 
 in transforming the character, and produces no love 
 and likeness to God. The religions of the ancient 
 heathen world were generally of this description. 
 What were the creeds and rites of Greece and Rome, 
 but splendid and imposing systems of formalism? 
 Objects of religious worship met the Greek, or 
 Roman, wherever he turned his eyes. Every street 
 down which he passed, every house into which he 
 entered, every fountain at which he drank, and the 
 summit of every little hill on which he stood, re 
 minded him of the divinities that he was to adore. 
 Religion blended itself with almost every piece of 
 daily business that he performed, with almost every 
 journey that he took, and with nearly every amuse 
 ment that he witnessed. There were numerous and 
 magnificent temples into which he could enter. There 
 was a gorgeous and attractive mythology with which 
 he was familiar. There were statues and paintings 
 everywhere, on which unrivalled art depicted to his 
 view things sacred and divine. And there were rites 
 and ceremonies of the most engrossing description 
 which he was ever called upon to observe. But, amid 
 all this sensible pomp and grandeur, there was no 
 provision for the wants of the inner man. Heathen 
 ism had no line to reach the depths of human 
 depravity, and no power to raise man up from his 
 degradation, to break the spell by which he was 
 bound to sensual objects, and to set his spirit free. 
 It had no object of religious worship fitted to call 
 forth love, veneration, gratitude ; and no body of 
 
OF THE POWER OF GODLINESS. 307 
 
 truth that could be instrumental in purifying and 
 ennobling man s mental powers, in connecting him 
 with the higher world, and renewing him after the 
 image of God. It was a system every way fitted to 
 gratify and strengthen the tendency in human nature 
 to rest in mere external symbols, regardless of spirit 
 ual and invisible realities. The heathen duly went his 
 round of religious observances, but it was merely a 
 round of formalism. 
 
 Much of the same thing constitutes the religion of 
 many of our men of taste and science. We give 
 forth no sweeping condemnation against phi]osophers 
 as a, class. Not a few of them have been, and are, 
 spiritually-minded men, men who, while prosecut 
 ing enthusiastically their researches into nature, 
 have held high converse with nature s God. But, 
 against a large proportion of them, must be brought 
 the charge of formalism. They are conversant with, 
 and have much admiration for, the material types. 
 But there they rest. As if afraid of being counted 
 pietists or fanatics, they guard their researches 
 effectually from the intrusion of the living God, and 
 shrink from having their language imbued with any 
 thing approaching to a deep devotional feeling. In 
 the case of such individuals, the existence and 
 providential agency of the Holy One may be ad 
 mitted, but the admission is only formal, not elevat 
 ing, and consecrating. There would be no difficulty 
 in getting them to acknowledge that the Great 
 Eternal Spirit sits behind all those wondrous crea 
 tions that meet their eye, that the heavens are bright 
 
308 FORMALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 with his glory, and the earth full of his praise ; but 
 there is a difficulty in getting them to allow that 
 truth to occupy its legitimate position in their minds, 
 and to exert its legitimate influence over their 
 thoughts and speculations. There is in them no 
 lack of sensibility to the grand and beautiful assem 
 blage of natural phenomena. They may feel a 
 kindling of fancy, and an aggrandizement of thought, 
 in looking, from some eminence, over a magnificent 
 region, rich in all the elements of sublime and grace 
 ful scenery ; or, in taking a telescopic view of the 
 innumerable worlds that move harmoniously through 
 out the fields of space ; but there is apparently a sad 
 want of the capacity of rising from the grandeur 
 and loveliness of creation up to the infinitely greater 
 grandeur and loveliness of creation s God, a sad 
 want of being moved and subdued under the impress 
 ion that H.e who is supremely good reigns over all 
 these scenes, is present in every star and atom, 
 witnesses every thought and feeling, and will one 
 day call us to account. The world has tolerated not 
 a few books in the shape of travels and journals, in 
 which the writers have been more careful to tell us 
 how many miles they passed over in a day, how they 
 slept and were fed, than to make us acquainted with 
 the moral and physical aspects of the country and 
 people where they sojourned. These writers are 
 not more chargeable with a want of good taste and 
 natural sensibility, than are those philosophers and 
 men of genius to whom we have alluded, chargeable 
 with being insensible to the glory of the Divine 
 
OF THE POWER OF GODLINESS. 309 
 
 character, while impressed with the loveliness and 
 grandeur of the Divine works. We would not have 
 our men of science and cultivated taste to turn 
 theologians, and mingle doctrinal discussions and 
 prayers with their descriptions of mental and mate 
 rial phenomena ; but we would have them to rise up 
 from the magnificent symbols that meet their eye, 
 to the High and Holy One whose perfections they 
 shadow forth. "It is unfortunate," says John Fos 
 ter, 1 "I have thought within these few minutes, 
 while looking out on one of the most enchanting 
 nights of the most interesting season of the year, 
 and hearing the voices of a company of persons, to 
 whom I can perceive that this soft and solemn shade 
 over the earth, the calm sky, the beautiful stripes of 
 cloud, the stars, and the waning moon just risen, 
 are things not in the least more interesting than the 
 walls, ceiling, and candle-light of a room." But it is 
 still more unfortunate that there are men of genius 
 fascinated and elevated by the grand scenes of 
 earth and sky, and yet unattracted by the excellency 
 of God, of which all that material grandeur and 
 gracefulness is but a type. It is sad to think that 
 the thought of nature s magnificence should so often 
 fail, in the case of men in whom that thought is vivid, 
 to bring in its train the more ennobling thought of 
 the unrivalled glory of the Author of nature himself. 
 
 " These are thy glorious works, Parent of good, 
 Almighty ! Thine this universal frame, 
 Thus wondrous fair : Thyself how wondrous then, 
 Unspeakable !" 
 
 1 Foster s Essays, pp. 16, 17. 
 
310 FORMALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 It is not of such a writer as the author of 
 " Cosmos," who has given us a great picture of 
 nature without any reference to the living God, that 
 we are now speaking. He has, at least, in this 
 melancholy exclusion, been consistent with his own 
 established belief, u that the forces inherent in mat 
 ter, and those which govern the moral world, exercise 
 their action under the control of primordial neces 
 sity." But it is of those of our men of taste and 
 science, who, while acknowledging the truth about 
 God as the Creator, Preserver, and Moral Governor of 
 the universe, seem to rest in the mere natural phe 
 nomena; to concentrate there all their thoughts, and 
 spend there all their feelings ; and can carry on their 
 researches, and give us graphic and useful descriptions 
 of the material world, without being led themselves, 
 or attempting to lead others, to the contemplation of 
 Him who has set his glory above the heavens. This, 
 whatever other epithet may be applied to it, must be 
 denounced as mere formalism, 
 
 The tendency, in the domain of revealed religion, 
 to halt in mere forms, was strongly evinced by the 
 Hebrew people. The Levitical economy, containing 
 a large machinery of divinely-appointed rites and 
 ceremonies, though cumbersome compared with 
 the dispensation of the Gospel, was admirably adapt 
 ed to the state of the Israelites, in conveying to 
 their minds, and preserving in the midst of them, 
 those elements of Divine truth which have been 
 fully developed in all their simplicity and majesty in 
 the Gospel age. But their history, as faithfully 
 
OF THE POWER OF GODLINESS. 311 
 
 recorded in Scripture, shows that their besetting sin 
 was to idolize the symbol, instead of rising from it to 
 the thing signified ; to go the mere round of external 
 observances, neglectful of the cultivation of the 
 heart and that spiritual worship which God requires. 
 And it deserves notice that, in the same record where 
 the typical and ritual system is so fully and minutely 
 detailed, the most strict cautions are given against 
 resting in it; and the most terrible denunciations 
 are uttered against those who substitute the symbol 
 in the place of the invisible reality. The burden of 
 prophecy while leading the mind forward to the 
 glory of the latter days, and seeking to concentrate 
 the thought in Him who was emblematically repre 
 sented in every lamb that bled on the Hebrew altars, 
 contained often a strong rebuke to the hollow formal 
 ism that prevailed. The divinely-appointed rites 
 were repudiated as worthless, when men converted 
 them into idols, and failed to be led by them to the 
 high spiritual realities. "Hath the Lord," said 
 Samuel to Saul, "as great delight in burnt-offerings 
 and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? 
 Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to 
 hearken than the fat of rams." " To what purpose 
 is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me ?" was the 
 question which Jehovah addressed to the punctilious 
 formalists among the ancient Hebrews. This system 
 of religious ceremonialism appeared in all its odious- 
 ness in the Pharisees of the Gospels. And it was 
 against the men who were scrupulously exact in 
 paying tithe of mint, and anise, and cummin, while 
 
312 FORMALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 regardless of the weightier matters of the law, judg 
 ment, mercy, and faith, that the meek and lowly 
 Saviour pronounced the most tremendous woes. 
 Rigid adherence to bare rites went hand in hand 
 with the most gross corruptions. Men would stand 
 up and stoutly contend for the mere letter of the 
 law, while shamelessly violating its spirit. The 
 formalism of the system was complete, and the 
 Amen, the faithful and true witness, denounced the 
 hypocrisy of its worshippers. 
 
 The new economy is distinguished from the old, 
 by its greater simplicity and spirituality. It has no 
 gorgeous and imposing ritual. The schoolmaster, 
 necessary for the instruction of the Jews, has been 
 dismissed. The shadow has vanished away and 
 given place to the substance. And the hour has 
 come when neither in this mountain exclusively, nor 
 yet at Jerusalem, men should be required to worship 
 the Father, but when the true worshippers should wor 
 ship him in spirit and truth ; for the Father seeketh 
 such to worship Him. But, under the shadow of Chris 
 tianity, formalism soon grew up, and extended its cold, 
 withering influence, for ages, over the church. Juda- 
 izing teachers- the masters of forms, insinuated 
 themselves into the first Christian societies, and 
 insisted on the observance of abrogated ceremonies 
 as indispensable to salvation. Apostolic vigilance 
 and zeal, in a great measure, thwarted their perni 
 cious efforts, and preserved the truth of God pure 
 and unclogged. But, soon after the apostles had 
 fallen asleep, and the spiritual energy which they 
 
OF THE POWER OF GODLINESS. 313 
 
 had infused into the church had diminished, the 
 tendency to exalt the material above the spiritual, 
 and bind up the living element of truth in a system 
 of forms, appeared almost unchecked. The symbols 
 were aggrandized, and occupied the place of the 
 grand realities. The inherent efficacy of the sacra 
 ment was preached, instead of the doctrine of the 
 cross. And that deadly dishonoring system of pin 
 ning men s faith to the priest and the mere external 
 rite, of identifying baptism with regeneration, and of 
 making the tithe of mint and anise, and cummin, 
 a substitute for the practice, and a plea for the 
 omission, of the weightier matters of the law, almost 
 everywhere prevailed. History bears witness to the 
 fact that, the darkest period in the annals of the 
 church, when the question might have been put 
 were the Son of man to come, would he find faith 
 in the earth ? was the period when Christianity was 
 ritual bound, ministers and people as intent on mere 
 forms as the heathen on idols. 
 
 Such is the result of the Romish theory of fellow 
 ship. Instead of making the church, as the apostle 
 Peter did, a living body, composed of faithful men, 
 who u as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, 
 an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, 
 acceptable to God by Jesus Christ ;"it has set up a 
 lifeless artificial system of mosaic work, the essential 
 qualifications to a name and place in which are, not 
 the faith of the truth and the love of the Saviour as 
 manifested in a life of moral loveliness, but a strict 
 attention to rites and ceremonies. It matters not, 
 
314 FORMALISM ; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 according to this theory, how much glorying there 
 may be in the cross of Christ on the part of indi 
 viduals, and how brightly in them the features of the 
 new creature may shine, if the party watch-word 
 cannot be pronounced, and the party rite cannot be 
 submitted to, there is no recognition of them as 
 belonging to the Israel of God. It is in accordance 
 with this theory, that some Romish missionaries have 
 baptised large companies of the heathen in a mass, 
 pronounced over them the name of Christ before 
 they really knew who Christ was, set them down as 
 children of the truth before the truth had gained an 
 inlet into their minds, and reported them as access 
 ions to the Holy Catholic Church, which is just 
 like the swelling of a body with diseased flesh. u We 
 find," Mr. Morell truly remarks, "as the result of 
 this theory, multitudes of the most debased, most 
 unscrupulous, most antichristian of mankind, standing 
 in due right and order, as channels of Christian 
 truth to the world; while, on the other hand, we 
 find multitudes of the humble, the holy, the self- 
 denying, hopelessly thrust out beyond the pale of 
 brotherhood, as not being in the legitimate succession 
 of official validity. If the fellowship of the faithful 
 is to depend upon such principles as these, then to 
 make it at all intelligible to the reason or consistent 
 with the moral sense of mankind, we need altogether 
 a different interpretation of the whole nature and 
 design of Christianity from what we have in the life 
 of Christ and the writings of the apostles." 1 There 
 
 1 Philosophy of Religion, p. 268. 
 
OF THE POWER OF GODLINESS. 315 
 
 are, doubtless, not a few spiritually-minded men in the 
 Romish Church, but they are spiritually-minded in spite 
 of her theory of fellowship. As a whole, it is a gigan 
 tic system of formalism. 
 
 Formalism has not, however, been restricted to the 
 ample and imposing shades of Popery. It has taken 
 root also, grown up, and been carefully fostered in the 
 bosom of Protestantism. The Oxford ritual, as it has 
 been called, makes a very near approach to that of 
 Rome. And the doctrines propounded by the Trac- 
 tarians, viewed as a whole, come in direct antagonism 
 with those grand spiritual principles of the Reforma 
 tion, which have been so happily expressed by Merle 
 D Aubigne: THE WORD OF GOD ONLY; THE GRACE 
 OF CHRIST ONLY; and THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT 
 ONLY. Their theory of the church, and of the efficacy 
 of its rites, is the very theory that quenches spiritual 
 life, dries up the goodly sap, blights every green thing, 
 and superinduces a dark and leaden system of formal 
 ism. The church and the priest come between the 
 soul of the sinner and the Saviour; and the church 
 and the sacraments, are made to dispense those spir 
 itual influences for which we, as Bible-taught, look to 
 the church s Head. Let men be instructed, as mul 
 titudes of our fellow countrymen are, that the sacra 
 ments are the wells of Divine grace, that they are 
 efficacious only as administered by the hands of epis 
 copally ordained men, and that perishing souls can 
 find the bread of life only in this particular fold, and, 
 within the pale of the Protestant church, will soon be 
 come rampant a system that will eat out the very life of 
 
316 
 
 the gospel, a system having the form of godliness 
 but denying the power thereof. "If we be Christians 
 ecclesiastically, it is enough ; all besides is illusion," is 
 the engrafted word which thousands of cultivated and 
 uncultivated minds have in our day, received within 
 the church of Cranmer. "And such in fact," says Mr. 
 Isaac Taylor, "are every day seen to be the products 
 of the ecclesiastical theory which we denounce as, at 
 this time, the antagonist of Spiritual Christianity. In 
 its recent revival it has shed a cold arrogance into many 
 bosoms that once glowed with Christian affection ; and, 
 at the same time, it has drawn such aside (in how many 
 sad instances!) from an enlightened regard to the sub 
 stantial truths of the Gospel ; while they give all their 
 cares to frivolous and servile observances." 1 
 
 The snake is to be found creeping among the grass, 
 as well as displaying its sinuous form under some 
 stately plant or tree. And formalism is not a sin 
 peculiar to Romanism or to a Ilomanized Protestant 
 ism. It is to be met with, not only under the impos 
 ing shade of the cathedral pile, clad in white vest 
 ments, kneeling before the altar, clasping_to the bosom 
 a crucifix, and going punctiliously the proscribed round 
 of gorgeous ceremonies ; but it often has a place in 
 the plain built chapel, and on the low wooden form, 
 where no sacramental theory has ever been pro 
 pounded, where a creed thoroughly evangelical has 
 been adopted, and where nothing but the pure spir 
 itual Gospel of Christ has been heard. It may have 
 a much more ample shelter, and be much more coun 
 
 1 Spiritual Christianity, p. 100. 
 
OF THE POWER OF GODLINESS. 317 
 
 tenanced amid great architectural splendor, vene 
 rated altars, and a rich ceremonial ; but it can and 
 does exist in the absence of everything external that 
 is fitted to rivet the eye, regale the ear, and engross 
 the heart. Men may place a false dependence on the 
 simplest observances as well as on the most artificial 
 and splendid, and there may lurk as deadly and hate 
 ful a spirit of self-righteousness under an appearance 
 of puritan meekness, as ever did in the bosom of the 
 ostentatious Pharisee, who, in the temple and before 
 God s throne, boasted of his fast-days and the regular 
 payment of his tithes. It matters not whether the 
 forms be few or many, bald or costly-decked, if they 
 are unduly confided in, shifted from the position which 
 they may lawfully occupy as means, to that which in 
 God s sight they never can occupy as a ground, and if 
 the observance of them is made a substitute for piety 
 and holy obedience, the system must be branded as 
 mere formalism. 
 
 1. Our first remark on such a system, is, its utter 
 worthlessness to satisfy the great wants of liuman nature. 
 The wants of man, in a religious point of view, are 
 obvious. He is guilty before God, and needs expia 
 tion. He is the subject of depraved principles, and 
 needs to be regenerated. Formalism, whether gor 
 geous or naked, can no more remove the condemning 
 sentence from the head, and root out depraved prin 
 ciples from the heart, than saying to a destitute 
 brother or sister, be ye warmed and filled, can profit, 
 if we give them not those things that are needful to 
 the body. To look amid a mere ceremonial for some 
 
318 FORMALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 power to atone and purify, were as foolish and vain as 
 to seek the living among the dead. And yet this is 
 a folly which multitudes of cultivated, and unculti 
 vated minds are repeating every day. Forms are neces 
 sary, in this world at least, to display and maintain 
 the power of godliness. But it should never be for 
 gotten that in the forms the Divine efficacy is not 
 inherent. The internal religious sentiments and 
 emotions must express themselves in some outward 
 shape, and neither reason nor revelation forbids that 
 the external institutions of piety should be imposing 
 and graceful. But as man cannot feed upon flowers, 
 nor his natural life be sustained by the most enrap 
 turing music, so, amid the most strict observance of 
 even divinely- appointed rites, he will, if halting in 
 them, remain, in the scriptural sense of the express 
 ion, dead in trespasses and sins. The use of a lad 
 der is to ascend by it to some lofty eminence, but if 
 men were merely to run up and down the steps, and 
 imagine that they had reached the height to which it 
 pointed, and that they had beheld the view which the 
 summit commanded, they would be regarded as under 
 a strange hallucination. The hallucination is not 
 less real, % and infinitely more dangerous, in the man 
 who goes the round of religious observances, stops 
 short at them, builds upon them, and deems himself 
 all the while to have attained to the position and char 
 acter of a child of God, and an heir of heaven. It 
 betrays a littleness of conception in reference to the 
 character and law of the great I AM, to suppose that, 
 by mere outward rites and ceremonies, men are to be 
 
OF THE POWER OF GODLINESS. 3 19 
 
 pardoned, sanctified, and saved. It manifests a great 
 lack of spiritual discernment, to regard a punctilious 
 attention to a ritual, and a reliance on forms, as occupy 
 ing the place, and answering the ends, of faith and 
 repentance, holy love and spiritual obedience. It is 
 acting as if the reverse of the proposition and 
 not the proposition itself were true: man looks 
 upon the outward appearance, but God looks upon 
 the heart. 
 
 The worthlessness of such a reliance, in reference 
 to the two great wants of human nature, deliverance 
 from guilt and from the dominion of evil, is attested 
 by observation and experience. Men have run, count 
 less times, round the circle of prescribed observances, 
 leaning on the symbol without rising up to the thing 
 signified ; and it has either been, in their experience, 
 a round of anguish, or a dead tread, in which they 
 were destitute of a sense of reconciliation and peace 
 with God. Sacrifice after sacrifice has been offered, 
 the yoke in a thousand forms has been borne, words 
 of what seemed holiest prayer have been daily uttered, 
 hymns of sweetest harmony and devout fervor have 
 been chanted ; and, after the excitement, produced by 
 the pomp of ceremony, by a religion of refined cere 
 monial, or a religion of primitive simplicity, has sub 
 sided, the soul has been, like a stricken deer, ill at 
 ease, and panting again for the excitement of the 
 chase. The splendid ritual, and the plain, the divinely- 
 appointed institute and the human, the sacrament 
 stamped with Heaven s authority and that bearing 
 only man s, have, each and all of them, declared, 
 
320 FORMALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 the merit that atones and the grace that pardons aie 
 not to be found in them. 
 
 The inefficacy of the system to regenerate, and 
 assimilate men to the likeness of God, is as manifest 
 as its powerlessness to remove the burden of guilt. 
 Be it in the shape of a court ceremonial, of things 
 appealing to refined taste and sentiment, or of the 
 common sacred decencies of the sabbath day, if it be 
 a religion merely formal, men will observe its rites, 
 and pass through its forms, without throwing off any 
 more of their impurity and receiving any more of the 
 beauties of holiness, than if they paced to and fro 
 the floor of a gallery amid cold marble statues. The 
 man of taste has stood amid some glorious amphi 
 theatre of nature, and felt his soul elated by the 
 majesty of the hills, the green loveliness of the val 
 leys, the splendor of the setting sun, and the con 
 cert of the rejoicing creation. He has witnessed the 
 same magnificence and felt its power over and over 
 again. But when the excitement of the imagination 
 has been subdued, and the charm has passed away like 
 a dream, and the man has fallen back upon himself, 
 or mingled with the world, his heart has been found 
 without God, and his life reflecting not a ray of the 
 Divine image. Thus making it manifest that the 
 formalism of taste, gratified though it be by the grand 
 and graceful in scenery, has, in itself and independent 
 of influences from above, no efficacy whatever to 
 purify the heart and clothe men in moral beauty. 
 The formalist has gone up, demurely and punctually, 
 to the temple at the hour of prayer, and, whether it 
 
OF THE POWER OF GODLINESS. 321 
 
 has been amid the architectural splendor of the 
 cathedral where the pealing organ carries the soul 
 aloft, and gorgeous ceremonies are observed ; or 
 whether it be in the humble meeting-house where 
 psalms are plainly sung, and the Gospel is plainly 
 preached, he has felt himself attracted and regaled as 
 with a lovely song. But it has been a mere round of 
 formal excitement, which has never moved the depths 
 of the heart to harmony with the will of God, and 
 thrown no hallowed comeliness over the life. Thus 
 showing that the ritual of a sanctuary, be it splendid 
 or simple, can of itself no more regenerate the soul of 
 man, than the ritual of material nature. Men may 
 speak of the efficacy of the sacraments, but daily ob 
 servation makes it too palpable, that multitudes who 
 are baptized and received to the Lord s supper, even 
 by those claiming to be the successors of the apostles, 
 differ little or nothing in their temper and conduct 
 from the ungodly world around them. And the same 
 thing is evinced in the observance of other forms, 
 when these are made halting-places on which the 
 mind unduly leans. Whatever observances men may 
 substitute for the finished work of the Son of God, 
 and the regenerating influences of the Holy Spirit, 
 be they costly or mean, imposing or simple, appoint 
 ments of Heaven or appointments of earth, their 
 worthlessness to satisfy the wants of man s moral 
 nature will be made evident. 
 
 2. Our second remark is, that, in mere formalism, the 
 pleasure found in spiritual religion is not experienced. 
 
 It is impossible that it should. The creation is not 
 
 21 
 
322 FORMALISM; on, THE DENIAL 
 
 so joyous and full of life when a mass of dark clouds 
 intercepts the rays of the sun, as when that sun 
 beams brightly forth on hill and valley, and covers 
 heaven and earth with light as with a garment. God 
 is a sun. He is the infinite good. Nothing but a 
 living sensible communion with him, can displace 
 heaviness from the heart, and shed a holy happiness 
 over the life. Formalism interposes thick shadows 
 between the fountain of light and the human soul. 
 It is as when a man halts on the somewhat bleak 
 and rugged borders of a lovely region, without ever 
 entering into the beautiful territory itself. Forms 
 were designed, by Him who knoweth our frame, to be 
 the means by which we might ascend to the enjoy 
 ment of himself. But when the mind halts in the 
 symbol, instead of rising from it to the thing signified ; 
 when the man runs up and down the ladder, instead of 
 reaching the eminence which commands the glorious 
 prospect, he loses the enjoyment inseparable from in 
 tercourse with the blissful reality. It has often been 
 remarked, that, in those countries and ages where 
 religion has appeared in her most gaudy trim, 
 ages characterized by the architectural splendor of 
 churches, and by the observance of a gorgeous round 
 of rites and ceremonies,- the spiritual element in 
 worship has been feeble and scarcely perceptible. 
 And there, too, the light, loveliness, and joy, insepar 
 able from the Gospel truth, have been wanting ; and 
 gloom and slavish fear have prevailed in their room. 
 When one passes from a country that lies under the 
 deadly grasp of civil and ecclesiastical despotism, to 
 
OF THE POWER OF GODLINESS. 323 
 
 another where political and religious liberty is richly 
 enjoyed, it is like making a transit from a region of 
 thick gloom to one of joyoua sunshine. And the 
 difference is not less discernible between a religious 
 community where the spiritual element is buried in 
 the formal, and one in which the former pervades 
 and gives life to the latter ; or between an individual 
 who has a feeling of the Divine presence and a relish 
 of the Divine excellence, and one whose idol is the 
 church he attends and the rites in which he engages. 
 It is not the ritual in itself, at least it is not the 
 divinely-appointed ritual, that is incompatible with 
 or obstructive of spiritual life and joy, but the substi 
 tution of it as means in the place of ends. David 
 and Asaph, who lived under the Levitical economy, 
 so full and minute in its provisions regarding forms, 
 lost not sight of the spiritual element, and had a vivid 
 experience of the joy inseparably connected with it. 
 The mere formalist is a stranger to that life of god 
 liness which enables a man to say, when he looks 
 abroad upon the fields of creation, or when he 
 has entered into his closet, shut his door, and is 
 conscious that no eye sees him and no ear hears 
 him but the eye and ear of God, " whom have I in 
 heaven but thee ? and there is none upon earth that 
 I desire beside thee." " There be many that say, 
 Who will show us any good ? Lord, lift thou up the 
 light of thy countenance upon us." 
 
 Formalism may be found in all religious communi 
 ties, for it is the besetting sin of human nature ; but 
 we look in vain, in the religion of the formalist, for 
 
324 FORMALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 those robes of fine linen, as joyous as pure, which 
 clothed such men as Leighton and Doddridge, Baxter 
 and Edwards, and thousands of others whom the 
 world never heard of, and of whom the world was not 
 worthy. There is a pleasure which a man of taste 
 and sensibility enjoys in contemplating the grand and 
 beautiful objects of nature, but the pleasure is poor 
 and transient compared with what the same man 
 experiences when in filial confidence, he views them 
 as the creations of his Father. Byron, amid the 
 lovely scenery of the isles of Greece, never felt what 
 the great metaphysician of New England felt, when, 
 as he tells us, he " spent much of his time in viewing 
 the clouds and sky, to behold the sweet glory of God 
 in these things ; in the mean time singing forth, with 
 a low voice, his contemplations of the Creator and 
 Redeemer." There is a pleasure, too, felt under the 
 shadow of the cathedral pile, derived from the im 
 posing splendor of the place, the enrapturing music, 
 and the rich ceremonial ; but it is a pleasure different 
 in kind, and vastly inferior in degree to what is ex 
 perienced by the man, observant it may be of the 
 same forms, who rises through them to divine fellow 
 ship with the Father of spirits, and the God of his 
 salvation. And there is a pleasure also, in going up 
 to the humble chapel, amid the hallowed calm of the 
 sabbath morning, and bearing a part in the routine 
 of its simple services ; but that pleasure, likewise, 
 may have little or none of the life and joy of god 
 liness, and be as unlike the holy inward happiness 
 of the man who worships God in spirit and in 
 
OF THE POWER OF GODLINESS. 325 
 
 truth, as earth is unlike heaven. Men do not 
 gather grapes of thorns, nor figs of thistles, neither 
 do they experience that joy which is a fruit of the 
 Spirit, in a religion which is merely formal and not 
 spiritual. 
 
 3. Our third remark is, that formalism ever has a 
 tendency to intolerance. Men, in proportion as they 
 are imbued with the spirit of the Gospel, have en 
 larged hearts. Love is represented, in almost every 
 page of the New Testament, as the characteristic of 
 the Christian. It is not an attachment to men merely 
 because they are members of this or that particular 
 society, but because they belong to the church of the 
 living God. It is not entwined around a man because 
 he bears a humanly-devised name, but because he 
 wears in his bosom, and shows in his life, the 
 Saviour s image. This holy principle looks beyond 
 the outward appearance, and fastens its regard on that 
 image, though it be found in a Lazarus sitting in rags 
 and seeking to be fed with the crumbs of the rich 
 man s table. Nor does it confine its regards to those 
 who are united to the common Saviour, and are made 
 partakers of the common salvation. It looks on the 
 wide world with an eye of compassion, and feels 
 towards it those stirrings of benevolence which seek 
 to save that which is lost. It is like the sun in the 
 firmament which confines not his radiance to any 
 little spot on the surface of the earth, but spreads it 
 over the wide fields of creation. u Its going forth is 
 from the end of the heaven, and its circuit unto the ends 
 of it : and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof." 
 
326 FORMALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 Formalism engenders a spirit the reverse of all this. 
 It is sectarian. It is pent up within the pale of its 
 own community ; and whatever religious zeal it pos 
 sesses, is spent on its own creed and ceremonies. 
 We see this in the Pharisees of the Gospels. They 
 were proud, haughty separatists. Men who stood 
 aloof from others on the ground of mere outward 
 observances. They erected the banner of party dis 
 tinction in the temple where all meet on a common 
 level. They said to others, by their looks and actions, 
 " Stand by yourself, come not near me, for I am 
 holier than you." We see this in that church which 
 arrogates to itself the exclusive claim of being u Holy 
 Catholic." The most massive system of religious 
 formalism, it has ever been the most intolerant in 
 theory and practice. Out of the Romish pale there 
 is no salvation, is an infallible dogma which every 
 good catholic is bound to believe. It is instilled into 
 the minds of youth, by the catholic school book. It 
 is the vital element that pervades Papal decrees, 
 It ever and anon drops from the priest s lips, in the 
 hearing of young and old, of peasant and noble. 
 And, in accordance with this monstrous dogma, mem 
 bers of other communions are consigned over to 
 eternal perdition, though they may have been the 
 most excellent ones of the earth, men of seraphic 
 piety, the very salt of the earth, and the lights of the 
 world. Sectarian exclusiveness is strikingly character 
 istic of Oxford tractarianism. It refuses even the name 
 of church to whatever Protestant body lies without the 
 pale of its own communion, arrogates the commission 
 
OF THE POWER OF GODLINESS. 327 
 
 to administer Christian ordinances to episcopally-or- 
 dained ministers only, denounces dissent as apostasy 
 from the true church, and considers it sinful to have 
 fellowship with any beyond the episcopal border. 
 Hence the intolerance, which has sometimes been 
 manifested in high places, in prohibiting the catholic- 
 spirited men in that portion of the church from 
 co-operating in good works with Christian men in 
 other denominations. But it behoves us not to be 
 unmindful that the same exclusively sectarian feeling 
 may exist in persons, mere formalists, sitting side by 
 side with each other in the same church pew. Who 
 ever, instead of humbling his heart before God, and 
 recognizing in the meanest worshipper a child of the 
 same bountiful Father, and alike welcome with him 
 self to a participation in the fulness of his house, 
 assumes a conceited sentiment of his own superior 
 sanctity, such as removes him in fancy to an elevation 
 apart from other men, is filled with the same self-right 
 eous and intolerant spirit which actuated the Pharisees, 
 and which Jehovah, by the prophet, so strongly repro 
 bates: "These are a smoke in my nose, a fire that 
 burneth all the day !" 
 
 The transition from such separatism to a rancorous 
 fanaticism, is easy and natural. The full-blown sepa 
 ratist not only stands aloof from other men and disre 
 gards their claims, but he assumes towards them an 
 attitude of scowling defiance. He carries his hateful 
 spirit into the very exercises of the sanctuary, and utters 
 his denunciations at the altar. The formalist, -wrapped 
 up in the robe of his own righteousness, feigns a 
 
328 FORMALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 u God I thank thee," that he is not as other men are, 
 extortioners, unjust, but that he fasts twice in the 
 week and gives tithes of all that he has. With his 
 tongue blesses he God, even the Father; and there 
 with curses he men, which are made after the simili 
 tude of God ; out of the same mouth proceed blessing 
 and cursing, and we behold in him a fountain sending 
 forth at the same place sweet water and bitter. This 
 odious system stings like a serpent, and bites like an 
 adder, at every species of spiritual piety that crosses 
 its path. It varies in the manifestation of its in 
 tolerance, from the man who, like a sentinel, goes 
 the round of his own church observances, and in 
 wardly says, u the temple of the Lord, the temple of the 
 Lord are we," to the man who would erect the gibbet 
 and kindle the faggot for schismatics and heretics, and 
 persuade himself that in thus acting he was doing God 
 service. 
 
 4. Our fourth remark is, that such a system is dia 
 metrically opposed to the spirit and precepts of the Gos 
 pel. It says, "our fathers worshipped in this moun 
 tain." This is the church in which alone is given under 
 heaven that name whereby we can be saved. The 
 Lord and Master says, the exclusive system has ceased. 
 " The hour is come when ye shall neither in this 
 mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. 
 God is a spirit, and they that worship him must 
 worship him in spirit and in truth." Formalism 
 says, we who fast so often, pray so fervently, and 
 attend on the sacraments so punctually, are God s 
 people. Evangelism replies, u he is not a Jew, which 
 
OF THE POWER OF GODLINESS. 329 
 
 is one outwardly ; neither is that circumcision which 
 is outward in the flesh : but he is a Jew, which is 
 one inwardly ; and circumcision is that of the heart, 
 in the spirit, and not in the letter ; whose praise is not 
 of men, but of God." The one says, "we have Abra 
 ham to our father," and are in the line of the true 
 Apostolical succession. The other says, " we are the 
 circumcision," the true seed of Abraham, "which 
 worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, 
 and have no confidence in the flesh." The one says, 
 perform this ceremony and that, go this round of 
 observances and that, and ye shall be justified. The 
 other, in holy indignation, exclaims, " if righteous 
 ness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain ; 
 therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh 
 be justified." The one says, baptism is regeneration, 
 only be baptized, come to the sacramental table, and 
 ye shall be saved. The other says, "neither circum 
 cision availeth anything nor uncircumcision, but a 
 new creature." Formalism looks chiefly at what a man 
 does, irrespective of his character and motives. It 
 takes notice of his long and numerous prayers, while 
 it winks at him oppressing the poor, and devouring 
 widows houses. It approves of his strict observance 
 of the decencies and rites of the sabbath day, while 
 it frowns upon him healing the diseased, raising an 
 ox out of the pit, or performing any other works of 
 mercy in the same sacred period. It is heedless of 
 the state of the heart in which a man approaches God s 
 altar, while it is careful to see that his hands are 
 washed, and that his raiment is tidy. It will furnish 
 
330 FORMALISM; OR, THE DENIAL 
 
 him with a reason for neglecting a moral duty, and 
 throw an air of sanctimonious pretence over the 
 violence done to natural affection, provided he is 
 mindful of the claims of the temple treasury. It 
 teaches him to say u Corban," it is a gift; and thus 
 frees him from the obligation of relieving his father 
 and mother. There is not less communion between 
 light and darkness, than there is between such a 
 system, and the spiritual Christianity taught by Jesus 
 and his apostles. u This people," said the Great 
 Teacher, u draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, 
 and honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is 
 far from me. But in vain do they worship me, teach 
 ing for doctrines the commandments of men." Chris 
 tianity does not overlook what a man may have done, 
 but it looks more to what a man is. It gives no coun 
 tenance whatever to despise sacred rites and seasons, 
 but it says to the man who attaches an undue import 
 ance to them while neglecting the weightier matters of 
 the law, " These things ought ye to have done, and not 
 to leave the others undone." 
 
 " There are two ways of destroying Christianity," 
 remarks D Aubigne, " one is to deny, the other to 
 displace it. To put the church above Christianity, 
 the hierarchy above the word of God ; to ask a man, 
 not whether ha has received the Holy Ghost, but 
 whether he has received baptism from the hands of 
 those who are termed successors of the apostles and 
 their delegates : all this may doubtless flatter the pride 
 of the natural man, but is fundamentally opposed to the 
 Bible, and aims a fatal blow at the religion of Jesus 
 
OF THE POWER OF GODLINESS. 331 
 
 Christ. If God had intended that Christianity should, 
 like the Mosaic system, be chiefly an ecclesiastical, 
 sacerdotal, and hierarchical system, he would have 
 ordered and established it in the New Testament, as 
 he did in the Old. But there is nothing like this in 
 the New Testament. All the declarations of our 
 Lord and of his apostles tend to prove that the new 
 religion given to the world, is life and spirit, and not 
 a new system of priesthood and ordinances. c The 
 kingdom of God, saith Jesus, c cometh not with ob 
 servation: neither shall they say, Lo here! or lo 
 there ! for behold the kingdom of God is within you. 
 1 The kingdom of God is not meat and drink ; but 
 righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. 
 . . . Let us not, then, esteem the bark above the sap, 
 the body above the soul, the form above the life, the 
 visible church above the invisible, the priest above the 
 Holy Spirit. Let us all hate sectarian, ecclesiastical, 
 national, or dissenting spirit; but let us love Jesus 
 Christ in all sects, whether ecclesiastical, national, or 
 dissenting." 1 " And as many as walk according to this 
 rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel 
 of God." 
 
 1 Geneva and Oxford, by D Aubigne. 
 
fart l\t J 
 
 INFIDELITY IN ITS VARIOUS CAUSES. 
 
 GENERAL CAUSE. 
 
 SPECIFIC CAUSES: 
 SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 
 SOCIAL DISAFFECTION. 
 THE CORRUPTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 
 DISUNION OF THE CHURCH 
 

[nffitelitj in its f aricus Canaes, 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 GENERAL CAUSE. 
 
 Causes of Infidelity ethical rather than intellectual The "Will has 
 much to do with it Moral evidence not irresistible Existence of 
 God does not admit of demonstration Remark of Dr. Arnold 
 Pantheism and naturalism traced to aversion of heart Sufficiency 
 of Christian evidences Jewish unbelief originated in a moral 
 cause Speculative and practical Infidelity have same origin 
 Bible account of the matter. 
 
 IT is evident that unbelief, generally speaking, can 
 originate in only one of two sources; either in a de 
 ficiency of evidence, or, in a state of mind and heart 
 on which the clearest and strongest evidence has no 
 power. The causes of infidelity, we are persuaded, 
 are more ethical than intellectual. And this persua 
 sion is greatly strengthened by the perusal of some 
 of the productions of our modern infidel writers. 
 "Nothing can be more contemptible," says Professor 
 Garbett, 1 "than the argumentative resources of modern 
 
 1 Modern Philosophical Infidelity, p. 5. 
 
336 . GENERAL CAUSE. 
 
 infidelity. It does not reason, it only postulates j it 
 dreams and it dogmatizes. Nor can it claim inven 
 tion" This witness is true. Indeed, we venture to 
 assert, that the general strain of argument brought 
 to bear against Christianity by its modern assailants, 
 would not be tolerated for a moment within the prov 
 ince of purely literary criticism. The strong deter 
 mination to withstand everything in the shape of rea 
 sonable evidence, contrast very much with the feeble 
 argumentation by which many of the truths of religion 
 are set aside. Be it atheism or pantheism, natural- 
 ism or spiritualism, indifferentism or formalism, the 
 will has much to do with it. Moral evidence is the 
 appropriate proof of moral truth. All moral evidence 
 is cumulative; but, however strong it may be, it is 
 never irresistible. An indocile reason can ward it off. 
 The existence of God, for example, does not admit 
 of demonstrative, but of moral certainty. And, though 
 supported by a vastly preponderating amount of proof, 
 room is left for the cavils of a strongly-prejudiced un 
 belief. The argument from design is one of great 
 power, and though it does not of itself lead us to the 
 High and Holy One, it points us very clearly thither. 
 But the ground is by no means free from difficulties. 
 Faith, supported by the immensely overbalancing 
 amount of clear evidence, triumphs over these, whereas 
 the unbelieving heart yields to them. Still stronger 
 is the testimony to this primal truth given by our own 
 inward consciousness a testimony that outweighs all 
 atheistical assumptions and arguments ; but, in spite 
 of it, man can befool himself, and say in his heart, 
 
GENERAL CAUSE. 337 
 
 there is no God. The disrelish of the truth that God 
 &, strengthens itself in the comparatively small resi 
 due of phenomena that seems to conflict with it, and 
 there repels the conviction arising from the irrefrag 
 able proof on the other side. Dr. Arnold, reasoning 
 on the supposition that the intellectual difficulties are 
 balanced, remarks: u here is the moral fault of unbe 
 lief, that a man can bear to make so great a moral 
 sacrifice, as is implied in renouncing God. He makes 
 the greatest moral sacrifice to obtain partial satisfac 
 tion to his intellect: a believer ensures the greatest 
 moral pefection, with partial satisfaction to his intel 
 lect also; entire satisfaction to the intellect is, and 
 can be, obtained by neither." 1 The choice in such a 
 case, must be resolved into the inclination, or the wish 
 to have it that there is no God. But matters are not 
 really so balanced. The difficulties greatly prepon 
 derate on the side of unbelief. And for a man to 
 accept of the proposition that God is not, with the 
 mass of monstrosities and difficulties that attend it, 
 and thereby renounce the affirmative proposition that 
 God is, a proposition so well substantiated, and for 
 which there is an intellectual necessity, indicates 
 very plainly the leanings of the heart. Lord Bacon 
 says: "none deny there is a God, but those for whom 
 it rnaketh that there was no God. 
 
 The personality of the Divine Being irrespective of 
 its being interwoven with the language of the Bible, 
 and imparting to it a burning energy, is much more 
 rational than the pantheistic doctrine. It does not 
 
 1 Dr Arnold s Life and Correspondence. 
 22 
 
338 GENERAL CAUSE. 
 
 admit, however, of strict demonstration. We may argue 
 very conclusively in favor of it, from our own per 
 sonality, and maintain that, since personality is a 
 perfection, God must possess it in the highest degree, 
 otherwise he would be inferior to ourselves ; and not 
 only so, but we could conceive of God as a more 
 glorious being than he really is, which is an absurdity. 
 We may strengthen our proof by the consideration 
 that men in general feel, in the most solemn and 
 affecting moments of their lives, that God is a real 
 person. And to this we may add, that, without the 
 idea of a personal God, "we cannot really explain the 
 origin or the order of the universe ; and that it is a 
 mere assumption to assert, that personality is in its 
 very nature finite since it is the finiteness of man s 
 attributes, and that alone, which gives the finiteness 
 to his personality." 1 But the heart can repel all this 
 proof; and bring to its aid, if not the force of argu 
 ment, the language of the mystic and the principles 
 of a dreaming philosophy. The reluctance to think 
 of God as a living Person, holy, just, and good, and 
 with whom we have to do, is greater than the inca 
 pacity. It is in the delirium of self-adoration, in the 
 swellings of a pride-intoxicated heart, that men break 
 loose from a sense of responsibility, ignore the exist 
 ence of the Personal Creator and Judge, and yield to 
 the temptation ye shall be as gods. No one can 
 read the rhapsodies of such a man as Emerson, with 
 out perceiving that the state of the heart, a heart 
 puffed up with the delusive notion of its own divinity, 
 1 Smith s Relations of Faith and Philosophy, p. 13. 
 
GENERAL CAUSE. 339 
 
 lies at the bottom of his unbelief. And the appeal 
 is made not to men s sober judgment, but to their 
 rebellious propensities, when they are told that they 
 have the resources of the world in their own souls, 
 and that all their actions are forms of piety. 
 
 Naturalism has its roots in the same soil. In so far 
 as argument is concerned, it has scarcely a leg to 
 stand upon. The evidences of a Supreme Presiding 
 Intelligence are as manifest as those of a Supreme 
 Creative Power. The development hypothesis is no 
 thing better than a wild dream, which is fast disap 
 pearing before the light of advancing science. Astro 
 nomical and geological researches are rapidly cutting 
 away the ground on which any such theory is sup 
 posed to rest, whether as applied to the heavens above 
 or to the earth beneath. The nebular hypothesis, 
 which would remove God beyond the limits of the 
 visible universe, and account for the changes, as well 
 as for the orderly movements in the heavens, without 
 his presiding agency, was merely thrown out as a con 
 jecture at first, and is now being falsified by the discov 
 eries of the telescope. And, as Professor Whewell 
 remarks, " Science negatives the doctrine that men 
 grew out of apes, that language is the necessary 
 development of the jabbering of such creatures, and 
 reason the product of their conflicting appetites." 1 
 Besides, it is doubtless more rational to suppose that 
 God continues to govern the world which he has made 
 than that he has abandoned it. "When a man," says 
 Bacon, "seeth the dependence of causes and the 
 1 Indications of the Creator, p. 8. 
 
340 GENERAL CAUSE. 
 
 works of Providence, then, according to the allegory 
 of the poets, he will easily believe that the highest 
 link of nature s chain must needs be tied to the foot 
 of Jupiter s chair." Having interposed in a miraculous 
 manner at the creation of the world, it is reasonable 
 to believe that God would interpose again, for an end 
 worthy of his character, and bearing on the highest 
 interest of the human race. The position taken up 
 by Strauss, that miracles are impossible, is utterly 
 indefensible. It may consist with his philosophy, but 
 not with the common-sense truth that God is in the 
 heavens, and that he doeth whatsoever he pleaseth. 
 But the doctrine of the Divine Providential Govern 
 ment does not admit of demonstrative certainty. The 
 facts lying without, and the voice of conscience 
 within, speak loudly in proof of it. The evidence is 
 sufficient to justify our faith, but it is not irresistible. 
 There are other facts which seem to conflict with the 
 doctrine. Darkness and difficulties, which have been 
 felt by the best men in every age, beset us in this 
 field of inquiry. But what is the darkness to the 
 light? The difficulties arise from our limited capaci 
 ty and knowing but in part. Our vision is restricted 
 to a point of a universal system; and analogy war 
 rants the conclusion, that, were our range of view 
 widened, these difficulties would lessen, if not disap 
 pear. The difficulties are much greater on the side 
 of naturalism, besides the monstrosities that are in 
 volved in the hypothesis. And when men choose the 
 latter, and thereby extrude God from the throne of 
 his natural government, or compliment him out of it, 
 
GENERAL CAUSE. 341 
 
 there is reason to suspect that the thing is done with 
 the view of excluding him from his moral dominion. 
 We must fall back on the state of the heart, in seek 
 ing for the great reason why men, in the face of such 
 preponderant evidence for divine providence, will have 
 it that " God doth not know, and that the Almighty 
 doth not consider." 
 
 Christianity is based upon evidence. The reason 
 why evidence is necessary, is to be found in our moral 
 constitution as rational, discriminating, accountable 
 agents ; and in the fact that, from the existence of 
 evil in the world, we were otherwise liable to decep 
 tion in reference to our highest interests. It could 
 never be a man s duty to believe in a revelation claim 
 ing to itself the authority of heaven, unless that rev 
 elation bore, legibly on its front, heaven s signature, 
 or was in some way attended with heaven s evidencing 
 power. The evidence that attests the truth of Chris 
 tianity, vast, varied, and of great cumulative power, 
 though it be, is not, however, irresistible. No man 
 is warranted to expect it to be so. Faith is a moral 
 act, and, while resting on a strong groundwork of 
 proof, it must have some difficulties over which to 
 triumph. Origen, speaking of the difficulties in the 
 Bible revelation, and of those in the revelation of na 
 ture, says, "In both we see a self-concealing, self-re 
 vealing God, who makes Himself known only to those 
 who earnestly seek Him; in both are found stimu 
 lants to faith, and occasions for unbelief." " There 
 is light enough," says Pascal, "for those who sincerely 
 wish to see ; and darkness enough for those of an op- 
 
342 GENERAL CAUSE. 
 
 posite description." Mr. Newman tells us, it "super 
 sedes the authoritative force of outward miracles en 
 tirely," to say that "a really overpowering miraculous 
 proof would have destroyed the moral character of 
 faith." This, however, is not argument, but a foolish 
 dogmatic assertion. The Christian miracles are of 
 " a convincing and stupendous character," and yet not 
 so overpowering as the axiom that a whole is greater 
 than its part ; and we lack sagacity to perceive where 
 lies the contradiction between these statements. Evi 
 dence is obligatory on man, not because it is over 
 powering or irresistible, but because it preponderates. 
 Indeed, on the former supposition, to talk of obliga 
 tion were an absurdity. The judge on the bench is 
 every day deciding important cases, not on the ground 
 that the evidence is absolutely perfect, but because, 
 notwithstanding objections, the proof on the one side 
 preponderates; and no reasonable man questions the 
 validity of his decisions. The external and internal 
 evidences of Christianity constitute a mass of proof 
 fully sufficient to justify our belief in its truths ; and, 
 as if aware of the force of it, our modern infidels at 
 tack one part of it, and represent us as if resting on 
 that, to the exclusion of the rest. Difficulties there 
 are, both in the record and in the outward evidence. 
 But what are these difficulties compared with the 
 greatly preponderating amount of clear heavenly 
 proof? The difficulties arise out of our ignorance. 
 Analogy warrants us to conclude that they are so only 
 relatively, not absolutely. And they are but as the 
 small dust in the balance compared with the thousand 
 
GENERAL CAUSE. 343 
 
 paradoxes which a man must be prepared to swallow 
 who denies that Christianity is an authoritative rev 
 elation from heaven. The infidel is reconciled to 
 these paradoxes on the alleged ground of objections 
 which appear as nothing compared to them. And 
 this furnishes a strong presumption that the will has 
 much to do with infidelity, whether it be named deism 
 or spiritualism. "Nor do we well know what multi 
 tudes, who neglect religion on account of the alleged 
 uncertainty of its evidence, could reply, if God were 
 to say to them, And yet on such evidence, and that far 
 inferior in degree, you have never hesitated to act, 
 when your own temporal interests were concerned. 
 You never feared to commit the bark of your wordly 
 fortunes to that fluctuating element. In many cases 
 you believed on the testimony of others what seemed 
 even to contradict your own senses. Why were you 
 so much more scrupulous in relation to ME ? : 
 
 The cause of unbelief among the Jews, for example, 
 in the days of the Saviour s flesh, could not be a 
 want of evidence, for that evidence was numerous, 
 varied, and brilliant. Many, in our day, affect 
 to despise the evidence from miracles, for no better 
 reason, we are persuaded, than that it is against 
 them. But the Great Teacher rested his claims on 
 the fact of his miracles. "If I do not the works of 
 my Father," said he, " believe me not. But if I do, 
 though ye believe not me, believe the works ; that ye 
 may know and believe that the Father is in me and I 
 
 1 Rogers Reason and Faith, p. 26. 
 
344 GENERAL CAUSE. 
 
 in him." Their fathers had beheld the mighty works 
 of the Lord in the wilderness, in the land of Ham, 
 and at the Red Sea ; but never did they witness such 
 a visible agency multiplying, in quick and varied suc 
 cession, its deeds of benevolent and miraculous power, 
 as was daily beheld by their children. They bowed 
 before the majesty of that evidence itself, they paid 
 to it a willing homage, they were fully persuaded that 
 Jesus was the Messiah, so long as the golden dream 
 of an earthly monarchy remained unbroken ; and, on 
 the strength of that evidence, would have proceeded 
 at once to make him their king. It was not till they 
 felt his doctrines thwarting their fondest wishes, not 
 till they perceived that his kingdom had no battle for 
 the warrior, and was unaccompanied with confused 
 noise and garments rolled in blood, not till they 
 perceived that his subjects were to be composed of 
 the pure, the meek, and the poor in spirit, that they 
 hid, as it were, their faces from him. It was, there 
 fore, a moral cause that produced Jewish unbelief, 
 a state of mind that, relatively to itself, weakens 
 evidence the most powerful, and darkens evidence 
 the most brilliant. His religion ran counter to their 
 moral tendencies, condemned their favorite pursuits, 
 and frowned on their grovelling expectations. And 
 in this originated that carping spirit in which they 
 ever after listened to his discourses, that deadly en 
 mity with which they incessantly pursued him, even 
 when performing among them works of unparalelled 
 grandeur and benevolence. It was because their 
 deeds were evil, that they hated his light. When he 
 
GENERAL CAUSE. 345 
 
 was in the world, the world hated him because he testi 
 fied of it that the works thereof are evil. 
 
 The same remarks are substantially applicable to 
 the hostility which has been shown to the pure 
 Gospel in every succeeding age. If, for convenience, 
 we divide infidelity into the speculative and the 
 practical, it will be found that both these forms, 
 however different may be the specific process by 
 which the mind in each case settles down in it, may 
 be traced to the same moral cause the repugnance 
 in human nature to what is purely spiritual and 
 divinely authoritative. Could we, for instance, have 
 looked into the hidden chambers of imagery, and 
 beheld the processes of thought and feeling in which 
 many talented infidels investigated the Scripture 
 testimony, our wonder would not have been that they 
 landed in unbelief. The religion of Jesus, when 
 summoned to the bar of their understanding, has 
 met with such treatment as an innocent man meets 
 with when he comes before a hostile jury. Rather, 
 we should say, they never suffer themselves to behold 
 Christianity in all its radiant glory, nor to mark its 
 lofty towers and stable bulwarks ; for, as they advance 
 on their way to the temple of truth, they are ever and 
 anon raising around them a thick cloud of dust and 
 darkness. In most cases, we doubt not, Christianity 
 and its evidences have never been examined by such 
 men at all. In .our times, it is fashionable, in many 
 quarters, to ignore the evidences altogether, to pass 
 them over with a proud sneer as things antiquated 
 and effete, and to judge the Gospel according to the 
 
346 GENERAL CAUSE. 
 
 conceptions of the individual mind. In other words, 
 the case is prejudged, before the witnesses are exam 
 ined, if examined at all. And in other cases, while an 
 inquiry into the evidences has been entered upon, it 
 has been with a lurking wish that the examination, after 
 all, might prove unfavorable. In such circumstances, 
 the wish biasses the judgment, and the inevitable result 
 is that the man can never believe to be true what he 
 wishes may be false. 
 
 Now this process, which ends in unbelief, has its 
 origin in the aversion of the mind to the high and 
 holy principles of the Gospel. There is a demand, 
 made in that Gospel, of every lofty imagination, and 
 every high thought, being brought into captivity 
 to Christ, which is repugnant to that reckless inde 
 pendence of mind in which such a sceptic glories. 
 To such a mind, Christianity is too humbling; its 
 meek, and lowly, and crucified Saviour appears mean 
 and uninteresting, and he easily turns from the 
 thought of him who has no form or comeliness to the 
 contemplation of some stormy hero of romance. Its 
 strict morality, exercising a minute inspection over 
 every movement of the inner man, and claiming to 
 be a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the 
 heart, is felt to be an uncomfortable restraint; like 
 an individual who follows us through every path and 
 winding which we take to avoid his presence. Above 
 all, its doctrine of the cross, staining, as it does, all 
 human glory, reducing the loftiest to a level with the 
 meanest in the sight of God, and making all heavenly 
 blessedness to depend on him who was crucified as a 
 
GENERAL CAUSE. 347 
 
 felon between two thieves, outrages that high sense 
 of merit which would exalt itself as the eagle and set 
 its nest among the stars. David Hume, somewhere 
 in his writings, acknowledges, as we have already 
 noticed, that his readings in the New Testament were 
 but scanty. And it is not difficult to conceive how 
 such a mind would sit down to the perusal of some 
 of the discourses of the Redeemer and the letters of 
 his apostles. Other infidels, of whom Rousseau is 
 an example, have paid an involuntary homage to the 
 character of the Saviour. They have admired him 
 going about, like the embodied spirit of benevolence, 
 continually doing good. But they have shrunk back 
 from the doctrine of the cross, and the uncompro 
 mising requirements of Christ s laws, just as a person 
 with a diseased eye instinctively retires into the shade 
 when the frail organ is about to be exposed to the 
 light of the sun. Mr. Emerson professes to reverence 
 Jesus Christ as belonging to the true race of prophets, 
 as u the only soul in history who has appreciated the 
 worth of a man ;" and yet he spurns the idea of re 
 ceiving religion and law from his lips, and of sub 
 ordinating his nature to the nature of Christ. Mr. 
 Parker does not conceal his hatred to " the Popular 
 Christianity," because it represents man as fallen 
 and depraved, and makes so much of the one mediator 
 between God and man. And when Mr. Newman tells 
 us that he was forced, against all his prepossessions, 
 to renounce everything distinctively Christian ; and 
 would have us to believe that the will, in his case, 
 durst u not dictate, whereto the inquiries of the un- 
 
348 GENERAL CAUSE. 
 
 derstanding should lead;" 1 we appeal to his u Phases," 
 for a refutation of such assertions. We have, in such 
 men, the pride without the greatness of the mighty 
 fallen Intellect in Milton, who said, 
 
 " In my choice, 
 
 To reign is worth ambition, though in hell : 
 Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven !" 
 
 Oh ! these intolerable evidences ! Better far be re 
 conciled to all the strange paradoxes implied in 
 disowning Christianity, than submit ourselves to 
 "church, book, person." 2 Such is the choice of men 
 who are laboring to undermine the historical verity 
 of the sacred writings ; and who, baptizing an enlight 
 ened attachment to them by the ill-sounding name 
 of Bibliolatry, would cut the link asunder, and leave 
 us to wander at will after the undefined and un 
 definable thing called absolute religion/ 
 
 It is, in like manner, with that cold insensibility 
 to divine truth, that practical form of infidelity which 
 frequently prevails among the multitude. There is 
 an unbelief common among many of the would*be 
 giants of the earth, and one that exists among the 
 lowly walks of other men. But as the object of their 
 contempt or disregard is the same, so are the specific 
 causes to be traced to the same great evil principle 
 an inveterate love of those practices and pursuits 
 which the light of divine truth reproves and condemns. 
 There are immense masses of our population who 
 perhaps never spent five minutes of their lives in 
 
 1 Phases of Faith, p. 219. 2 Parker s Discourse, p. 372. 
 
GENERAL CAUSE. 349 
 
 considering whether the Bible were a revelation from 
 God, or a cunningly-devised fable. The Bible, a a 
 book, may be found beneath their roof ; but its grand 
 truths have not been rightly apprehended and duly 
 felt, because the volume has seldom been opened, and, 
 when opened, not read with half the interest with 
 which they read some fairy tale. The light which 
 it affords shineth in the darkness, but the dark 
 ness admitteth it not. These individuals would per 
 haps count it impiety to wield the weapons of , the 
 sceptic against the Gospel, were they able for the 
 task, and would shrink with horror from the thought 
 of any way traducing the divine Saviour; and yet 
 they can pass from day to day as little elevated by all 
 that is magnificent and sublime, as little impressed 
 with all that is marvellous in condescension, as little 
 attracted by all that is beauteous in holiness, as if 
 God s Son, in whom meet pre-eminently all this gran 
 deur and loveliness, had never manifested himself to 
 the world. This is formalism, and, as a species of 
 unbelief, this is what the Gospel condemns. 
 
 The Bible comes to us as a message from the skies. 
 In it, God utters his voice loudly and intelligibly in 
 the ears of men. It is a message of mercy from the 
 throne of the Eternal to us the guilty and rebellious, 
 making known a divine Saviour, and offering, on the 
 ground of his atoning sacrifice, a free and a full salva 
 tion. In making such declarations, the Bible deals 
 with men as rational and accountable agents. It has 
 no blessings for those who are not deterred by its 
 threatenings, nor won by its promises. It presents 
 
350 GENERAL CAUSE. 
 
 to the mind saving truth, which, in order to prove 
 efficacious, must be believed ; and, in order to be 
 believed, must be carefully read and rightly under 
 stood. How, then, are we to account for the melan 
 choly fact, that men possessing the sacred volume, 
 and acknowledging it to be a revelation from God, 
 are little, if at all, influenced by the momentous 
 statements which it contains? That volume finds a 
 place in the house, but it has no home in the heart. 
 It is assented to as the law and the testimony, the 
 only infallible directory of faith and morals. But its 
 grand truths are seldom, if ever, made the object of 
 devout contemplation ; its precepts are seldom taken 
 as a light unto the feet and a lamp unto the path. 
 Whence originates this insensibility to all that is 
 majestic and merciful, this unwillingness to bring 
 the mind into contact with the purifying and elevat 
 ing truths of Christianity, but in a deceitful sus 
 picion that its grovelling earthly pursuits would be 
 disturbed, that its moral tendencies would be thwarted, 
 that the searching light of the Gospel would make 
 manifest its unholy thoughts and affections, just as 
 a ray of the sun, let through the chink of an old ruin, 
 reveals the unsightly guests that dwell within? It 
 were well if some of our literary men, and philosophic 
 religionists, who cry out against soulless creeds and 
 dogmatic Christianity, would lay the blame at the 
 right quarter, and not give a false value to human 
 nature, at the expense of depreciating historical truth. 
 He who u saw with open eye the mystery of the soul," 
 accounted for the rejection or feeble influence of his 
 
GENERAL CAUSE. 351 
 
 gospel, by saying, " men loved darkness rather than 
 light, because their deeds were evil." And all history 
 proves, what the Scripture affirms, that the natural 
 man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. 
 
 The river is traced up to its source. But, in order 
 to account fully for its rushing waters, we must 
 notice the tributary streams that it receives in its 
 passage. And, among the specific and subordinate 
 causes of infidelity, we are disposed to enumerate 
 Speculative Philosophy, Social Disaffection, the Cor 
 ruptions of Christianity, Religious Intolerance, and 
 the Disunion of the Church. These we shall briefly 
 notice. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Speculative Philosophy inevitable Indicates a thinking and re 
 flective age Influences the religion of an age Has ever been 
 tampering with Christian truth Gnosticism in the primitive 
 Church Allegorical method of interpretation Sacramental the 
 ory Platonism Scholasticism Connection between Modern 
 Speculative Philosophy and forms of Modern Infidelity The 
 Sensational Philosophy Deistical Writers Infuence of Sensa 
 tionalism on works of science and common literature The old 
 Unitarianism French Sensationalism : Condillac School of Vol 
 taire Protracted influences of Sensationalism The Ideal Philo 
 sophy : Germany The human mind made determinator of re 
 ligious truth Contempt for Evidences Seen in Strauss Influ 
 ence of Idealism in our own country Carlyle Emerson Parker 
 Newman Mackay Morell Importance of maintaining His 
 torical Christianity Harmony between a true Faith and a true 
 Philosophy. 
 
 THE rise of a speculative philosophy, in any age or 
 country where there are thinkers, seems inevitable. 
 It is the natural consequence of the mind s desire 
 to penetrate into the mysteries of existence, and to 
 know all things. Man himself is a mystery, the 
 world around him is a mystery, the great God above 
 him is a mystery, and the relations between each and 
 all of them are profoundly and impressively myste- 
 
SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 353 
 
 rious. And, while the great majority of men never 
 attempt to lift up the veil, but are content with the 
 knowledge that lies on the surface of things, there 
 are those who must endeavor to get beyond and 
 solve the problems of mysterious existence. Every 
 country that has emerged from barbarism, and at 
 tained to any degree of mental cultivation, is more 
 or less characterized by philosophical speculation. 
 This, in itself, is not to be regarded as an evil. It 
 indicates a thinking and reflecting age, and marks 
 the advancement of a community in mental culture. 
 The evil is, when it spurns the investigation of pal 
 pable facts and indubitable evidence, treats as empirical 
 the honest method of induction, and incautiously 
 passes the bounds of all fair and legitimate inquiry. 
 Then it becomes intolerant of the world of realities, 
 is vainly puffed up, and, intruding into those things 
 which are not seen, would, instead of proving a hand 
 maid to true religion, assume the air of an imperious 
 mistress, and decide its shape, dress, and laws. To 
 this charge, the greater number of the systems of 
 philosophy that have emanated from the schools must 
 plead guilty. 
 
 It is very obvious that the philosophy of an age 
 must maiurially iuHueiice uie religion of that age. 
 The great subjects with which speculative philosophy 
 is conversant, are those which lie within the domain 
 of natural and revealed truth. It cannot touch upon 
 the finite and the infinite, upon man, the universe, 
 and God, without coming into contact with some of 
 the great essential principles of religion. Its specu- 
 
 23 
 
354 SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 lations upon man affect his position as a fallen being, 
 the subject of moral government, and an heir of im 
 mortality. Its speculations upon the universe bear 
 upon the evidence of creative power, and providential 
 control, and the existence of good and evil. And its 
 speculations upon God, the Absolute, as philosophy 
 terms Him, bear upon his personality, independent 
 existence and agency, and the relations in which He 
 stands to the material universe and the human race. 
 Yiews on these great subjects, at particular periods, 
 notwithstanding the clear and definite statements 
 regarding them in the sacred volume, have been very 
 much moulded by the reigning intellectual philosophy. 
 And that divine record itself, so firmly established in 
 history, and speaking in the tone of heaven s au 
 thority, has been made to give forth its utterances 
 according as philosophy dictated and allowed. The 
 servant, usurping the place of the master has, as 
 commonly happens, stripped the master of every 
 vestige of authority, put words into his mouth, or 
 given the interpretation, and that not unfrequently 
 a false one, of all that he said. 
 
 The history of every age, from the beginning of the 
 Gospel until now, too clearly shows that a speculative 
 philosophy has ever been tampering with u the law 
 and the testimony," corrupting the simplicity, and 
 weakening the power, of Christian truth ; and been a 
 subordinate cause in producing, or aiding, the irre- 
 ligion and scepticism of cultivated minds. The 
 Pauline epistles testify, that, before the apostles had 
 left the world, philosophy, in some of its forms, was 
 
SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 355 
 
 seeking to exert an evil influence on the church ; so 
 that Paul needed to protest against its intrusion, and 
 warn the disciples of its spirit. Christianity, in the 
 primitive age, had obtained a footing in many of those 
 cities where, on account of their proximity to Greece, 
 the Oriental and Grecian philosophies prevailed. 
 These philosophies were rife with bold and unhal 
 lowed speculations respecting such things as the mode 
 of the Divine existence, and the nature of the Divine 
 agency. The sublime mysteries of the Gospel were 
 just such subjects into which they wished to intrude. 
 And, from a vain philosophy vain, because tran 
 scending the boundaries of fair and legitimate inquiry, 
 the simplicity of the faith had no less to dread 
 than from the misapprehensions and corruptions of 
 Judaism. Gnosticism did in the church, in primi 
 tive times, what rationalism has been doing in 
 modern times. "In all cases," says Neander, "the 
 gnostics were for explaining outward things from 
 within that is, from their intuitions, " which were 
 above all doubt." 1 Gnosticism was the philosophic 
 garb in which infidelity, with great professions of 
 reverence, laid its hands on the Gospels, reduced 
 to its own standard the revealed mysteries, and dis 
 turbed the peace and purity of the early church, 
 This philosophy was a fruitful source of scepticism 
 and irreligion, and from it seems, in a great measure, 
 to have emanated those deadly errors respecting the 
 person and work of Christ which disfigured and tore 
 in pieces the fair form of primitive Christianity. 
 
 1 Church History, vol. ii. ; p. 71. (Clarke s edition.) 
 
356 SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 The corruptions of Christianity pave the way for 
 the denial of Christianity itself And it has often 
 been remarked, that there is scarcely a corruption of 
 religious truth which might not be shown to have 
 existed during the first three centuries of the Chris 
 tian age. These corruptions are, in a great measure, 
 to be traced to the prevailing speculative philosophies, 
 abetting and being abetted by the depraved tendency 
 in man to mutilate, or add to, deform and weaken, 
 the revelations of heaven. It is to a philosophical 
 influence, for the most part, that we ascribe those 
 unsound methods of interpretation, which, in the 
 shape of allegory and mysticism, were carried so far 
 by Origen and others, and which found hidden mean 
 ings in statements that were perfectly plain, and saw 
 nothing incomprehensible in doctrines the most 
 mysterious. The Alexandrian school of divinity, 
 headed by Origen, became famous for its union of a 
 spurious philosophy with Christianity. Some of the 
 Christian fathers employed the same allegorical method 
 in interpreting the inspired record, that the Pagan 
 Platonists employed in commenting on the popular 
 mythology and the Iliad of Homer. And this tended, 
 very much, to change Christianity from the pure state 
 in which it had been given to the world by the Lord 
 and his apostles. 
 
 It is to a philosophical influence, in a great degree, 
 also, that must be traced the sacramental theory 
 Baptismal regeneration does not date its birth in 
 modern times. It was held by many of the primitive 
 fathers. We find it, where we find almost all the 
 
SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 357 
 
 corruptions of Christianity, in the first three centuries ; 
 and as the fruit of a vain philosophy tampering with 
 the spirituality and simplicity of the church. It was 
 common to impute a mystic efficacy to the use of 
 certain terms, such as the repetition of the name of 
 Jesus, and to the practice of certain forms. This 
 flowed from the philosophical notions about matter. 
 Matter was alleged to have certain evil tendencies, 
 while, co-existent with these, were some inherent 
 powers which, being controlled by the divine will, 
 counteracted the evil. This control was believed to 
 be associated with the utterance of certain words and 
 the performance of certain rites. Hence the mystical 
 and superstitious efficacy of the sacraments. 1 But 
 for the physical philosophy of the schools, and the 
 general belief in magic in the early ages of the church, 
 it may be questioned if the sacramental theory would 
 have met with such a ready reception. These invested 
 the ministers of religion with tremendous spiritual 
 power, made them, by virtue of their office, dispensers 
 of the grace of God, and originated that system of 
 sacramental efficiency which, overshadowing the pure 
 gospel, has corrupted God s religion into man s relig 
 ion, and, in thousands of cases, has induced thinking 
 men to reject both. 
 
 Plato and Aristotle were the chiefs of the ancient 
 schools. In them may be said to have centered all 
 the speculative philosophy of Greece. And the in 
 fluence of the one in the Eastern churches, for several 
 centuries subsequent to the apostles, was manifested 
 
 1 See Vaughan s Corruptions of Christianity, p. 293, &c. 
 
358 SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 in debasing and changing the very substance of re 
 vealed truth ; while the influence of the other in the 
 West, during the middle ages, was exerted in defend 
 ing and strengthening the corruptions. It is not a 
 question with us, what use these philosophies were in 
 whetting the human intellect, or how far they proved 
 to be "the best gymnastic of the mind," but what 
 bearings had they upon that truth which, coming from 
 above, is the divinest and truest philosophy. And 
 history warrants the assertion that they spoiled it, 
 corrupted its purity, innovated into its very essence, 
 and were fruitful sources of formalism and infidelity. 
 
 It has been well remarked, by Dr. Hampden, that 
 of the two philosophies, in their bearing on religious 
 opinion, "Platonism has been more arrogant in its 
 pretensions : it has aspired, not to modify, but to 
 supersede Christian truth. Christianity had to strug 
 gle in its infancy against the theology of the school of 
 Alexandria, which regarded the Christian system as 
 an intrusion on the philosophical ascendancy which 
 it had hitherto enjoyed. The New-Platonists dis 
 puted the originality of the Christian doctrine, assert 
 ing that the sayings of our Lord were all derived from 
 the doctrines of their master. 1 Nor was the mischief 
 from the Alexandrian school neutralized, when, its 
 open hostility being found ineffectual, disciples of 
 that school merged themselves into the Christian 
 name. The accommodation which then took place 
 between the theories of their philosophy and the doc- 
 
 J Infidelity performs a cycle. Mr. Emerson says a thing easier 
 said than proved " Christianity is in Plato s Phaedo." 
 
SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 359 
 
 trines of the faith, proved a snare to members of the 
 church. Hence, upon the whole, resulted, even in the 
 beginnings of the Gospel, an ambiguity respecting the 
 peculiar rights of the antagonist systems. And this, 
 ambiguity affected the question of the self-originated 
 divine character of the Christian truth." 1 
 
 It deserves notice that Neander represents Platon- 
 ism as having had a double influence in relation to 
 Christianity. He, speaking from his own experience, 
 regards it as having been, in many cases, a transition 
 point to the Gospel. But the question is, what was 
 its influence when carried into Christianity itself? 
 The illustrious church historian himself shall answer : 
 u the New Platonism could not bring itself to acquiesce, 
 particularly, in that humility of knowledge, and that 
 renunciation of self, which Christianity required. It 
 could not be induced to sacrifice its philosophical, 
 aristocratic notions, to a religion which would make 
 the higher life a common possession for all mankind. 
 The religious eclecticism of this direction of the spirit 
 could do no otherwise than resist the exclusive and 
 sole supremacy of the religion that suffered no other at 
 its side, but would subject all to itself." 2 Accordingly, 
 as he shows, it was from this school that the most nu 
 merous as well as the most formidable antagonists of 
 Christianity proceeded. 
 
 While the Platonism of Alexandria was thus gain 
 ing an ascendancy in the early church, recommending 
 itself to the imagination of the contemplative as the 
 
 1 Hampden s Bampton Lecture, p. 10. 
 
 3 Neander s Church History, vol. i., pp. 46, 218. (Clarke s edition.) 
 
360 SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 revealer of mysteries, and thus transmuting the pure 
 gold of Christianity into an impure mixture ; the 
 philosophy of Aristotle was, for the most part, re 
 garded with aversion, as the armor-bearer of heretics 
 and of the assailants of the faith. But, during the 
 middle ages, the Scholastic Philosophy had its throne 
 in the very heart of the Christian church; and its 
 supremacy is still visible in the Romish system the 
 most corrupt form of Christianity that has been given 
 to the world. From the seventh century, and onward, 
 the philosophy of the Stagyrite began to be exclusively 
 studied ; and was resorted to for weapons, not so much 
 in defence of scriptural truth, as for the purpose of 
 strengthening and perpetuating the corruptions and 
 superstitions with which the church was overrun. 
 u The question of the influence of Aristotle s philos 
 ophy is more important on this very account, that it 
 has been more subtile, more silently insinuated into, and 
 spread over, the whole system of Christian doctrines. 
 Being employed as an instrument of disputation, it has 
 not been confined, like Platonism, to certain leading 
 points of Christianity, as, for instance, to the doctrines 
 of the Trinity and the immortality of the soul, but has 
 been applied to the systematic development of the 
 sacred truth in all its parts." 
 
 "It is the metaphysics of the school which form 
 the texture of the Roman theology, and by which that 
 system is maintained. In the destitution of Scripture- 
 facts for the support of the theological structure, 
 the method of subtile distinctions and reasonings has 
 been found of admirable efficacy. It eludes the op- 
 
SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 361 
 
 ponent, who, not being trained to this dialectical war 
 fare, is not aware, that all such argumentation is a 
 tacit assumption of the point in controversy; or is 
 perplexed and confounded by the elaborate subtleties 
 of the apologist. . . . The resistance, which the 
 Roman church has shown against improvements in 
 Natural Philosophy, is no inconsiderable evidence of 
 the connection of the ecclesiastical system with the 
 ancient logical philosophy of the schools. There has 
 been a constant fear, lest, if that philosophy should 
 be exploded, some important doctrines could not be 
 maintained." 1 
 
 This contentious philosophy, existing in the bosom 
 of the church for many centuries, " clothed in the 
 purple of spiritual supremacy, and giving the law of 
 faith to the subject-consciences of men," was a 
 fruitful source of scepticism and infidelity. Not a 
 few distinguished names, including scholars of emi 
 nence and several of the popes, have been mentioned 
 as instances in which doubt and disputation, taking 
 the place of the love of truth, engendered a cold or 
 profligate disbelief. Mr. Hallam, speaking of the un 
 bounded admiration which the schoolmen had for 
 the writings of Aristotle, says: "With all their ap 
 parent conformity to the received creed, there was, as 
 might be expected from the circumstances, a great 
 deal of real deviation from orthodoxy, and even of 
 infidelity. The scholastic mode of dispute, admitting 
 of no termination, and producing no conviction, was 
 the sure cause of scepticism ; and the system of 
 1 Hampden s Bampton Lectures, pp. 12, 385. 
 
362 SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Aristotle, especially with the commentaries of Averroes, 
 bore an aspect very unfavorable to natural religion. 
 The Aristotelian philosophy, even in the hands of 
 the master, was like a barren tree, that conceals its 
 want of fruit by profusion of leaves. But the scho 
 lastic ontology was much worse." 1 Men, in order to 
 display their ingenuity, involved in perplexity the most 
 important truths, fostered a spirit the very reverse 
 of that with which it becomes us to approach the 
 Sacred Oracles, made the worse not unfrequently 
 appear the better reason, and, in some instances, went 
 so far as to take up the false and destructive position, 
 that opinions which were philosophically true might 
 be theologically false. What Milton says of the fallen 
 angels and their speculations, is strikingly descriptive 
 of the schoolmen and the dialectical abuses in which 
 they passionately indulged : 
 
 " They found no end, in wandering mazes lost. 
 
 ******* 
 
 Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy." 
 
 And just because the philosophy was false, and the 
 wisdom vain, the Christian faith encountered it in a 
 dangerous enemy under the disguise of a professed 
 friend. 
 
 It is, however, of the connection subsisting between 
 the modern speculative philosophy and the forms of 
 modern infidelity, that we wish more especially to 
 speak. Two philosophies, distinguished from each 
 other by very broad characteristics, though, in so far 
 
 1 Hallam s Europe during the Middle Ages, vol. iii., p. 536. 
 
SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 363 
 
 as religion is concerned, often tending substantially to 
 the same result, have played very prominent parts in 
 modern times. We allude to what have been aptly 
 designated sensationalism and idealism. The influence 
 of these philosophies, when pushed to their extremes, 
 has been productive of a vast amount of the infidelity 
 which, during the last and the present century, has pre 
 vailed in the departments of scriptural exegesis, litera 
 ture, and science. 
 
 The sensational philosophy has had a wide-spread 
 influence, in many quarters, in destroying the very fun 
 damental principles of natural and revealed religion.- 
 It was in fact, at one period, the creed of nearly the 
 whole of philosophical Europe. Hobbes is the precur 
 sor of modern sensationalism. He, by resolving every 
 operation of the mind into transformed sensations, 
 based his theory upon avowed materialism, struck at 
 the root of all religion, precluded us from having any 
 real conception of a Supreme Being, and shut us out 
 from all other existences but matter and a material 
 world. His Psychology is expressed in the maxim: 
 nihil est intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu. 
 Nothing, according to him, is in the intellect, but 
 what was previously in the sense. It is chiefly owing, 
 however, to the circumstance of his name having 
 become so much associated with that of Locke, that 
 the philosopher of Malmesbury has exerted such an 
 influence in the spread of sensationalism. The sys 
 tem, of the " Leviathan," and that of the u Essay on 
 the Human Understanding," have beeir~cofounded. 
 And a corruption, or an exaggerated development % of 
 
364 SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Locke s principles, has been imputed to him as if he 
 were its veritable author. But the difference between 
 them is fundamental. The sensationalism of Locke 
 has no necessary tendency to materialism, whereas 
 materialism is not only the landing-place, but the 
 foundation of the theory of Hobbes. "They differ," 
 says Sir James Mackintosh, "not only in all their 
 premises, and many of their conclusions, but in their 
 manner of philosophizing itself. Locke had no preju 
 dice which could lead him to imbibe doctrines from 
 the enemy of liberty and of religion." The province 
 which Locke assigns to reflection, and his maintain 
 ing that the senses do not furnish the intellect with 
 the whole of its ideas, clear him of the charge of a 
 tendency to materialism. How, then, has his name 
 become allied with the pernicious dogmas of the 
 materialist school that flourished in the eighteenth 
 century ; and how comes M. Cousin to say, that 
 " since the metaphysic of Locke crossed the channel, 
 on the light and brilliant wings of Voltaire s imagina 
 tion, sensualism has reigned in France without con 
 tradiction, and with an authority of which there is no 
 parallel in the whole history of philosophy?" The 
 explanation is to be found in what Sir W. Hamilton 
 calls "the too partial principles" of Locke, which the 
 French school, represented by Condillac and Cabanis, 
 much exaggerated. The sensuous origin of our 
 knowledge, though not to the exclusion of reflection, 
 has a very prominent place assigned to it in the 
 "Essay on the Human Understanding;" and it is 
 this part of his system that the sensational school 
 
SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 365 
 
 has drawn out, and founded thereon a scheme of 
 materialism destructive of all the principles of morality 
 and religion. 
 
 It has been said, " that Locke distinctly enough 
 foresaw the idealistic and sceptical arguments which 
 might be drawn from his principles. He did not 
 draw them, because he thought them frivolous." But 
 others did. In our own country Berkeley derived 
 from them his arguments against the existence of 
 matter and a material world ; and David Hume, tak 
 ing a bold step in advance, involved both mind and 
 matter in doubt and darkness. Berkeley laid hold 
 on Locke s principle, that our knowledge of external 
 things is not immediate but through the interven 
 tion of ideas, and maintained that matter is not 
 a reality but an inference ; that " all the choir of 
 heaven and furniture of earth all those bodies which 
 compose the mighty frame of the world have not any 
 subsistence without a mind." Hume, too acute not 
 to see the inference, and too sceptical not to draw it, 
 showed that the existence of mind as well as matter 
 was a mere inference, and that nothing real was left 
 us but a succession of impressions and ideas. These 
 speculations were, in the last degree, adverse to the 
 interests of religion. 
 
 Philosophical scepticism, within certain limits, does 
 not necessarily imply religious scepticism. But in 
 the case of Hume it was universal involving in 
 inextricable doubt and confusion the whole region of 
 morals and religion. And its effect on multitudes 
 who had neither the inclination, nor ability, to follow 
 
366 SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 the philosopher through all his subtle windings, was 
 seen in a contemptuous disregard of everything lying 
 beyond the senses as wrapped up in the most per 
 plexing doubt and mystery. It is indisputable that 
 the stupid deistical school of writers which flourished 
 during the last century, a school into which Locke 
 never would have entered, fortified themselves with 
 many of the conclusions that were drawn from exag 
 gerating the somewhat partial principles of his philos 
 ophy. It was on these conclusions that they en 
 deavored to ground their doctrines of invincible 
 necessity, and stern materialism, thereby tending to 
 confound moral distinctions, and to make God and 
 nature synonymous. And it is just as indisputable that 
 through them descended to the educated classes in 
 general, the disposition to look with indifference on 
 everything supernatural, so fearfully characteristic of 
 the period referred to. The Israelites heard con 
 flicting accounts of the land of Canaan, and being 
 disposed to believe the evil report which suited their 
 indolence and carnality, they said, u Let us make a 
 captain, and let us return into Egypt." And mul 
 titudes who are more prone to cleave to earth than 
 rise to heaven, seeing in the progress of philosophic 
 speculation the tendency to materialize everything, or 
 to wrap in perplexity the supersensual, are disposed 
 to leave religion to priests, and virtually say, u Let 
 us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." 
 
 In many of our works of science, and in much 
 of our common literature, the evil influence of 
 an extreme sensationalism has been manifested. 
 
SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 367 
 
 Secondary causes are rested in, while an intelligent 
 First Cause is seldom or never adverted to. Provi 
 dence is either denied, thrust away into a general 
 superintendence, or habitually passed over as a 
 worn-out fiction. And nature is brought in to 
 control and account for everything, as if, indepen 
 dent of nature, there were no God. Priestley has 
 been instanced as an example of the influence of a 
 sensational philosophy on religious opinions. He 
 was an avowed materialist ; and, though he did not 
 carry his materialism so far as to overturn the prin 
 ciples of natural religion, his theology was unstable 
 as water, having little or nothing in it peculiarly 
 Christian, and being powerless for the promotion of 
 spiritual life. This influence has been felt, and 
 acknowledged, on the Unitarianism which, since his 
 time, has existed on both sides of the Atlantic ; for it 
 is undeniable that it has been losing whatever spirit 
 uality it possessed, and been gravitating more and 
 more towards simple Deism. There exist an " Old 
 School" and a u New School," as they are called ; and 
 while the latter is, in a great measure, the effect of 
 German idealism, the former represents the influence 
 of the old sensationalism. "It is connected," says 
 Mr. Theodore Parker, "with a philosophy poor and 
 sensual, the same in its basis with that which gave 
 birth to the selfish system of Paley, the scepticism of 
 Hume, the materialism of Hobbes, the denial of the 
 French deists." 1 This, though the testimony of one 
 who has passed over to the u School of Progress," is 
 1 Parker s Discourse, p. 355. 
 
368 SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 true. In short, the influence of a developed sensational 
 philosophy, when brought to bear on religion, has ever 
 been to denude it of its mysteries, quench its spirit, 
 reduce it to a system of material formalism, if not to 
 deny it both in substance and name. Mr. Morell thus 
 briefly marks the progressive stages : " The first effect 
 is to weaken our perception of the Divine personality ; 
 this, in the second place, makes itself apparent by 
 overturning the doctrine of a particular providence ; 
 next, in order to remove the Divine working further 
 away from the world, secondary causes are adduced to 
 explain, not only all the phenomena of nature, but 
 also the direction of human life ; and then, lastly, the 
 process advancing one step further, it begins to be 
 an object of speculation and of doubt whether there 
 be a distinct personality in the Deity or not ; until, 
 at length, the conception of God is entirely blended 
 with that of the order and unity of nature." 1 
 
 It is to the Continent, however, and especially to 
 France, that we must look for the full and broad 
 effects of an extreme sensational philosophy. Con- 
 dillac was the great apostle of the sensual philosophy 
 of the Continent. He flourished about the same 
 time as Hume, but his influence was much greater. 
 A professed disciple of Locke, whose essay on the 
 " Human Understanding " was warmly received in 
 France, he, in the course of his speculations, de 
 parted widely from him. The English philosopher, 
 while laying great stress on the sensuous origin of 
 our knowledge, recognized two sources sense and 
 1 Morell s History of Philosophy, vol. ii., p. 584. 
 
SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 369 
 
 reflection. The French metaphysician obliterated the 
 distinction, and resolved reflection and all our mental 
 processes into sensation. As a philosophy of sensa 
 tionalism, that of Condillac was complete ; and it 
 would have roused the indignation of the illustrious 
 Englishman, could he have heard his name associated 
 with it, as has often been done on the Continent. " In 
 truth," as Mr. Lewes remarks, " when you see Locke s 
 name mentioned by the French writers of the eigh 
 teenth century, you may generally read Hobbes ; for 
 they had retrograded to Hobbes, imagining they had 
 developed Locke." 1 The results which followed, in 
 reference to religion, were fearful. The amiable 
 philosopher, spending his time noiselessly in his 
 study, was sending forth speculations, involving 
 germs which afterwards ripened into absolute atheism 
 and social convulsions. A host of popular writers 
 arose who, pushing his philosophy to the utmost 
 extreme, founded upon it an ethical system of the 
 most undisguised selfishness, and which substituted 
 physical, educational, and political improvement, for 
 the duties and sanctions of religion. France, at this 
 period, was renowned for her brilliant writers, her 
 literary society, and men of scientific research. But 
 within these circles, everything spiritual was paralyzed 
 under the reigning influence of sensationalism; and 
 an infidelity, sensual, flippant, and daringly impious, 
 ran riot and prevailed. Scientific research was sternly 
 restricted to the material objects and mechanical 
 forces of nature ; and, if the philosopher looked 
 
 1 Lewes Biographical History of Philosophy, vol. iv., p. 59. 
 24 
 
370 SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 beyond these, it was up to a vacant heaven in which, 
 he complacently said, there is no God. The moralist 
 viewed man as a being wholly material, all whose 
 mental powers and processes were but manifested 
 sensations, whose moral law was self-interest, and to 
 whom the doctrines of responsibilty, a future life, and 
 a living Personal God, were the dreams, pleasing or 
 perplexing, of an unphilosophic age. The school of 
 Yoltaire, which completed its cycle of impieties by 
 ridding men s minds of the idea of God, uttering as 
 its watch-word, in reference to the Saviour of the 
 world, " Crush the wretch ;" proclaiming death to be 
 an eternal sleep, and the present scene the whole of 
 man, was just an embodiment of the irreligious in 
 fluences of the reigning philosophy. Diderot and 
 others of the Encyclopaedists were pupils and ad 
 mirers of Condillac. And the famous atheistical 
 book, " Systeme de la Nature," a work of which Lord 
 Brougham says, " that words skilfully substituted for 
 ideas, and assumptions for proofs, are made to pass 
 current, not only for arguments against existing 
 beliefs, but for a new system planted in their stead," 
 was the matured fruit of the French sensational 
 philosophy. And what was the influence of that 
 philosophy on the people at large? They might 
 never have sat at the feet of Condillac, or of any of 
 the chiefs of the metaphysical schools, but, as has 
 been remarked, u they had no difficulty in laying hold 
 of what we may term the formulas of that philosophy 
 formulas which came before them in very intelligible 
 
 1 Brougham s Introductory Discourse, p. 172. 
 
SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 371 
 
 propositions, declarative of complete materialism, 
 together with an implied denial both of the doctrine 
 of man s immortality, and the existence of a God." 1 
 The inmost spirit of that philosophy was atheistical, 
 and it was expressed in that bold course of anarchy 
 and impiety which has been too well designated the 
 reign of terror. 
 
 The extreme scepticism of Hume, and the old 
 French atheistical philosophy, may receive little or no 
 countenance in this age of reviving earnestness, but 
 we have inherited something of their spirit. Reid 
 in Scotland, and Kant on the Continent, may have 
 been instrumental in rolling back the tide, but the 
 destructive effects of it are yet visible on the land. 
 That positive hostility to a pure spiritual religion, or 
 that contemptuous disregard of it, so wofully charac 
 teristic of some modern works of science ; that strict 
 care to guard metaphysical speculations and physical 
 researches from the idea of a superintending provi 
 dence ; that exclusive attention to mere secondary 
 causes, to the extrusion of the great First Cause ; that 
 cold formal air of respect shown by much of our 
 literature to religious truth, and the manifest tendency 
 to look with indifference on all religions as very much 
 alike ; the materialism, indifferentism, and formalism 
 of the age, are the protracted influences of a waning 
 sensationalism acting on the minds of men that are 
 prone to live without God in the world. 
 
 The influence of an extreme Ideal Philosophy, in 
 
 1 Morell s History of Philosophy, vol. i. 3 p. 22. 
 
372 SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 producing religious scepticism, has been not less pow 
 erful than an extreme sensationalism. The former 
 having a tendency to run into pantheism, as the latter 
 to run into materialism and atheism. We look to 
 France, at the end of last century, for the full develop 
 ment of the one ; and to Germany in more recent times, 
 for the full development of the other. The speculative 
 philosophy of Germany differs widely from that of 
 otTr own country ; and, as the mind of a nation is very 
 much reflected in its philosophy, this difference arises 
 out of the different mental habitudes of the two 
 peoples. The English mind is eminently practical, 
 and deals with palpable facts; it respects moral 
 evidence, experience, and testimony; and from these 
 makes its way to the higher regions of abstract truth. 
 Hence the clear common sense of our philosophy, 
 and the absence of a vague transcendentalism in our 
 theology. The German mind, on the other hand, is 
 imaginative and fond of speculation, intolerant of the 
 evidence of palpable realities, and, from abstract 
 conception, argues its way to a system of science. 
 Hence the extreme idealism of its philosophy, and 
 the vague subtle speculations which, with much that 
 is precious, float in its theology. Our philosophy 
 aims chiefly at analyzing the powers and faculties of 
 the human mind, and thus reaches man s moral and 
 intellectual nature; and there finds, as in the phe 
 nomena of the material universe, evidences of the 
 existence, providence, and character of God. The 
 German philosophy, on the contrary, busies itself 
 with those great problems of existence which were 
 
SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 373 
 
 discussed again and again in the ancient schools, and 
 attempts to solve the questions relating to the being 
 and nature of God, the universe, and the moral agency 
 of man. Philosophy, in our country, is not such an 
 engrossing and exclusive object of pursuit, and con 
 sequently does not exert such an influence on our 
 religious beliefs. There might be a false philosophy 
 in our colleges, and yet a true theology might retain 
 a strong hold on the hearts of our people. But, in 
 Germany, philosophy occupies a large place, and 
 sways powerfully the minds of the learned, and so 
 close in hand does it go with theology that the two 
 have almost become identified. The idealism which 
 characterizes its metaphysical disquisitions, charac 
 terizes also its religious speculations. 
 
 The German Ideal Philosophy dates from the 
 time of Leibnitz. He was an opponent of Locke, and 
 an independent, not a slavish disciple of Descartes. 
 "The comprehensive and original genius of Leibnitz," 
 remarks Sir. W. Hamilton, "itself the ideal abstract 
 of the Teutonic character, had reacted powerfully on 
 the minds of his countrymen ; and Rationalism, (more 
 properly Intelledualism,) has, from his time, always 
 remained the favorite philosophy of the Germans. 
 On the principle of this doctrine, it is in Reason 
 alone that truth and reality are to be found." 1 Leibnitz 
 placed himself in antagonism to Locke, by main 
 taining the Platonic dogma that the soul originally 
 contains the principles of several notions and doctrines 
 which experience affords only the occasions of awak- 
 
 1 Discussions on Philosophy and Literature, p. 4. 
 
374 SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 ening. And it is in this view of the mind possessing 
 innate ideas, independent of experience, and by its 
 necessary laws arriving at necessary truths, that we 
 have the germs, of that philosophical rationalism which, 
 when fully developed, bore such bitter fruits in the 
 ology; just as in the sensationalist principle of 
 founding all our knowledge on experience, we have 
 the seed that ripened into the complete scepticism of 
 Hume, and furnished food to the atheistical school of 
 France. The one, attaching an exclusive importance 
 to everything within man, led the way to the finding 
 of all knowledge and life in the depth of the mind ; 
 as the other, attaching itself to what lay without, was 
 the occasion of sinking the spiritual in the material. 
 The philosophic thoughts of Leibnitz floated loosely 
 and beautifully on the stream; Wolf, one of his 
 professed disciples, gathered them up and formed 
 them into a rigid system. With him may be said to 
 have begun the modern method of carrying philosophy 
 into the domain of religion, of applying methods of 
 proof to the Christian doctrines which are applicable 
 only to objects of human science, and of arraigning, 
 before a stern logic, divine revelations and historical 
 testimony. In the wake of this school of philosophy, 
 arose the great chief, Immanuel Kant, who greatly 
 modified it. He was a man of strong subjective ten 
 dencies. It is a primary principle of his philosophy 
 that the element of our knowledge coming from 
 without, is merely phenomenal, having no reality or 
 shape till it is subjected to the laws of the under 
 standing. The metaphysicians of this school, says Dr. 
 
SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 375 
 
 Chalmers, will tell us " that no evidence for a God is 
 to be found in the experimental argument afforded 
 by external and visible nature, not at least till the 
 glorious spectacle of nature, teeming to common eyes 
 with all the indices of design and order, shall somehow 
 have been transformed and sublimated into their own 
 speculations." Kant led his followers to a dizzy 
 height far up in the regions of air, but there they did 
 not stop. The climax was reached by Hegel, in whom 
 idealism has become absolute, and from him have 
 been obtained those weapons which, in the depart 
 ment of theology, have been wielded on the side of a 
 complete rationalism. 
 
 Now, one thing is especially observable, amid all 
 the bewildering and shifting speculations of the mod 
 ern German School, namely, that the human mind 
 is made the determinator of religious truth, and that 
 no weight is given to the external facts and evidences 
 of revelation except in so far as they harmonize with 
 the inward sentiments and conceptions. The religious 
 creed of our idealists is not historical, a matter derived 
 from the past, a light coming from without ; but it is 
 metaphysical and personal, wrought out of the human 
 consciousness, and altogether independent of outward 
 testimony. It is a peculiarity of the extreme tran 
 scendental philosophy, to begin with the general and 
 abstract notion of being ; and, by a dialectic process 
 to construct a universe, a God, and a religion. Ac 
 cordingly, the transcendentalist treats alike contemp 
 tuously our writers on the evidences of natural and 
 revealed religion, and our experimental philosophers 
 
376 SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 a Bacon, a Newton, and a Herschell. The whole 
 objective element of Christianity, as a religion of 
 historical facts, has no place in Hegelianism. Its 
 place is usurped by the a priori conceptions of the 
 human mind. Hegel, as we have seen, has a Christ- 
 ology, but it is the creation of his own philosophy. 
 He deduces, by a process of logical argumentation, a 
 God and the essential doctrines of evangelism ; but, 
 with him, God has no personality, except in the 
 human consciousness ; and the evangelic doctrines 
 are not historical, inspired facts, but are included in 
 the sweep of a philosophical rationalism. 
 
 The matured influence of this philosophy, in the 
 department of theology, is seen in the writings of 
 Strauss. He is an avowed representative of the ex 
 treme Hegelian party, and the Leben Jesu is the fruit 
 of absolute idealism. His attack on the genuineness 
 of the Gospels, his denial of an historical truth to the 
 New Testament, and his attempt to resolve all its 
 wondrous and well-authenticated facts into mytho 
 logical representations of great spiritual ideas, have 
 proceeded from his philosophical principles. The 
 fundamental idea of the school is, that religious truth 
 is the development of men s thoughts and intuitions, 
 and not a revelation from without, having a firm foot 
 ing in well-attested history. Accordingly, the doc 
 trines of the fall, the trinity, the incarnation, and the 
 atonement are held not to be historically true, but to 
 have been framed by a developing process of the mind. 
 The Christ of the Gospels, Strauss declares, is not an 
 individual, but an idea. It is in vain that you point 
 
SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 377 
 
 such a man to that vast and clear amount of evidence 
 for Christianity as a religion of facts and a revelation 
 from Heaven, derived from unquestionable historic 
 testimony, from a keen searching criticism, from a 
 wide experience, and from the character of Christ, a 
 character unrivalled in the annals of the world for the 
 perfect harmony of its intellectual and moral elements. 
 He tells you, that the question with him and his 
 school, is one, not of biblical interpretation or historic 
 al testimony, but of philosophical possibility. " First 
 principles," he says, "must be settled on philosophical 
 and dogmatic grounds, before the interpretation of the 
 Scriptures can take effect." 1 A first principle, with 
 him, is, the impossibility of miracles ; and that arises 
 naturally out of his philosophical creed. His philoso 
 phy allows not the interposal of a living personal God 
 in the government of the world, or in effecting the 
 redemption of men. The chain of endless causation, it 
 says, can never be broken. All things, both in the 
 physical and moral worlds, fall under the same law of 
 necessary development; and, in harmony with this 
 principle, Christianity must be explained. 
 
 Isaac Taylor has somewhere said, that every parti 
 cle of the German infidelity disappears when once it 
 is proved that Jesus rose from the dead. But the 
 idealist, intrenched behind his speculative philosophy, 
 is proof against this evidence. He does, what the 
 French infidels did in another way, supersedes the 
 question of historical testimony, by raising abstract 
 
 1 See Strauss, Hegel, and their Opinions. By Dr. Beard. 
 
378 SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 questions. We may speak of the folly of this princi 
 ple, and show how, if applied to history in general, it 
 would nullify its facts, and reduce its marvels to mere 
 mental conceptions. But the rationalist, armed with 
 his Hegelian weapons, replies, Such is my philosophy, 
 and my philosophy is my theology. And that theology, 
 as Germany too plainly testifies, has left the world 
 without a personal God, and man without moral free 
 dom and immortality. "A life beyond the grave," 
 says Strauss, "is the last enemy which speculative 
 criticism has to oppose, and, if possible, to vanquish." 
 "Ask the extreme idealists of the present day," re 
 marks Mr. Morell, u and they will tell you that God 
 is one with the universe itself. The glorious concep 
 tion of the great Jehovah, which we derive from the 
 display of His wisdom, power, and love, in the creation 
 without, the constitution of our minds within, and 
 the intuition of our rational and moral nature, soon 
 sinks down into a vague personification of the human 
 consciousness. The final result of such a theology 
 is, that the divine is dragged down to a level with the 
 human, instead of the divine being raised up (as it 
 is by Christianity) to the human. Thus, then, the 
 extremes of sensationalism and idealism at length 
 meet. The one says that God is the universe, the 
 other that the universe is God. Diderot and Strauss 
 can here shake hands, and alike rejoice in the impious 
 purpose of sinking the personality of the Deity into 
 an abstraction, which the holy cannot love, and which 
 the wicked need not fear. Such is the extreme of 
 idealism in its influence upon Christian theology, an 
 
SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 379 
 
 extreme which contravenes and destroys all the good 
 which at first it promised to effect." 1 
 
 The influence of these idealistic speculations is 
 telling, in some quarters, on the religious literature 
 of our own country. Amid much really valuable in 
 the department of theology which we have imported 
 from Germany, has come the evil genius of its philo 
 sophic spirit. The writings of Coleridge, Carlyle, and 
 others, who have drunk deep at the German originals, 
 have done much to diffuse among us the German 
 philosophy. And though idealism in its extreme 
 manifestations, has made but little impression on the 
 the sturdy and sound English intellect, yet we have 
 not wholly escaped the infection ; and, judging from 
 some recent productions of the press, are not likely 
 to get rid of it very soon. A want of real vitality and 
 earnestness in our religious community, (to the un 
 grateful overlooking, we think, of the vast amount of 
 living godliness among us,) has been felt, and pro 
 claimed to be the great want of the age. This has 
 been ascribed, in a great degree, by some, to the want 
 of a spiritual philosophy in our schools. And, in 
 order to supply this want, and infuse new life into 
 our cold orthodoxy, certain of our writers would bring 
 a portion of the German idealism to breathe upon 
 our prostrate lifeless creeds, shake them, make them 
 stand up and live. Accordingly, a religious philoso 
 phy, or a philosophical religion, has, for some time 
 back, been quietly making its way among us ; and we 
 
 1 Morell s History of Philosophy, vol. ii., p. 611. 
 
380 SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 are only now becoming awake to the mischievous 
 influence it is likely to have on an historical Chris 
 tianity. 
 
 Carlyle, and the men of his school seem to have 
 a greater love for earnestness than for plain Gospel 
 truths. They are disposed to follow the philosophers 
 of Germany in making religion a creation from 
 within, not a matter received from without; and 
 to be in danger of including among the shams 
 they cry out against, the experimental and historical 
 evidences of Christianity. Emerson, after the Ger 
 man fashion, and doubtless owing to German influ 
 ence, finds everything within man, and makes 
 religion merely an effect of mental action. " We 
 run," says he, " all our vessels into one mould. Our 
 colossal theologies of Judaism, Christism, Buddhism, 
 Mahometism, are the necessary and structural action 
 of the human mind." 1 Of course, as man has the 
 fountain of all good in himself, his mind is the 
 deterrninator of what is true in everything that 
 comes to him from without. Theodore Parker, who 
 has been so well taught by Strauss and De Wette, 
 would have men to use the Bible as they use a well- 
 filled table, take what suits their palate. Francis 
 William Newman, who has sat at the feet of the 
 same teachers, has come to look upon the study of the 
 Bible and its evidences " as the greatest religious evil 
 of England;" 2 and he "deliberately, before God his 
 man, protests against the attempt to make it a law 
 
 1 Emerson s Representative Men, p. 2. 
 
 2 Phases of Faith, p. 205. 
 
SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 381 
 
 to men s understanding, conscience, or soul." 1 Mr. 
 Mackay, in his recent contributions to our rationalistic 
 theology, " The Progress of the Intellect," has 
 taken, from the German metaphysical speculations, 
 the development theory; and, with little regard to 
 scriptural statements, and with an unfair use of 
 historical testimony, has applied it so as to account 
 for the religion of the Bible, without leaving any 
 authority to the Bible itself. It is with much 
 reluctance, we add, that Mr. Morell, who, in his first 
 valuable work, pointed out and denounced the influ 
 ences of an extreme idealism, has, notwithstanding 
 the friendly warning of Dr. Chalmers, since shown 
 a strong tendency to construct, somewhat after the 
 German mode, a religion from within, and to at 
 tach comparatively little importance to that which 
 comes independently from without. It is but justice 
 to say, as we have formerly said, that there is a wide 
 difference between the spirit of Mr. Morell and some 
 of the rationalistic writers adverted to. He is by no 
 means eager, we are persuaded, however his princi 
 ples may tend in that direction, to subvert the 
 great Christian truths. Nevertheless, his " Philos 
 ophy of Religion" is the product of the German 
 religious philosophy. And, in contending u most 
 earnestly for this position that the simplicity of 
 the gospel of Christ is to be looked for, not in our 
 logical systems of doctrine, but in the clear elimina 
 tions from all systems, or rather from the religious 
 intuitions of all good men, of the vital and essential 
 
 1 The Soul ; her Sorrows and Aspirations, p. 199. 
 
382 SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 elements of Christian faith and love, hope and joy," 1 
 he shows his strong subjectivity, and a tendency 
 to number among logical forms what the Christian 
 world has ever regarded as the essence of Christian 
 doctrine. 
 
 Christianity, as we simple folks have imagined, is 
 a fixed and not a floating thing having an objective 
 and authoritative standard in the Scriptures, being 
 supported by a powerful force of external and inter 
 nal evidence; the truths of which enter into the 
 understanding, and descend into the heart, quicken 
 and purify all its sensibilities, and manifest their 
 lovely fruits in the conversation and life. But, 
 according to our idealist writers, revelation is spon 
 taneous and intuitional, a process of the mind gazing 
 intuitively upon eternal verities, a thing altogether 
 subjective; and -no other authority is left to the 
 Scriptures than in so far as they harmonize with 
 the mind s intuitions. "No one," says an able re 
 viewer, u can have read books of this class from 
 those of Mr. Carlyle downwards without marking 
 the special aversion of this whole school of authors 
 to what are called the Evidences. By this term 
 they mean the external and critical evidence which 
 determines the historical truthfulness and the just inter 
 pretation of the sacred writings. There is no end to the 
 repugnance evinced by them towards this department 
 of investigation." 2 
 
 In all this, we see the influence of the modern trans- 
 
 1 Morell s Philosophy of Religion, preface, p. xxii. 
 3 British Quarterly, No. xix., p. 167. 
 
SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 383 
 
 cendental philosophy, a philosophy subtle, daring, 
 proud, intolerant of the world of realities lying 
 without, and which assumes to weave, by its own 
 dialectics, all truth from the mind within. Let us 
 hail, from whatever quarter it may come, any goodly 
 element of vitality that would quicken the good 
 things which remain and are ready to die. But let 
 us be jealous of every system, whatever be its pre- 
 tensions^ that would transmute a Christianity founded 
 in facts, into a matter of the mind s own fashioning ; 
 and that would dismantle the towers and bulwarks 
 of an historical faith as if they were only fit for a 
 bygone age. " Christianity comes to our times as 
 the survivor of all systems, and after confronting, in 
 turn, every imaginable form of error, each of which 
 has gone to its almost forgotten place in history 
 itself alone lives" 1 lives, not as a creature of the 
 mind s development, a thing of mere sentiment or 
 intuition, but lives with its firm footing in history, 
 and its powerful hold of men s hearts. 
 
 Faith and philosophy are not enemies by nature. 
 They are both children of the light and of the day, 
 and were designed to walk hand in hand through the 
 world. But, " in pride, in reasoning pride, our error 
 lies." Men have often put asunder what God hath 
 joined together. Speculation has been arrayed against 
 the power of fact. Man s mind, vainly puffed up, has 
 risen against God s mind. Philosophy, having either 
 become sensual or vaguely transcendental, has been 
 changed into that which is devilish and spurious, 
 1 Taylor s Spiritual Christianity, p. 6. 
 
384 SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 and has then fought against the truth of God. But 
 " truth is strong next to the Almighty," and will 
 prevail. Meanwhile, we note, that speculative philo 
 sophy, whether in the form of an extreme sensation 
 alism, or of an extreme idealism, has, as a subordinate 
 cause, been productive of no small amount of infi 
 delity. Paul s exhortation is still needed, " Beware 
 lest any man make plunder of you, through philosophy 
 and vain deceit." " Which words," says Thomas 
 Fuller, u seriously considered, neither express nor 
 imply any prohibition of true philosophy, but rather 
 tacitly commend it. Thus, when our Saviour saith, 
 ( Beware of false prophets, by way of opposition, he 
 inviteth them to believe and respect such as are true 
 
 ones." 1 
 
 1 Fuller s Hist, of the Univ. of Cambridge. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 SOCIAL DISAFFECTION. 
 
 Social agitation not always to be deprecated It is often a mark of 
 right progress Deep social discontent has, nevertheless, often 
 proved favorable to infidelity; Great French Revolution Social 
 disabilities of the working classes Existing social discontent, the 
 stronghold of infidel socialism Desirableness of severing the 
 socialist question from irreligious elements Injurious influence of 
 the prevailing theories : they make a religion of political liberty 
 Attempt to identify them with Christianity itself Their pan 
 theistic tendency Admiration of political principles of infidels 
 
 . seductive in times of social agitation Infidelity employed as an 
 organ of political convulsion. 
 
 SOCIAL agitation is inevitable in a community that is 
 suffered to develop its energies, and is, to some ex 
 tent, salutary and beneficial. It often marks the pro 
 gress of a state from barbarism to civilization, from 
 depotism to civil and religious liberty. The grum 
 bling and the upheaving are not unfrequently symp 
 toms of advancement from a wrong to a right position. 
 There are many things we like not the less, because 
 they are subject now and then to a shaking, and give 
 forth a, growl. Protestantism, with its conflicting 
 sects and healthy rivalries, is infinitely preferable to 
 Romanism with its leaden uniformity. Britain, with 
 its free constitution, its limited monarchy, and right of 
 public discussion, is a happier and safer government 
 
 than Russia under the iron hand of absolutism. The 
 
 25 
 
386 SOCIAL DISAFFECTION. 
 
 storm that rends the heavens and shakes the founda 
 tions of the earth, may be attended with many disas 
 ters ; but if it be instrumental in purging the atmos 
 phere, and rendering it salubrious, it is much more 
 desirable than the dead noxious calm in which animal 
 and vegetable life becomes oppressed. Our sympa 
 thies are more with the principles of a Sidney and 
 a Hampden, than with those of a Filmer and his 
 modern disciple who declared that the people have 
 nothing to do with the laws but to obey them. We 
 would not, then, that the political world were lulled 
 asleep, and that people s minds were drawn off from 
 discussing the affairs of government. For, whatever 
 injurious influence may affect religion amid the social 
 heavings, it is assuredly not under the pall of despotism 
 that it flourishes in its loveliness and vigor. Political 
 science and religious truths are not points of repul 
 sion, and a moderate attachment to the former is not 
 necessarily counteractive of the influence of the latter. 
 There is no necessary connection between the princi 
 ples of political freedom and infidel opinions. It has 
 often been remarked that the chief advocates of civil 
 liberty in the reigns of the Charleses, were the puri 
 tans men of whom the world was not worthy, some 
 of whom were republicans, and others of them the 
 firm adherents of a limited monarchy. Amid the 
 storms of that period the cradle of British freedom 
 was rocked, and rocked too by the saints, the excellent 
 ones of the earth. 
 
 It may, however, be safely maintained, that political 
 agitation, when running very high, has often for a 
 
SOCIAL DISAFFECTION. 387 
 
 time proved detrimental to spiritual Christianity, and 
 advantageous to infidelity. It is not for us to balance 
 the good and bad effects of the great French Revolu 
 tion, which, in its results, marked a new era in the 
 nations of Europe. But there can be no doubt, that 
 the deep discontent engendered at the heart of French 
 society by social wrongs and abuses, rendered the 
 soil receptive of the infidel principles of the philo 
 sophers, and that, in the terrible upheavings that fol 
 lowed, these principles were carried forth triumphantly 
 like a flood. They were at once partly the cause and 
 partly the effect of the social disorder. They set 
 fire to the materials that had long lain ready to be 
 kindled, and in the blaze they yelled, sported, and 
 exulted like fiends. The enormous abuses both in 
 the civil and ecclesiastical institutions of the country 
 the church richly endowed, and yet leaving the 
 mass of ignorance and vice around her to grow and 
 strengthen ; the venality and corruption which char 
 acterized the administration of justice, the unequal 
 and oppressive taxation imposed upon the lower and 
 middling classes, the mental degradation to which 
 they were subjected in consequence of long-standing 
 feudal distinctions, the luxury and frivolity of the 
 court and many of the nobles, these and such like 
 abuses which had separated one part of French so 
 ciety by a great gulf from the other, were the ele 
 ments which infidelity quickened into a convulsion 
 and in whose excesses it reigned. 1 An ill- taught and 
 oppressed populace, overborne by a corrupt church 
 1 See Brougham on French Rev. (" Statesmen of the Time of Geo. III.") 
 
388 SOCIAL DISAFFECTION. 
 
 I 
 
 and a despotic government, lies open to infidel teach 
 ing when allied with liberal politics, and in the agita 
 tion or revolt thereby produced, infidelity finds its 
 element. Political and social harangues strongly 
 interest the prejudices and passions of mankind, and 
 tend, even when containing no infidel mixture, to 
 draw the mind off from religious objects, unless they 
 meet with a strong faith in eternal verities to coun 
 teract the evil. But when such discussions are asso 
 ciated with irreligious principles, and are brought to 
 bear on minds socially disaffected and at the same 
 time indifferent or hostile to vital Christianity, the 
 influence on behalf of infidelity becomes powerful 
 indeed. The poison, mingled with the water, flows 
 on as fast as the water itself, and infects all who 
 drink of it. " The Rights of Man" renders palatable 
 to many minds " The Age of Reason." 
 
 This is very much the case with many of the politi 
 cal and social theories afloat in our day, more espe 
 cially on the Continent. The great problem in modern 
 politics, is the elevation of the industrial mind so 
 as to secure the greatest good to society in general. 
 Comparatively few persons will maintain that the 
 arrangements of society are as they should and might 
 be. The spread of intelligence among the working 
 classes has made them sensible of the social disabili 
 ties under which, in many parts of Europe, they have 
 been long lying. The rebound is fully proportionate 
 to the pressure. And the industrial interests rising 
 up from the one extreme of depression, would ascend 
 to the other extreme of elevation. The servant brood- 
 
SOCIAL DISAFFECTION. 389 
 
 ing over years of neglect and harsh treatment, would 
 now avenge himself by becoming lord. The truth is, 
 governments, by foolishly continuing those restraints 
 on the popular mind in an enlightened age, which were 
 suited to a past and different state of society, not 
 unfrequently suffer a penalty somewhat similar to that 
 which a landed proprietor suffers in damming up a 
 stream. Arbitrarily checked in its course, it swells, and 
 chafes against the barrier ; at length it sweeps all before 
 it, and carries wasting and desolation, where it other 
 wise would have contributed to the fertility and pictur- 
 esqueness of the country. Even in our own England, 
 which is the home of freedom in Europe, and which, in 
 the language of one of our old poets, 
 
 " was sure designed 
 
 To be the sacred refuge of mankind," 
 
 the consequences of past neglect are too manifest. 
 There are large classes among us who, from regarding 
 almost everything established with blind reverence, 
 have come to look upon almost everything really 
 sacred with growing aversion. " In many cases," says 
 Dr. Arnold, " the real origin of a man s irreligion is, 
 I believe, political. He dislikes the actual state of 
 society, hates the church as connected with it, and, 
 in his notions, supporting its abuses, and then hates 
 Christianity because it is taught by the church." 
 
 The problem to which we have adverted is that 
 which the several socialist schools, with their widely- 
 conflicting theories, propose to solve. The possibility 
 of a great and sudden amelioration in the condition 
 of the working classes, is the common faith of them 
 
390 SOCIAL DISAFFECTION. 
 
 all. Politically and socially they vary, and frown upon 
 each other, from St. Simonianism with its somewhat 
 hierarchical arrangement of classes, to the humanist 
 theory, the latest form of socialism, with its intoler 
 ance of any vestige of inequality. But tested by a 
 religious standard, they all bear the mark of Cain, 
 are vagabonds on the earth, and the last of them is 
 worse than the first. Owenism, though it never had 
 a strong hold on any large portion of the English 
 people, and for some years has been losing the hold 
 that it had, is steeped in atheism. It sees omnipo 
 tence nowhere but in external circumstances. And 
 through this wretched syste.ni, appealing to existing 
 social disaffection, not a few are to be found here and 
 there in our workshops and factories, who have been 
 led over to the ranks of infidelity. In France, Ger 
 many, and other parts of the Continent, socialism 
 has leavened the masses, and is still rapidly diffusing 
 itself; and what we wish especially to mark 
 the poison of infidelity is almost everywhere mixed 
 up with it. It would seem that the socialist theories 
 of the Continent can no more keep neutral in reference 
 to religion, than the continental speculative philoso 
 phies. Indeed, these theories have, in some measure, 
 been the fruit, or formed a parcel, of the philosophies. 
 Feuerbach, and Griin, who are of the extreme left 
 Hegelian party, are the great teachers of humanism 
 a system which finds everything in man, which ig 
 nores all motive power but the human will, and which 
 is as intolerant of the existence of religion as of private 
 property. 
 
SOCIAL DISAFFECTION. 391 
 
 There are good men, in our own country and 
 elsewhere, who, being persuaded that socialism is 
 no temporary ebullition of social discontent, but, as 
 Mr. John Stuart Mill remarks, " has now become 
 irrevocably one of the leading elements in European 
 politics," would seek to deal with the questions in 
 volved in it in a Christian manner. This we deem 
 praiseworthy. The working classes have been left 
 too much to the will of infidel socialist teachers, who 
 exaggerate their grievances, lay upon evangelical re 
 ligion the blame that belongs only to its corruptions, 
 and hold out to them false hopes of amelioration. 
 They have grievances which must be dealt with. 
 And, convinced as we are that existing social arrange 
 ments admit of much improvement, that the relation 
 between the capitalist and the workmen, the govern 
 ors and the governed, might be more satisfactory, 
 we would have Christian men both in the church 
 and in the state to step in and deal fairly with the 
 socialist question. We see no necessary connection 
 between it and infidelity. And, without giving any 
 opinion here as to the truth or justice involved in its 
 essential principles, we would have it dissociated from 
 the irreligious elements which have been hitherto so 
 much mixed up with it, and let it stand forth simply 
 as a question of political economy. But, be it the 
 system of Owen, or Fourier, of Louis Blanc, or Feuer- 
 bach ; all, notwithstanding the religious sentimentalism 
 that may be found in some of them, have been of an 
 irreligious tendency, and influential in making democ 
 racies at once fierce and ungodly. 
 
392 SOCIAL DISAFFECTION. 
 
 The first thing, in the way of injurious influence, 
 that presents itself, on examining these theories, is 
 the hope of happiness which they hold out, from 
 entirely remodelling the framework of society. Dif 
 fering as they do on important points of polity, the 
 prophet of this school ridiculing the prophets of all 
 other schools as fanatics and impostors, they agree in 
 making a religion of political liberty, and looking for 
 Paradise restored to a new arrangement of property 
 and industrial interests. The real devil of the world, 
 in their estimation, is private property. The de 
 pravity and wretchedness existing among men are 
 ascribed to the factitious arrangement of society, and 
 the regeneration of the race is to be expected from 
 thorough-going social changes. It is in vain that 
 history tells of speculations and schemes of a similar 
 character having been tried in the past, having 
 aggravated instead of having mitigated the miseries 
 which they professed to cure, and having been num 
 bered long ago among the follies whereby visionary 
 projectors thought to make a new world. So long as 
 these speculations were not theirs, there is room, 
 they imagine, for the trial of their own. The world 
 must have its golden age, and these prophets of a 
 social regeneration are to be instrumental in exalting 
 every valley, making low every mountain and hill, 
 making the crooked straight and the rough places 
 plain. It were really amusing to sit, as in a panorama, 
 and see how one plan of the world s reformation has 
 absorbed man s attention for awhile, passed away as a 
 vain show, and then given place to another destined 
 
SOCIAL DISAFFECTION. 393 
 
 to share the same fate, were the thought not to arise 
 that these visionary projects have not only left society 
 a prey to numerous vices and miseries, but have in a 
 great measure diverted men s minds from u heaven s 
 easy unencumbered plan," a plan which has survived 
 all others, and which experience, as well as the voice 
 of God, assures us is the only one fitted to make all 
 things new. It is with this evil influence that all the 
 socialist theories which have lately played such a 
 prominent part are fraught. It were well enough did 
 their abettors insist on social reforms as necessary to 
 the physical and moral well-being of man. But to 
 bid men look to these reforms as the panacea of all 
 ills, the means of regenerating the race, and bringing 
 about a heaven on earth, is as ungodly as it is vision 
 ary, as antagonistic to the gospel of Christ as it is 
 deluding and destructive to men. Once persuade an 
 individual or any body of individuals that all their 
 miseries originate in political and social causes that 
 the source of the evil lies chiefly or exclusively with 
 out, and is to be removed by the prevalence of certain 
 modes of education and civil government, and you 
 leave no room whatever for the influence of that 
 truth which coming from above is above all. And 
 yet this is the teaching to which myriads of men in our 
 own country, and more especially on the Continent, 
 have eagerly listened at the feet of the apostles of social 
 regeneration. 
 
 It has been well said by a respectable London 
 journal, 1 that " the socialist principles are inevitable 
 
 1 The Daily News. 
 
394 SOCIAL DISAFFECTION. 
 
 in any thinking country which has shaken off religious 
 belief. If the Christian dispensation does not rise 
 as the great and all-explaining truth before man s 
 eyes, the philosopher cannot be contented with the 
 inequality of human conditions, or avoid devising 
 material plans for its removal. The more unformed 
 intellect of the poor will easily follow in this path. 
 And happiness being considered a compound of com 
 forts, he will infallibly ask by what right he is ex 
 cluded from his share of what the earth and industry 
 produce, when his creed* cannot enjoin the duty of 
 patience or" point to any present or future compensa 
 tion." The truth is, that in all the socialist theories, 
 as in the great expectations cherished from philosoph 
 ical illumination in a preceding age, three very 
 palpable facts are forgotten or denied. The first is, 
 that a personal change of heart, and not a mere social 
 or political amelioration, is the indispensable con 
 dition of all real and lasting improvement. National 
 can only be the effect of individual regeneration. It 
 is out of the heart, as the Great Teacher taught, that 
 proceed the things which defile a man. And, were 
 the external arrangements of society ever so perfect, 
 yet, without a radical change in men individually, 
 these arrangements would be ever liable to corruption 
 and attended with much misery. The second is, that 
 inequalities and sufferings, in some form or another, 
 are inseparable from man s lot upon earth. It is 
 a principle in God s moral government that where 
 there is no sin there is no suffering. Sin, however 
 mysterious the fact, has entered this world, and 
 
SOCIAL DISAFFECTION. 395 
 
 suffering as a penal consequence has followed it. 
 And that suffering is disciplinary as well as penal. 
 The prophets of social regeneration, however, lay 
 out their perfected world in the present state, and 
 by the overthrow of the existing arrangements of 
 society, would at once usher in the new heavens 
 and new earth. The third thing of which they are 
 oblivious or disbelieving is, that the Gospel of Jesus 
 Christ, not a mere political Gospel whose favorite 
 theme is equality and fraternity, but a Gospel bring 
 ing glad tidings of a free and full salvation, contain 
 ing ample provision for expiating human guilt and 
 subduing human depravity, and giving the hope of 
 life and immortality beyond the grave, is alone capa 
 ble of realizing all the good for which pants the soul 
 of humanity. These are facts confirmed by experi 
 ence, and by none more than what is learned from 
 the recent shakings among several of the European 
 nations. The rise of a new and better order of things 
 among mankind is no mere dream of projectors. The 
 revelations of heaven warrant us to anticipate it. 
 But we must look for its realization chiefly to the 
 influence of nobler principles than political and social 
 theories. Grapes are not to be gathered from thorns 
 nor figs from thistles. And to hold out, as all socialist 
 projects that have been recently in agitation do, the 
 hope of happiness from new social arrangements, is 
 to delude men and abet the cause of infidelity. A 
 religion of political liberty is thus substituted for the 
 Gospel of the grace of God. 
 
 The second thing, in the way of injurious influence. 
 
396 .SOCIAL DISAFFECTION. 
 
 noticeable in many of these theories, is the endeavor 
 to identify them with Christianity itself. The ex 
 istence of Christianity is an influential fact, the 
 sanction of which, other systems, however visionary 
 and destructive of its spirit, are anxious to obtain. 
 This they can do only by misrepresenting and vir 
 tually falsifying it. In the first great French revolu 
 tion, there was no compromise. It was a war of open 
 extermination against everything that bore the Chris 
 tian name. The infidel leaders proclaimed the Chris 
 tian system and the institutions connected with it to 
 be the great hinderances in the progress of humanity, 
 and they avowed their purpose to crush and extirpate 
 the whole. But infidels now-a-days are covetous of 
 the Christian name, and each one would have his 
 respective system accounted the gospel which is 
 designed to regenerate mankind. Many of the 
 leaders of socialism have claimed to be regarded as 
 the faithful expositors of Christianity. The reforma 
 tion preached by Christ and his apostles is declared 
 to have been a social regeneration. The Saviour of 
 the world is hailed as the prince of the communists. 
 The substance of the Gospel is to be found in those 
 texts which inculcate mutual love and affection. And 
 the kingdom of God on earth, is the reign of equality 
 and fraternity. Hegel, as we have seen, recognized 
 Christianity, and the leading doctrines of the trinity, 
 incarnation, and atonement ; but it was only to bring 
 them within the sweep of his law of necessary devel 
 opment, and to destroy them as facts on which men 
 rest their faith and hope. In like manner, Fourier 
 
SOCIAL DISAFFECTION. 397 
 
 and his disciples, and even Pierre Leroux the pan 
 theist, who has been acknowledged by the French to 
 be the metaphysician of socialism, have sought to 
 graft their speculations into Christianity, and have re 
 presented the one as naturally rising out of the other. 
 In short, socialism lays hold of a peculiar character 
 istic of Christianity, which it severs from other and 
 yet more prominent characteristics, and then preach 
 ing it up, as if it were the whole, does all the mischief 
 which infidelity could wish. The religions of pagan 
 ism and of a corrupt Christianity have had much of 
 the arrogance and assumptions of caste about them. 
 They have endeavored to distribute men into classes, 
 and have had their esoteric and exoteric doctrines. 
 But the characteristic of Christianity, to which we 
 refer, is, that it spreads a feast before all people, that 
 it makes little account of natural or artificial distinc 
 tions, that it propounds and offers truth without 
 reserve to the mass of mankind. This want of mo 
 nopoly in Christianity, which, after all, is but its ex 
 ternal aspect the big-hearted and benignant attitude 
 vvhich it assumes towards the nations is held up as 
 if it were its essence. Socialism loves the generous 
 and compassionate look of the Gospel, but it hates 
 its holy humbling requirements. It would substitute 
 Christianity as a mere liberal social economy, for 
 Christianity as a system of pure spiritual truth. How 
 ever visionary and absurd this may appear, yet its 
 influence in promoting infidelity among the masses 
 must have been great. It would be congenial, in the 
 highest degree, to the social disaffection that existed ; 
 
398 SOCIAL DISAFFECTION. 
 
 and, though utterly destructive of spiritual Chris 
 tianity, would in multitudes of cases be the more 
 welcome that it came under the pretended sanction 
 of Him whose "name is ploughed into the history 
 of the world." The faith of the French people, in 
 the nineteenth century, is a political faith. It has 
 no reference to man as guilty before God and radically 
 depraved, it does not lay hold of the Gospel as in the 
 highest sense a restorative economy, and seeking to 
 make men free by delivering them from the state of 
 the condemned, and forming them to a high and 
 holy character. It is not a new thing in the world s 
 history for infidelity to have propagated itself under 
 the Christian name, and with a show of respect to 
 Christianity s great Founder. 
 
 We are led to remark, thirdly, the strong tendency 
 of many of the recent socialist theories toward pan 
 theism. Humanity is everything with them. The 
 highest being is man. The perfectibility of the race 
 is asserted. And in a paradise of social interests 
 here, the idea of a happy world beyond is excluded. 
 This is more especially the case with the humanists, 
 who, in their rejection of an historical and spiritual 
 Christianity, are in advance of other schools of social 
 ism. In fact, pantheism has become the orthodox 
 creed of the system. The extremes of idealism and 
 socialism meet, in declaring that religion comes not 
 from without but from within, that it has no objec 
 tive reality, but is purely a matter of the mind s own 
 creation. We say that the sum and substance of 
 religion is to be found in the Bible, a well-attested 
 
SOCIAL DISAFFECTION. 399 
 
 revelation from heaven, and that it only becomes the 
 religion of man individually when it is received by 
 faith, and thus incorporated with all his springs of 
 thought and feeling. But the humanist says, not so. 
 In man himself, or in humanity, is to be found all 
 that constitutes religious truth. It is not a thing 
 without, lying in the world of facts, as the fortress on 
 the hill and the river that runs at its base, but it is a 
 part of man himself, having neither origin nor objec 
 tive reality independent of himself. Ask the apostles 
 of this system, Where is your God? They at once 
 reply, God is in man. He is incarnate in humanity, 
 and dwells in every member of the human race. 
 Man as an individual dies, but humanity is inde 
 structible, in the continual reproduction of the race 
 he lives ; and this is the life and immortality brought 
 to light by the gospel of socialism. This system is 
 just as intolerant of religion as an historical fact, as 
 it is of private property as a thing existing in law, and 
 it would proclaim the jubilee of humanity by abolishing 
 both. Socialism, in its advanced form, has thus been 
 influenced by the extreme ideal philosophy ; and, in 
 return, lends its helping hand to annihilate an his 
 torical Christianity. If it passed from France to 
 Germany, and was originated by Rousseau and the 
 infidel philosophy of last century, it has been thrown 
 into the German mould, and has come out in the 
 shape of undisguised pantheism. And vast mul 
 titudes who have neither the capacity nor the in 
 clination to follow the transcendentalist philosopher 
 in his lofty and bewildering flight, sit at the feet of 
 
400 SOCIAL DISAFFECTION. 
 
 the socialist teacher, and through him imbibe all the 
 infidelity with which that philosophy is pregnant. 
 Masses of men who are socially disaffected, and in 
 whom exists little or nothing of vital religion, and 
 whose disaffection, it may be, is turned towards some 
 corrupt form of Christianity among them, are readily 
 carried captive by a pantheistic socialism. 
 
 Our last remark here is, that admiration for the 
 political principles of infidels often leads men to think 
 lightly of religion, and ultimately to cast it off. This 
 is especially the case in times of social agitation. 
 There is no necessary connection between politics, 
 be they conservative or liberal, and infidel opinions. 
 Pious as well as irreligious men are to be found in 
 the ranks of all political parties. Principles of civil 
 polity are nothing the worse, because infidels have 
 held and advocated them. The famous Declaration 
 of American Independence was not the less illustrious 
 because Thomas Jefferson, who prepared it, unhappily 
 did not believe in the great truths of the Gospel. It 
 is true, however, that those who think favorably of 
 the political principles of infidels, are apt to be drawn 
 away, so as to look with no unfriendly eye on the 
 infidel principles themselves. This, owing to the 
 original depraved bias of the mind, is likely to be 
 much more frequently the case, than that love for 
 the political principles of a Christian should lead 
 men to embrace his Christianity. It has been not 
 unreasonably supposed that admiration of Hume as 
 a metaphysician, and frequent intercourse with him, 
 had no small influence with Smith in inducing him 
 
SOCIAL DISAFFECTION. 401 
 
 to expunge from his " Theory of Moral Sentiments," 
 the well known and remarkable passage in which he 
 recognizes the doctrines of the Christian revelation 
 as harmonizing with the original anticipations of 
 nature. And it is not unreasonable to believe, that 
 multitudes have been prejudiced against Christianity, 
 been kept from embracing it, or been induced grad 
 ually to renounce it, from a regard to the political 
 principles of the men at whose feet they have sat. 
 This will have been the case especially when the 
 waters at the base of the social edifice have been 
 running high, and men s minds have been agitated 
 under real or imaginary social wrongs. If it has been 
 so with political and social theories, containing no 
 irreligious elements in themselves, but dangerous 
 only when advocated by influential infidels, much 
 more must it have been the case with many of the 
 recent speculations of socialism, in which the liberal 
 political creed and the infidel sentiments have been 
 so blended together that in imbibing the one men 
 could scarcely avoid imbibing the other. 
 
 Infidelity has come before the industrial classes in 
 our day in an alluring shape. It does not stand forth 
 in its own proper character. It has appeared in the 
 garb of a liberal system of politics, professing to 
 redress their grievances, and holding out to them the 
 hopes of social elevation. The liberal polity, from 
 its very connection, has recommended the infidel 
 opinions, and, as the former has progressed, so have 
 the latter. Robert Hall remarks, u the efforts of in 
 fidels to diffuse their principles among the common 
 
 26 
 
402 SOCIAL DISAFFECTION. 
 
 people is peculiar to the present time. Hume, 
 Bolingbroke, and Gibbon, addressed themselves to 
 the more polished classes. While infidelity was rare, 
 it was employed as the instrument of literary vanity. 
 Its wide diffusion having disqualified it for answering 
 that purpose, it is now adopted as the organ of 
 political convulsion." He is speaking of the time of 
 the great French Revolution, but the remark is no 
 less applicable to our own age. Since the close of last 
 century, political knowledge has made great progress 
 among the people. It is no longer with fiercely 
 ignorant democracies that many European govern 
 ments have to deal. The schoolmaster, in many 
 shapes, has been abroad. The knowledge imparted 
 by him has often served to awaken men to a sense 
 of the social evils by which they are surrounded, 
 without any salutary counteractives following the 
 discovery. Social disaffection, the inevitable con 
 sequence of letting light in upon darkness, has been 
 engendered. Hot-beds of infidel socialism have thus 
 been prepared. While governments have been making 
 too much ado about the people s duties and too little 
 about their rights, the socialist teachers, with no small 
 measure of success, have been incessantly calling the 
 attention of the masses to their rights, and saying 
 nothing or next to nothing about their duties. Out 
 of the social discontent, occasioned by oppression or 
 neglect, has come forth an evil spirit, uttering at once 
 threatenings against the kings of the earth, and 
 blasphemies against the God of heaven. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE CORRUPTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Not wonderful that Christianity has been corrupted It has been 
 so with truths of science No promise that Christianity should 
 be exempted Corruptions in apostolic churches Paul foretold 
 them Christianity not to be confounded with them or made 
 responsible for them Evil in judging of one by the other 
 Two evils flourish in the bosom of corrupted Christianity : 
 superstition and unbelief Reciprocal influence of these Remark 
 of Plutarch A corrupted Christianity, and Romanism in parti 
 cular, ministers to infidelity in three ways : It often produces 
 aversion in cultivated minds to Christianity itself The middle 
 ages France and other Catholic countries in last century 
 Remark of Macaulay Italy, Spain, France, at present time 
 Tendency of Oxford Tractism Remarks of Rogers and Whately 
 It leaves the mass of the people, in times of excitement, to be 
 captured by infidel leaders Instanced in France It furnishes 
 weapons for attacking Christianity itself Parallel between cor 
 ruptions of Christianity and the base citizens of a great nation. 
 
 THE best of things in this world are liable to be per 
 verted and abused. Good is often made to assume 
 the shape of evil, and then to be evil spoken of. 
 Christianity is the very last system that could be 
 anticipated to escape corruptions. Its doctrinal 
 truths are so elevating in their character, and hum 
 bling to the pride of the human intellect, that men 
 would be sure to distort their simple grandeur, and 
 bring them down to the level of their own enfeebled 
 
404 THE CORRUPTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 perceptions. Its morality is so strict and pure, 
 being a discerner of the thoughts and intents of 
 the heart, and admitting of no compromise with 
 aught that is unholy, as to induce those who are 
 unwilling to follow its dictates, and yet anxious to 
 have its sanction, to bend it to their own prevailing 
 inclinations. Its rites are so few, simple, and des 
 titute of attractions to the carnal mind, as to make 
 it no matter of surprise that men who seek righte 
 ousness in mere outward observances, should add to 
 their number, and render them meet for the lust of 
 the eye. Christianity has been frequently so much 
 corrupted in its doctrines, morals, and institutions, 
 as to have rendered it somewhat difficult to trace 
 any resemblance between the blotched copy and the 
 fair original. 
 
 Every system of truth has been more or less 
 corrupted under human influence. The sublime 
 science of astronomy has appeared in the somewhat 
 ridiculous shape of astrology. The simple science 
 of chemistry, in the hands of the alchemists, was 
 a science of sheer extravagances. Natural philo 
 sophy was once represented by magic. Jurispru 
 dence, rightly understood and applied, protects the 
 helpless, shields the innocent, and promotes the 
 liberty and prosperity of a State; but it has often 
 been systematized into an engine of lawless oppress 
 ion. If these earthly things, which are by no 
 means uncongenial to human nature, or at variance 
 with its predominating tendencies, have been cor 
 rupted in the hands of men, it is not wonderful 
 
THE CORRUPTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 405 
 
 that heavenly things, in coming down to the earth, 
 should have been subjected to a similar influence. 
 It might rather have been anticipated, that, in pro 
 portion as the revelation from above was purer and 
 loftier than the principles of human conduct, would 
 men endeavor to distort and corrupt it. 
 
 It is divinely promised that Christianity shall never 
 be destroyed, but there is no promise that it shall, 
 in every case, be kept free from corruptions. So far 
 from this, that, even under the watchful presidency 
 of inspired men, there were false teachers who 
 crept into the church and endeavored to pervert 
 the Gospel of Christ. Yea, Paul, in his farewell 
 address to the elders at Miletus, not only spake of 
 the "grievous wolves" that should enter into the 
 church after his departure ; but he warned them 
 that, even from the midst of their ownselves, should 
 men arise, teaching a corrupted Gospel, to draw away 
 the disciples after them. And the most influential 
 and extensively spread form of a corrupt Christianity 
 that ever existed, was clearly foretold in the apostol 
 ical writings. They speak of damnable heresies, of 
 a falling away, of the man of sin being revealed, 
 and of the working of the mystery of iniquity. 
 
 Christianity is not, however, to be confounded 
 with its corruptions, or made responsible for them. 
 The solar light is pure and resplendent in itself, 
 though often much bedimmed in the dense medium 
 through which it passes. The fountain may be clear 
 as crystal, and cast up no mire and dirt, while the 
 streams are much polluted. The sacred text is to 
 
406 THE CORRUPTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 be distinguished from the false interpretations that 
 have been given of it. The doctrines, precepts, and 
 rites of Christianity, are to be judged of, not as they 
 appear in the pages of the fathers, or as they are 
 exhibited in Koinanism, but as they are made known 
 in the pages of the apostles, and were originally 
 held forth in the churches which they planted. 
 Astronomy, chemistry, and jurisprudence, are true 
 sciences; but we would form very unfavorable opin 
 ions of them, did we estimate them by the frauds 
 of the astrologer, the dreaming extravagances of the 
 alchemist, and the pleadings and practices of the 
 corrupt lawyer. " In the view of an intelligent and 
 honest mind, the religion of Christ stands as clear 
 of all connection with the corruption of men, and 
 churches, and ages, as when it was first revealed. 
 ") It retains its purity like Moses in Egypt, or Daniel 
 in Babylon, or the Saviour of the world himself 
 while he mingled with scribes and pharisees, or 
 publicans and sinners." 1 
 
 The evil is, that multitudes persist in judging of 
 the grand original from the gross caricature ; which 
 is just as if we were to form our estimate of the 
 Saviour s character from the representations given 
 by the chief priests and rulers, instead of beholding 
 Him who, in the midst of his enemies, could chal 
 lenge the .most fierce and watchful of them to 
 convince him of sin. And it is a still greater evil, 
 that, in consequence of taking away the key of 
 knowledge, suppressing religious inquiry, and pro- 
 
 1 Foster s Essays, p. 195. 
 
THE CORRUPTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 407 
 
 hibiting the perusal of the Scriptures, men have 
 had often no other standard by which to estimate 
 Christianity as a revelation from heaven, than the 
 corrupt form. It might indeed be said, that the 
 very corruption of the doctrines, precepts, and rites 
 of Christianity, originating as it does in a tendency 
 to assimilate the Divine to the human, would have 
 made it more accordant with the tastes of depraved 
 human nature, and thereby secured it a wider and 
 firmer reception. Such has been the case. Chris 
 tianity in its debased forms has had a much more 
 extensive sway, and numbered vastly more adherents 
 than Christianity as it came from God, holy, benignant, 
 and undefiled. But this has only been detrimental to 
 the truth as it is in Jesus. Christianity in its undefiled 
 form is the great antagonistic influence to the power of 
 Satan on earth. He, the father of lies and the seducer 
 from the beginning, has polluted the streams in order to 
 divert men from the fountain. And the Divine author 
 of Christianity, whose prerogative it is to bring good 
 out of evil, has permitted the adversary, in a consider 
 able extent, to succeed. 
 
 It deserves notice that in the bosom of a corrupted 
 Christianity, two evils flourish superstition and un 
 belief and that the former is, in some measure, the 
 cause of the latter. It was so with the religions of 
 the old Pagan world, all of which were gross corrup 
 tions of the religion of nature ; as Romanism and 
 some other Christianized forms are gross corruptions 
 of the religion of revelation. The ignorant and de 
 based, in the presence of the corrupt system, gener- 
 
408 THE CORRUPTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 ally sink into the arms of an unbounded superstition ; 
 while men of cultivated and philosophic minds, con 
 forming it may be, from policy, to the outward cere 
 monies, run off to a cold and hardened unbelief. It 
 is an historical fact that in the Augustan age, when 
 the larger proportion of the Roman people were 
 swelling the number of false gods, and yielding them 
 selves up to the most degrading superstitions, (in 
 which they were countenanced by the emperor and 
 the nobles,) the Epicureans were outstripping all 
 other philosophic sects in the propagation of their 
 infidel principles. The priest laughed in his sleeves 
 at the delusions of the people whom he himself was 
 deluding; the orator, in the senate, avowed his dis 
 belief of a future life, and repudiated the fabulous 
 legends respecting the gods and the infernal world ; 
 and the historian in quoting the popular religious tradi 
 tions, intimated that he did not believe them. The in 
 fection spread from the higher and more intelligent 
 classes to the illiterate multitude, and many, in renounc 
 ing the gross fables of Paganism, shook off all belief in 
 invisible power and immortality. 
 
 Plutarch, whom Tholuck has characterized as the 
 individual among the ancients that has spoken of 
 belief, unbelief, and superstition, with the greatest 
 wisdom and deepest knowledge of mankind, has 
 said, "unbelief never gives occasion for superstition, 
 while the latter does not unfrequently occasion the 
 former ; for when we teach perverted views in refer 
 ence to divine things, we hold out occasion for total 
 scepticism." The first of these statements is by no 
 
THE CORRUPTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 409 
 
 means to be assented to. The extreme of unbelief 
 lias often led to the extreme of superstition. Men 
 from believing almost nothing, have come to believe 
 almost everything. Into the void created by infi 
 delity, superstitions have rushed and been eagerly 
 received; just as the prodigal son, in the parable, 
 would have welcomed the husks when he began to be 
 in want. 1 But what Plutarch says of superstition as the 
 cause of unbelief, is accurate and profound. And not 
 less worthy of his wisdom, is his admonition, in respect 
 to the prevailing tendency of his age, "let every man 
 be well on his guard, that in order to escape robbers, 
 he do not plunge into an impassable chasm ; that while 
 escaping from superstition, he do not fall into the power 
 of unbelief, by leaping over that which lies between 
 them, viz., true piety." 2 
 
 Superstition and unbelief, in the ancient world, 
 generally increased as the corruptions of religion 
 developed themselves. And multitudes, knowing of 
 no other alternative than the robbers or the chasm, 
 escaped from the former and plunged into the latter. 
 
 1 Neander states very truly the mutual connection between super 
 stition and unbelief: "these two distempered conditions of the spirit 
 ual life are but opposite symptoms of the same fundamental evil, of 
 which the one passes easily into the other. When once the inner 
 life is become thoroughly worldly, it either suppresses all religious 
 feeling, and abandons itself to infidelity : or, blending itself with that 
 feeling, gives to it an interpretation of its own, and thus turns it to 
 superstition. The desperation of unbelief surrenders the troubled 
 conscience a prey to superstition ; and the irrationality of superstition 
 makes a religion suspected by the thoughtful mind." Church Hist., 
 vol. i., p. 18. (Bonn s edition.) 
 
 2 Tholuck on the Moral Influence of Heathenism, p. 74. 
 
410 THE CORRUPTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 So has it been in the presence of a corrupted Chris 
 tianity. The religion of nature was in nowise re 
 sponsible for the corruptions in which heathenism 
 enveloped it. The heavens declared the glory of God 
 and the firmament showed forth his handiwork, not 
 withstanding the unbounded superstition and unbelief 
 that prevailed. The religion of revelation stands 
 clear of all the distortions into which men have 
 wrought it, and of all the abominations with which 
 they have associated it. It brings glory to God in 
 the highest, peace on earth, and good-will toward 
 men. But the fine gold has been changed ; and, in 
 tossing away the counterfeit, men have often lost sight 
 of the heavenly reality. The counterfeit, however, 
 must bear a portion of the guilt in the dishonor 
 done to the pure original ; and to a corrupted Chris 
 tianity, as a subordinate cause, must be assigned no 
 small amount of influence in occasioning the rejec 
 tion of Christianity itself. Dr. Arnold believed the 
 great cause of hinderance to the triumph of Chris 
 tianity to lie in the corruption not of the religion of 
 Christ, but of the church of Christ. The distinction 
 serves only to mark off more broadly the Divine reve 
 lation from the human corruptions, while it leaves the 
 latter to bear much of the blame of the rejection of 
 the former. " Christianity," says he, "being intended 
 to remedy the intensity of the fall by its religion, and 
 the universality of the evil by its church, has suc 
 ceeded in the first because its religion has been 
 retained as God gave it, but has failed in the second, 
 because its church has been greatly corrupted." 
 
THE CORRUPTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 411 
 
 Romanism is not the only form of a corrupted 
 Christianity. There is the Greek church, in which, 
 are to be found many of the same corruptions as are 
 found in the Romish. There, in the very bosom of 
 Protestantism, are the Tractarians ; " those factors 
 for Rome," as Archbishop Whateley calls them, who 
 "remind one of Charon, in the old mythology, that 
 4 grim ferryman whom poets write of, continually ferry 
 ing over multitudes across the melancholy flood, to 
 a gloomy shore, from which he regularly returned 
 himself alone, to take in a fresh cargo." 1 And, under 
 the same category of a corrupted Christianity, must 
 come much of the nominal Protestantism of the Con 
 tinent, out of which has arisen a cold, deadening 
 rationalism. But Romanism occupies the bad pre 
 eminence. Most of the other distorted shapes have 
 been but mole-hills, this is the great and hideous 
 mountain. That salvation is attainable in the 
 Romish church, we no more doubt than we question 
 the exalted piety of such men as Borromeo, Fenelon, 
 and Pascal. But, consistent with this admission, 
 history bears us out in affirming, that it is the most 
 corrupt form of Christianity that has prevailed to any 
 considerable extent; and that, in proportion as it 
 gains ground, the pure spiritual Christianity of the 
 New Testament is supplanted or impeded, and super 
 stition and unbelief appear. It has no more been 
 able wholly to extinguish the flame of vital piety, 
 than the Egyptian bondage was to crush the Is- 
 raelitish spirit. Even when a thick darkness that 
 1 Cautions for the Times, p. 302. 
 
412 THE CORRUPTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 might be felt lias overspread the land, the children of 
 Israel have had light in their dwellings. But how 
 large a space does it occupy in the history of the 
 church and the world; how very numerous are the 
 points of contrast which it presents to the simple 
 truth as it is in Jesus ; and, itself the offspring of 
 darkness, how great the darkness in which it has 
 shrouded, for ages, a large portion of humanity ! 
 
 It is of the system as a whole that we speak. We 
 know that within its pale exist men of every grade, 
 from the spiritually-minded down to the grossly 
 superstitious and idolatrous. And, as a system, it is 
 doubtless the most corrupt that ever bore the Chris 
 tian name, and has proved more prejudicial to the 
 pure Gospel of Christ, than any or all of the corrupt 
 systems which have not professedly waged war against 
 it. It may claim a venerable antiquity, but Chris 
 tianity, as it came down from heaven, clothed in fine 
 linen clean and white, dates beyond it. And the 
 centuries that it reckons up in its age, only remind 
 us how very soon the mystery of iniquity began to 
 work, and the fine gold became dim. If that be not 
 the most corrupt form of Christianity, which, under 
 the penalty of anathemas, forbids the common people 
 to read the Scriptures, denies that they are a com 
 plete rule of faith and practice, and exalts vain tradi 
 tions as of equal authority; if that be not the 
 most corrupt which enjoins the worship of saints, 
 images, and relics; virtually denies the perfection of 
 the Christian atonement by offering up the sacrifice 
 of the mass, multiplies the number of the sacraments, 
 
THE CORRUPTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 413 
 
 and loads the simple divine institutes with a gorgeous 
 host of ceremonies ; if that be not the most corrupt 
 which enslaves the mind and keeps it in ignorance, 
 and which, in making darkness its pavilion, is ever 
 jealous of the light ; we know not where a corrupted 
 Christianity is to be found. It preserves the name of 
 Christianity, and, nominally, at least, retains its doc 
 trines; but, under an enormous mass of corruptions, 
 entombs its spirit. 
 
 It is not as now existing in Protestant countries, 
 surrounded and in a great measure influenced by the 
 light of the Reformation, that we are to form our 
 estimate of it, but as it appears in Italy and Spain, 
 firhere it developes itself according to the authorized 
 canons of the church ; and even there it is some 
 what under the check of the advancing mind of the 
 nineteenth century. It had its origin in the attempt 
 to reconcile the adherents of the worn-out pagan 
 worship, who were scattered in considerable numbers 
 throughout the empire, to the Christian faith which 
 had silenced the oracles and overthrown the altars of 
 polytheism. It was a kind of compromise between 
 the old worship and the new. The church hierarchy, 
 so early as the days of Constantine, evinced a ten 
 dency (so often shown since by Romish missionaries) 
 to give Christian baptism to individuals while yet in 
 the bosom of heathenism, and to make old supersti 
 tious practices fit into the Christian worship. The 
 striking resemblance between the superstitions of Pa 
 pal Rome and Pagan Rome, has often been pointed 
 out. Romanism, by its perversions of great Chris- 
 
414 THE CORRUPTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 tian doctrines, and by the meretricious ornaments 
 with which it has loaded simple Christian rites, 
 has earned the title of a baptized paganism. No 
 enlightened mind, looking at Christianity as it is 
 taught in the New Testament, and exemplified by 
 the apostles and early churches, and comparing it 
 with the Papal system as enunciated in the decrees 
 of councils, embodied in its existing institutions, 
 and manifested in the moral condition of those 
 lands where it predominates, can help concluding 
 that Popery is the most decrepit and corrupt form 
 of Christianity. 
 
 " In the stagnant marshes of corrupted Christianity," 
 remarks Robert Hall, "infidelity has been bred." 
 Romanism has nourished the grossest superstitions, 
 and given rise to the most dissolute scepticism. By 
 locking up the treasures of divine knowledge, and 
 substituting penances, indulgences, and pompous 
 ceremonies, for an enlightened and operative faith, 
 she has kept the great mass of her people as ignorant 
 and slavishly superstitious as Hindoos ; while she has 
 disgusted the more intelligent, and driven them into 
 secret or open infidelity. 
 
 It will be found, then, that there are three ways 
 in which a corrupted Christianity, and more especially 
 the Papacy, the master-piece of corruptions, ministers 
 to infidelity. 
 
 1. In the first place, it often produces aversion in 
 cultivated and reflecting minds to Christianity itself. Men 
 have often known Christianity only by Popery its 
 most corrupt form. The Romish church and the Chris- 
 
THE CORRUPTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 415 
 
 tian church, the Catholic doctrines and the Gospel 
 doctrines, they have been taught to consider as 
 identical. All the good effected by Christianity in 
 the world, is claimed for the Papacy. M. de Falloux, 
 one of the most staunch Romanists among French 
 statesmen, strikingly confounded Christianity with 
 Romanism, when, in a recent speech in the French 
 Assembly, he went on to say the Papacy has done 
 this good and that good. All the corruptions of 
 Popery, on the other hand, are laid by multitudes at 
 the door of Christianity. If they read history, so 
 large a space does Romanism occupy, that, (over 
 looking the little uncorrupted church of Christ which 
 has ever been as a green islet in a troubled sea or as 
 a light shining in a dark place,) the history of the 
 Papacy is with them the history of Christianity. And 
 that history is dark, foul, and loathsome. It is a 
 series of dire oppressions, and hideous corruptions ; 
 the record of a system which, professing to free and 
 elevate man, has debased and enslaved him ; a system 
 loving the darkness and hating the light, full of pious 
 frauds and outrageous crimes. They look around the 
 land in which they dwell, and Romanism, unchange 
 able in its mummeries and corruptions, in its enslaving 
 and benighting influences, rises up before them as 
 the all-explaining fact of the Christian Dispensation. 
 Such men on becoming enlightened, and emerging 
 out of the superstition, in which the masses are sunk, 
 inwardly, if not avowedly, loathe the gross doctrines, 
 cumbersome rites, and absurd practices of the church. 
 And if they know not a purer faith, or, by the very 
 
416 THE CORRUPTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 loathing which they have contracted, are averse to 
 inquire after it, the consequence will be either that, 
 retaining, from policy, an outward connection with 
 Rome, they secretly cherish infidelity; or, adopting 
 an honester though still a fatal course, they pass 
 openly over to the ranks of those who denounce 
 Christianity as a cunningly-devised fable. 
 
 This is no mere supposition. The history of the 
 past and the experience of the present corroborate it. 
 During the dark ages, Christianity, in the hands of 
 Romanism, sunk into the grossest superstition; and 
 that superstition was the occasion of a vast amount 
 of the then existing infidelity. A pure Gospel was 
 then, as always, in the world, but it was wandering 
 in deserts, and in mountains, and in clens, and caves 
 of the earth, being destitute, afflicted, tormented. It 
 was a sadly- depraved Christianity, more like a demon 
 of darkness than an angel of light, that stood before 
 men ; and no wonder that multitudes mistook the 
 demon for the angel, and in rejecting the one, re 
 jected the other also. In the fifteenth century, when 
 monkish superstition overspread the world a thick 
 darkness that preceded the break of day men of 
 learning and classical attainments in the church, 
 such as Lieo the tenth, Bembo, and many others, were 
 infidels ; and their infidelity, even amid the abounding 
 degeneracy, they could scarcely conceal. Under the 
 shadow of the church were at once nourished a gross 
 superstition and a profligate scepticism. 
 
 It was even so in the latter half of last century. 
 Protestantism had, in many quarters, sunk into a 
 
THE CORRUPTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 417 
 
 deep apathy. A dry and sapless orthodoxy, followed 
 by a carnal life, had supplanted the life-giving Gos 
 pel in the churches. Romanism, on the other hand, 
 had increased greatly in insolence and corruptions. 
 The pure form of Christianity, except in a few places, 
 had lost its vigor , and the corrupt form had become 
 proportionately more corrupt. The consequence was 
 an inexpressible disgust in the minds of enlightened 
 men at the doctrines and practices of the Romish 
 church, followed afterwards by an outburst of infi 
 delity and impiety. The church of France, before 
 the Revolution of 1789, had left the great mass of 
 the people in the most extreme ignorance, and had 
 disguised religion in a tissue of frauds and impos 
 tures. Its intestine quarrels, its grievous oppressions, 
 its benighting influences, its absurd pagan mum 
 meries, had rendered it an object of disgust and 
 contempt to the more intelligent portion of the 
 nation. The spirit of infidelity waxed mightily. 
 Romanism, being the only form of Christianity that 
 came prominently under men s notice, was con 
 founded or identified with Christianity itself. And 
 men, in making a rebound from a gross and oppress 
 ive superstition, overlooked the little true piety that 
 lay between, and fell into the abyss of unbelief. The 
 growing corruptions of the system opened men s 
 eyes, and convinced them of its falsehood ; and some 
 being unwilling, and others unable, to make a dis 
 tinction between Christianity as a revelation from 
 heaven, and Christianity as distorted and deformed 
 by Popery, the former had to bear the crimes of the 
 
 27 
 
418 THE CORRUPTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 latter, and in the fierce onset, the destruction of 
 Romanism was hailed as the abolition of Christianity 
 itself. The Archbishop of Paris and others, in 
 publicly renouncing Popery, proclaimed their dis 
 belief in Christianity. 
 
 Such was the case, to a considerable extent, in 
 all the other Catholic countries of Europe, during 
 last century. The church of Rome was fast losing 
 its hold on men s minds. Infidelity, in many places, 
 gained the ascendant. Multitudes, in escaping from 
 superstition, rushed into unbelief. Mr. Macaulay 
 remarks, that u at the time of the Reformation, 
 whole nations renounced Popery without ceasing to 
 believe in a First-Cause, in a future life, or in the 
 Divine mission of Jesus. In the last century, on 
 the other hand, when a Catholic renounced his 
 belief in the real presence, it was a thousand to one 
 that he renounced his belief in the Gospel too." 1 
 The reason of the difference is obvious. The Ref 
 ormation was a voice calling aloud, like a trumpet, 
 on the slumbering nations to awake. It was liberty, 
 in all the vigor of youth, undoing the heavy bur 
 dens, breaking every yoke, and bidding the oppressed 
 go free. It was the Gospel of the grace of God, 
 as fresh and mighty as when preached by Paul 
 proclaiming the acceptable year of the Lord, and 
 bringing the good news of a free and full salvation 
 to distressed and wearied souls. The men who 
 called upon others to escape from the robbers 
 
 1 Review of Ranke s History of the Pope s. 
 
THE CORRUPTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 419 
 
 pointed them to the city of refuge, and thus the 
 nations escaped the chasm. But the Protestantism 
 of the Continent, during the eighteenth century, 
 had, to a fearful extent, lost the life which the Re 
 formation originally breathed into it. It was slum 
 bering on the lap of rationalism. The trumpet had 
 fallen from its lips. It had substituted mere ab 
 stractions, or negations, for the life-giving word. 
 And when multitudes were rushing, like prisoners 
 let loose, from an oppressive superstition, Protest 
 antism, shorn of its locks, wanted the power to 
 arrest them at an intermediate point, and prevent 
 them from falling into the abyss of infidelity. 
 
 Again, if we look to those parts of the Continent 
 where a corrupted Christianity is dominant in our 
 own day, we find abundant illustrations of the posi 
 tion which we are endeavoring to establish. These 
 two excrescences of religious life, as Tholuck calls 
 them, superstition and unbelief, appear very promi 
 nently. One portion of the people, generally the 
 more ignorant, are sunk in superstition, and blindly 
 devoted to gross ceremonies. The other, and more 
 enlightened portion, (saving those who have embraced 
 the genuine Gospel,) having confounded the pure 
 and the corrupt, have lapsed into secret or open 
 unbelief. In the bosom of Romanism, men have 
 been taught to regard every species of Protestantism 
 as an upstart faith, and lying without the pale of the 
 true church. And multitudes, in abandoning the 
 one for its corruptions, have not been divested of 
 their prejudices in reference to the other so as to 
 
420 THE CORRUPTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 seek in it a religious home. It has been deemed 
 no libel to affirm that many intelligent Romanists 
 on the Continent, who are too clear-sighted to be 
 befooled by the mummeries of the Papacy, and too 
 politic openly to proclaim their hostility, have no 
 faith in the Christian revelation. In Italy, in Spain, 
 and France, Romanism, in the eyes of the nation, 
 is Christianity, and Christianity is Romanism. Men 
 still judge of the pure gold by the base counterfeit, 
 they decide on the merits of the heavenly original 
 by the earthly caricature. Indeed, in many cases, 
 the distorted form is still the only shape in which 
 Christianity comes under observation, so that, in 
 loosing their hold of the one, men give up all the 
 Christianity that ever they knew. And in other 
 cases, the rebound from Romanism, in cultivated 
 minds, is proportioned to the former pressure, so 
 that, to repeat Plutarch s saying, men in escaping 
 from the robbers, plunge into the chasm. 
 
 u Italy," says Dr. Achilli, " pants to shake off 
 Popery. But, with few exceptions, men who have 
 seen Popery and Christianity so intimately connected 
 with one another, have not spiritual discernment to 
 separate the one from the other, and with the false 
 hoods of Rome, they reject the sublimest truths of 
 Christianity. . . . Italy is full of men who, ceas 
 ing to believe in the Romish dogmas, have ceased to 
 believe in the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. One 
 main cause of this, is their ignorance of Holy Scrip 
 ture. 1 Pantheism and deism are, accordingly, occu 
 pying much of the ground in the Italian peninsula 
 
THE CORRUPTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 421 
 
 which has been prepared, though lost, by Romish 
 superstition. Dr. James Thomson, whose acquaint 
 ance with the moral and religious condition of Spain 
 is so extensive, tells us, that " many of the middling 
 classes are free-thinkers or atheists. They could 
 not be easily brought to read the Bible, for being 
 disgusted with priestcraft and its impositions, they 
 believe nothing and will hear of nothing." The cor 
 ruptions of Christianity in that once proud land are 
 fearfully glaring, and infidelity, as the consequence, is 
 ravaging the country. Romish pretensions in France, 
 since the revolution of 1848, have revived. But 
 France has no faith in them. They may be made 
 to play a part in the shifting scenes of the political 
 drama. But discerning men predict that they will 
 revive the spirit of Voltaire, and extend the dominion 
 of infidelity. " For the great masses of our French 
 population," says M. Roussel, " Christianity is Roman 
 ism, and Romanism is the mass, confession, cere 
 monies, fasts, and a thousand ridiculous supersti 
 tions ; and here we have a distinct reason why infi 
 delity prevails in France." 
 
 And, to come home, what have we in the " Oxford 
 School" but a source of corruption, one stream of 
 which is continually running to Rome, and another 
 going off to scepticism. Mr. Henry Rogers affirmed, 
 in 1843, in an article in the Edinburgh Review, that 
 " the desperate assertion that the evidence for Chris 
 tianity was no stronger than that for church prin 
 ciples, must, by reaction, lead on to an outbreak of 
 infidelity." And he can now say, "that prophecy 
 
422 THE CORRUPTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 has been to the letter accomplished." ] Newman, 
 Foxton, Froude, and others, who are waging war 
 against Christianity, are the result. 
 
 The present Archbishop of Dublin devotes several 
 numbers of his " Cautions for the Times," to show 
 that the Tractite party in depreciating the in 
 vestigation of Christian evidence, and insisting 
 on an implicit faith in what is taught ; in putting 
 the Scripture-miracles on a level with the absurd 
 miracles of later times ; in covertly and by implica 
 tion discouraging the study of the Scriptures, and 
 exalting the authority of "traditionary revelation;" 
 in earnestly deprecating the exercise of private judg 
 ment in religious matters ; and in making Chris 
 tianity assume the form of a religion of mere outward 
 rites and observances ; are doing tc more to shake 
 the authority of Scripture than all the attacks made 
 by infidels directly upon it, ever have done, or ever 
 can do. For Scripture is, in itself, invulnerable ; 
 and they who attack it, do but dash themselves to 
 pieces against a rock. But it may be easily shown 
 that the fathers of the church are mere human 
 teachers, who often deliver false, and sometimes even 
 absurd things, as true doctrine. To encumber Chris 
 tianity, therefore, with the defence of their errors and 
 absurdities, and make that essential to the safety of 
 our religion, is voluntarily to exchange an impreg 
 nable fortress for a position which cannot be main 
 tained against the enemy." 2 Once persuade men, as 
 the Oxford tractarians endeavor to do, that there is 
 1 Reason and Faith. 2 Cautions for the Times, p. 343. 
 
THE CORRUPTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 423 
 
 no alternative between their church principles and 
 infidelity, and many, seeing the sorry foundation on 
 which the former rest, will be led to pass over to the 
 latter. " One might almost thank you," said a 
 thoughtful young man, on leaving the church of St. 
 Mary s, Oxford, where one of the most determined 
 of the tractarian preachers had been holding forth in 
 this strain, "one might almost thank you for infi 
 delity as an antagonist to this God-dishonoring and 
 man-debasing system." 1 Thus it is that superstition, 
 baptized with the Christian name, leads on, by re 
 action, to unbelief. 
 
 2. Another way in which a corrupted Christianity, 
 and more especially the Papacy, ministers to infi 
 delity, is, that it leaves the mass of the people, among 
 whom it prevails, to be captured by infidel leaders in times 
 of national excitement. The times of the great French 
 revolution furnished abundant and fearful illustra 
 tions of the truth of this remark. The only religion 
 which the great body of the French people, at the 
 period referred to, was familiar with, was a bastard 
 Christianity. And that bastard had hoodwinked, pil 
 fered, and enslaved them. It had interdicted re 
 ligious inquiry, it had jealously withheld from them 
 the pure word of life, and, in the room of the glad 
 tidings of great joy, it had presented them with a 
 system of impostures and falsehoods. The atheistical 
 philosophers, men who knew of the existence of a 
 purer t religion, but who wished to bring every form 
 of religion into the same condemnation, found the 
 1 Christian Times, (Nov. 1850.) 
 
424 THE CORRUPTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 people in this condition, and determined to turn it 
 to their own destructive aims. It was easy to point 
 out to the people the trash, which, in the name of 
 religion, had been gathering, during ages of darkness 
 and ignorance, around them; easy it was to expose 
 and hold up to ridicule the absurd doctrines, puerile 
 ceremonies, extravagant pretensions, and oppressive 
 exactions of the church of which they were children ; 
 and easy too it was, amid the darkness, to confound 
 Popery with Christianity, and make ignorant and 
 enslaved men believe that the religion of Christ was 
 opposed to the rights of man, that it was the wretch, 
 the. oppressor. The lamp of Christian truth, as a 
 light shining in a dark place, was in the land, but 
 it was well nigh overpowered by the surrounding 
 obscurity. And men, having been trained to regard 
 Romanism as the only true Christianity, were now 
 easily persuaded by their infidel leaders, in abjuring 
 Romanism, to reject Christianity itself. 
 
 Had the church of France, previous to the revolu 
 tion, instructed the people in the Gospel truth, put 
 into their hands the pure word of God, and preached 
 the doctrines of the cross from her pulpits ; had she 
 stood forth before the eye of the nation identified 
 with all that is pure and lovely, and of good report in 
 Christianity; then, though a revolution had been 
 necessary, and infidel leaders might not .have been 
 wanting, the body of the people would have been 
 kept from those dreadfully, impious excesses f with 
 which the revolution was stained. As it was, how 
 ever, the fair form of religion wore a repulsive dis- 
 
THE CORRUPTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 425 
 
 guise lay upon the neck of the nation like a yoke, 
 had kept it in a worse than Egyptian bondage ; and. 
 the people being thus left a prey to pretending phi 
 losophers, were taught to avenge themselves by 
 throwing of the heavy burden, and trampling every 
 thing bearing the name of Christianity in the dust. 
 A corrupt church left the people to be seduced by 
 an atheistical philosophy; and the protracted effect 
 is seen at the present day, for, amid the illumination 
 of the nineteenth century, the French nation is nom 
 inally Roman Catholic, but at heart without faith in 
 the Christian revelation. This, then, is one of the 
 chief ways in which a corrupted Christianity ministers 
 to infidelity. It plunges the people into superstition, 
 and out of that superstition, at the call of ungodly 
 leaders, rises the demon of unbelief. That demon 
 is now stalking abroad in many lands. 
 
 3. The corruptions of Christianity form also an 
 armory out of which infidels take weapons to attack 
 Christianity itself. Their own infidelity may be ac 
 counted for in another way ; but their hands are 
 strengthened by the impostures, absurdities, and 
 oppressions, which, bearing the Christian name, have 
 converted that which is a blessing into a curse. A 
 good cause when depraved and made hideous by 
 professed friends, becomes auxiliary to its avowed 
 enemies. It is rarely that such men attack Chris 
 tianity as it is developed in the sacred volume, 
 and exemplified in the lives of real Christians, but as 
 it has been represented by themselves, or as it 
 exists imbbeded in a mass of corruptions. They are 
 
426 TEE CORRUPTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 wont to appeal to the ignorance and superstition, the 
 priestcraft and crime, existing under a grossly per 
 verted Christianity, of which unhappily the greater 
 part of church history is too full, and nations nominally 
 Christian present too abundant illustrations, and, 
 with a dishonesty, wofully glaring but often effectual, 
 represent the evils as if they were the fruits of Chris 
 tianity itself. These were the weapons which were 
 brandished by Paine and his school ; Holywell Street 
 bristled with them; and they are not unfrequently 
 taken up by a class of adversaries who would re 
 pudiate all sympathy with Paine in his coarse blas 
 phemy and vulgar impudence. The grossest dark 
 ness and superstition have existed and been retained 
 under the shadow of the church, the direst op 
 pressions and the most outrageous crimes have 
 been perpetrated in the Christian name; and these, 
 the effects of a sadly distorted Christianity, are, 
 with little ingenuity and less modesty, thrown in the 
 face of undefiled Christianity itself. Men can dis 
 tinguish between astrology and astronomy, between 
 chemistry and alchemy, between natural philosophy 
 and magic, and they never think of employing the 
 one to fight against the other. But they have other 
 interests than those of truth to serve, in being un 
 willing to distinguish the heavenly from the earthly 
 the religion of God from the religion of man. 
 
 Upon the whole, then, we may say that it has often 
 fared with Christianity, on account of its corruptions, 
 as it has sometimes done with the character of a 
 great nation, because of the degeneracy of those who 
 
THE CORRUPTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 427 
 
 were considered to represent it. The inhabitants of a 
 distant land, who never saw any better specimens of 
 the English character than the drunken ship s crew 
 that time after time visited their shores, and per 
 petrated fraud, robbery, and oppression, have no faith 
 in the virtue of the English nation. They identify 
 it with intemperance, deceit, and cruelty; and look 
 with jealousy and detestation on every white man 
 that sets his foot on their soil, even though he 
 comes to bless them. The English in India, during 
 the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, by their 
 rapine, impiety, and licentiousness, led the natives to 
 regard them as little better than fiends let loose 
 from hell to ravage their coasts. Other peoples 
 again, who know full well that the depraved class, 
 which now and then come under their observation, 
 are but spurious specimens of the true Britons, 
 choose, out of ill-will, or some unworthy motive, to 
 hold them up as types of England s character. 
 There is a true national character which gives the 
 lie to the libel, and there is a pure benignant Chris 
 tianity which disowns the corrupt as its representa 
 tive. Nevertheless, the base citizens, in the eyes of 
 foreigners, produce and strengthen scepticism in re 
 gard to the national honor ; and, in like manner, 
 the corrupt form of Christianity gives occasion for 
 rejecting the true. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 
 
 Much intolerance without the Church Christianity itself stands 
 clear of all within it- Its Founder the most tolerant of beings 
 Precepts and doctrines of the New Testament, and the lives of 
 the best Christians, acquit the gospel of the charge Accidental 
 association of intolerance with the religion of Christ, has often 
 been injurious to it Three manifestations of intolerance noticed : 
 1st. Jealousy in reference to science: Nature and revelation 
 in harmony Astronomy and the Bible once set at variance 
 Galileo A right principle of Scriptural interpretation harmonizes 
 Bible language with the true system of the universe Geology 
 Great antiquity of the globe a result, not an assumption Per 
 fect harmony between this and the Mosaic record Injurious 
 influence of refusing the harmonizing principle. 2d. Jealousy 
 in reference to any departure from the common mode of pulpit 
 teaching Want of Paul s principle of accommodation in consist 
 ency with great prominence to doctrines of the cross Necessity 
 of a wider and. more diversified range Chalmers Astronomical 
 Discourses. 3d. Intolerance of Different forms and Observances 
 Much handled by infidels Causes disaffection to Christianity 
 in many intelligent and liberal minds Such a spirit rebuked by 
 Christ. 
 
 IT should never be forgotten that a great deal of the 
 intolerance in the world lies without the pale of the 
 church, and that from all the intolerance found 
 within it, Christianity itself is entirely free. One 
 would imagine, to hear some objectors, that the thing 
 had no existence except among the adherents of the 
 
RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 429 
 
 Christian system, and that it was the native fruit of 
 the system itself. Some men see corruptions, divi 
 sions and intolerances, nowhere except within the 
 province of revealed religion; and they cannot, or 
 will not, distinguish between that religion and the 
 abuses that have crept around it, or the evils done in 
 its name. It is necessary, accordingly, to remind 
 such individuals that intolerance has had a place in 
 the schools, and in the senate, as well as in the 
 church ; that philosophy, literature, and politics, 
 have keenly manifested it, as well as systems of 
 religion ; and that while the evil could often be 
 shown to have been the natural effects of the human 
 system, it could as easily be shown to be foreign to 
 the divine. 
 
 The character of Christianity is to be judged of by 
 the spirit of its Founder, by its precepts and doctrines 
 as contained in the New Testament, and by the con 
 duct of those who have been acknowledged to be most 
 under its influence. The man Christ Jesus the 
 holy, harmless, and undefiled One was the most 
 tolerant of beings. In him were harmoniously 
 blended two great principles : an uncompromising 
 attachment to the truth, and great forbearance to 
 ward those who were weak in faith, or as yet 
 strangers to its power. He declared before Pilate 
 " to this end was I born, and for this cause came I 
 into the world, that I should bear witness unto the 
 truth." And so ardent was his zeal for the truth, 
 and so faithful his attachment to it, that men who 
 take a one-sided view of things, and confound an 
 
430 RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 
 
 enlightened regard to truth with intolerance, might 
 indeed bring the charge against the Saviour himself. 
 Had some persons who are ever raising this cry 
 against Christianity, seen him, in holy indignation, 
 expelling the buyers and sellers from the temple; 
 or heard him utter such uncompromising language 
 as this, " he that is not with me is against me If 
 any man will be my disciple, let him deny himself, and 
 take up his cross and follow me," they would, in all 
 probability, have ascribed it to an intolerant spirit. 
 How libellous would have been the charge! For 
 we have only to behold the faithful and true witness, 
 while firmly grasping the truth, exemplifying its 
 kindly spirit, and discountenancing in his followers 
 any manifestations of temper inconsistent with it. 
 He rebuked the various kinds of intolerance that 
 were manifested in his day. There was the intoler 
 ance of the synagogue, or of church exclusiveness, 
 which expresses itself in the cry, " the temple of the 
 Lord, the temple of the Lord, are we." And he said 
 to it, "I tell you of a truth, many widows were in 
 Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut 
 up three years and six months, when great famine 
 was throughout all the land ; but unto none of them 
 was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, 
 unto a woman that was a widow. And many lepers 
 were in Israel in the the time of Eliseus the prophet ; 
 and none of them was cleansed, saving Naanaan the 
 Syrian." There was the intolerance of a monopo 
 lizing caste, the germs of which appeared in his 
 own partially enlightened disciples who would forbid 
 
RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 431 
 
 the man casting out demons because he did not form 
 one of their company. And Jesus said, u forbid him 
 not: for he that is not against us is for us." There 
 was the intolerance of misplaced zeal, as manifested 
 by James and John, who, in the times of their ignor 
 ance would have commanded fire to come down from 
 heaven and consume the Samaritans, because they 
 did not receive the Master. But he turned, and said 
 unto them, "ye know not what manner of spirit ye 
 are of." Intolerance in Him was reserved for a base 
 and sanctimonious hypocrisy, and then it became a 
 virtue to manifest it. But the bruised reed he did 
 not break, and the smoking flax he did not quench. 
 And, with an enlarged heart, he recognized in every 
 one who did the will of God, his mother, his brother, 
 and his sister. Let the charge of intolerance be 
 made against whatever religious systems and teachers 
 men will but let the life and doctrine of Him who 
 taught his followers to love their enemies, and who 
 on the cross prayed for his murderers, stand clear 
 of it. 
 
 The same two great principles to which we have 
 adverted, are exemplified also in the character and 
 writings of the apostles. It is not to the time when 
 they were beset with Jewish prejudices that we refer, 
 but when they were in the very height of their noble 
 career as Christians and ambassadors, and most of all 
 under the influence of the truth. Look at John, 
 Boanerges, the son of thunder, him who would 
 have brought down fire on the Samaritans. He has 
 lost none of his zeal for the truth. " If there come 
 
432 RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 
 
 any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive 
 him not into your house, neither bid him God speed. 7 
 But how deeply is he imbued with the kindly and 
 tolerant spirit of that truth, u We know that we 
 have passed from death to life, because we love the 
 brethren." Look at Paul, once a persecutor and 
 injurious. In him were combined uncompromising 
 attachment to great truth, and forbearance to all who 
 held it, though differing on other matters. He who 
 withstood Peter to the face, because the truth was 
 likely to suifer through his dissimulation, became all 
 things to all men in order that he might win some. 
 It would be a difficult task for any man to find a 
 single precept or doctrine in the apostolical epistles, 
 or anything in the conduct of the apostles them 
 selves after they had been enlightened, on which to 
 fasten the charge of intolerance, unless he confound 
 with it -an enlightened attachment to the truth itself. 
 And there are thousands of Christians, in every age, 
 whose temper and conduct, being under the influence 
 of the truth as it is in Jesus, give the lie to the in 
 sinuation that Christianity fosters narrow-mindedness, 
 and intolerance. It is a petty, unmanly, dishonest 
 way of attacking the Gospel, to father upon it all the 
 weaknesses and vices of its professors ; when in the 
 character of its author, and both in its letter and 
 spirit, it rebukes intolerance of every shape. Happy 
 is it that amid the false imputations thrown on Chris 
 tianity by its enemies, and the unfavorable repre 
 sentation often given of it by being associated with 
 the imperfections and errors of its professed friends, 
 
RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 433 
 
 we can contemplate its native undiminished grandeur 
 in the sacred page, and see its holy benignant in 
 fluence manifested in so many of its true disciples, as 
 warrant us to say that the Gospel has as much com 
 munion with intolerance as light has with darkness. 
 
 But, although the religion of Christ disowns all 
 connection with the narrowness and bigotry of its 
 avowed disciples, it cannot be doubted that, in con 
 sequence of such associations, it has presented a re 
 pulsive aspect to many minds. We mean, therefore, 
 to notice some of the forms of religious intolerance, 
 which have thrown a stumbling-block in the way of a 
 pure and benignant Christianity. 
 
 1. The first to which we advert, is, the jealousy 
 with which some religious men regard the advancement 
 of science. The Book of nature and the book of revela 
 tion have the same Author, and, when rightly inter 
 preted, both declare the glory of God, and show forth 
 his handiwork. There may be apparent discrepancies 
 between them, but there can be no real contradic 
 tions; and, in proportion as scientific research is 
 prosecuted in a right spirit, and true principles of 
 interpretation are applied to the scriptural page, will 
 the harmony be manifested. The one, however, has 
 often been arrayed against the other, to the injury of 
 the truth of God. We refer, not so much to the 
 vaunts of infidels that the age of philosophical illu 
 mination and scientific discovery would eclipse and 
 falsify the scriptural revelation, or to the fact that 
 some philosophers have, unhappily, been unbelievers 
 in the sacred record circumstances which have had 
 
 28 
 
434 RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 
 
 considerable influence in prejudicing some good, 
 though, not great men, against such pursuits as to 
 the fact that Christians themselves, in many cases, 
 have countenanced the notion that there is real enmity 
 between them. 
 
 It was once a dogma both of philosophy and of the 
 church, that the earth is the greatest body in the uni 
 verse, placed immovable in its centre, and that all 
 the heavenly bodies were created solely for its use. 
 The influence of Aristotle riveted the notion of the 
 earth s immobility on men s minds for ages, and the 
 whole body of the faithful received it as the very doc 
 trine of the Bible. At length when the Aristotelian 
 dogmas respecting motion were overturned by the 
 discoveries of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo, and 
 the motion of the earth round the sun, as the centre 
 of the planetary system, was, on demonstrable evi 
 dence, asserted, science and religion were set against 
 each other, and what is now universally regarded as 
 a true astronomy, was denounced as inconsistent with 
 the Christian faith. It is well known that the Vati 
 can thundered its anathemas against those who held 
 the Copernican doctrine, and that the famous Galileo 
 was sent to the dungeons of the Inquisition for think 
 ing, as Milton says, in astronomy otherwise than the 
 Franciscan and Dominican licensers thought. And 
 even men of learning and piety were to be found 
 sometime afterward in the Reformed Church, who 
 maintained it to be anti scriptural to believe other 
 wise than that the earth is at rest, and that the sun 
 performs a daily revolution around it. David, the 
 
RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 435 
 
 man inspired of God, was boldly set against the phi 
 losopher Galileo; and because the former sung "God 
 hath established the earth upon its foundations: it 
 shall not be moved forever and ever The going 
 forth of the sun is from the end of the heaven and his 
 circuit unto the ends of it," and the latter could not 
 but maintain, on the ground of sure evidence, that 
 the earth moved, philosophy was placed under the 
 ban, and stigmatized as heretical and infidel. 
 
 The famous rule of interpretation, so fully adopted 
 by expositors in modern times, that the sacred writers 
 speak of natural objects, according to the popular 
 mode of comprehending them, u ex veritate optica non 
 physica" as Ronsenmuller says, a rule which Galileo 
 himself, who held both by the truth of the Scriptures 
 and the truth of the new philosophy, seems clearly to 
 have understood was little thought of, or generally 
 repudiated by divines as an example of wresting the 
 Scriptures from their plain and obvious meaning. 
 The persecuted philosopher could have told them 
 that, as the sacred writers, in accommodating their 
 language to the wants and capacities of men, speak 
 of God Himself under the semblance of human prop 
 erties; so do they, in speaking of His works, adopt 
 those popular forms of speech which could readily be 
 comprehended. 1 But the church, intellectually, as 
 well as in other respects, was intolerant. The phi 
 losophy of nature, however clearly established on fact, 
 must bend to men s narrow interpretation of Scrip 
 ture. It refused to do so. The philosopher, after 
 1 Dr. Smith s Scriptures and Geology, p. 192, (4th edition.) 
 
436 RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 
 
 his humiliating recantation, rose from his knees, 
 stamped his foot on the ground, and exclaimed, "It 
 moves after all!" A perpetual imprisonment was the 
 penalty ; and that very astronomy which gives us such 
 enlarged conceptions of the God of nature and of 
 grace, and which we regard as in perfect harmony 
 with scriptural truth, had, for years after the time of 
 Galileo, to bear the brand of heresy. That many of 
 the philosophical minds of that age were strengthened 
 in their secret opposition to Christianity, by such a 
 course of intolerance we may well believe, when we 
 consider how much it is appealed to by the enemies 
 of revelation, and how a similar, though less fierce 
 mode of intolerance, affects some minds in our own 
 day. 
 
 The once apparent inconsistency between astron 
 omy and revelation has vanished; the globularity 
 and mobility of the earth are no longer viewed by 
 the enlightened friends of Scripture as in conflict 
 with its statements; and they can view the march 
 of that sublime society not only without jealousy 
 of any injury accruing thereby to Christianity, but 
 with the satisfaction of seeing it contribute to en 
 large our conceptions of Him who is the Saviour 
 of the world, % and the Upholder of all things. The 
 application of a right principle of scriptural inter 
 pretation harmonizes the language of the Bible 
 with the true system of the universe; just as the 
 discoveries of the microscope, evincing as they do 
 the care of the Almighty for the little as well as 
 the great, ward off the objections which infidelity 
 
RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 437 
 
 has drawn from the discoveries of the telescope, on 
 the ground that the magnitude of the creation is 
 opposed to the belief that our little earth has had 
 concentrated upon it so much of the Divine regards 
 as is implied in the scheme of redemption. But if 
 the elder science of astronomy has been cleared of 
 the stigma of being opposed to religion, the younger 
 science of geology has incurred the reproach, and still 
 labors, in some measure, under it. 
 
 Geology has secured its place among the inductive 
 sciences; and, "in the magnitude and sublimity 
 of the objects of which it treats, undoubtedly ranks 
 in the scale of the sciences, next to astronomy." 1 
 It is a fixed principle of this science, which ex 
 tended observations are constantly strengthening, 
 and in reference to which great unanimity prevails 
 among geologists, that the materials of which this 
 globe is composed is of very high antiquity, and 
 date far beyond the six thousand years which are 
 the commonly-assigned age of the earth. This is 
 no mere hypothesis. Physical phenomena, which 
 lie patent to the eye of every observer, prove that 
 our planet has passed through several different states, 
 separated from each other by immense intervals of 
 time, long before man, or any of the other creatures 
 now existing, had been created. Several miles of 
 strata upon strata have been carefully examined by 
 scientific men of the first eminence, and they are 
 agreed, upon irresistible evidence, in affirming, that 
 the formation even of those stratified beds which 
 1 Herschell s Discourse on Natural Philosophy, p. 287. 
 
438 RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 
 
 are nearest the surface must have taken periods of 
 time which carry us immeasurably beyond the com 
 monly-received date of the creation. The facts that 
 no remains of the human species have been found 
 in any of the regular geological deposits, that these 
 deposits bear indubitable marks of having occupied 
 vast ages in their formation, and that the tempera 
 ture of the globe during the processes must have 
 been such as that man could not then have existed, 
 prove the antiquity of the globe to be so great as 
 that, in comparison, man s stay upon it dwindles into 
 an insignificant point of time. This is one of the 
 grand conclusions of geology, carefully and legiti 
 mately drawn from the records contained in the bosom 
 of the earth, and a conclusion which nothing what 
 ever can falsify. "No geologist worthy of the name," 
 says Mr. Hugh Miller, " began with the belief of the 
 antiquity of the earth, and then set himself to square 
 geological phenomena with its requirements. It is 
 a deduction, a result; not the starting assumption, 
 or given sum, in a process of calculation, but its 
 ultimate finding or answer." 1 Men of sceptical prin 
 ciples have arrayed this conclusion against Scripture 
 on the one hand, and some men of piety have arrayed 
 Scripture against it on the other. It is with the latter 
 that we have at present to do. 
 
 That there is an apparent discrepancy between the 
 
 teachings of geology and the teachings of the Bible 
 
 in this case must be admitted ; and that something 
 
 like alarm should at first have been produced thereby, 
 
 1 Footprints, p. 265. 
 
RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 439 
 
 in serious minds, is not to be wondered at. No 
 truth appears all at once full-orbed and complete. 
 Some of the noblest ideas of science and philosophy, 
 that are now as the sun shining in its strength, 
 seemed, at their early dawning, to conflict with 
 Christianity, because opposed to some of the popular 
 but mistaken interpretations of the sacred record. 
 Cowper had something like an excuse in his day, 
 which he would not have had now, in saying, 
 
 " Some drill and bore 
 The solid earth, and from the strata there 
 Extract a register, by which we learn, 
 That he who made it, and revealed its date 
 To Moses, was mistaken in its age." 
 
 It is unfortunate, however, that such jealousy 
 should exist; for believing, as such men must do, 
 that the records of nature and the records of revela 
 tion have the same Author, they might be assured 
 that the true interpretation of the one could never 
 really be at variance with the true interpretation of 
 the other. Had Moses, the man of God, anywhere 
 asserted that the materials of which this globe is 
 composed were called into being a few thousand 
 years ago, had the inspired historian identified the 
 original act of forming the world out of nothing 
 with the six days of the adamic creation, science 
 and revelation would then have been at open war, 
 and the consequences would have been serious. 
 Geologists can no more renounce their belief in the 
 great antiquity of the earth, than the followers of 
 Copernicus can give up the creed that the earth 
 
440 RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 
 
 moves, and that the sun is in the centre of the 
 planetary system. The convictions in the one case, 
 as well as in the other, are consequents not antece 
 dents. Moses nowhere asserts that the chronology 
 is different. The variance between his record and 
 the geological evidence is only apparent, not real; 
 it vanishes before a sound principle of scriptural in 
 terpretation. What we complain of, however, is, that 
 some good men disown the harmonizing principle, 
 and, to the injury of Christianity, cling doggedly 
 to their narrow principle of interpretation, and de 
 nounce, as heretical and infidel, one of the most 
 legitimate conclusions of science. Let it once be 
 admitted that the first sentence in the Book of 
 Genesis stands as a distinct and independent propo 
 sition, that it refers to an undefined antiquity when 
 the Almighty created the materials of the universe 
 out of nothing, and then, as Dr. Chalmers remarks, 
 u we can allow geology the amplest time for its various 
 revolutions without infringing even on the literalities 
 of the Mosaic record." 1 This principle of interpre 
 tation is no novelty, no mere bending of the sense 
 of the Scripture so as to meet the claims of a young 
 science. It is to be found in many of the ancient 
 Christian writers, it was supported by some of the 
 most learned and pious men in more modern times, 
 but who lived before geology had obtained a place 
 among the inductive sciences, and it is becoming 
 more and more generally acceptable among judicious 
 and devout expositors of Scripture in our own day. 
 1 Daily Scripture Readings, vol. i., p. I. 
 
RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 441 
 
 But the outcry has been heard, here and there, from 
 the pulpit and the religious press, that the geological 
 doctrines are antiscriptural. The Mosaical and 
 Mineral geologies have been compared and con 
 trasted, as if they were actually conflicting ; and the 
 most sweeping charges of atheism, and the like, 
 have been made against a science that appeals to 
 palpable evidence in support of its conclusion that 
 the earth is greatly older than the date commonly 
 assigned to it. 1 It is but lately that a correspondent, 
 in a respectable public journal, said, "I hold by my 
 antiquated tenets, that our world, nay, the whole 
 material universe, was created about six or seven 
 thousand years ago, and that in a state of physical 
 excellence of which we have in our present fallen 
 world only the vestiges of creation. The holders 
 of such an opinion, we hope, in all charity, are rapidly 
 diminishing. 
 
 But who can estimate the amount of injury thus 
 unintentionally done to the interests of Christianity, 
 and the advantage afforded to the ranks of infi 
 delity. It unfortunately happens that not a few 
 scientific men have, independently altogether of such 
 representations, no favorable prepossessions for the 
 Christian religion, and are criminally strangers to the 
 strength of its evidences and the grandeur of its 
 truths. And surely the intolerance of which we are 
 speaking, is calculated to strengthen their indifference 
 or hostility, and to induce them to rest in the conclu 
 sion that the Gospel is either a cunningly-devised fable, 
 
 1 See Dr. Smith s Scripture and Geology, p. 130, &c. 
 
442 EELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 
 
 or a system inimical to enlightened and philosophical 
 inquiry. It betrays indeed no small degree of intoler 
 ance on the part of some philosophers themselves, 
 and evinces a little-mindedness altogether unworthy 
 of them, that they can coolly dismiss Christianity, 
 and refuse to examine its claims, because it has 
 occasionally come before them associated with the 
 weaknesses and prejudices of some of its professors. 
 They are guilty of acting in the same way toward 
 religion that the Christian professors, of whom they 
 complain, act toward science ; and the charge of in 
 tolerance, which they bring against others, might 
 justly be retaliated upon themselves. But this does 
 in nowise weaken the fact that the attempt, on the 
 part of some, to limit the Mosaic account of the crea 
 tion to the date of six thousand years, in opposition 
 to geological conclusions carefully drawn and now 
 firmly established; and the attempt on the part of 
 others, to put the mark of Cain on the science, have 
 operated injuriously on some minds in fostering a 
 secret or open contempt for Christianity. There is 
 a natural indifference in the human mind to the 
 things which are revealed of God, and it is unfortu 
 nate when men can lay hold of some of the repulsive 
 associations of Christianity as a pretext for disregard 
 ing Christianity itself. Revelation cannot be made 
 to conflict with reason, Christianity cannot be arrayed 
 against science, without provoking enmity on the 
 other side, and giving an immense advantage to infi 
 delity. 
 
 Mr. Babbage says, "It is a fact, not to be disputed, 
 
RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 443 
 
 that some of the most enlightened minds of the day, 
 have nurtured a secret opposition to the doctrines of 
 Christianity, owing to the intellectual intolerance of 
 its abettors." And while it may be that some men of 
 philosophical pursuits are claiming much more for 
 reason than its due, or than it would be consistent 
 with the paramount claims of Christianity to con 
 cede, and that intolerance may thus be indiscrimin 
 ately applied to old prejudices and an enlightened 
 zeal for great truth ; yet it must be admitted that any 
 attempt to interdict a science whose conclusions are 
 based not upon airy speculations but upon palpable 
 evidence, under the mistaken notion that such con 
 clusions are hostile to the Word of God, must tend 
 to make some men infidels, and furnish with addi 
 tional weapons those who are so. Let no tolerance 
 be shown to the opinion, prevalent in our day, that 
 religion is a web of the mind s own weaving, that it 
 has no fixed and immutable standard in history, but 
 that it fluctuates with the fluctuation of ages ; for that 
 were to act the part of Judas and betray the very 
 truth. But let the simple assurance that the Author 
 of the material and mental constitutions, is also the 
 Author of Christianity, forever stifle all jealousy, and 
 silence all outcry against the steady march of physical 
 and mental science. Natural religion and revealed 
 become the more friendly the better they get acquaint 
 ed, and the present as well as past times can furnish 
 names alike illustrious for philosophical acquirements 
 and Christian excellence. One of these recently said, 
 amid an illustrious circle -of his scientific compeers ; 
 
444 RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 
 
 " If the God of love is most appropriately worshipped 
 in the Christian temple, the God of nature may be 
 equally honored in the temple of science. Even 
 from its lofty minarets, the philosopher may summon 
 the faithful to prayer; and the priest and the sage 
 may exchange altars without the compromise of faith 
 or of knowledge." 1 
 
 2. The second form of religious intolerance which 
 we would notice, as having an unfavorable bearing on 
 Christianity, is, the jealousy with which any departure 
 from the common mode of address, and any attempt to 
 accommodate religious discussions to the taste, litera 
 ture, and philosophy of the times, are not unfrequently 
 viewed by some of its professed friends. It is by no 
 means desirable to make any material change in 
 our usually-adopted style of pulpit preaching. To 
 the poor the Gospel is preached. They form by far 
 the larger portion of almost every religious audience, 
 and to their intelligence and capacities, should the 
 teaching of the Church be adapted. In order to se 
 cure plainness of speech, however, it is no more ne 
 cessary to descend to vulgarity than to resort to raving 
 in order to be impressive. Lord Brougham, in his 
 "Dissertation on the Eloquence of the Ancients," 
 says: u The best speakers of all times have never 
 failed to find that they could not speak too well or too 
 carefully to a popular assembly; that if they spoke 
 their best the best they could address to the most 
 learned and critical assembly, they were sure to suc- 
 
 1 Sir D. Brewster s Address at the meeting of the British Association 
 at Edinburgh, 1850. 
 
RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 445 
 
 ceed." Some of the most popular and useful preachers 
 on both sides of the Tweed, are those whose style is 
 level to the comprehension of the feeblest of the flock, 
 while it is characterized by an elegance and strength 
 which render it acceptable to the more refined and in 
 tellectual. What is wanting is a great prevalency of 
 what, in some quarters, extensively prevails, the style 
 which blends the expository and the sermonizing, the 
 doctrinal and the practical, the stiffness of the lecture 
 having imparted to it something of the graceful loose 
 ness of the sermon, and the declamation of the ser 
 mon receiving some of the massiveness of the lecture. 
 
 If it be not desirable to lay aside the common 
 mode of address, far less would it be to strip the 
 Gospel of its peculiarities, or to throw them into the 
 shade, in order to remove the offence of the cross. 
 The great preacher who acted, within legitimate 
 bounds, on the principle of becoming all things to all 
 men, acted always too on his noble determination to 
 know nothing among men save Jesus Christ and him 
 crucified. The field of divine truth is extensive in 
 itself, and richly diversified in its objects, but Christ 
 is the sun which clothes the whole with light as with 
 a garment, and the cross is the seat whence he sheds 
 abroad the brightness of his glory. Over this wide 
 field it behoves the Christian teacher to conduct his 
 disciples, and to make them acquainted with every 
 flower and tree that grows on its surface ; but all his 
 lessons should be given from under the shadow of 
 the cross, and on whatever subject he touches, 
 there should be a constant reference to this as the 
 
446 RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 
 
 tree of life whose leaves are for the healing of the 
 nations. 
 
 But it is of the want of Paul s principle of ac 
 commodation, acted on in consistency with due prom 
 inence being given to the doctrines of the cross, that 
 we complain. He accommodated himself to the pre 
 judices of the synagogue and of the market-place. 
 He closed with the philosophers in the Areopagus, 
 and with the more unlearned among the people. 
 He pursued one train of thought, and adopted one 
 style, while reasoning with the Jews; and another 
 and different one when addressing the Gentiles. 
 And yet, while thus becoming all things to all men, 
 he made it manifest that he counted all things but 
 loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ. 
 It is the greater prevalency of branching off from 
 the cardinal doctrine of the Gospel, while holding 
 fast by it; and of throwing the sanctity of religion 
 over philosophical researches on the one hand, 
 and of making science minister to the illustrations 
 of religious truth on the other, that we desiderate 
 in much of our religious teaching. The pulpit, 
 being designed for the instruction of men in every age 
 in the things of God, should be prepared to meet the 
 various forms of error which are ever and anon thrown 
 up from the heart of society, to dissipate the illusions 
 which have been thrown around them, and to show 
 how nature, when interpreted aright, yields an unbi 
 ased and spontaneous testimony to revelation. Far 
 be it that the lessons of the pulpit should ever be 
 turned into philosophical discussions, into learned dis- 
 
RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 447 
 
 quisitions, or into a mere baptised lifeless morality. 
 Of the former there has been more than enough 
 in past ages, and of the latter there may be in some 
 quarters too much still. But, let it not be forgotten 
 that nature teaches many useful and pious lessons, 
 and that the Bible appeals to them ; that in the same 
 record we are admonished to behold the Lamb of 
 God that taketh away the sin of the world, and to 
 consider the lilies of the field how they grow ; that 
 the inspired cannon contains the Proverbs of Solomon 
 as well as the Psalms of David, the philosophical 
 epistle of James as well as the doctrinal epistles of 
 Paul. Let not God s book of nature be treated as 
 if its inscriptions had grown dim and effete before 
 the clearer light of revelation, and, while irreligious 
 men would make the stars in their courses fight 
 against prophets and apostles, and adduce the great 
 " stone book" as a witness against the word of life ; let 
 those who are set to teach in the church show that 
 the records of the material creations, of the heavens 
 above and of the earth beneath, are in perfect har 
 mony with the statements of the scriptural page. 
 There is the leaven of a secularist infidelity diffusing 
 itself among the masses, and of a philosophical un 
 belief making its way among the educated classes, to 
 the existence and influence of which, many who wait 
 upon the ministrations of the sanctuary are not entire 
 strangers; and this surely warrants an occasional 
 departure from the usual mode of address, in order 
 to strip false systems of their pretensions, and to 
 exhibit by contrast the glory of the true. Paul, if we 
 
448 RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 
 
 mistake not, would have acted thus, had he lived in 
 an age like ours so widely different in many points 
 from his own; and in doing so, would have mani 
 fested the harmony of his two grand principles- 
 determining to know nothing among men save Jesus 
 Christ and him crucified, and becoming all things to 
 all men in order that he might win some. 
 
 Now, it is in the jealousy with which some devoted 
 teachers of religion view any such accommodation 
 to the taste and prejudices of the times, and in the, 
 perhaps, still stronger jealousy with which such an 
 occasional departure from the old course would be 
 received by multitudes of simple-minded hearers, that 
 we discover an influence really injurious to Chris 
 tianity. We are not, let it be remembered, advocat 
 ing a trimming mode of preaching, the substitution 
 of a sort of religious philosophy for the Gospel itself, 
 or mere displays of literary taste, in order to captivate 
 literary men. No. This, besides proving, as it ever 
 has done, a wretched failure, would be an abandon 
 ment or an unworthy compromise of the one great 
 principle of Paul to which we have adverted. But it 
 is the greater prevalency of the system, which has 
 been partially adopted by some distinguished teachers, 
 of making occasional excursions to other topics, while 
 habitually expounding, and enforcing the great doc 
 trines of the cross and of linking even these other 
 topics with the truth of the Gospel for which we 
 plead. It is undeniable that Christianity in the 
 teaching of by far the greater number of its devoted 
 ministers, wears a more contracted and exclusive 
 
RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 449 
 
 aspect than really belongs to it ; and that the stern 
 refusal to admit the pulpit to the age, has led some 
 intelligent minds to cherish unfavorable opinions of 
 the great truths of the Gospel. The jealous exclusion 
 of almost every topic from sacred teaching, which is 
 not directly included within the system of evangelical 
 doctrine, or the intolerance shown when an occasional 
 excursion is made beyond the prescribed boundary, 
 has induced many to associate the grand themes of 
 the pulpit with a narrow and illiberal exclusiveness 
 to which in themselves these themes are strangers. 
 "If the priesthood of the sanctuary," remarks Dr. 
 Yaughan, 1 "is to be a match for the priesthood of 
 letters, the path of its labors must become wider and 
 more diversified every day. Men who see this must 
 give little heed to those who see it not." 
 
 Dr. Chalmers, in the introduction to his celebrated 
 Astronomical Discourses, which we consider a good 
 exemplification of the two principles of Paul formerly 
 adverted to, makes a remark, in some measure still 
 applicable. He is speaking of " those narrow and 
 intolerant professors who take an alarm at the very 
 sound and semblance of philosophy; and feel as if 
 there was an utter irreconcileable antipathy between 
 its lessons on the one hand, and the soundness and 
 piety of the Bible on the other," and adds, "it were 
 well, I conceive, for our cause, that such persons could 
 become a little more indulgent on this subject ; that 
 they gave up a portion of those ancient and heredi 
 tary prepossessions which go so far to cramp and 
 
 1 Letter and Spirit, p. 78. 
 29 
 
450 KELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 
 
 enthral them ; that they would suffer theology to 
 take that wide range of argument and of illustration 
 which belongs to her; and that, less sensitively 
 jealous of any desecration being brought upon the 
 sabbath, or the pulpit, they would suffer her freely 
 to announce all those truths which either serve to 
 protect Christianity from the contempt of science ; 
 or to protect the teachers of Christianity from those 
 invasions, which are practised both on the sacredness 
 of the office, and on the solitude of its devotional and 
 intellectual labors." 
 
 It is unfortunate that theology, the grandest of all 
 the sciences, should have been kept so much aloof 
 from the others, as it is unfortunate that the others 
 have been kept so much aloof from theology ; unfor 
 tunate it is that theology has often been made to 
 look strangely and jealously on natural science, as it 
 is that natural science has often looked strangely and 
 jealously on theology. The two real friends have 
 been made to cherish silent or open contempt for 
 each other; and while the contempt of science has 
 often occasioned the contempt of theology, the con 
 tempt of theology has often occasioned the contempt 
 of science. 
 
 3. The most common species of religious intoler 
 ance, and one that has given to Christianity a more 
 repulsive aspect than any other, remains to be no 
 ticed the intolerance of different forms, rites, and 
 ceremonies. The form of godliness, in the present 
 state, is necessary to the manifestation and mainten 
 ance of its power. But men in every age have been 
 
RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 451 
 
 prone to attach that importance to the external shape 
 which only belongs to the inner life. And in propor 
 tion to the exclusiveness of attachment to any par 
 ticular form, has been the intolerance shown to those 
 who differ from it. Christianity is the ministration 
 of the Spirit. Its divine Founder frowned upon the 
 formalism and consequent intolerance of his day. 
 The New Testament while giving no countenance 
 to the neglect of the outward institutions of religion, 
 places them in complete subordination to piety 
 itself; and, by the utter absence of minute regula 
 tions as to external ceremonies, indicates not only 
 that the/ are of inferior importance compared with 
 the weightier matters of the law, but that professing 
 Christians should show much indulgence towards 
 one another in reference to them. The several sec 
 tions of the church have often acted as if the New 
 Testament had its book of Leviticus, and their in 
 dividual interpretation could not possibly be other 
 wise than the right one; and as if they had been 
 commanded to punish or stand aloof from those who 
 denied there was any such book in the New Testa 
 ment, or who ventured to adopt another interpretation 
 of its meaning. From the beginning until now, 
 some men, pent up within their own sacred inclosure, 
 and being unable to see any good beyond, have been 
 crying, "the temple of the Lord, the temple of the 
 Lord are we." Their own Zion has filled up so largely 
 the sphere of their vision as to be looked upon as 
 exclusively the church, and they say, with an implied 
 disparagement of all other hills, "our fathers wor- 
 
452 RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 
 
 shipped in this mountain." The line of genealogy 
 the chain of succession has become so exclusively 
 sacred in their estimation as the channel of grace, as 
 to have blinded their eyes to an illustrious ancestral 
 piety elsewhere, and to lead them to say with in 
 effable complacency, "we have Abraham to our 
 father." And while intolerance has been manifesting 
 itself in this way, under a pretended zeal for the 
 honor of Christianity itself, that very Christianity, 
 in the life of its great Author, and in the pages of 
 inspiration, has been rebuking the foul and wicked 
 spirit, and calling upon it to come out of the church. 
 
 Men who have no inclination to examine the evi 
 dences of Christianity, and to contemplate its native 
 grandeur disconnected from the weakness and in 
 tolerance of its professed friends, confound the one 
 with the other. Or they are something like in 
 dividuals prevented from entering into a magnificent 
 castle, and surveying its beautiful grounds, by the 
 surly looks o f the porters that stand at the gate. 
 This intolerance, like an evil genius, has so often 
 accompanied Christianity in its descent down the 
 stream of ages, and in its progress through the world, 
 leading to the formation of conventicle acts and acts 
 of uniformity, unchurching, anathematizing, imprison 
 ing, and burning those who were of a different way, 
 that it would not be wonderful were thousands to 
 rise up in judgment, and say to the demon of intoler 
 ance, "You made us infidels." Vast multitudes, in 
 every age, will, in spite of all remonstrance, estimate 
 Christianity by the spirit and conduct of its professed 
 
RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 453 
 
 followers. And, while they see much in the past, 
 and not a little in the present, of that temper which, 
 under the plea of religion, would bring down fire from 
 heaven and consume the Samaritans ; or which mani 
 fests itself in a conceited piety, saying, " Stand by your 
 self, come not near to me, for I am holier than you ;" 
 their prejudices against Christianity will strengthen, 
 and they will be apt to confound the darkness and 
 the light. No one, at all acquainted with the writings 
 of infidels, more especially with those which have been 
 popularized and diffused through the masses, but 
 must know that this species of religious intoler 
 ance is handled and held up as if it were the 
 natural fruit of religion itself. And how often, in the 
 walks of social intercourse, do we meet with intelligent 
 and liberal-minded men, who cannot conceal their 
 disaffection to Christianity, on account of what may 
 be called the church intolerance of many of its pro 
 fessors. 
 
 Coleridge has said, " I will be tolerant of every 
 thing else but every other man s intolerance." Relig 
 ious intolerance is the most odious and insufferable 
 of all. The spirit of humanity, if it be not enslaved, 
 rises up against it ; and on many minds who have 
 not learned to distinguish between the gentleness of 
 Christ and the bitterness of some professing Chris 
 tians, such is its influence as to involve in one feeling 
 of disgust everything in the shape and name of 
 Christianity. What an inconceivably paltry, trouble 
 some, intolerant thing, must Christianity be in the 
 eyes of some men, who form their notions of it from 
 
454 RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 
 
 some portions of Church History, or from those who 
 stickle for caste, vestments, and ceremonies, as if 
 the life of genuine religion was bound up in them. 
 And so much fiery zeal has been manifested, by large 
 bodies of professed Christians in every age, for the 
 mere wood, hay, and stubble, that it is not to be 
 wondered at, if those who were indisposed to appeal 
 to the Bible, should have come to the conclusion that 
 there was nothing else in religion worth contending 
 for. The church in every age has had its Harnans 
 who could riot bear to see Mordecai sitting at the 
 gate. There have been multitudes of great and petty 
 Lauds who would rather have had the plague in their 
 parishes than religious dissent, and who would sooner 
 have tolerated drunkenness and uncleanness than 
 the unpardonable sin of Puritanism and Noncon 
 formity. The imprisonment of John Bunyan and 
 thousands of men of less note, because they would 
 pray without a common prayer-book ; the outrage of 
 refusing Christian burial to those who had not been 
 baptized within the pale of a particular communion ; 
 the denial of the validity of any ordination, but this 
 particular one, or that particular one; the jealousy 
 sometimes shown toward lay preaching, not lest error 
 should be propagated, but lest the priest s office 
 should be invaded ; and the many ways in which the 
 old proposition is openly expressed, or half-concealed, 
 " out of our church, no salvation;" these, which are 
 but the intolerances of erring, deluded, or proud 
 men, have done incalculable injuries to that benignant 
 work which is of God. "The prevalence of so in- 
 
RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 455 
 
 tolerant a theory," says Isaac Taylor, when speaking 
 of tractarianisin, "and the bold avowal of it by those 
 who are regarded as the best-informed expounders of 
 Christianity, silently but extensively, operates to drive 
 cultured and ingenuous minds into deism or atheism. 
 What is this Christianity, say such, which, while pro 
 fessing to be a religion, not of bondage and forms, 
 but of truth and love, nevertheless impels its adher 
 ents to violate all charity on the precarious ground 
 of an elaborate hypothesis!" 1 
 
 The disciples may forbid a man to cast out demons 
 in the name of Jesus, because he follows not with 
 them. But the Lord, instead of sanctioning their 
 conduct, rebukes them. It is enough for Him that 
 the man is doing his work, and doing it in his name. 
 " Such a church, or such a community," says Yinet, 
 " believes that to follow Jesus Christ, it is necessary 
 to be with it, form a part of its organization, join the 
 society of which it is composed, espouse its interests, 
 and hang out its banner." 2 The Lord rebukes such 
 a spirit. He looks over all the hedge work of forms 
 and ceremonies within which his professed followers 
 have too often enclosed themselves, and says, "he 
 that is not against us is for us." Let not Christianity, 
 then, be made responsible for what it repudiates ; but 
 let it not be denied that an intolerance of different 
 external forms and rites, on the part of churches, has 
 been prejudical to the Gospel and strengthening to 
 infidelity. \ 
 
 Spiritual Christianity, p. 99. 2 Vinet s Vital Christianity, p. 223. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 DISUNION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 Christ s Church really one Scriptural illustrations of this A truth 
 often lost sight of Disjointed state of the Church a common 
 refuge of infidelity An argument easily applied Its influence 
 on a man whose religious knowledge is merely superficial, and 
 who has but a very lingering attachment to Christianity The 
 sophism repelled by a man of an opposite character The refuge, 
 however, remains Deistical writers used it A source of per 
 plexity to the weak and inquiring, and an auxiliary to the hostile 
 Remark of Robert Hall Unity not to be confounded with 
 uniformity Romish unity a huge fiction Remark of Whately 
 Scriptural unity consistent with minor difference Remark of 
 Sir James Stephen Mr. Ruskin s " Notes" Difference between 
 moral and mathematical certainty Voltaire Macaulay s re 
 marks on Gladstone Visible unanimity to be aimed at Saviour s 
 Prayer Twofold influence of Christian unity The exhibition 
 of unity would tell mightily as a proof of the divinity of Chris 
 tianity Instanced in the early Church The consequent unity 
 of action would tell powerfully on successful propagation of 
 Christianity Primitive Church had unity of action so long as it 
 had unity of exhibition Noble things done since by combined 
 Christian effort God, in the signs of the times, is calling upon 
 Christians to manifest their unity. 
 
 THE Church of Christ, amid all outward diversities 
 and conflicting interests, is really one. What Cy 
 prian, one of the most illustrious of the Fathers, 
 said, with a too partial, if not an exclusive reference, 
 to the existing church, is true of the great company 
 
DISUNION OF THE CHURCH. 457 
 
 of the faithful, composed of men in all ages and 
 lands, who hold the Head, even Christ: -"The 
 church is one, which by reason of its fecundity, is 
 extended into a multitude, in the same manner as 
 the rays of the sun, however numerous, constitute 
 but one light; and the branches of a tree, however 
 many, are attached to one trunk, which is supported 
 by its tenacious root; and when various rivers flow 
 from the same fountain, though number is diffused 
 by the redundant supply of waters, unity is preserved 
 in their origin." 1 This essential characteristic of 
 the Christian community is illustrated by several 
 comparisons in Scripture. The church is represented 
 as a building of which the Lord Jesus is the founda 
 tion, and believers in every place and age are living 
 stones united to Him and to each other, and built 
 up a spiritual house. It is spoken of as one fold 
 under the care of the one shepherd, as a whole 
 family or brotherhood named after the Father of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, and, not to multiply illustra 
 tions, it is described as one body, all genuine 
 believers holding the same Head, and every one 
 members one of another. Yet the church, in many 
 of its branches, has often lost sight of this delightful 
 truth, and acted a part directly contrary to its 
 influence. The harmony has been broken, brethren 
 have set brethren at nought, schisms have been 
 made in the body, and member has been saying 
 unto member, "I have no need of thee." The faithful 
 have been ranging themselves undex different leaders, 
 
 1 Hall s Terms" of Communion. 
 
 BE : IT 
 
 o*r - * 
 
458 DISUNION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 some saying we are of Paul, others, we are of Apol- 
 los, others, we are of Cephas; while their common 
 Lord and Saviour has been saying unto them, "One 
 is your Master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren." 
 
 The disjointed and disorderly state of the church 
 has been notoriously one of the most common 
 refuges of infidelity. At the beginning, the lovely 
 manifestations of its inward unity often drew the 
 unwilling homage from the world, " Behold how 
 these Christians love one another!" And we may 
 easily conceive how influential must have been the 
 exhibition of Christian unity in disarming the pre 
 judices and overcoming the hostility of those without. 
 To see vast multitudes of individuals, men of every 
 kindred and tongue, and nation and people, separated 
 from each other by country and language, by a 
 diversity of station and interests, all glorying in 
 the same cross, bound by the bands of love into one 
 Christian brotherhood, and harmoniously engaged 
 in doing the greatest good to the world, must, in 
 many cases, have been instrumental in producing 
 the conviction that Christianity is of God. u It was 
 this, indeed," remarks Neander, "which, in a cold 
 and selfish age, struck the pagans with wonder." 
 But the picture has been reversed. Modern Chris 
 tendom has too often presented the unseemly spec 
 tacle of the several companies of the Prince of Peace 
 contending against each other, instead of uniting 
 their strength and advancing against the common 
 foe. The unbelieving world has meanwhile looked 
 on, and said, with a more deeply-rooted prejudice, 
 
DISUNION OF THE CHURCH. 459 
 
 " See how these Christians are divided, how they hate 
 and oppose each other. This is your boasted Chris 
 tianity, and these are the followers of Him whom 
 they call meek and lowly of heart!" 
 
 The argument against the Gospel, derived from 
 the divisions and discords of the Christian com 
 munity, is a very popular one. It lies upon the 
 surface of things, requiring no great grasp of com 
 prehension either on the part of him who takes it 
 up and applies it, or on the part of him who receives 
 it. There are multitudes, whose natural aversion 
 to Christianity would fail to manifest itself openly 
 under the pressure of abstract reasoning, who will 
 be drawn out to an avowed unbelief, by the use of 
 popular sophisms, and an appeal to those palpable 
 facts which are unhappily furnished by the divided 
 state of the Christian world. Disunion among the 
 adherents of any system is a weapon put into the 
 hands of opponents, which they readily point against 
 the system itself. And the weapon flies the swifter 
 toward the mark, according as the pretensions of the 
 system and the conduct of its professors are at vari 
 ance. With what a degree of self-elation then, must 
 many an infidel, who had neither the honesty nor 
 the inclination to examine Christianity, have looked 
 upon the sectarianism and contention of the church. 
 And how impregnable must he have felt his position, 
 when encountering a man somewhat like-minded 
 with himself, only retaining the shadow of a here 
 ditary reverence for Christianity, but as little dis 
 posed to imitate the noble Bereans in searching the 
 
460 DISUNION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 Scriptures to see whether or not these things are so. 
 He would have at hand a number of texts in which 
 the character and pretensions of the Gospel are ex 
 pressed or implied, and, with a view of falsifying 
 these he would appeal to the temper and conduct of 
 the adherents of the Gospel, place the one in conflict 
 with the other; and, as if it were indisputable that 
 the temper was the genuine influence of Christianity, 
 endeavor to fix upon the system the brand of im 
 posture. He would need only to lay hold of the 
 song, so descriptive of the Gospel, which was sung 
 by the angels over the plains of Bethlehem, and then 
 making his appeal to the history of the church, and 
 to the actual state of some portions of the Christian 
 world, complacently ask, "Where is glory to God in 
 the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward 
 men ?" The appeal would not be without its influence 
 on the mind of a man who had no experimental knowl 
 edge of the peaceful tendency of the Gospel, whose 
 acquaintance with the state of the Christian world 
 was of the most superficial character, and whose 
 lingering attachment to Christianity was like the 
 last sere leaf on a tree ready to be carried off by the 
 next wind that blew. 
 
 An individual whose acquaintance with Christian 
 truth was enlightened, deep, and experimental, and 
 whose knowledge of the Christian community extend 
 ed to other facts than external divisions and imper 
 fections, could withstand the appeal and repel the 
 sophism. He could say to the infidel pleader, "These 
 are not all the facts of the case. Your argument 
 
DISUNION OF THE CHURCH. 461 
 
 is a one-sided one. You have gone to the bleak and 
 wintry side of the hill, and have conie away with the 
 notion that all around is gloomy and sterile, whereas 
 the other slope is clothed to the top with verdure, and 
 on it the sun is brightly shining. You have raked up 
 the divisions and contentions of the church, but you 
 have not told us of the times of her unity and valiant 
 contendings for the truth. And not only so, but you 
 have confounded the corruptions of Christianity with 
 Christianity itself, the accidental with the essential, 
 the work of man with the work of God, The divis 
 ions, of which you make so much, are to be deplored, 
 but they are not unforeseen obstacles thwarting the 
 march of Christianity; on the contrary, the Christian 
 record foretold them, Christianity itself overcomes 
 them, and eventually makes them swell the train 
 of her triumph. The church, amid all outward 
 diversities, is verily one ; and when the storms have 
 been hushed, and the dark clouds have passed away, 
 the world will see the true vine, and, clustering on 
 either side of it united by a common bond, pervaded 
 by a common principle of life, and bearing the same 
 manner of fruits a goodly array of living branches. 
 
 But this mode of stating the case, however just and 
 true, and whatever might be its weight on the mind 
 of an anxious inquirer, would not prevail with the 
 man whose tendencies were in an opposite direction. 
 There is the palpable fact of a disjointed and divided 
 church standing before him, there are schisms in the 
 kingdom that is declared to be one, there is the sound 
 of discordant voices and conflicting interests among 
 
462 DISUNION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 the followers of the Prince of Peace. And so long as 
 these excrescenses of the religious life are manifested, 
 and men are to be found who will persist in forming 
 their notions of Christianity, not from the New Testa 
 ment, but from the imperfections and inconsistencies 
 of its followers, so long will indifference and infidelity 
 have a refuge in the sectarianism and contentions of 
 the Christian world. We may get behind the refuge 
 and endeavor to push the man from it, we may tell 
 him that he has mistaken a mud-shed for a strong 
 tower, we may cry out against his unfairness and 
 little-mindedness in confounding what is accidental 
 with what is essential, and in suffering himself to be 
 prejudiced against a revelation from heaven because 
 of the contendings of its professed friends. We may 
 carry the point farther, and charge his hostility, as 
 the Saviour himself has done, on a deep-rooted 
 aversion of mind and heart to the high and holy 
 principles, the strict and uncompromising require 
 ments of the Gospel itself. But, after having done all 
 this, the refuge, such as it is, remains; and the man 
 still resorts to it in the way of justifying and con 
 firming his aversion to the Gospel truth. We might 
 be almost sure too, that, in the case of many, were this 
 refuge taken away, others would be resorted to, and 
 their prejudices against Christianity be not a whit 
 lessened. But this does not affect the fact, that the 
 visible disunion of the Christian church has been a 
 stumbling-block to the world, and has strengthened 
 the hands of the infidel. 
 
 The deistical writers, from Lord Herbert down- 
 
DISUNION OF THE CHURCH. 463 
 
 wards, have availed themselves, with much disingen- 
 uousness indeed, of this weapon against the Chris 
 tian cause; and have fallaciously, yet with some 
 plausibility, argued, that a system which admitted of 
 such conflicting opinions among its adherents, could 
 possess nothing like certainty ; and that a church 
 professedly one and yet split into a number of isolated 
 or opposing sects, must be a contradiction. Herbert, 
 Bolingbroke, and other writers of a lower grade in 
 the same school, may have become unbelievers, inde 
 pendent altogether of the subordinate cause which we 
 are now considering, and might have retained their 
 unbelief had that cause been removed out of the way ; 
 but it was among the auxiliaries that strengthened 
 their prejudices against Christianity, furnished them 
 with weapons of attack, and gave their infidel senti 
 ments a readier access into the minds of other men. 
 The world has, in these conflicting sects and divisions, 
 a hold which it had not in the primitive age of Chris 
 tianity; and, without assigning to the unity of the 
 church that efficiency as a cause which some (with 
 a view of precluding a higher agency) have done, 1 we 
 cannot doubt that its visible unity, short though its 
 continuance was, had a strong subordinate influence 
 in recommending the Christian cause, any more than 
 we can doubt that the return of peace and unity will 
 be powerfully instrumental in the conversions of the 
 latter day. "Nothing," says Lord Bacon, "doth so 
 much keep men out of the church, and drive men out 
 of the church, as breach of unity." And, as Isaac 
 
 1 Gibbon. 
 
464 DISUNION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 Taylor remarks, "If we could only bring to view the 
 secret causes of that infidelity which, it is to be feared, 
 prevails among the educated classes, this now named 
 the scandal arising from religious dissensions, would 
 probably appear to be one of the most frequent and 
 determinative." 1 
 
 The most powerful arguments in favor of Chris 
 tianity have been repelled and thrown upon its advo 
 cates by the infidel sarcasm, "Agree among yourselves 
 first ; and then, manifesting yourselves, what you pro 
 fess to be, the disciples of one Master, come and ask 
 us to join you." And it has been felt, when advocat 
 ing the Christian cause before those who are indif 
 ferent or opposed to it, that, however shallow the 
 sophisms by which they endeavor to defend their 
 hostility, and however much that hostility is to be 
 traced to an ulterior and more powerful cause, a stum 
 bling-block, an occasion of offence, would be destroyed, 
 were the breaches in Zion healed; and the church 
 would then look forth, " as the morning," on a world 
 destined to be her inheritance, "fair as the moon, clear 
 as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners." 
 The divisions and conflicting opinions of the Chris 
 tian world have been a source of painful perplexity to 
 the weak and inquiring on the one hand, and have 
 operated as a flattering unction to the indifferent and 
 an auxiliary force to the decidedly hostile on the other. 
 Some of the former, with great want of manliness, 
 have sought refuge from the embarrassment in the 
 infallibility and uniformity of Eome ; thus renouncing 
 
 1 Spiritual Christianity, p. 149. 
 
DISUNION OF THE CHURCH. 465 
 
 the right of private judgment, after having exercised 
 it in choosing their new mother, and rolling their 
 responsibility ever afterwards upon the back of a 
 self-styled infallibility while the latter, seeing divi 
 sion to be the weakness of the church, have, with 
 much unfairness, ascribed it to the weakness of Chris 
 tianity itself. Robert Hall, in allusion to the con 
 troversies and factions which distracted the church 
 subsequent to the Reformation, arising out of the 
 abuse of the right of private judgment then nobly 
 vindicated, says, "in this disjointed and disordered 
 state of the Christian Church, they who never looked 
 into the interior of Christianity were apt to suspect, 
 that to a subject so fruitful in particular disputes 
 must attach a general uncertainty ; and that a religion 
 founded on revelation could never have occasioned 
 such discordancy of principle and practice among its 
 disciples. Thus infidelity is the joint offspring of an 
 irreligious temper and unholy speculation, employed, 
 not in examining the evidences of Christianity, but 
 in detecting the vices and imperfections of professing 
 Christians." 1 
 
 Unity is not to be confounded with uniform 
 ity. The distinction between the two, however, has 
 often been lost sight of both by the enemies and 
 friends of Christianity. The church has had many 
 an extensive scheme of uniformity, while within it 
 there has been anything but unity. Popery glories 
 in her undivided empire, but it is only the oneness of 
 an external ceremonial, which shelters men of no 
 
 1 Modern Infidelity. 
 30 
 
466 DISUNION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 opinions about religion and men of almost every 
 diversity of opinion. It is the unity of millions 
 yielding an external homage to one man, and scrupu 
 lously observing the same outward ceremonies, while 
 between multitudes of them there are few or no other 
 points of contact. It is a huge fiction to maintain 
 that Rome is, in the proper sense of the expression, 
 an united church, while within the uniform pale are 
 all kinds of doctrines from supralapsarianism to 
 atheism. "It is not true," remarks Archbishop 
 Whateley, " that the church of Rome is, even in their 
 own sense of the word, exempt from divisions and 
 dissensions. The great means of unity, according to 
 most of them, is the authority of the pope ; yet they 
 are not agreed among themselves as to the extent of 
 the pope s authority; some thinking the pope infal 
 lible, others denying that he is; some making him 
 superior to a general council, others inferior, etc. 
 Nay, learned men have reckoned up at least twenty- 
 four fierce schisms and dissensions (some of them 
 very bloody) about, wlio was pope ; when several rivals 
 each claimed to be the true pope, and condemned all 
 others as impostors. Again, they are divided among 
 themselves about many of the same things as Pro 
 testants are divided about; as free-will, predestina 
 tion, etc. ; besides many disputes which have no place 
 
 among us." 
 
 Protestantism, too, in aping the imposing system 
 of Eome, has had its schemes of uniformity, but 
 these schemes have failed of exhibiting Christian 
 
 1 Cautions for the Times, p. 28. 
 
DISUNION OF THE CHURCH. 467 
 
 unity. The unity for which the Saviour prayed was 
 a oneness of heart and soul among his people mani 
 fested in loving each other, in seeking the salvation of 
 men, and in promoting the extension of his kingdom, 
 This unity is perfectly consistent with minor differ 
 ences. It is not necessary to its exhibition, and in 
 order to secure its good results, that all be bound up 
 in one and the same system of ecclesiastical organiza 
 tion. 1 This we regard as altogether Utopian. On 
 such points, for example, as church government, and 
 the subjects of baptism, Scripture is not so full and 
 explicit, as to preclude diversity of sentiment among 
 
 1 Mr. Ruskin, in concluding his " Notes on the Construction of 
 Sheepfolds," thus speaks: "But how to unite the two great sects of. 
 paralyzed Protestants ? By keeping simply to Scripture. The 
 members of the Scottish church have not a shadow of excuse for 
 refusing episcopacy ; it has indeed been abused among them ; 
 grievously abused ; but it is in the Bible ; and that is all they have 
 a right to ask. They have also no shadow of excuse for refusing to 
 employ a written form of prayer. It may not be to their taste 
 it may not be the way in which they like to pray ; but it is no ques 
 tion, at present, of likes or dislikes, but of duties." (p. 49.) Sup 
 pose another author, in his " Notes on the Construction of Sheep- 
 folds," were to say : " The members of the episcopal church have 
 not a shaddow of excuse for refusing presbyterianism ; it has indeed 
 been abused among them ; but it is in the Bible ; and that is all 
 they have a right to ask :" would not the one statement, even in 
 the estimation of many episcopalians not to speak of thousands of 
 Christian men who are neither episcopalians nor presbyterians be 
 as good as the other ? In truth, no section of the Christian church, 
 in making proposals for union, is entitled to speak in this strain to 
 any other section. It is an aping of Romish airs, it is a setting at 
 defiance Christian men s conscientious convictions, and it throws a 
 stumbling-block not only in the way of incorporation but of co-opera 
 tion. " Christ has ordered us to be at peace one with another." But 
 these are not the terms. 
 
468 DISUNION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 sincerely good men. And the grand reason, we 
 doubt not, is, that the disciples of Christ may be 
 taught to forbear one another in love. Uniformity is 
 never enjoined in Scripture, but unity, times and ways 
 without number, is. It is according as Christians 
 have already attained, that they are to walk by the 
 same rule and to mind the same thing. Besides, who 
 does not see that the unanimity of the church would 
 be more strikingly manifested, and present a more per 
 suasive spectacle to the world, did it exist along with 
 minor diversities, than under a smoothly shaven sys 
 tem of uniformity? In the latter case, there might 
 be a danger of ecclesiastical despotism, which would 
 excite the jealousy of the world; in the former case, 
 there would be the working of a powerful common 
 principle, making it manifest that the religion which 
 produced such benignant harmony amid such diver 
 sity, must be not of man but of God. "There is," 
 says Sir James Stephen, "an essential unity in that 
 Kingdom which is not of this world. But within the 
 provinces of that mighty state there is room for end 
 less varieties of administration, and for local laws and 
 customs widely differing from each other. The unity 
 consists in the one object of worship the one object 
 of afriance the one source of virtue the cue ce 
 menting principle of mutual love, which pervade and 
 animate the whole. The diversities are, and must 
 be, as numerous and intractable as are the essential 
 distinctions which nature, habit, and circumstances 
 have created among men. Uniformity of creeds, of 
 discipline, of ritual, and of ceremonies, in such a 
 
DISUNION OF THE CHURCH. 469 
 
 world as ours ! a world where no two men are not as 
 distinguishable in their mental as in their physical 
 aspect ; where every petty community has its separate 
 system of civil government ; where all that meets the 
 eye, and all that arrests the ear, has a stamp of 
 boundless and infinite variety!" 1 
 
 If many of the professed friends of Christianity 
 have erred in their zeal for uniformity of religious 
 opinions and ceremonies, its avowed enemies have 
 unfairly argued as if the absence of uniformity indi 
 cated the want of certitude. In " Voltaire s Dic 
 tionary," under the article c *sect," it is said, " there is 
 no sect in geometry, mathematics, or experimental 
 philosophy. When truth is evident, it is impossible 
 to divide people into parties and factions. Nobody 
 disputes that it is broad day at noon." In this way it 
 is attempted to preclude all inquiry into the evidences 
 of Christianity, and to lead men to conclude that 
 religion has no fixed data, because there have been 
 so many conflicting opinions and divisions within its 
 province. It is surely a miserably ungenerous charge 
 against the Christian religion, that it has not the 
 evidence of the mathematical sciences an evidence 
 that arises out of their very nature, but which is 
 altogether foreign to a system of moral truth. The 
 argument amounts to this, that because the gospel 
 cannot be shown to be so demonstrably true as that 
 the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right 
 angles, therefore it cannot be proved to be true at all. 
 In other words, no evidence is to be relied on but 
 
 1 Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography, vol. i., p. 518. 
 
470 DISUNION or THE CHURCH. 
 
 that which belongs to what are called the accurate 
 sciences. By such a course of reasoning as this, 
 political economy, for example, might be denounced 
 as a baseless science, because the greatest politicians 
 have embraced the most conflicting theories in legis 
 lation; and all philosophical investigations, that are 
 not of a strictly mathematical character, might be 
 interdicted as useless, because they have given rise to 
 much opposing speculations. Moral subjects can 
 admit of no evidence that is incompatible with human 
 responsibility. So that to object that Christianity 
 has no certainty because it* has not mathematical cer 
 tainty, is the same thing as saying that it cannot be true 
 because it wants the evidence which would deprive 
 men of the liberty of rejecting it. Besides, there are 
 no inducements for a sane man to deny that two and 
 two make four, or that it is broad day at noon ; but 
 there are strong mental tendencies which lead mul 
 titudes to darken the lustre of Christianity, and to 
 deny that it is true. As a system of pure moral truth, 
 it thwarts depraved human propensities ; and that 
 accounts for its being corrupted or rejected by men, 
 though its evidences stand before them as clear and 
 majestic as the sun. 
 
 But it is too much to grant that there are no sects 
 in experimental philosophy. Astronomy and geology 
 belong to the inductive sciences, and very opposite 
 theories in both have been held by the most eminent 
 philosophers. But who would conclude on the 
 ground of these conflicting theories, that there is not 
 a true system of astronomy or geology ? And where 
 
DISUNION OF THE CHURCH. 471 
 
 is the fairness of denouncing Christianity as the most 
 uncertain of all things, because its adherents, on some 
 points, have held very different opinions? The ob 
 jection, we are noticing, is not unlike that which is 
 urged against the Gospel on account of the mysterious 
 nature of its truths. The sciences which admit of 
 demonstration, pursued to a certain length, land the 
 mind in a region of mysteries, as well as do the 
 truths of revelation. So that, if the attribute of 
 mysteriousness is sufficient to falsify a system, it 
 would falsify the higher branches of mathematical 
 science. And if the circumstance of a diversity of 
 opinion having scope within a system, be an argu 
 ment against the system itself, it must sweep away 
 from the region of the true many other commonly-re 
 ceived systems of truth besides the religion of Christ. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone, in his zeal for high church princi 
 ples, has asserted that the state of the exact sciences 
 proves, that, as respects religion, "the association of 
 these two ideas, activity of inquiry, and variety of con 
 clusion, is a fallacious one." His brilliant reviewer, 
 Mr. Macaulay, says, in reply, " Our way of ascertaining 
 the tendency of free inquiry is simply to open our 
 eyes and look at the world in which we live ; and there 
 we see that free inquiry on mathematical subjects pro 
 duces unity, and that free inquiry on moral subjects 
 produces discrepancy. . . . Discrepancy there will be 
 among the most diligent and candid, as long as the 
 constitution of the human mind, and the nature of 
 moral evidence, continue unchanged. That we have 
 not freedom and unity together is a very sad thing ; 
 
472 DISUNION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 and so it is that we have not wings. But we are just 
 as likely to see the one defect removed as the other. 
 It is not only in religion that this discrepancey is 
 found. It is the same with all matters which depend 
 on moral evidence, with judicial questions; for exam 
 ple, and with political questions. All the judges will 
 work a sum in the rule of three on the same principle, 
 and bring out the same conclusion. But it does not 
 follow that, however honest and laborious they may 
 be, they will all be of one mind on the Douglas case." 1 
 But if it is vain to think of securing union in the 
 church by a visible uniformity, or by amalgamating 
 all denominations into one, it is not vain to seek after 
 visible unanimity among the several sections of the 
 church holding those fundamental doctrines which 
 we mentioned, in the beginning of this essay, as em 
 phatically constituting THE truth of God. We may, 
 and will, continue to have diversities of forms, but let 
 these be seen to be animated by an all-pervading unity 
 of spirit. It is obviously implied in the Saviour s in 
 tercessory prayer, that the world must be confirmed 
 in its infidelity by the visible disunion of the 
 Christian community ; and that the world s conversion 
 depends, in a great measure, on the palpable unani 
 mity of his professed followers. He prayed for their 
 union, in- order that the world might believe that the 
 Father had sent Him. This consummation, so de 
 voutly to be wished, would have a favorable bearing 
 on mankind, in two ways at least, just as the divided 
 
 1 Review of Gladstone on Church and State. (Edinburgh Review, 
 April, 1839.) 
 
DISUNION OF THE CHURCH. 473 
 
 state of the church has an unfavorable influence in 
 two opposite ways. 
 
 In the first place, the exhibition of unity would tell 
 mightily as a demonstration of the divinity of Chris 
 tianity. " Our thoughts," remarks the author of th^ 
 Essay on the Port Royalists, "are steeped in imagery; 
 and where the palpable form is not, the impalpable 
 spirit escapes the notice of the unreflecting multi 
 tude. In common hands, analysis stops at the 
 species or the genus, and cannot rise to the order 
 or the class. To distinguish birds from fishes, 
 beasts from insects, limits the efforts of the vulgar > 
 observer of the face of animated nature. But 
 Cuvier could trace the sublime unity, the universal 
 type, the fontal Idea, existing in the creative intel 
 ligence, which connects as one the mammoth and 
 the snail. So, common observers can distinguish 
 from each other the different varieties of religious 
 society, and can rise no higher. Where one assembly 
 worships with harmonies of music, fumes of incense, 
 ancient liturgies, and a gorgeous ceremonial, and 
 another listens to the unaided voice of a single 
 pastor, they can perceive and record the differences ; 
 but the hidden ties which unite them both escape 
 such observation. All appears as contrast, and all 
 ministers to antipathy and discord." 1 The sublime 
 unity of the church of Christ, the hidden ties which 
 link one member with another, and all with the 
 Head, escape the notice of the world. They are 
 spiritually discerned. Hence the necessity of a 
 
 1 Sir James Stephen s Essays in Eccl. Biog., vol. i., pp. 519, 520. 
 
474 DISUNION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 visible outward expression of the real hidden unity. 
 The prayer of the God-man Mediator demands 
 palpable unanimity. Mere unanimity among the 
 adherents of any system does not of itself prove the 
 truth of that system. Men have often combined for 
 the propagation of error. But the unity may be of such 
 a kind, displaying such purity, disinterestedness, and 
 benevolence, as to carry along with it a convincing 
 evidence that it is of God. It may be seen to be such 
 an effect as no known motive power among men could 
 produce, and which must be ascribed to a Divine in 
 terposition. 
 
 Such was the visible union manifested by the 
 primitive Christians, which was attended with such 
 remarkable triumphs. It was such a union of heart 
 and hand for bringing the greatest glory to God, and 
 effecting the greatest good among men, as the world 
 never saw. It was a lovely persuasive spectacle, as free 
 from selfish elements on the one hand as from fa 
 naticism on the other. The world beheld men of 
 every diversity of character, separated naturally from 
 each other by different habits and stations, and by 
 the most conflicting interests, coming under the 
 transforming influence of the Christian faith, losing 
 thereby their mutual repulsions and enmities, moving 
 in the same element of love, bound sweetly and 
 strongly to a common crucified Lord and to each 
 other, and looking on that world with something of 
 the benevolent yearnings of Him who came to seek 
 and to save that which was lost. It was not a union 
 of men who had agreed to merge their differing tastes 
 
DISUNION OF THE CHURCH. 475 
 
 and sentiments in a common impulse, and to combine 
 for the purpose of furthering a cause which would 
 get them a name on the earth, or secure some worldly 
 interests. In such a case, the heterogeneous elements 
 might have been driven asunder, mutual jealousies and 
 rivalries would have arisen, and the bonds of union 
 would have been broken amid the tumult of passions 
 and conflicting gains. Such were the disastrous re 
 sults of the introduction of worldly elements after 
 wards into the church. But it was a union of ma 
 terials, which, though originally discordant, underwent 
 a radical change ; and, while each reflected the image 
 of their common Lord, all were bound in love to one 
 another, and in the most disinterested effort to regen 
 erate and bless the world. Multitudes beheld the 
 astonishing spectacle. It was a new and lovely 
 creation, which could not be accounted for on natural 
 principles. The purity, love, and benevolence of the 
 Gospel, were impressively exhibited in the community 
 of its professed followers ; and, in that exhibition, the 
 world saw and felt an evidence that Christianity is 
 divine, and that the Father had sent the Son. 
 
 So will it be again. The evidence derived from 
 the palpable unanimity of the Christian church, is 
 emerging forth anew. To this result the leagued 
 assaults of infidelity and superstition are contributing. 
 The Redeemer with his fan in his hand is purging 
 his floor, making more manifest the broad distinction 
 between his friends and his foes. And when the 
 faithful of every name have ceased to make matters, 
 confessedly subordinate, rallying points for a party; 
 
476 DISUNION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 and are made willing to acknowledge and co-operate 
 with, all those who hold by the Head ; when those 
 jealousies and discords are banished from the king 
 dom of God, which however natural in the empires 
 of earth, are uncongenial to the kingdom of heaven ; 
 and when the church looks forth again as one united 
 force on the world, at war with nothing but all the 
 powers of evil, and manifestly the greatest instrument 
 of good ; all, but the wilfully blinded and irrecoverably 
 depraved, will be constrained to acknowledge the 
 hand of the Invisible, and to receive Christianity as 
 of God. "Fain would I," says Calvin, "that all the 
 churches of Christ were so united, that the angels 
 might look down from heaven and add to our glory 
 with their harmony." He might have added, as no 
 doubt he felt, that the unreasonableness of unbelief 
 might be driven from one of its refuges of lies. 
 
 We are led to remark secondly, that the unity of 
 action, consequent on the unity of exhibition, would 
 tell powerfully on the successful propagation of Chris 
 tianity. Sectarianism has been the bane of the 
 church. Multiplied divisions have weakened her 
 energies. A vast amount of zeal and power, which 
 should have been brought to bear on the conversion 
 of the world, has been expended in assailing and 
 defending the several points on which the Christian 
 community has been split into fragments. Christen 
 dom has often resembled a battle-field, in which the 
 several detachments of the same army, instead of 
 combining in one aggressive movement against the 
 common foe, have raised the shout of war against 
 
DISUNION OF THE CHURCH. 477 
 
 each other. The enemy, meanwhile, has exulted at 
 the sight, and not only been fortified in the belief 
 that Christianity is a profession under which men 
 drive low and selfish designs, but has strengthened 
 his position in defying the armies of the living God. 
 The storms of controversy may have been over-ruled 
 for purifying the atmosphere of the church, and pre 
 serving in vigor the faith once delivered to the saints ; 
 but although good has come out of the evil, the evil 
 has been manifested in the consumption of so much 
 intellectual energy and effort on internal disputes, 
 which might have been bestowed on the infinitely 
 nobler object of converting the world to God. 
 
 There have been great questions of principle in 
 volved in many of the divisions of the church; and 
 better is it to have divisions than that important prin 
 ciples should be sacrificed ; but the rent has not un- 
 frequently been made on the most unjustifiable pre 
 texts ; and even when the denominational distinctions 
 have been called for, the zeal in aiding the common ob 
 ject of evangelizing the world, has been woefully dis 
 proportionate to that bestowed on lengthening the 
 cords and strengthening the stakes of party interests. 
 The primitive church, so long as it had the unity of 
 exhibition,, had the unity of action also. It not only 
 presented one undivided front to the world, but it 
 brought the full tide of its heavenly energy to bear on 
 the point of the world s conversion. In the palpable 
 unanimity of the Christian community T was not only 
 exhibited a lovely persuasive spectacle ; but out of 
 that unanimity, arose a might of benevolence which, 
 
478 DISUNION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 like a noble river enriched by a thousand streamlets, 
 fertilized and gladdened every region through which 
 it flowed. The force which was afterwards spent on 
 internal strifes and party interests, was exerted in 
 executing the Lord s commission to go into all the 
 world, and preach the Gospel to every creature ; and 
 it ran speedily, and vast multitudes everywhere be 
 came obedient to the faith. The Church stood out 
 from the world, one in its interests and aims, and the 
 world felt the power of its instrumentality, and ac 
 knowledged that it was of God. If ever there was a 
 period when Christianity seemed on the eve of mak- 
 \ ing the world all her own, it was within the century 
 : after the effusion of Pentecost, when, under an united 
 impulse, and endued with power from on high, she 
 travelled onward in the greatness of her strength. 
 The victories of Imperial Rome were eclipsed by the 
 bloodless conquests of the kingdom not of this 
 world." The standard of the cross was planted beyond 
 the bounds where stood the standard of Csesar. And 
 the angel, having the everlasting Gospel, flew farther 
 than the Roman eagles. An united Church, in the 
 face of the most powerful obstacles, spread itself, 
 within a century after the ascension of Christ, more 
 rapidly and extensively than it has done in any sin 
 gle century since. And, as already hinted, without 
 assigning this as exclusively the cause of the rapid 
 progress of the Gospel; or, with Gibbon, accounting 
 it one of a number of natural causes that produced 
 the unparalleled effect (for the question occurs 
 whence that union) we cannot, with the Saviour s 
 
 I 
 
DISUNION OF THE CHURCH. 479 
 
 intercessory prayer before us, hesitate to acknowledge 
 it as a powerfully subordinate source of the Church s 
 strength. Ichabod might almost have been written 
 upon her for her glory had nearly departed when 
 men of worldly policy tampered with her purity, and 
 strifes and divisions brake her in pieces. 
 
 But there have been noble things done since, by 
 the combined efforts of large portions of the Christian 
 community, which indicate what a mighty influence 
 for good a thoroughly united church would exert on 
 the mass of mankind. The Reformation from Po 
 pery, the most glorious event since the introduction of 
 Christianity, was, to a considerable degree, the united 
 work of the children of God that were scattered abroad. 
 The London Missionary Society, the British and For 
 eign Bible Society, the Tract Society, and some 
 other kindred institutions, have, by the catholicity 
 of their constitution, opened up common channels, 
 into which the several sections of the church might 
 bring their enlightened efforts, and thereby diffuse 
 the river of the water of life over our own and other 
 lands. But these have been but earnests, and indica 
 tions of what that unity, which the Saviour prayed for, 
 would effect. It is no Utopian dream a thing to be 
 desired rather than expected to believe that the time 
 will come when the church will possess that unity of 
 exhibition and of action of which we have been 
 speaking, that then infidelity will be driven from 
 one of its refuges, and the world, now unbelieving 
 without a cause, will have a clear palpable proof that 
 the Father has sent the Son and that Christianity is 
 
480 DISUNION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 divine. The old sarcasm of the unbeliever, derived 
 from the disjointed and disorderly state of the church, 
 will be silenced ; the repulsive aspect, which divisions 
 have given to Christianity, will be effaced, and her 
 native loveliness be restored; a mighty stumbling- 
 block, in the way of the diffusion of the Gospel, will 
 be removed; and Christians, being united to each 
 other in heart and hand, will come, with a moral 
 might such as the world has not experienced for ages, 
 to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against 
 the mighty. The brief but bright description of the 
 churches given by James Montgomery, will then be 
 realized : " distinct as the billows, but one as the 
 sea," Meanwhile, God, in the signs of the times, is 
 calling upon all the friends of the pure Gospel truth 
 to make it manifest that they are one. The religion 
 of Christ, in our land, is powerfully beset by a bold 
 reviving Romanism on the one hand and by a subtle, 
 busy, well-organized infidelity on the other. Both 
 would, in a great measure, be disarmed and driven 
 back, were the ranks of evangelical Protestantism to 
 re-unite and move forward under the impulse of an 
 all-pervading spirit of unity. Let the churches hear 
 the words of the Genevese Reformer whose love of 
 union was as the love of life : u Keep your smaller 
 differences, let us have no discord on that account ; 
 but let us march in one solid column, under the ban 
 ners of the Captain of our salvation, and with undi 
 vided counsels form the legion of the cross upon the 
 territories of darkness and of death." 
 
fart 
 
 INFIDELITY IN ITS VARIOUS AGENCIES. 
 
 THE PRESS. 
 THE CLUBS. 
 THE SCHOOLS. 
 THE PULPIT. 
 
fttfiMitj) iti its Marions 
 
 TRUTH and error, good and evil, are propagated in 
 the world by the same instrumentalities; u and no 
 marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an 
 angel of light." The most powerful means in ac 
 complishing the greatest good, are made the most 
 effectual ministers of the greatest evil. Infidelity 
 fights truth with her own weapons. Aaron casts 
 down his rod before Pharaoh, and it becomes a ser 
 pent; and the magicians of Egypt do likewise with 
 their enchantments. The die that gives the impress 
 to the genuine coin, is employed to stamp the coun 
 terfeit. The poison and the healing waters flow 
 through like channels. And it is not more common 
 for good men and bad men to walk on the same 
 roads, ride in the same carriages, and sail in the 
 same ships, than it is for God s truth and the devil s 
 lie to pass through the same medium. We do not 
 reckon the air less precious as the gift of heaven, 
 because men send through it curses as well as bless 
 ings. And the agencies for disseminating truth are 
 not a whit less valuable because some men use them 
 for propagating falsehood. The good and the evil 
 
484 INFIDELITY IN ITS VARIOUS AGENCIES. 
 
 come so closely together in the world, and are found 
 in such perpetual antagonism, that wherever you see 
 an effective instrumentality in the hands of the former, 
 you may expect to meet with a like one in the hands 
 of the latter. Infidelity thus follows after faith in 
 order to destroy it. The magicians are suffered to 
 do with their enchantments in like manner as Aaron 
 the servant of God. But Aaron s rod at last swallows 
 up their rods. And so will ultimately _be destroyed 
 all the works of the devil. Infidelity, meanwhile, is 
 up and doing ; and, as if conscious that the hour of 
 decision had come, is vigorously plying for evil all 
 the instrumentalities of good. " It may be," as Pro 
 fessor Garbett remarks, "that at all the periods of 
 the world, the rude material of unbelief is a constant 
 quantity. The only difference may consist in the 
 presence or absence of outward checks, and such 
 repressive influences as, in ancient times, were 
 exercised by those civil and ecclesiastical polities 
 which can never be reimposed upon the masses of 
 mankind. The spread of liberty alike of action and 
 thought, the enormous expansion of the sphere in 
 which intellect ranges, and, above all, the approxima 
 tion, through the press, of man to man, and the con 
 tact of intellect with intellect, have, on this hypoth 
 esis, only quickened and revealed what was always 
 latent." 1 But so it is. The power of the Press, of the 
 Clubs, of the Schools, and of the Pulpit, is wielded 
 most effectually on the side of the various forms of 
 infidelity. 
 
 1 Modern Philosophical Infidelity. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE PRESS. 
 
 Great power of this agency Its benignant doings in- the world 
 Powerfully employed on the side of infidelity Great breadth of 
 the reading mind Unprecedented cheapness and abundance of 
 literature Influx from Germany Shoal of French novels 
 Carlyle and his imitators Influence of Combe s Constitution of 
 Man Tractarian books for the village poor Periodical literature 
 the strongest combined agency French Newspaper Press The 
 feuilleton Continental Press in general Our own periodical 
 literature Newspapers Classification of the enormous issue of 
 anti-Christian cheap publications: 1st. The avowedly infidel-^ 
 Organ of atheistic secularism 2d. The polluting Disclosures of 
 Mr. Mayhew 3d. The latitudinarian The " Family Herald "- 
 4th. The morally neutral The Church becoming awake to tha 
 evil Improvements in some old influential organs Edinburgh 
 Review Good service doing by younger ones A lack of cheap 
 entertaining Christianized literature Defect of Chambers Re 
 sources of the Church. 
 
 THE mightiest agency of modern times, in dissemi 
 nating either good or evil, is unquestionably the Press. 
 It has long been the rival of the pulpit, and is now, 
 if we mistake not, in the wide range of its influence, 
 far ahead of it. Millions, who listen, week after week, 
 to the living voice of the preacher, are daily fed by 
 the press ; and millions more are only accessible by 
 its instrumentality, and to them it is the great 
 teacher. The time was when it was otherwise. 
 Before the discovery of printing, society was almost 
 
486 THE PRESS. 
 
 entirely dependent on oral instruction. Books, exist 
 ing in the shape of manuscripts, were few and costly, 
 and beyond the reach of all but the wealthy. Men 
 learned nearly everything that they did learn from 
 the orator in the forum, from the philosopher in the 
 schools, or from the preacher in the church. The 
 breadth of mind that came under such influences was 
 by no means generally great ; and, if we except the 
 illustrious teachers of the ancient world, and the 
 preachers of the early age of the church, the instru 
 mentalities as means of instruction were for the most 
 part powerless. But the press, for the last three 
 centuries, has occupied much of the ground that 
 once belonged exclusively to the oral instructor ; and 
 with vast multitudes in our day it is made the chief, 
 if not the sole teacher. This is the case to a con 
 siderable extent in our own country, and much more 
 is it so in France and other parts of the Continent. 
 The appetite for periodical literature, on both sides of 
 the channel, is strong. And every class, movement, 
 and interest, are represented, in a greater or less 
 degree, in the mighty current. Like a never-failing 
 fountain, the press is sending forth its publications 
 of every possible variety of character, as numerous 
 as the dew-drops from the womb of the morning, all 
 of which are exerting an influence for good or evil 
 on the masses with whom they come in contact. It 
 has been said and, notwithstanding the temporary 
 thraldom to which the French press is now sub 
 jected, the statements are still substantially true 
 kl without a newspaper, France is deaf. . . . Every 
 
THE PRESS. 487 
 
 morning when it awakes, the reading public of France 
 is appealed to by the defenders of interests, parties, 
 ideas, systems of all descriptions, waging war against 
 one another, for the conquest of the present, or the 
 direction of the future. Religion, politics, philosophy, 
 industry, arts, sciences everything is represented, 
 everything finds an utterance, everything stirs about, 
 under the full blaze of daily publicity : everything 
 except Evangelical Protestantism ; for in this universal 
 concert of human passions and convictions, the voice 
 of the Gospel alone is missing." 1 
 
 If this description does not apply, in every particu 
 lar, to our own country (and we rejoice to think that it 
 does not), it is for the most part applicable to the range 
 and influence of our own press. Its sends forth its, 
 streams of powerful influence for weal or woe, far and 
 wide; here diffusing the blessings of heavenly truth 
 and holy beauty, and there scattering the curses of 
 error and moral desolation. 
 
 " By thee religion, liberty, and laws, 
 Exert their influence and advance their cause : 
 By thee worse plagues than Pharaoh s land befell, 
 Diffused, make earth the vestibule of hell ; 
 Thou fountain, at which drink the good and wise, 
 Thou ever-bubbling spring of endless lies ; 
 Like Eden s dread probationary tree, 
 Knowledge of good and evil springs from thee." 2 
 
 The good resulting from the press, upon the whole, 
 is certainly much greater than the evil. The inven 
 tion of printing has proved one of the mightiest and 
 
 1 Pastor Boucher. (In " The Power of the Press :" p. 32.) 
 a Cowper s Progress of Error. 
 
488 THE PRESS. 
 
 most beneficent instrumentalities that has been 
 brought to bear upon the world. The civilization of 
 mankind has advanced rapidly since this noble dis 
 covery. It has been one of the most effective agen 
 cies in scattering the seeds of immortal truth abroad 
 among men. And all who take an interest in the 
 advancement of human society have reason to thank 
 God for the press. It gave the mightiest impulse to 
 the revival of learning in the fifteenth century. It 
 roused the mind of Europe from, the sleep of the 
 middle ages, and made the nations feel that they 
 were men. It not only brought to light, and scattered 
 abroad, the treasures of classical literature, but it was 
 early consecrated to the work of quickly multiplying 
 and disseminating the sacred Scriptures which were 
 hidden and rare. But for the press, the Reformation, 
 that most benignant of events since the introduction 
 of Christianity, had probably never taken place. By 
 its agency in promoting the revival of learning, the 
 way was prepared for the overthrow of mental despot 
 ism, and for teaching men, in opposition to human 
 authority, the right of private judgment, and the duty 
 of appealing, in things sacred, to "the law and the 
 testimony." And when the Reformation had been 
 effected, this agency v^as yet more powerfully exerted 
 in extending and strengthening it, by diffusing the 
 writings of the reformers and vernacular copies of the 
 Bible among the people. Luther influenced the 
 mind of Germany, not only by the energies of the 
 living voice; but, by his version of the Scriptures- 
 edition after edition of which issued from the press 
 
THE PRESS. 489 
 
 he pushed on the good work in his own country 
 and in other lands. And while Latimer and Ridley, 
 by their preaching, told on the crowds of Englishmen 
 that flocked to hear them, Tyndale and Coverdale, by 
 their printed translations of the Divine word, in 
 fluenced not only those crowds, but tens of thousands 
 who were beyond the reach of the voice of the re 
 formers. It is to the press, as an instrument, that 
 we greatly owe our civil and religious liberties. By 
 it, as well as by preaching, the word of the Lord has 
 had free course and been glorified. The darkness, 
 superstition, and despotism of the middle ages can 
 never return; the messengers of truth must run to 
 and fro, and knowledge be, increased ; and the na 
 tions, in spite of all temporary checks, must advance 
 onward in the path of light, liberty, and happiness, 
 so long as this mighty agency pours its enlightening 
 and enlivening influences over the heart of human 
 society. Men do well to be jealous of whatever tends 
 to shackle and corrupt such a divine instrumentality 
 as the press. And were the civilized a and especially 
 the Christianized nations of the world, truly grateful, 
 they would thank the God of heaven for the press, 
 and beseech Him to preserve it free and uncorrupti 
 ble, and consecrate its energies to the cause of im 
 mortal truth. 
 
 But if the press be a powerful agency for good, it 
 is unquestionably a powerful agency for evil also. 
 Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and 
 cursing, and this fountain sends forth sweet water 
 and bitter. If it has been greatly instrumental in 
 
490 THE PRESS. 
 
 multiplying our Bibles, and propagating divine truth 
 among the nations; it has been, and is-, greatly in 
 strumental in disseminating anti-Christian sentiments 
 and pernicious errors. We can very well hold that 
 the press does more good than evil, and yet maintain 
 that the evil is fearfully great. Divine truth is, from 
 its very nature, imperishable ; whereas error, however 
 mischievous in its influences for the time, is doomed 
 to destruction. And we have more hope of a few 
 seeds of heavenly truth, scattered here and there, 
 producing much lasting good, than fear of a greater 
 number of pernicious principles effecting much lasting 
 evil. But the harm, at certain periods and in certain 
 countries, may greatly preponderate over the good, 
 and this we apprehend is true in reference to the 
 present state of the press in many lands. It is 
 powerfully employed on the side of infidelity. It is 
 ceaselessly sending forth publications of almost every 
 shape and character, like the sand by the sea-shore 
 for number, which must be assigned to the account 
 of evil. 
 
 The age in which we live, is unprecedented for 
 the cheapness and abundant supply of its literature. 
 The huge costly tomes which were within reach of 
 comparatively few of our ancestors, have given place 
 to the small and low-priced volume which is accessible 
 to all. Speculations, decidedly hostile to true religion 
 and to man s best interests, are no longer confined to 
 the upper and more refined classes of society; but 
 they have descended through the many channels opened 
 up by the prolific press, to the reading millions of the 
 
THE PRESS. 491 
 
 present time. Our age is characterized by the large 
 superficies of the reading mind rather than by its 
 solidity and depth. The thirst for reading of a light 
 and novel kind is almost universal and insatiable. 
 The poorest artisan must have a library out of which 
 he can read, and one or more cheap journals which 
 he can devour. The great competition in the press 
 naturally tempts its conductors to minister to the 
 public tastes whatever these be, and unhappily, amid 
 such a large proprietary, many are to be found ready 
 to yield fully to the temptation. Every diversity of 
 sentiment and interest is represented by the press, 
 and carried, by its cheap and rapid agency, through 
 out the length and breadth of the land ; and the 
 misfortune is, that so large a proportion of these sen 
 timents and interests, thus spread abroad, are adverse 
 to that interest which is the most noble and precious 
 of all. 
 
 It is the periodical press that mighty engine in 
 the civilized world that we have more immediately 
 in view, when speaking of the press as the chief 
 agency in propagating infidelity. And it is to be 
 remembered that in our periodical literature, we 
 have popularized the anti-religious notions that ap 
 pear in a more abstract form in books of a higher 
 stamp. Before coming down, however, to what is 
 strictly called the periodical, we see no little power put 
 forth by the press on the side of evil. It were not 
 difficult to fix upon a considerable number of works 
 of high pretensions and extensive circulation that 
 have proceeded from the modern press, which are 
 
492 THE PRESS. 
 
 either openly or insiduously detrimental to genuine 
 religion. They are to be met with in the depart 
 ments of theology, of literature, and of science. 
 Belonging to the first of these, we have a large and 
 rapidly-increasing number of books in the form of 
 a philosophical theism appealing to the educated 
 mind, the tendency of which is to cut up, root and 
 branch, all that is distinctively Christian, and to 
 substitute a self-relying deism. In literature and 
 science, we have not a little in which upper and 
 under currents of scepticism are too perceptible; 
 and still more in which Christian truths and princi 
 ples are ignored when they might have been most 
 fittingly introduced. Judging from many publica 
 tions which are sent forth amid the full blaze of 
 Gospel light, and which possess this negative cha 
 racteristic, one could never infer that such a thing 
 as Christianity existed among men. Multitudes of 
 authors would seemingly reckon it weakness, or 
 fanaticism, to be indebted to revelation for a senti 
 ment, a principle, or an embellishment. 
 
 The press in Germany is, to an alarming extent, 
 steeped in infidelity. This holds true both of the 
 higher and lower literature. u The left-hand school 
 of Hegel," remarks Dr. Krummacher, "knew how 
 to find its way among the lowest classes of the 
 people, by making its philosophy popular, in a flood 
 of pamphlets, novels, romances, etc. In consequence 
 6f this, it is natural that atheism, which opposes 
 religion in every form, denies the existence of God, 
 personal immortality, and the moral order of the 
 
THE PRESS. 493 
 
 world, should spread further and further. This se 
 cret of wickedness had long sneaked about in dark 
 ness; but no one would credit it, up to the year 
 1848. Since then, truly, we have been convinced of 
 the contrary." 1 Numbers of noble Christian men 
 in Germany who are fully aware of this, are vigor 
 ously exerting themselves to command the influence 
 of the press on the side of Gospel truth, and to 
 increase . the popular Christian literature. And 
 while we may be thankful to that land for its 
 treasures of Biblical criticism and profound re 
 search, imported to us through the press; yet it 
 cannot be forgotten that these treasures have not 
 unfrcquently come to us with an infidel theological 
 literature, the influence of which has been such 
 on the literature of our own country, as would al 
 most lead us to doubt whether the amount of good 
 has not been overbalanced by the amount of evil. 
 It is unquestionably from this source that we have 
 derived the spirit, so prevalent among many of 
 our half-literary, half-philosophical writers, which 
 tends to destroy a historical and heaven-inspired 
 Christianity, and which would leave nothing in its 
 place but a kind of vague, floating, religious senti 
 ment the collective produce of many minds. 
 
 The press is bringing us, among other things, 
 from France, a shoal of light, popular novels, which 
 are pregnant with the seeds of irreligion ; and which 
 it is believed on good grounds, have had no small 
 influence in producing the dissoluteness so fearfully 
 
 1 The Religious Condition of Christendom, p. 425. (1852.) 
 
494 THE PRESS. 
 
 characteristic of modern French society. The writings 
 of Rousseau and the men of his school, are considered 
 to have been more effective than any other cause in 
 producing the dreadful convulsions in the early days 
 of the great French Revolution. And the productions 
 of Eugene Sue, George Sand, Dumas and others 
 tell powerfully for anything but good on a large 
 portion of French society, and on the society of 
 other states. The evil of these same novels is, not 
 merely that they incapacitate the minds of the 
 readers of them for anything like serious thought, 
 which in itself is no trifling injury, but that an air 
 of romance is thrown around libertinism, profligacy 
 and crime, well fitted to sink religion and exalt vice 
 in the estimation of many. These an ti- Christian 
 productions are wafted far and wide. Mr. De Yere, 
 speaking of Athens, says, u The young men, I fear, 
 are somewhat infected with sceptical opinions, a 
 circumstance which may, in some measure, be ac 
 counted for by the attention paid to French litera 
 ture. French novels are the works which chiefly 
 abound in the bookshops. Can one imagine a 
 greater misfortune, especially to so young a nation ?" 
 These works have come in, like a deluge, on America ; 
 and they are making their way in our own country, 
 destructive of everything deserving the name of 
 morality and religion. In the catalogues of cheap 
 circulating libraries, they are to be found side 
 by side with books of which it may be said that 
 they are arrayed in fine linen, clean and white 
 reminding one of the tempter and the Holy One 
 
THE PRESS. 495 
 
 in the wilderness. And it generally happens that 
 where there is a relish for the one, there is a, dislike 
 for the other. 
 
 Of our own home produce, we have not a few 
 works of note through which runs, either broadly or 
 stealthily, a vein of infidel philosophy. Some of 
 them must be assigned to the idealistic, and others 
 of them to the sensational school. Mr. Carlyle, 
 whose influence on thinking minds of a peculiar cast 
 is perhaps greater than that of any living writer, is 
 the acknowledged chief of the former. He, as we 
 have already remarked, says nothing disrespectful of 
 the gospel of Christ; yet he may not unjustly be 
 regarded as waging under covert, a war against the 
 claims of a historical Christianity, or as endeavor 
 ing to bring men to look upon all religious creeds as 
 having the same subjective origin, and to confound 
 or identify earnestness with truth. What poor John 
 Sterling says to Mr. Carlyle in his last brief letter 
 a letter "fit to be forever memorable to the receiver 
 of it " could doubtless be said by multitudes of indi 
 viduals who have come under his influence : " towards 
 me it is still more true than towards England that no 
 man has been and done like you." 1 Great, indeed, 
 is the responsibility of his leadership. Such a man 
 raises up a host of imitators who are quick to discern 
 and eager to lay hold of the worst part of his teaching, 
 to obtrude it at every point, and to carry it undisguis- 
 edly to such an extreme as he himself would probably 
 deem offensive. 
 
 1 Life of Sterling, p. 334. 
 
496 THE PRESS. 
 
 u We should think," says Mr. Henry Rogers, u that 
 some of these more powerful minds must be by this 
 time ashamed of that ragged regiment of most shallow 
 thinkers, and obscure writers and talkers, who at pres 
 ent infest our literature, and whose parrot-like repe 
 tition of their own stereotyped phraseology, mingled 
 with some barbarous infusion of half- Anglicised Ger 
 man, threatens to form as odious a cant as ever pol 
 luted the stream of thought, or disfigured the purity of 
 language. . . . As in Byron s day there were thousands 
 to whom the world was a blank at twenty or there 
 abouts, and of whose dark imaginings, as Macaulay 
 says, the waste was prodigious; so now there are 
 hundreds of dilettanti pantheists, mystics, and scep 
 tics, to whom everything is a sham, an unreality; 
 who tell us that the world stands in need of a great 
 prophet, a seer, a true priest, a large soul, a 
 god-like soul who shall dive into the depths of 
 the human consciousness, and whose utterances 
 shall rouse the human mind from the cheats and 
 frauds which have hitherto everywhere practised on 
 its simplicity. They tell us, in relation to philosophy, 
 religion, and especially in relation to Christianity, 
 that all that has been believed by mankind has been 
 believed only on empirical grounds ; and that the 
 old answers to difficulties will do no longer. They 
 shake their heads at such men as Clarke, Paley, Butler, 
 and declare that such arguments as theirs will not sat 
 isfy them." 1 
 
 The existence of such a "ragged regiment," never- 
 
 1 Rogers Essays, vol. ii., p. 316. 
 
THE PRESS. 497 
 
 theless, shows the influence of one or two great 
 minds, and the grave responsibility they incur in 
 sending abroad, by means of the press, thoughts that 
 are openly or covertly hostile to the gospel of Christ. 
 The influence of Lord Byron has passed, but the 
 misanthropy and voluptuousness of his poetry did 
 their work of mischief; and the multitudes of young 
 persons, out of an enthusiastic admiration for him, 
 were formed to a character the very reverse of the 
 ethics of the gospel. The influence of those 
 writers who are contending against the paramount 
 claims of historical Christianity, will also pass away; 
 but they, too, meanwhile, perform their part in 
 keeping men from the faith of the truth and the 
 love of the Saviour. How many of our polite writers 
 have gone, or are advancing, into eternity, as John 
 Foster says,- "under the charge of having employed 
 their genius, as the magicians their enchantments 
 against Moses, to counteract the Saviour of the 
 world." 1 
 
 Of our modern productions of the sensational 
 school, " Combe s Constitution of Man," if not the 
 most profound and philosophical, has doubtless been 
 the most popularized and extensively circulated. The 
 naturalism of this work, as we have seen, is broad 
 and undisguised. Containing, as it does, many valu 
 able remarks on the operation of natural laws and 
 the consequences of infringing them, it, by making 
 these laws explanatory of all phenomena, explodes 
 the idea of an interposing and superintending Provi- 
 
 1 Foster s Essay, p. 341. 
 32 
 
498 THE PRESS. 
 
 dence; so that, had it been possible, God might as 
 well have ceased to exist after the creation of the 
 world. Upwards of eighty thousand copies of this 
 work have issued from the press of our own country, 
 besides having obtained a wide circulation in America, 
 and having been translated into various foreign Ian 
 guages. Having had the advantage of a liberal be 
 quest, it has appeared, in numerous cheap editions, 
 for circulation among the people, and even for intro 
 duction into the schools ; so that, in so far as a cheap 
 press is concerned, nothing has been wanting to 
 leaven the mass with its principles. To this work, 
 despite its many useful facts and lessons, multi 
 tudes of our reading artisans are indebted for those 
 popular infidel objections which are urged against 
 the doctrine of divine Providence and special prayer. 
 Sensationalism is doubtless on the wane, and the 
 triumph of Combe, if we mistake not, has passed; 
 but it were vain to deny that such works as the 
 " Constitution of Man," pervaded as they are with 
 principles antagonistic to spiritual Christianity, have 
 exerted a disastrous influence on many minds. And 
 such influences, we may be assured, are not oblit 
 erated, like the wake of a ship, by the next rolling 
 wave. 
 
 Besides such works as these, which address them 
 selves more especially to a peculiar cast of cultivated 
 minds, or to our reading artisans, there is a class of 
 books, of recent growth, designed for the village poor, 
 in which are insidiously taught tractarian principles, 
 the tendency of which is to substitute a merely cere- 
 
THE PRESS. 499 
 
 monial Christianity for the spiritual Gospel of Christ, 
 Archbishop Whateley, in his u Cautions for the Times," 
 remarks of the promoters of Tractism, that, u at first 
 they gained an almost unexampled command of the 
 
 public press Nor was it only by the open and 
 
 direct inculcation of their opinions they made way 
 for themselves. That which one of the original con- 
 spiritors aptly called t the poisoning system proved 
 even still more effectual. Works were produced in 
 almost every style of composition, to catch the un 
 wary, and the tenets of tractism cautiously infused 
 into them all, so as to steal upon the reader when he 
 least expected them; when he took up the volume 
 only to verify some fact of ancient history, or to 
 beguile an hour with an amusing tale. Their aim, 
 indeed, was to create a literature for themselves, and 
 exercise an influence over everything that came 
 before the public mind, from the discussions of the 
 severest science down to the songs and stories of the 
 nursery." 1 
 
 The class of books to which we refer is an illustra 
 tion of the carrying on of "the poisoning system." 
 A simple story of village life, full of pleasing inci 
 dents, and told in an agreeable style, is made, with 
 no little cleverness, the medium of infusing into the 
 minds of unlettered rustics the tractarian poison. 
 The curate and rector who figures in the tale, does 
 great and good things. The parish, which he found 
 like a barren and neglected wilderness, becomes, 
 under his assiduous ministry, a fruitful field which 
 1 Cautions for the Times, p. 294. 
 
500 THE PRESS. 
 
 the Lord hath blessed. Of course, he is a tractarian. 
 He discourses, in a winning way, about the efficacy 
 of the sacraments, the reverence due to the authority 
 of the church, the divinity that hedges round the 
 prayer-book, and such like. The atonement, contrary 
 to Scripture, is thrown in the back-ground, and 
 made a sort of reserve-doctrine ; and the faith 
 inculcated is faith in the mere ceremonials of the 
 Gospel, not faith in what, in the estimation of apos 
 tolic men, constitutes its very core the doctrine of 
 Jesus Christ and him crucified. In these books, to 
 quote from one of our Reviews, 1 there is an attempt 
 insiduously made to exalt " the very brick and mortar 
 of the church, at the expense of spiritual religion. 
 A distressing formalism in them very destructive of 
 the pure and simple faith the leaning upon the 
 merits of the Redeemer which is emphatically the 
 religion of the poor. We mark this, then, as an 
 agency to make men formalists, and which may, by a 
 not uncommon reaction, lead the more thoughtful 
 among them, in their disgust at " church principles," 
 to repudiate Christianity itself. 
 
 But we turn to the Periodical. In this depart 
 ment of the press, we find the strongest combined 
 agency for propagating an ti- Christian principles. 
 The strength expended on periodical literature, 
 in our age, is prodigious ; and marvellous is the 
 pliancy of this great agency. The newspaper, which, 
 for the wide range of its influence, and as an in 
 dispensable element in modern civilization, has been 
 1 North British, May, 1852. 
 
THE PRESS. 501 
 
 aptly called "the fourth Estate, is the creation of 
 the seventeenth century. The first regular newspaper 
 started into existence about the close of the reign of 
 James the first, and but shortly after the death of 
 Shakspeare. From the great English Revolution, 
 when newspapers appeared in such numbers, jour 
 nalism has constituted a power which has told 
 mightily on society." 1 But it is in our time that this 
 power has waxed so strong, both in our own country 
 and on the Continent. With the commencement of 
 the eighteenth century appeared the Review. Then 
 followed the British Essayists who exerted a powerful 
 influence on the reading mind of * the age. They 
 sternly reproved the follies, and were influential in cor 
 recting the vices, of their times. But they neglected 
 the opportunities which they had, of thoroughly 
 leavening their elegant moral papers with the evan 
 gelical element of that religion which they professed 
 to venerate. Since that period, a large class of 
 readers has risen up. Such men as Addison and 
 Johnson addressed themselves chiefly to the middle 
 and upper classes, while they left the masses ranging 
 below them almost untouched ; but the Press is now, 
 in a very extensive degree, the Press of the people. By 
 its cheap periodical literature, it becomes all things 
 to them, appealing in every diversity of form, to their 
 reason, their passions, their prejudices and their 
 interests. Any estimate of the influence of the 
 periodical press that should leave out this large 
 superficies of the reading mind, would be as faulty as 
 
 1 Hunt s Fourth Estate. 
 
502 THE PRESS. 
 
 the survey of such a city as Edinburgh which, while 
 embracing the Princes and Georges Streets, over 
 looked the Canongates and Cowsgates. 
 
 We are not insensible to the vast amount of heal 
 ing influences that proceed from the periodical press. 
 The river of the water of life is pouring forth a rich 
 supply through various channels opened up by this 
 agency. But statistical facts go to prove that the 
 channels, in which flow the poisonous streams, are 
 yet more numerous, and that the supply is much 
 more abundant. The periodical press has expanded 
 prodigiously within the last twenty or thirty years, 
 and the expansion on the side of evil has greatly 
 preponderated over that on the side of good. No 
 one doubts that this has been the case in France. 
 " In our important periodical literature," said Pastor 
 Boucher, when starting a daily Protestant paper in 
 Paris, a few years ago, "the first angle is occupied 
 by infidelity in its various shapes indifference, ma 
 terialism, scepticism; the second angle belongs to 
 Roman Catholicism; the third, the Biblical angle, 
 has remained empty we must fill it up." The news 
 paper press occupies, generally, a more commanding 
 position, and a larger place in the literature of France, 
 than in that of any other European country. The 
 lower classes of French society are much more gene 
 rally engrossed with political and social questions, 
 than the same classes in England. The public jour 
 nals in France, accordingly, pass through many more 
 hands than they do with us. Every Frenchman is a 
 politician. In the workshops where large numbers 
 
THE PRESS. 503 
 
 bers of men are gathered together, it is no uncom 
 mon thing for one artisan to read the paper aloud 
 for the benefit of all. The French journals com 
 mand some of the first rate writers in the country, 
 and the pens of the celebrated novelist and of the 
 distinguished statesman are employed in their pages. 
 But their influence is, for the most part, hostile to 
 the Gospel of Christ. Some of the most powerful 
 Parisian Journals are perpetually wavering from Ro 
 manism to Voltarianism, and from Yoltarianism to 
 Romanism. The, u Constitutionnel," at the time when 
 its circulation was the largest of any paper in France, 
 was actively putting forth the opinions and principles 
 of the infidel chief. 1 And, at the present moment, 
 when priestly pretensions are becoming more and 
 more arrogant, the infidelity of many of the Journals 
 
 is reviving. 
 
 But it is the feuilleton, or light French novel, chap 
 ter after chapter of which appears in the columns of 
 the daily papers, that constitute the chief attraction 
 of the journal to myriads of men and women. It 
 is in this department of the paper, separated from 
 the political articles and mere news by a broad line, 
 that Dumas, Sand, Eugene Sue, and writers of such 
 stamp, produce each their dozen or eighteen volumes 
 of tales, yearly ; the tendency of which is to make 
 their readers anything but grave and thoughtful, 
 moral and religious. In reading lately a romance of 
 the last-named author, with a view of giving forth an 
 impartial judgment, we seemed to be wading through 
 1 British Quarterly, No. 6. (Journalism in France.) 
 
504 THE PRESS. 
 
 some of the foulest mud that ever we met with in 
 cheap literature ; and it became at last a question 
 with us, whether we were justifiable in making the 
 attempt. And yet no volume in a large circulating 
 library had been more frequently handled than the 
 one referred to. In the feuilletons of the newspaper, 
 marriage has been declaimed against, nauseous love- 
 stories have been told, the poor and laboring classes 
 have been excited against the rich and noble, the 
 most startling pictures of depravity have been drawn, 
 the most Utopian schemes of social amelioration have 
 been advocated, the most sacred facts in the Gospel 
 History have been parodied, and the bitterest sarcasm 
 and mockery have been thrown upon the holiest doc 
 trines of religion. 1 Millions of readers of French 
 papers in and out of France, come day after day, un 
 der the influence of this anti- Christian agency. We 
 can conceive no more effectual barrier against serious 
 thought or religious principles, and no more effective 
 instrumentality in perverting public taste and morals, 
 than these newspaper romances. Of these, multitudes 
 are republished in our own country, and in company 
 with less objectionable things, swell the tide of our 
 cheap literature. 
 
 Matters, in this respect, are much the same in 
 
 1 M. Alexandra Dumas, a writer who panders to the public taste, 
 however vitiated, for the sake of money, has been publishing for 
 some time a romance of a most profane character in the columns of 
 the Constitutionncl a daily paper said to be circulating at the rate 
 of from 30,000 to 40,000. The immoral tendency of the romance 
 has been so glaring that its publication has been checked by a 
 hint from high quarters. 
 
THE PRESS. 505 
 
 Germany as in France. Socialism with its various 
 conflicting theories and broadly-marked irreligion, 
 the romance, whose heroes embody every character 
 istic except the Christian and the human, have 
 everywhere possessed themselves, to a considerable 
 extent, of the Periodical Press; and through this 
 channel have deluged with a flood of immorality and 
 irreligion the length and breadth of the land. What 
 John Foster once said of the socialist publications of 
 our own country, is yet more truly applicable to the 
 greater proportion of the periodical literature of the 
 Continental Press. " The thing seems like a moral 
 epidemic, breathed from hell, destined to be permitted 
 for a time to sweep a portion of the people to destruc 
 tion, in defiance of all remedial interference." Would 
 that the remedial interference in those lands were but 
 as powerful as with ourselves ! 
 
 Our own periodical press, however, is employed to 
 a large extent on the side of evil. Unquestionable 
 statistics have shown this to be the case. No doubt, 
 as the tone of society in our country has become 
 much more healthy within the last twenty or thirty 
 years, many departments of the periodical press have 
 participated in the favorable reaction. Some jour 
 nals of an extensive circulation, though yet far from 
 being what they ought to be, present a favorable 
 contrast to what they once were. Still, the quantity 
 both of our stamped and unstamped periodical litera 
 ture preponderates greatly on the anti-Christian side. 
 In this estimate we unhesitatingly include those pub 
 lications which pour contempt on the Christian Sab- 
 
506 THE PRESS. 
 
 bath, diverting it from its ordained uses as a day of 
 holy rest and heavenly training, to one of mere bodily 
 relaxation and mental diversion ; and that larger class 
 which would make men religious without any regard 
 to the atonement of Christ and the influences of the 
 Spirit; as well as the avowedly infidel and grossly 
 demoralizing. These classes combined constitute 
 an amount of agency, in conflict with the spirit and 
 claims of the Christianity of the New Testament, of 
 greater power than many men are apt to imagine. 
 The Edinburgh Review, which is not chargeable with 
 countenancing exaggerated statements in these mat 
 ters, said, about two years ago, " the total annual 
 issue of immoral publications has been stated at 
 twenty-nine millions, being more than the total 
 issues of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowl 
 edge, the Religious Tract Society, the British and 
 Foreign Bible Society, the Scottish Bible Society, the 
 Trinitarian Bible Society, and some seventy religious 
 magazines." More recently, it has been affirmed that, 
 during the year 1851, the purely infidel press in 
 London issued publications to the amount of more 
 than twelve millions; the issues of avowed atheism, 
 during the same period, exceeded six hundred and 
 forty thousand ; and, in addition to these, were issued 
 upwards of seventeen millions and a half of a nega 
 tive or corrupting character. All this is exclusive of 
 what are properly called newspapers. Indeed, in such 
 influential organs as the Times, the Daily News and 
 the Morning Chronicle, some of these corrupt periodical 
 issues have been subjected to a withering exposure. 
 
THE PRESS. 507 
 
 But the Newspaper Press cannot be altogether ex 
 culpated. It was shown, but a few years ago, that, 
 according to the official stamp returns of 1843, the 
 weekly papers which had the largest circulation, were 
 of an irreligious and demoralizing character. 1 Mr. 
 Bucknall, in his evidence before the select committee 
 on newspaper stamps, in May, 1851, adverting to one 
 of these, now somewhat changed in its character, but 
 still far from being unobjectionable, said that, twenty 
 years ago, it was "almost a blasphemous, scurrilous, 
 and contemptible paper, but with an enormous circu 
 lation." This paper, according to the stamp returns 
 of 1850, has considerably decreased in circulation 
 though that is still large ; thus showing that the days 
 of its worst character were the days of its greatest 
 influence. Another of these, ministering much more 
 to the sporting than to the moral life, and tending to 
 nourish the ignoble passions of man, has of late been 
 on the increase, having had an issue of stamps for 
 1850 amounting to considerably more than a million 
 and a quarter. While a third paper, circulating at 
 the rate of about thirteen thousand weekly, openly 
 invades the sanctities of the Sabbath, and directs 
 men s thoughts anywhere than to things above. 
 These we have noticed as of a demoralizing tendency. 
 But how many possess a negative characteristic, say 
 ing little or nothing for or against the cause of the 
 gospel. It has been said of the English journal, that 
 "it is a great mental camera, which throws a picture S 
 of the whole world upon a single sheet of paper." * 
 
 1 The Power of the Press, (1847.) 
 
508 THE PRESS. 
 
 And yet, with a few noble exceptions, that mental 
 camera either gives no representation of the Christian 
 world, or a very distorted one ; or throws forth pic 
 tures, the direct influence of which is to make men 
 anything but Christians. Of the seventy millions of 
 newspapers which, Mr. Dickens in his Household 
 Words, says, pass through all the post-offices every 
 year, from how many could we gather anything like 
 an account of the working of the most beneficent of 
 all agencies in the world the missionary enterprise ? 
 Indeed, from many of our public journals, a man 
 could scarcely infer that there was such a thing as 
 Christianity in the earth ; and to a good man it were 
 a melancholy thought did the actual world contain 
 no better elements of regeneration than are repre 
 sented to us by the greater bulk of the newspaper 
 press. 
 
 But it is in the reading for the million the cheap 
 unstamped publications that we find the greatest 
 amount of infidel and demoralizing influences. Mr. 
 Knight, the respectable publisher in Fleet-street, 
 stated, not long ago: "During the last five years, 
 while cheap religious periodicals have made limited 
 progress, either in numbers or interest, the corrupt 
 printing press has been unceasingly at work. The 
 present circulation in London of immoral unstamped 
 publications of a halfpenny to three-halfpence each, 
 must be upwards of 400,000 weekly, which would 
 give the enormous issue of 20,800,000 yearly! In 
 addition to these there is the weekly importation of 
 French print and novels, of so indecent a character 
 
THE PRESS. 509 
 
 that once they could only be obtained by stealth, but 
 may now be purchased openly from any vendors of 
 the other periodicals." To a large proportion of this 
 literature for the people might be applied the lan 
 guage which Burke applied to the French papers of 
 his time : u The writers of these papers, indeed, for 
 the greater part, are either unknown or in contempt ; 
 but they are like a battery in which the stroke of any 
 one ball produces no great impression, but the amount 
 of continual repetition is decisive." 
 
 We may classify the an ti- Christian cheap literature 
 thus: There is first, the avowedly infidel Publica 
 tions of this class are circulating at an extremely 
 cheap rate, among the artisans in our large towns, the 
 object of which, in the language of one of them (the 
 recognized organ of the secularist party in London 
 and the provinces), is to induce the people "to shake 
 off religious belief to cut the cable by which theol 
 ogy has a hold on practical affairs, and to let theology 
 float away to the undefined future to which it belongs." 
 Instead of finding much calm and fair reasoning in 
 this organ, as the title would lead us to expect, we 
 have the old dishonest trick, so much resorted to by 
 Paine, of villifying Christianity by identifying it with 
 its corruptions; and the usual kind and quantity of 
 raillery aimed at anxious inquirers and praying men 
 and women, the only excuse for which is that such 
 weapons are more easily wielded against the religion 
 of Christ than arguments. u Excelsior /" is surely an 
 ironical motto for an oracle which forbids us to look up 
 to the skies and beyond the stars ; and which enjoins us 
 
510 THE PRESS. 
 
 to let God and futurity alone as we have no irresistible 
 evidence in proof of either. Most unquestionably, 
 the motto should have been "Let us eat and drink, 
 for to-morrow we die." Were the mischief produced 
 by such publications only proportionate to the talent 
 displayed in them, they might be allowed to pass on 
 unnoticed to the oblivion to which there are hastening. 
 But it is not so. Their sentiments find a welcome 
 response in many minds that have remained indif 
 ferent or hostile to the Gospel of Christ ; and, in 
 workshops and factories, they have done no incon 
 siderable amount of evil. An atheistic secularism, at 
 the present day, is wielding, with renewed vigor, the 
 penny periodical press ; and, by this means, is endeav 
 oring to leaven the people, especially in manufacturing 
 districts, with its earthy principles. 
 
 The second class may be distinguished as polluting. 
 Publications of this class pander to the sickliest 
 curiosity and the basest passions. Vice is here 
 tricked out in all its alluring attire. The reader 
 is conducted through some of the dissolute scenes 
 of fashionable life, or his sympathies are enlisted 
 in favor of some desperado who has been the hero 
 of the den, and whose hair-breadth escapes have 
 thrown an air of romance around his life of crime 
 and infamy. The readers of this class of polluting 
 publications are much more numerous than the 
 former. They address themselves to the lowest of 
 the people, demand not the least effort of thought, 
 and are ever hot with stirring scenes and incidents. 
 Among the myriads of young men and women in 
 
THE PRESS. 511 
 
 
 
 the metropolis who are able to read, but who seldom 
 or never appear in the house of God, this low, cor 
 rupting literature has a very large circulation. "If 
 you go," said Mr. Bucknall before the select com 
 mittee on newspaper stamps, "into some of what 
 we call the back slums, and different places both 
 in London and in provincial towns, you will see very 
 often shops open on the Sunday morning. Those 
 are out of the general reach of observation; and 
 unless you go there and positively watch the sale, 
 it is impossible that you can have any idea of the 
 amount of moral depravity of these things." Mr. 
 Mayhew, in his instructive work, entitled "London 
 Labor and the London Poor," has made some 
 startling disclosures in reference to the literature of 
 the masses. Speaking of the costermongers a class 
 numbering about 30,000, living "in a state of almost 
 brutish ignorance" he says, " What they love best 
 to listen to and, indeed, what they are most eager 
 for are Reynolds periodicals, especially the "Mys 
 teries of the Court." One street-seller assured him 
 that his master alone "used to get rid of 10,000 
 copies of such works on a Saturday night and a 
 Sunday morning;" 1 the principal customers being 
 young men. Mr. Abel Heywood, of Manchester, 
 through whose hands pass about ten per cent, of 
 these cheap publications supplying the surrounding 
 towns to the extent of twenty miles has shown, 
 in his evidence before the select committee, that the 
 circulation of the penny vitiating periodicals among 
 1 London Labor and the London Poor, vol. i., pp. 25, 290. 
 
512 THE PRESS. 
 
 g 
 
 the manufacturing districts is very large. And one 
 or two works of this kind, we are informed, meet 
 with a readier sale in Edinburgh than almost any 
 other cheap publication. To this corrupt class of 
 reading must also be assigned the "gallows" litera 
 ture. The appetite for this, especially among the 
 reading poor, is enormous. The morbid feeling 
 about criminals has, of late years, been strong; and 
 the press even that which claims to be respectable 
 has, by its pictorial illustrations, and minute 
 details of criminal deeds, largely ministered to it. 
 It is stated that no less than four millions and a half 
 of broadsheets, relating to two late principal exe 
 cutions, were printed and got up in London, and 
 sold throughout the country. The chief way to 
 check or counteract the influence of this pernicious 
 trash, is, as Mr. Mayhew hints, in the "respectable 1 
 press becoming a more healthful public instructor. 
 In all this penny literature, we have an agency 
 which, like an army of locusts, eats up all that is 
 healthful wherever it alights, and leaves nothing 
 behind but pollution and desolation. 1 
 
 1 The " Christian Times," speaking of the " Acherontic Shades 
 of the Metropolis," and especially of those "normal schools of 
 vice and profligacy in London the low theatres," says : " Of the 
 penny theatres, the abused power of the press is the main, if not 
 the sole, cause. In none of these houses is the histrionic literature 
 of the more decent school represented, for the ohvious reason that 
 it is not sufficiently prurient. The songs, the dramas, and the 
 farces, of the Holy well Street and the Reynolds schools, are 
 exclusively used at the penny theatres. Instead of Richard the 
 Third, Hotspur, Wolsey, Catharine of Aragon, Oliver Cromwell 
 and the ideal personages of the modern drama, we only find Jack 
 
\ THE PRESS. 513 
 
 There is a third class which, in regard to moral 
 and religious influences, may be called latitudinarian. 
 In this class we have none of the broadly-marked 
 and openly-avowed infidelity of the first, nor any 
 of the grossly-depraved and deeply-polluting scenes 
 of the second. Light reading, in the shape of 
 novels and romances, is the staple commodity; and 
 this of a kind calculated to make men and women 
 anything but wise and thoughtful; while (in the 
 way of warp and woof), threads of thought, connected 
 with religious indifferentism or a false liberalism, 
 run throughout. This class of cheap literature is a 
 large and growing one, and seems, in many places, 
 to be supplanting, in a great extent, publications 
 of a decidedly immoral kind. To this class be 
 longs the "Family Herald" a miscellaneous journal, 
 which is said to have the largest sale of any of tie 
 penny or cheap publications among the working 
 classes. The weekly circulation of this pennyworth, 
 as stated in evidence before the select committee 
 referred to, is more than two hundred thousand. 
 Of these, somewhere about fourteen thousand cir 
 culate weekly in Manchester and the neighborhood. 
 "There is a peculiarity about the Family Herald," 7 
 said the extensive Manchester bookseller, in his 
 evidence, "it addresses itself to the fairer sex in 
 
 Sheppard, Turpin, Carew, Tom Shingle, Rush, Mrs. Manning, and 
 others, who have risen above the ordinary heroes of the Newgate 
 Calendar ; and these are neither exhibited to elicit the self delusions 
 or the certain penalties of crime, but to excite compassion for the 
 criminal, or to smother all possible reflection by terminating a tragedy 
 with a grimace." Christian Times, 
 
 " 
 
514 THE PRESS. 
 
 a great measure, and to that perhaps may be attrib 
 uted its very large circulation." It has, however, 
 "facts and philosophy for gentlemen," as well as 
 "hints and entertainments for ladies." Not the least 
 engrossing part of this "domestic magazine," as the 
 "Herald" itself testifies, and as we know from ob 
 servation, is the large space devoted to replies to 
 correspondents. The useful and the ludicrous here 
 meet. These we let pass. They may be "interest 
 ing to all offensive to none." But religious doubts 
 are here solved, and interpretations of Scripture 
 are here given ; and thus, through the channel in 
 which flows the exhilarating beverage runs also the 
 diluted poison. The "Family Herald s" brief "dis 
 course on matters pertaining to religion" is more 
 akin to the sentiments of Theodore Parker than to 
 those of Christ and his apostles. Man s original up 
 rightness is here denied; non-responsibility for be 
 lief is inculcated ; the salvation of the whole race with 
 out any exception is preached ; and to speak of future 
 punishment, or of the doctrine of atonement, is rep 
 resented as making a sort of Moloch of God. No 
 wonder then that Pollok s divine poem is condemned 
 for its Calvinistic theology, and that Madame George 
 Sand s works are represented as the works of " a very 
 religious writer." No wonder that doctrinal creeds 
 are made very lightly of, that Scotch Sabbaths are 
 hated, and that "conventicles" are shunned for their 
 fanaticism. These, we presume, are some of the 
 "facts and philosophy for gentlemen." No doubt, 
 they are meant also for the "ladies" to whom 
 
THE PRESS. 515 
 
 "hints and entertainment" of a different kind are 
 given; as well as for the "youth," for whom "ques 
 tions and diversions" are provided. The " Herald" 
 is not unfrequently spoken of as the most respect- 
 able penny periodical of its class and it is re 
 spectable compared with much of the cheap literature 
 circulating along side of it. But here lies the danger. 
 Many a domestic circle that would justly repel the 
 organ of an atheistic secularism, or the grossly- 
 immoral trash of the Reynolds school, because their 
 irreligion is too palpable, admit the "Herald" for 
 its " recreation and harmless pastime," while they 
 receive along with it (knowingly or unknowingly) 
 the teachings of an infidel theology. By all means 
 let us have cheap " domestic magazines of useful 
 information and amusement ;" but let parents and 
 guardians and churches see to it that their "facts 
 and philosophy," as well as their "hints" and 
 "diversions," are, at least, in harmony with the 
 genial and ennobling teaching of the Book of God. 
 Such, we regret to say, is not the case with the 
 " Family Herald." 1 
 
 1 Our " Family Herald" says, " The passages which speak of 
 the salvation of all men are very numerous. There is one which 
 expressly asserts the salvation of infidels." And if our fireside com 
 panions should think this too good news to be true, they are referred 
 to Rom. xi., 32, for proof!! "The salvation of the Scripture," 
 says this domestic teacher, " is a bodily salvation on the earth, in 
 which men will eat bread and drink wine, and enjoy the pleasures 
 of corporeal existence. Philosophy has changed all this, and we 
 hear almost nothing of it. "What can the clergy be about ?" And 
 then follows an admirable text-proof which Paul himself certainly 
 never thought of: " Is not the Head of the Church called < the 
 
516 THE PRESS. 
 
 Lastly, comes a class whose name is legion - a 
 class which is not in open conflict with Christianity, 
 like the first ; nor glaringly vicious and immoral, like 
 the second ; nor gives forth loose religious views with 
 its entertainments, like the third; but which aims 
 at making men moral, irrespective of the great essen 
 tial doctrines of the gospel. Works of this class pass 
 by Christianity in silent contempt, falsely exalt human 
 nature, and endeavor to keep it independent of 
 divine spiritual aids. This class of cheap literature 
 sins in the way of defect rather than positive state 
 ments. John von Muller, an illustrious German 
 scholar and historian, said of Herder s Philosophy of 
 History, "I find everything there but Christ, and 
 what is the history of the world without Christ ?" In 
 the periodicals referred to, we find almost everything 
 but Christ; and what is all the moral instruction 
 in the world without Christ? These publications 
 
 Saviour of the body ? " ! ! Here is another lesson : " A man is 
 responsible for his false or bad faith, just as he is responsible for 
 his bad breath. It is his misfortune." To this Messrs. Emerson, 
 Owen and Holyoake will have no objection. < : Every world," we 
 are told, " has no doubt its own incarnation, and these all one incar 
 nation ; and we, being many, are part of it, etc." This is something 
 like pantheism. " SINCERITY wants to know if it be possible to 
 obtain the old faith in God that wrought miracles?" And the 
 " Herald " insinuates that " the two facts of faith and mesmerism 
 combined " are to work wonders. Another will suffice : An " UN 
 LEARNED PERSON" inquires about the heathen, and he is told, 
 " Scripture being a universal revelation by a Universal Spirit 
 when it says the heathen are lost, it means that they are all finally 
 gathered into the universal Israel lost by ceasing to be heathen." 
 Do not such sentiments justify us, then, in classing among evil 
 instructors the " Family Herald ?" 
 
THE PRESS. 517 
 
 avowedly aim in their teaching, not only to increase 
 men s information, but to make them better and 
 happier. This is the grand design for which Chris 
 tianity was given to the world. It claims to be the 
 only system of truth capable of thoroughly regenerat 
 ing the human race. This claim is substantiated 
 by an appeal not only to its own principles, but to 
 what the world has been without it, and to what it 
 has done for communities and individuals. Surely 
 then the moral teaching of the periodical, as well as 
 the moral teaching of the living preacher, that takes 
 up a neutral position with regard to Christianity, 
 must be construed into virtual hostility. It may be 
 said of the one, as it has been said of the other, that 
 it is merely aping Epictetus. We do not want the 
 literature on which we are commenting sermonized, 
 nor to be taken up with theological controversies ; but 
 we want in it a distinct recognition of the fact that 
 distinctively Christian elements are alone efficacious 
 in radically regenerating the world. The Great 
 Teacher has said and the remark is peculiarly appli 
 cable to moral teaching " He that is not with me is 
 against me." 
 
 In the above classes of the people s literature com 
 bined, were a mighty agency adverse to spiritual Chris 
 tianity, even though the Christianized periodical litera 
 ture were greater or equal in amount to it. But how 
 fearfully effective must be* that agency, week after 
 week, and year after year, when the circulation of the 
 antidote is so utterly disproportionate to the circula 
 tion of the poison. 
 
518 THE PRESS. 
 
 It has happened, to a considerable extent, with the 
 press, as it has done with some of the lands of the 
 Reformation. The darkness has invaded and driven 
 back the light. Romish superstition has multiplied 
 her altars greatly more than, an Evangelical Protest 
 antism has lengthened her cords and strengthened 
 her stakes. The press, by which we won our liberties, 
 and multiplied our Bibles, though powerfully em 
 ployed on the side of good, is yet, in many depart 
 ments, more powerfully employed on the side of evil. 
 The church is only becoming awake to the great pre 
 ponderance on the wrong side. We have been look 
 ing too exclusively to the multitudinous streams of 
 healing influences that have been flowing forth in 
 many directions. We have dwelt too complacently on 
 our large Bible issues, on our Tract Society grants, 
 on the number and extensive circulation of our relig 
 ious periodicals, and on the many other productions 
 of sterling worth that are ever and anon issuing from 
 the press. These numerous and powerful instru 
 mentalities for good have dazzled our eyes, so as to 
 have concealed very much from our view the strong 
 and numerous currents of evil that are flowing visibly 
 on the surface, and more secretly, though not the 
 less effectually, underneath. But to be awake to an 
 evil, is half overcoming it; and patriotic Christian 
 men, in our own country and on the Continent, are 
 aiming at making a much more vigorous use of the 
 press. 
 
 Some of our old influential organs have, of late 
 years, without losing anything of their ability, de- 
 
THE PRESS. 519 
 
 cidedly improved in tone and spirit. While others, 
 both in the review and magazine departments, have 
 begun a vigorous course in opposition to infidel errors, 
 and on the side of Gospel truth. Of the former, we 
 need only notice the Edinburgh Review, whose appear 
 ance marked an era in our higher periodical litera 
 ture, and which has exerted a strong influence on 
 public opinion. At the time when the " Quarterly" 
 entered the field as its rival, the Northern Journal is 
 said to have had a circulation of about nine thousand. 
 It is well known, however, that Christian missions 
 were assailed, and sceptical opinions found favor in 
 many of the papers in its early numbers, and when 
 its influence was so great. But for a number of years, 
 this powerful organ has done much effective service 
 on the right side. And while Macaulay has been 
 enriching its pages with his brilliant and healthy 
 literary criticisms, such men as Sir James Stephen 
 and Mr. Henry Rogers, have been more directly, and 
 with great power, asserting the principles of the Ref 
 ormation against Romanism and Puseyism, and the 
 claims of an historical Christianity against German 
 and English rationalism. The reprints of these 
 writers are among the most valuable contributions 
 to our modern literature. 
 
 In some of the younger quarterlies 1 and monthlies, 
 which have been called forth by the aggressions of 
 Romanism on the one hand, and of Infidelity on the 
 other, we find men of might and of a right spirit 
 
 1 The British Quarterly, and the North British Review deserve 
 special notice. 
 
520 THE PRESS. 
 
 doing valiantly for the truth. And their influence 
 has not unfrequently stricken the camp of the enemy 
 with dismay. 
 
 It should be borne in mind, however, that while 
 such periodicals are battling with, and affording a 
 strong counteractive to, that vague philosophical 
 theism which, in numerous ways, appeals to the 
 middling and higher classes, there is a wide lower 
 range of mind which the cheap an ti- Christian litera 
 ture especially addresses a range of mind which the 
 massive quarterly or monthly does not reach ; and it 
 is here chiefly that we lack a sufficiently apt force to 
 counteract the enemy. The problem how to supply 
 the masses with acceptable and yet wholesome and 
 elevating reading has never yet been actually and 
 fully wrought out. Philanthropic men, in endeavor 
 ing to meet the evil, have generally erred in one of 
 two ways. They have either gone to the extreme 
 of bringing purely religious publications, in the form 
 of tracts or biographies, to bear upon the popular 
 mind that had been accustomed to the dangerous ro 
 mance ; or they have gone to the extreme of merely dif 
 fusing useful information, and of aiming to make men 
 moral with little or nothing of the evangelical element. 
 Both courses have, in a great measure, failed. The 
 former has been like casting pearls before swine. 
 The latter has been the effort of men to draw water 
 out of a well, while they had nothing to draw with. 
 
 The Religious Tract Society, which all good men 
 love, as if conscious that something more was needed to 
 meet the condition of the masses than the religious 
 
THE PRESS. 521 
 
 tract or narrative, has by the issue of the monthly 
 volume, taken a step in the right direction a scheme 
 which has Arnold s language for its motto, " I never 
 wanted articles on religious subjects half so much as 
 articles on common subjects, written with a decidedly 
 Christian tone." It has too much been forgotten that 
 the people will have entertaining literature. It is by 
 entertaining literature of a depraved kind that the 
 evil is wrought, and it must be by entertaining litera 
 ture of a healthy Christian tone that the evil must be 
 counteracted. This counteractive influence is es 
 pecially needed in reference to the weekly penny 
 publications. It is from this stronghold that the 
 enemy brings his demoralizing energies to bear upon 
 the masses. It seems that within the last two years, 
 not less than two hundred new penny periodicals 
 have started into existence, the greater part of which 
 are more influential for evil than for good. These 
 can only be met and counteracted by penny weekly 
 periodicals combining instruction and entertainment, 
 and which shall have the effect of elevating the work 
 ing classes in the scale of moral being. Some 
 weekly penny-worths (the "Leisure Hour," for ex 
 ample), realize, in a greater or less degree, the kind 
 of influence referred to. Let such approximate 
 still nearer to the model that has often been indi 
 cated, let the number of such be multiplied, and 
 let good men employ a like energy in disseminating 
 their cheap good things as bad men employ in dis 
 seminating their cheap bad things. 
 
 The Messrs. Chambers, whose Edinburgh Journal 
 
522 THE PRESS. 
 
 has an immense circulation throughout the king 
 dom, have succeeded, to a very considerable ex 
 tent, in disseminating sound and useful information 
 among the people. Yet they complain of not having 
 influenced the masses who are polluted by those 
 Grub-street productions, which are the scum and 
 disgrace of our literature. In the Minutes of Evi 
 dence taken before the Select Committee on News 
 paper Stamps, it is stated that the publications which 
 have been brought out at a cheap rate, originally 
 under the plea of benefiting the working classes, 
 such as the " Penny Magazine," " Chambers Jour 
 nal," etc., have missed their aim, and have been 
 generally circulated among the middle classes. In 
 Chambers publications, we miss the evangelical 
 element that decidedly Christian tone which Dr. 
 Arnold wished to give to the Useful Knowledge 
 Society s works, and especially to the Penny Maga 
 zine which was circulating at the rate of a hundred 
 and twenty thousand copies weekly. " Prudence," 
 says a reviewer 1 of our Popular Serial Literature, " is 
 Chambers favorite theme and darling virtue. It is 
 the aim of all his moral instruction. Right feeling, 
 correct ethics and enlightened self-love, are not 
 only the highest principles to which he appeals, but 
 seem to be so appealed to as to leave no room for 
 reference to a higher standard. It does not, as all 
 professed instruction ought to do, point upward." 
 He justly adds, "let our lightest literature preserve 
 the standard of Coleridge s Commendable Pru- 
 1 North British. 
 
THE PRESS. 523 
 
 dence, sanctioning no principle which the word of 
 God condemns if vice be portrayed, let our im 
 pression of it be, there is no peace to the wicked. 
 But let our professedly didactic works exhibit the 
 4 Wise Prudence of Coleridge aim at a higher stand 
 ard of principle, if not distinctly religious, tending 
 towards religion and kept in harmony with it ; and we 
 should have a fairer hope of reaching and moving the 
 lowest of our people." 
 
 The church has powerful resources, in the form of 
 talent and wealth, at her command, which need only 
 lay hold more vigorously on the Periodical Press, in 
 order to drive back the darkness of infidel error, and 
 carry forth triumphantly the light of Gospel truth. 
 Would that the men of sanctified intellect, the princes 
 in Israel, devoted their energies to a larger extent in 
 giving us a Christianly baptized periodical literature, 
 and that Christian men of wealth were to expend 
 much larger sums in extending and rendering more 
 efficient a cheap instructive religious press! The 
 newspaper, the twopenny and penny journal, without 
 being exclusively devoted to religious subjects, or 
 anything like sermonized, must, in their spirit and 
 aim, be Christianized. Along with a goodly number 
 of works in sacred literature issuing ever and anon 
 from the press, in the form of doctrinal and practical 
 treatises, and religious biographies ; we must have our 
 little and large books of science, our cheapest as well 
 as our high-priced periodicals, our journals which 
 treat of common things and the engrossing topics of 
 the day, as well as those which are taken up with the 
 
524 THE PRESS. 
 
 philosophical essay, leavened throughout with the 
 principles of Christian truth. One of the most 
 graphic and widely-circulated histories that have pro 
 ceeded from the modern press, as we have already 
 noticed, is written on the principle of exhibiting God 
 in history a principle which Robertson had almost 
 forgotten, and to which Hume and Gibbon were op 
 posed. And when the principle of seeing God in 
 everything a principle as remote from a vague 
 dreamy pantheism as from a cold lifeless naturalism 
 is recognized in every department of our literature, 
 both in that which circulates among the middle and 
 higher classes of society, and in that which runs 
 throughout the lower masses the press will be con 
 secrated wholly to the grand end for which God gave 
 it; be omnipotent on the side of truth and righteous 
 ness; and, like the bells of the horses, and the pots 
 in Jerusalem and in Judah, have inscribed upon it, 
 HOLINESS UNTO THE LORD. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE CLUBS. 
 
 The present pre-eminently an age of associations Amount of such 
 instrumentality on the side of truth This often blinds us to 
 existing agencies for evil These advance under different shields 
 Charge brought against many literary and philosophical associa 
 tions Infidelity of the socialist clubs Those of France in 1789 
 and 1848 Still strong in their irreligious influences though sup 
 pressed by law Hegelianism of the German clubs Resorts of 
 the travelling journeymen Switzerland Salutary changes in 
 Continental institutions defeated by such irreligious and revolu 
 tionary associations Infidel associations in England Existing 
 secularist societies Clubs of foreign workmen in London Infi 
 delity most prevalent in trades that admit of most intercourse 
 Excellencies of existing counteractive and aggressive Christian 
 agencies Need of a specific agency for meeting the infidelity of 
 our artisans Wichern and the German Inner Mission Confer 
 ences on true Christianity at Paris. 
 
 THE present age is characterized by the number and 
 variety of its associations, is ever was the maxim, 
 that union is strength, so generally acted upon. 
 Projects bearing upon man s social and moral condi 
 tion are no sooner hinted at, than societies are organ 
 ized for developing and executing them. It is pre 
 eminently an age of combination for the diffusion of 
 principles whether good or evil. Isolation of mind 
 
526 THE CLUBS. 
 
 and a monopoly of ideas are by no means prominent 
 features in its manifestation. All things are expan 
 sive, and aim at universality. Man is brought nearer 
 to man, and there is much more fellowship of intel 
 lect with intellect, than in the ages that are past. 
 The associations that exist in our day could never 
 have taken root and grown up under the old civil and 
 ecclesiastical despotisms. Knowledge is not, as 
 aforetime, the inheritance of any particular class. 
 It has descended from the privileged few, and become 
 the common property of the many. The repressive 
 influences of the middle ages, that checked the in 
 tercourse of mind with mind, and made knowledge 
 a monopoly, can no more return than the years that 
 are passed can be rolled back upon the world. The 
 current not only flows, in a great measure unimpeded 
 from man to man, individually, but numerous and 
 powerful combinations are formed for diverting and 
 diffusing it throughout the heart of humanity. 
 These combinations are mighty for evil as well as for 
 good. 
 
 It would be ungrateful to overlook the amount of 
 this kind of instrumentality that is employed on the 
 side of righteousness and truth. There are our noble 
 foreign missionary societies, the glory of our land, 
 which, having sprung up within the last sixty years 
 or little more, have made the desert, in many parts, 
 blossom and rejoice as the rose; and have produced a 
 mighty reflux influence for good on the moral and 
 intellectual state of a vast portion of our home popu 
 lation. There are our Christian instruction agencies, 
 
THE CLUBS. 527 
 
 our city and town missions, which carry the lamp of 
 divine truth into the dark places of our cities and 
 towns, and point the ignorant and lost to Him who is 
 the light and life of men. There are our young men s 
 Christian associations, which seek to lay hold of the 
 minds of ingenuous youth, and protect them from an 
 infidel literature and science, by presenting them with 
 a philosophy and literature baptized in the influences 
 of the gospel. And there are numerous other so 
 cieties branched out over the land, which tend to 
 counteract pernicious error, and directly or indirectly 
 produce much moral good. Such associations as 
 these, which are peculiar to the age in which we live, 
 are valuable beyond all estimate, as influences on the 
 side of whatsoever things are true, and pure, lovely 
 and of good report. 1 
 
 1 Mr. Mayhew, in his work on " London Labor and the London 
 Poor," has done good service by fixing our attention on the social 
 and religious condition of the masses. There is room for adminis 
 tering a rebuke to our indifference to the amount of irreligion and 
 wretchedness that, like the troubled sea, is ever rolling round the 
 base of the social edifice. But why do it with a frown directed 
 towards missionary zeal in other lands ? The heathenism at home 
 has by no means been overlooked while attending to the heathenism 
 abroad. The church of Christ in our land has two loud calls addressed 
 to her at present. The one is to propagate the Gospel in foreign 
 parts, especially among Continental nations where a door is open. The 
 other is to look to our own countrymen who, though surrounded by 
 churches, place themselves beyond the pale of their influence. We 
 should have liked Mr. Mayhew s remarks better, had he said " this 
 thing ought ye to have done, and not have left the other undone." 
 The passage to which we refer is the following: speaking of the 
 metropolitan costermongers, he says : " Indeed, the moral and 
 religious state of these men is a foul disgrace to us, laughing to 
 
528 THE CLUBS. 
 
 But we are apt to be affected with these as with 
 the influences foe good exerted by the press. We are 
 dazzled by them, and become blinded, as it were, to 
 the numerous and powerful combinations on the side 
 of evil. Our insensibility to the latter may, indeed, 
 partly be accounted for from the fact that many of 
 these evil agencies work secretly and in darkness, 
 though not the less effectually. They hate the light, 
 neither come to the light lest their deeds should be 
 reproved. Whereas the other associations, being the 
 children of the light and of the day, come to the 
 light that their deeds may be made . manifest that 
 they are wrought in God. But, whether openly or 
 concealed, it is unquestionable that societies, which 
 tend either directly or indirectly to advance the cause 
 of infidelity, are spread, like a network, over the 
 frame of human society. Their design is not always 
 broadly expressed in their title, and their irreligious 
 
 scorn our zeal for the propagation of the gospel in foreign parts, 
 and making our many societies for the civilization of savages on 
 the other side of the globe appear like a delusion, a mockery, 
 and a snare, when we have so many people sunk in the lowest 
 depths of barbarism round about our very homes. It is well to 
 have bishops of New Zealand when we have Christianized all our 
 own heathen; but with 30,000 individuals in merely one of o^r 
 cities, utterly creedless, mindless and principleless, surely it would 
 look more like earnestness on our part if we created bishops of the 
 New-Cut, and sent right reverend fathers to watch over the cure 
 of souls in the Broadway and the Brill. If our sense of duty will 
 not rouse us to do this, at least our regard for our own interests 
 should teach us, that it is not safe to allow this vast dung heap of 
 ignorance and vice to seethe and fust, breeding a social pestilence in 
 the very heart of our land." London Labor and the London Poor, 
 vol. i., p. 101. 
 
THE CLUBS. 529 
 
 influences are not unfrequently exerted in combina 
 tion with plans and objects that in themselves are 
 perfectly legitimate. Sometimes the demon of un 
 godliness stalks forth under the patronage of an 
 association, the inscription on whose banner is purely 
 political, at other times the badge is literary or scien 
 tific, at other times it is social amelioration, and at 
 other times it is even divine and theological. But, 
 under all these shields, advances and works the self 
 same spirit whose mission is to war against, pervert, 
 and, if possible, destroy spiritual Christianity. 
 
 The religion of Christ can bring a hea.vy charge 
 against many of the literary and philosophical socie 
 ties existing in our own and other lands. Paramount 
 in her claims, she might say to some of them ye 
 have kept me standing and knocking at the door 
 without, and, as if I were a stranger and a foreigner, 
 have refused to admit me within. Ye have most un 
 naturally divorced science and literature from theol 
 ogy, and what God hath joined together ye have 
 put asunder. I claim the homage of the whole realm 
 of nature. Mine is the world of matter, mine also is 
 the world of mind. But ye have treated me as an 
 alien and have thrust me into a corner, and by insu 
 lating science from its natural relations to theology, 
 have occupied inquiring minds with the former, at 
 the cost of excluding or undervaluing the latter. He 
 that is not with me is against me. Upon others, 
 the gospel could fasten the charge of positive hostility, 
 and say, ye have made the stars in their courses 
 fight against Gocl, ye have ransacked the bowels of 
 
 34 
 
530 TlIE CLUBS. 
 
 the earth and made their record speak against Him 
 whose hand inscribed them, and ye have given such 
 views of man and of the universe as directly conflict 
 with the claims of religion both natural and revealed. 
 In endeavoring to advance the sciences, ye have 
 waged war against theology which stands at the head 
 of them; and, in prosecuting the interests of litera 
 ture, ye have scorned the excellency of that knowledge 
 for which one of the greatest of the sons of men 
 counted all things but loss. Not a few institutions 
 of influence and renown could thus be reckoned as 
 abetting, directly or indirectly the cause of infidelity. 
 
 But what we have chiefly in view in this chapter, 
 are the political and socialist clubs. Societies for 
 the peaceful discussion of matters of social polity, 
 and the promotion of social ameliorations, are not 
 only legitimate, but have often done good service 
 to the community. We exclude, therefore, all such 
 as sustain this character from our enumeration of 
 evil agencies; and restrict our remarks to those 
 which aim, in connection with social changes, at 
 an innovation into the substance of Christianity, or 
 the subversion of it as the divinely-revealed system 
 of truth. Their name is legion. The socialist clubs 
 of the Continent, for the most part, partake of this 
 character. 
 
 l<Yance is the hot-bed of socialism, whence it is 
 propagated throughout Switzerland :md Germany. 
 And it is in France that the clubs to which we are 
 adverting, exist, or have existed until very recently, 
 in great numbers and efficiency. Socialism, us we 
 
THE CLUBS. 531 
 
 i 
 
 have seen, does not stand neutral in regard to 
 religion. As hitherto organized, it has been steeped 
 in irreligion. Christianity conies within the sweep 
 of its levelling agency, and it aims at supplanting 
 the established forms of worship. Its religion, at the 
 very best, is one of social equality or man-worship. 
 Depravity, in its creed, lies in the inequalities and 
 oppressiveness of the social frame-work; private 
 property is the demon to be repressed or cast out; 
 and equality, liberty and fraternity, in a mere poli 
 tical sense, constitute the everlasting Gospel of 
 humanity. The system puts on a political face, 
 but it is decidedly infidel at heart. 
 
 Associations for the propagation of these opinions 
 rose up in immense numbers and great vigor, in 
 France, after the outbreak of the late revolution. 
 These opinions had long been floating throughout 
 the mass of society, had formed the subjects of dis 
 cussion in workshops and social meetings, and had 
 been wafted abroad by tracts and journals, But the 
 regularly-organized clubs combined and strengthened 
 their scattered adherents, and, along with the press 
 formed the most effective socialist propaganda. No 
 thing gives a more powerful impulse to any system than 
 the approximation of its abbettors, one toward another, 
 through such agencies as associations. Discussions 
 in clubs, in proportion to the extent of surface on 
 which they are brought to bear, are in general more 
 influential than discussions in public journals, es 
 pecially in matters that tend to excite and interest 
 the passions of men. Such associations not unfre- 
 
532 THE CLUBS. 
 
 quently command some of the most elecjuent and 
 clever men that are to be found within and without 
 the public assemblies of the nation. In the great 
 French Revolution of 1789, the clubs were resorted 
 to by some of the ablest and most popular of the 
 public men of France. Robespierre and the other 
 revolutionary chiefs swayed them by their influence, 
 and through them swayed the National Assembly. 
 The doors of these clubs were flung open to the 
 people, and there, as well as in other ways, the 
 masses heard these opinions enforced, and received 
 that impulse, which urged them to sweep away the 
 throne and the altar, and deluge the land with 
 infidelity and blood. 
 
 The socialist leaders, at the revolution of February, 
 1848, exerted their influence on the French commu 
 nity chiefly through the medium of such associations. 
 That revolution was valuable in their eyes, only as it 
 afforded them an opportunity of bringing about certain 
 great social changes. The many unjust and oppressive 
 arrangements of society yielded them a ground on 
 which to stand and ply their logic. But not satisfied 
 with correcting abuses, they aimed at remodelling 
 the whole frame-work, and would virtually have sub 
 stituted socialism as a system, for the Gospel, or have 
 baptised it with the name of Christianity. The dis 
 cussions of the socialist clubs have often assumed a 
 complexion of this kind. There it has been main 
 tained that socialism is the true religion of Christ; 
 that He was the Prince of the communists; that a 
 social amelioration was the design of setting up the 
 
THE CLUBS. 533 
 
 kingdom of God among men; and that it therefore 
 should supplant all other forms of civil and religious 
 polity. These clubs were the chief places of resort 
 during the time in which France, like a troubled sea, 
 could not rest. The din of intestine strife was heard 
 in the midst of them. But, notwithstanding their 
 internal differences, they all agreed in proclaiming 
 a social revolution to be the hope of the world, and 
 the grand means of indefinitely ameliorating the con 
 dition of man. In the clubs, indeed, not to speak of the 
 broad atheism often manifested, there was preached, 
 in connection with social reform, another gospel as 
 different from the Gospel of Christ as darkness is 
 from light. And countless multitudes received the 
 proclamation with an eagerness seldom manifested, 
 at least on so large a scale, by those who listen to 
 the real glad tidings of great joy. V- 
 
 Socialism, happily has failed of seizing the reins of 
 government, and the world has been spared again 
 witnessing the reign of proscription and infidelity. 
 But, though banished from the Luxembourg, and 
 beaten down at the tribune, and having its clubs 
 placed under the ban, it has by no means halted or 
 lost its vigor. The clubs, in spite of all opposition, 
 are said to exist secretly in great numbers. Discus 
 sions, destructive of all social order and sound relig 
 ion, are carried on. Less conspicuous than it once 
 was in the eye of the public, socialism, with indomi 
 table perseverance, is prosecuting its work of pro 
 selytizing beneath the surface. It aims at leavening 
 the entire mass of society with its principles. And, 
 
534 THE CLUBS. 
 
 though politically disunited and weak, it is still strong 
 in its irreligious influences, because the tendency of 
 its different contending sects is hostile to that truth 
 which requires repentance towards God and faith toward 
 our Lord Jesus Christ. Vast multitudes of the work 
 ing classes on the Continent, who have a growing 
 faith in their social elevation, are prepared, by the 
 deep grudge which they bear to the existing social 
 arrangements, to applaud the communist doctrines 
 however irreligious, as they fall from the lips of the 
 club orator. And it is not difficult to conceive how 
 masses of men, politically and socially disaffected, 
 may, by harangues, have their passions roused against 
 the existing religious, as well as civil institutions of 
 the country, and thereby against religion itself. Each 
 of these clubs is a vortex of irreligion into which 
 artisan after artisan is drawn by the hope which is 
 held out of an indefinite amelioration in their con 
 dition. Let such associations as these be sup 
 pressed by the law, it is just the scattering of the 
 seeds of anarchy and ungodliness abroad to form 
 centres of influence elsewhere. These clubs, in their 
 scattered members, or in their secret meetings, are, 
 we are persuaded, no less influential on the side of 
 irreligion than when they flourished openly without 
 opposition. The spirits of evil, when not suffered to 
 remain in open council, meet in conclave and act the 
 more resolutely, under the impulse already given, in 
 propagating abroad their infidel opinions. 
 
 It is not to France, however, that such associations 
 have been confined. They overspread, in a greater or 
 
THE CLUBS. 535 
 
 less degree, the most of Europe. The cities of Ger 
 many and Switzerland were rife with them, and no 
 where was their atheistical character more broad and 
 decided. The communism of these countries is to be 
 traced to France. Myriads of German workmen are 
 ever passing to and from Paris, where they become 
 acquainted, and fall in, with all the social movements 
 of the French working classes. It was calculated, a 
 few years ago, that there were from forty thousand to 
 sixty thousand Germans in Paris, employed, or seek 
 ing employment, as mechanics. These generally, 
 become members of clubs, where a gross infidelity 
 and a lawless democracy go hand in hand ; and then, 
 returning in process of time to their own country, 
 they organize associations of a similar character or 
 swell those that are already existing. But if the 
 German moving population imbibe and carry home 
 the infidel French socialism, it is not to be forgotten 
 that they have an infidelity of their own which they 
 impart to others. The infidel principles of the 
 Hegelian school are not restricted to university stu 
 dents. They are familiar to the German workmen, 
 and they reduce them to practice. Pantheism, or the 
 boldest atheism, has been avowed and advocated in 
 their clubs. The belief in a living personal God has 
 been repudiated as a worn-out fiction, and the notion 
 of a heaven beyond the grave has been denounced as 
 the greatest hinderance in realizing a paradise on 
 earth. "Man by himself," said one of the boldest 
 and most strenuous apostles of these infidel clubs. 
 " Man is the religion of the coming age." 
 
536 THE CLUBS. 
 
 It has been affirmed that the test of admission to 
 the higher honors of these associations, was an un 
 scrupulous denial of the existence of God. He, 
 whose conscience prevented him going thus far, was 
 not, however, wholly excluded, but placed under the 
 most effective teaching in order to induce him to re 
 nounce the old dogma, and make him a proselyte of 
 the true stamp. These clubs had their divisions and 
 sub-divisions for carrying on more effectually the 
 work of proselytism, and, with an energy and zeal 
 worthy of a better cause, became all things to all men 
 in order that they might gain multitudes. There are 
 two social arrangements which, though originally de 
 signed for good, greatly strengthen the infidelity of 
 the German workmen who compose these clubs. The 
 one is the corporation law which renders it necessary 
 for the journeyman artisan to travel before he can 
 obtain a master s diploma. The design of this is that 
 every young man, on finishing his apprenticeship, 
 might, by two or more years travelling, get thoroughly 
 acquainted with his business. The other is the exist 
 ence of the Herlerge, or tradesman s house of call, of 
 which one exists for every trade in those cities where 
 the corporation law is in force. The former arrange 
 ment brings the moving artisans in contact with the 
 infidelity that is afloat. The latter gives the power of 
 association to all the irreligious opinions that they have 
 gathered in their wanderings. In these resorts of the 
 travelling journeyman, says the noble-minded Wichern, 
 u the A B C of democracy is taught, and many ad 
 vance in the political catechism, systematically gone 
 
THE CLUBS. 53 f 
 
 through, until the top-stone is laid in red republican 
 ism and avowed atheism." 1 
 
 Switzerland, also, recently abounded in infidel 
 communist clubs. It has been asserted that not 
 fewer than twenty thousand German mechanics in 
 that land, were exposed to their seductions, the 
 greater portion of whom have come under their 
 demoralizing influence. Here ultra-radicalism and 
 ultra-atheism are closely connected. The notorious 
 Marr, who learned his atheism in these synagogues 
 of Satan, boasted of having been instrumental in 
 inducing many hundreds of his countrymen to re 
 nounce their faith in God, and of sending them back 
 to their native land avowed enemies to all religion but 
 man- worship. 2 
 
 When such numerous and powerful associations 
 for evil as these are known to have existed over conti 
 nental Europe associations where the most revolu 
 tionary politics, the most unblushing atheism, and 
 
 1 A correspondent in " Evangelical Christendom" for Feb., 1850, 
 states, " there are secret clubs of communists everywhere ; for in 
 stance, eight in Berlin, four in Cologne, two in Dusseldorf, three in 
 Mainz, &c., &c. These clubs have so-called apostles, of whom 
 there are many hundreds, who declare (I extract it from one of their 
 pamphlets), We stand on the foundation of the Apostles, but we 
 are free from the blindness of the first scholars of the great masters. 
 We trouble not ourselves about the miracles of the Jewish philoso 
 pher, and inquire not after his passport to heaven. The Son of God 
 could not save the world; his doctrine became a curse for eighteen 
 centuries, &c." Men blaspheme against " Jesus Christ himself, the 
 chief corner-stone," and yet maintain that they stand on the founda 
 tion of the Apostles ! 
 
 2 Evangelical Christendom, vol. iii., p. 18. 
 
538 THE CLUBS. 
 
 the most blasphemous songs, have been heard and 
 enthusiastically greeted it is not wonderful that, 
 amid the social heavings of foreign lands, there 
 should have been thrown up such an amount of 
 irreligion which, like the smoke out of the bottom 
 less pit, darkened the sun and air, and defeated 
 those attempts at a salutary change in civil and 
 ecclesiastical institutions, the success of which was so 
 desirable. 
 
 England, too, though by no means to the same 
 fearful extent, and in the presence of a higher 
 amount of good counteractive influences, has her 
 infidel clubs and associations. It is but the truth, 
 when we say that our working classes, as a whole, 
 are much sounder at heart, and that there exists 
 among them a greater portion of vital godliness, than 
 is to be found among the workmen of France and 
 Germany, But let not any recent manifestations 
 of social stability and sound piety on the part of our 
 working classes, blind us to the fact that infidel prin 
 ciples and agencies are at work among our .artisans, 
 endeavoring to enlist their political and social dis 
 affection on the side of evil. There is an infidelity 
 allied with intelligence, or half-intelligence, as well 
 as an infidelity allied with ignorance. The former 
 prevails to a large extent among the artisans in our 
 cities and towns, and strengthens and propagates 
 itself by associations. There is, it must not be for 
 gotten, a deep disaffection and grudge at the heart 
 of the working classes, on account of their political 
 disabilities and social wrongs, whether these be 
 
THE CLUBS. 539 
 
 counted real or imaginary, that gives the apostles of 
 an infidel socialism a ground on which to ply their 
 arts of seduction. In many of the workmen s clubs 
 which are to be found throughout the empire, the 
 political and moral amelioration of man is held out 
 as the result of certain socialist theories. Chris 
 tianity is either supplanted in their declamations, or 
 both it and its institutions are represented, openly 
 or by insinuation, as among the instruments of oppress 
 ion, and the hinderances to the realization of their 
 golden age. These are the sermons to which multi 
 tudes eagerly listen on work-day evenings, and on the 
 day of rest. It is either the doctrine of material 
 circumstances, or a system of man-worship, that is 
 preached. The club orators point to the existing 
 arrangements of society as the chief evils, and they 
 ignore all motive power but the human will in the 
 work of regeneration. Multitudes of our young and 
 half-intelligent artisans, in resorting to such teaching, 
 are promised liberty by those who themselves are the 
 servants of corruption. 
 
 That there exists, at the present moment, a system 
 of agency, somewhat loosely and irregularly organized, 
 for disseminating infidel principles, not only in the 
 metropolis but throughout the empire, there can be 
 no doubt. Societies of this kind, differing in the 
 number of their adherents and in the vigor of their 
 operations, are to be found scattered here and there 
 from the Thames to the Clyde. London is the heart 
 of the movement; and that heart is now full of 
 energy. The numbers of well-attended weekly lee- 
 
540 THE CLUBS. 
 
 tures and discussions that are held in the city and 
 suburbs, the exertions made to widen the influence 
 of one or more atheistical organs, not to mention 
 some efforts of a more fitful and irregular character, 
 betoken a resolute attempt to pervert the peo 
 ple. The blood is conveyed through the heart into 
 the body by the arteries, and these we find in such 
 populous places as Bradford, Manchester, Leeds, 
 Dudley, Nottingham, Bolton, Blackburn, Newcastle, 
 Glasgow, &c. These societies, like others of an 
 opposite description at which they are continually 
 railing, have their differences their essential and 
 non-essential points. But one word has recently 
 been adopted so as to cover all their principles and 
 none could be more appropriate if it be rightly under 
 stood, only there is a convenient ambiguity about it 
 the word secularism. Two of the non-essential points 
 are the existence of a Supreme Being distinct from 
 nature, and the immortality of the soul. These, it 
 seems, are to be left open questions : some secularists 
 boldly avowing their disbelief in them, and others 
 not having attained to such a pitch of heroism. The 
 one essential article of the creed the shibboleth of 
 the party, the common linking principle is that 
 morality is independent of religion. The present 
 scene is to be regarded as if it were the whole of 
 man. This life, as it is alleged, being the first in 
 certainty, must be placed first in importance. Though 
 the principles are out and out atheistical, the term 
 atheist is now abandoned for its bad sound. Though 
 all that is worthy of the name of truth be rejected, 
 
THE CLUBS. 541 
 
 the designation of infidel is to be disused, because 
 of its ill-fame. And under this convenient title of 
 secularism, nature is to be preached as the only sub 
 ject of knowledge, and man is to be taught to limit 
 his thoughts and anxieties to the present world. 
 Our secularists must tear out men s consciences first, 
 turn the human breast into a sepulchre of dead hopes, 
 seal it up, and set a watch, before they can expect 
 any great portion of the world to be converted to 
 their principles ; for if there is one thing more clearly 
 established than another by the voice of universal 
 history, it is that man will have a religion, and that, 
 in the sense of completely ignoring a Supreme Being 
 distinct from nature and shutting out futurity from 
 his view, man is not a secularist. Let it be under 
 stood then that no-religion is the fundamental dogma 
 of these societies; that morality without religion, or 
 the never-failing streams after the fountain has been 
 sealed, is the only prospect that they seek to realize ; 
 and we care not whether they be called agencies of 
 secularism or sensualism, though we think the latter 
 designation the more appropriate of the two. 
 
 The German and other foreign workmen, have 
 their clubs in our own land, which are for the most 
 part of an irreligious character. This is especially 
 the case in London. Chevalier Bunsen stated, a few 
 years ago, at the foundation of the Foreigners Evan- 
 gelical Society, that there were from thirty-five thou 
 sand to forty -five thousand Germans, or about half 
 the whole number of foreigners in this country. 
 Most of these are workmen. The clever design- 
 
542 THE CLUBS. 
 
 ing men, connected with the clubs, eagerly lay hold 
 of them, and persuade them to attend their meetings, 
 where they imbibe the most infidel principles. 
 
 Thus the power of association by which great 
 things among us are done on the side of goodness 
 and truth, is mightily employed on behalf of the worst 
 forms of evil. It has been ascertained that infidelity 
 is generally most prevalent in those trades which 
 admit of most intercourse among the workmen. One 
 clever infidel in a workshop will sometimes exert 
 all the influences of the club orator, especially if he 
 comes in contact with men who are somewhat preju 
 diced against, or but nominally attached to Chris 
 tianity. We have heard of a German engineer a 
 man of remarkable mental power and energy who, 
 some years ago, got into a large factory in the south 
 of London, and he gradually diffused infidel principles 
 among the workmen. It was generally understood 
 that, in this propagandism, he acted as the deputy of 
 an infidel association. The Camlachie weaver, whom 
 Dr. Chalmers had been instrumental in converting, 
 was apprenticed, when a boy, to an infidel, of whom 
 it is told that he succeeded in seducing the twenty 
 men under him into unbelief. 1 How melancholy to 
 think that men so sedulously do the work of him 
 who is the great adversary of God and man ! And 
 how often may the children of light learn a lesson 
 of united effort and persevering zeal, in prosecuting 
 their noble object, from the way in which the chil 
 dren of this world seek their destructive ends. 
 1 Dr. Hanna s Life of Chalmers, vol. ii., p. 481. 
 
THE CLUBS. 543 
 
 "When bad men combine," said a great English 
 statesman, "good men should associate." 
 
 Combinations for evil have not, however, as already 
 noticed, the field to themselves. There exists, and 
 happily is multiplying, a strong counteractive and ag 
 gressive Christian agency, which, if rightly adapted so 
 as to meet the ever-shifting forms of error, is calcu 
 lated to do good service in the cause of truth. We 
 do not refer so much to the Christian churches that 
 stud the land, as to the beneficent instrumentalities 
 that owe their existence and support to these churches. 
 There is, we cannot help thinking, a louder complaint 
 of inefficiency and want of adaptation uttered by some 
 men against our regularly-constituted associations for 
 Christian worship, than the nature of the case really 
 warrants. Because our creeds have no attractions 
 for vast masses of men who are seeking a religion of 
 political liberty or social elevation, they are spoken of 
 as a dead letter, as worn out and effete. Because 
 our pulpit ministrations fail to win the men who hang 
 unweariedly on the lips of club orators, therefore 
 it is alleged they are not adapted to the wants of 
 the age in which we live. We have admitted, in 
 another part of this essay, that the pulpit, in some 
 quarters, might relax a little of its rigidity without 
 surrendering any of its orthodoxy, that its teaching 
 might take a wider range while all its instructions 
 nevertheless are given from under the shadow of the 
 cross, and that a nearer approach to the colloquial in 
 style might be made without losing anything of its 
 grave dignity. But far distant be the day, when it 
 
544 THE CLUBS. 
 
 shall descend to the political arena, and take up so 
 cialist questions, the discussions of which have greater 
 attractions for multitudes than the publishing of the 
 simple truth as it is in Jesus. The fact is, that a 
 great portion of the blame which is laid at the door 
 of churches, must be thrown over upon the stubborn 
 fact of human depravity. There are vast numbers of 
 the pulpits of our evangelical churches occupied by 
 men of superior abilities, of great unction and of living 
 power, and many of these churches, it is not to be 
 forgotten, are composed, in a considerable extent, of 
 working men. 
 
 But the multitudes who throng the socialist clubs, 
 or frequent the secularist lecture room, . whether in 
 our own or in foreign lands, are beyond the pale of the 
 pulpit s influence, because deeply prejudiced against 
 its teaching, and, if reached at all, must be reached 
 by other agencies. Such agencies exist, and what is 
 wanting is that they be multiplied or supplemented, 
 more vigorously used, have men of mental power as 
 well as burning zeal in their employ, and work a little 
 more on the principle of becoming all things to all 
 men. Our home missionary associations, with the 
 exception perhaps of the London City Mission, restrict 
 their operations too exclusively to the ignorant masses 
 who are a degree below the working classes to whom 
 we refer, but from whom their infidelity descends and 
 is received by the lower grade. While the many ex 
 cellent young men s Christian associations which are 
 rising up with great vigor, are fitted rather to shield 
 from danger those who have a nominal connection 
 
THE CLUBS. 545 
 
 with the church, but who are exposed to strong in 
 fidel allurements, than to reach the thousands who 
 have fallen into the net of the spoiler. Something 
 is wanting to carry the siege into the enemy s strong 
 holds, to attack the various forms of infidelity that 
 have obtained a hold of the minds of our artisans, to 
 expose the sophistries and delusions under which 
 they are held, and thus prepare them for the admis 
 sion of that truth by which alone men are made free. 
 Piety however deep, and zeal however indomitable, 
 will not suffice for this object; they must be com 
 bined with intellectual acuteness and grasp; and 
 a host of persons, in whom all these qualifications 
 meet, can be supplied by the Christian church. In 
 our city missions, and Christian instruction asso 
 ciations, we have an admirable instrumentality for 
 carrying the Gospel to the poor who will not 
 come to the Gospel. But we want a more effi 
 cient agency, either under the direction of such 
 associations, or wielded by a new combination, for 
 the platform occupied by our intelligent or half-in 
 telligent artisans who are indifferent or hostile to 
 evangelical truth. 
 
 The Christian community in Germany, who are 
 far behind England in their home-mission agencies, 
 and who are beginning to attribute our stability, 
 amid the late revolutions, to the salt that is among 
 us, are putting forth their strength not only to carry 
 the Gospel into the homes of the poor, but to meet the 
 spiritual needs of their shifting artisan population. 
 The conference lately held at Wittemberg, the city of 
 
546 THE CLUBS. 
 
 Luther, has pledged itself to the promotion of these 
 objects. Wichern, of Hamburg, a man of a noble 
 spirit, has the merit of heading this movement for 
 the wants of the German Fatherland. He says, u The 
 blight of infidelity has fallen on our land, chiefly 
 through the instrumentality of an artisan propaganda ; 
 and it must be met by the counteracting influence of 
 a Christian artisan propaganda. And thus the free 
 dom of speech, and press, and association, which is 
 now the most powerful ally of Satan, will become the 
 best and most effective aid of Christian benevo 
 lence." 
 
 The conferences on true Christianity, opened at 
 Paris, a few years ago, in which the working classes 
 were chiefly addressed, arose out of the felt- want of 
 some specific agency to counteract the infidel teach 
 ing of the socialist clubs. These conferences were 
 attended with success, so long as the government, 
 jealous of everything that could be construed into a 
 club, permitted them. The artisans of the faubourgs 
 are said to have heard with interest the true Gospel 
 of Christ. And even educated auditors of socialists 
 listened to the bearings of Christianity on those so 
 cial questions which have been mixed up with a med 
 ley of the worst forms of infidelity." 1 
 
 The desirableness of some such agency among our 
 selves has been hinted at. It is required by the num 
 ber of reading artisans in our cities and towns who 
 have been suffered to grow up strongly prejudiced 
 against the gospel, persons on whom our churches 
 
 J Evangelical Christendom. Vol. iii., pp. 41, 139, 329. 
 
THE CLUBS. 547 
 
 have no hold, but to whom an infidel socialist club or 
 association presents an allurement. And, not to 
 mention other inducements, it is required by the 
 Christian principle of accommodation, becoming all 
 things to all men in order that we may win some. 
 It is only, we are persuaded, by some such specific 
 agency that the efforts now making, in many of our 
 large towns, by the infidel secularist propaganda, can 
 be met and successfully counteracted. These efforts 
 are chiefly directed to the working classes, and it is 
 among the artisans who have either no connection 
 with the Christian churches, or but a very slight one, 
 that they greatly succeed. A mission -to such classes 
 has been talked of. By all means let us have it. 
 But let us see that is adapted to the exigencies of 
 the case. We would deprecate, in our usual church 
 ministrations, any great departure from existing forms 
 of worship. But, in order to the working of the 
 agency for which we plead, there should be meetings 
 for the classes referred to held without the perform 
 ance of any act of worship properly so called. It 
 was so in the Paris conferences. These meetings 
 must be addressed by Christian men of good temper, 
 and clear argumentative power, who will speak to their 
 deeply -prejudiced hearers, and argue with them, as 
 Paul did on Mars Hill, in the school of Tyrannus, 
 and in other places. This would prove a meet and 
 valuable practical measure consequent on the inquiry 
 which has been instituted into the prevalent forms 
 and workings of modern infidelity. 
 
 Let our evangelical churches abide firmly by their 
 
548 THE CLUBS. 
 
 ancient creeds, in so far as they harmonize with " the 
 law and the testimony," and determine to know 
 nothing among men saving Jesus Christ and him 
 crucified; but let them, without compromise, adapt 
 themselves more to the growing intelligence and 
 thinking habits of the age. Let our Home Mission 
 and Christian Instruction Agency Societies prosecute 
 with increased vigor the work which they have be 
 gun of carrying the light of life into the dark dwell 
 ings of the poor and ignorant. Let our Young Men s 
 Christian Associations multiply in every city and 
 town, in order to preserve, or snatch, our generous 
 youth from the apostles of systems of delusion. But 
 let us have another association, or, at least, another 
 kind of instrumentality for battling -with the infideli 
 ties of our knowing artisans, the evils which are chiefly 
 to be dreaded in the present social state of civilized 
 lands. Men of power and tact, as well as zeal and 
 piety, are required here. Such men we doubt not 
 are to be found. The Church of Christ, in these 
 lands, is strong in her resources. Only let them be 
 drawn out and rightly applied. We have no fear so 
 long as, to use the words of Milton, truth is in the 
 field ; only let her have all the advantages of free 
 speech, press, and association. 
 
 1 We are glad to see that a mission to the working classes in re 
 lation to Infidelity, has, since writing the above, been begun. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE SCHOOLS. 
 
 Powerful influence of Educational Institutions Defect in our com 
 mon Schools Want of a Christian atmosphere in higher Semina 
 ries Dr. Maberly s testimony Dr. Arnold s exertions Oxford 
 and Cambridge Countenance given to rationalism and Semi- 
 Popery Secessions to Rome and to the Infidel ranks Scottish 
 Schools St. Andrew s at the end of the last century Continental 
 Europe Philosophy in France Subserviency of Education to 
 Romanism Influence of German Schools in propagating Infi 
 delity Pedagogy Pantheistic Philosophy at Berlin Neology 
 at Halle Dr. Paulus of Heidelberg Counteractive Influence of 
 Neander, Tholuck, &c. Infidel teaching in the Universities of 
 Holland Unitarian Rationalism of the College of Geneva Noble 
 Influence of the New Academy A Christianized University. 
 
 IT is obvious that the educational institutions of a 
 country must exert a powerful influence, for good or 
 evil, on the faith and morals of its inhabitants. They 
 mould, in a great measure, the public mind. From 
 the venerable university down to the humble village 
 school, they are sources of moral power which tell 
 continuously on the national sentiments and character. 
 Dr. Arnold, on hearing of new comers to Rugby, said, 
 u It is a most touching thing to me, to receive a new 
 fellow from his father, when I think what an influ 
 ence there is in this place for evil, as well as for 
 good." The amount of power wielded by such agen- 
 
550 THE SCHOOLS. 
 
 cies differs, no doubt at different periods, and in 
 different lands. Some universities, whose renown 
 extended far and wide a century or two ago, are now 
 like the shadow of a great name ; while others, which 
 have sprung up more recently, have all the vigor 
 and power of manhood. We walk amid the shades 
 of some, just as we tread half-deserted palaces, whose 
 life and gaiety are gone, and for their influence we 
 must look to the records of the past. We stand by 
 others as at a fountain head, whence are ever issuing 
 streams that enrich or desolate the land, and can say 
 here is an instrumentality of good, or an instrument 
 ality of evil. In some countries, the lesser schools, 
 which are branched out over the land, are exerting 
 the influence that once belonged to the greater 
 seats of learning. In other places, the amount of 
 power wielded by such institutions is much dimin 
 ished or counteracted, by the operation of other 
 agencies. But, in general, the schools, higher and 
 lower, are felt, in every land where they exist, to be no 
 mean agencies in the dissemination of sentiments, and 
 in the formation of character. Governments, whether 
 civil or ecclesiastical, Protestant or Roman Catholic, 
 are fully aware of this. The debates in the senate, 
 the discussions in church courts, and the conflict 
 often maintained between the civil and ecclesiastical 
 powers about such institutions, show the vast import 
 ance attached to them as agencies in moulding the 
 mind of the people. Men who wish to give the 
 streams a particular tinge or turn, fight for the pos 
 session of the fountain. They who would steer the 
 
THE SCHOOLS. 551 
 
 ship on a certain track, seek the command of the 
 helm. Be it the disciple of Loyola, eager for the 
 universal sway of the church of which he is a devoted 
 son ; or the mere politician, careful only to advance 
 his schemes of state policy ; be it the zealous Chris 
 tian reformer, heedless of party ends, but anxious 
 above all things to leaven society with the pure Gos 
 pel; or the no less zealous infidel, who would wish 
 full scope for his schemes of social regeneration ; all 
 look to the schools, the educational institutions, as the 
 levers by which they could move and influence the 
 public mind. 
 
 It is one of the cheering signs of the times, that 
 the state of our public schools, higher and lower, is 
 occupying so much the thoughts of patriotic and 
 Christian men. The amount of education comes far 
 short of the requirements of the country, and the 
 character of much of what exists is either inferior in 
 itself or surrounded by unhealthy influences. These 
 things have been placed beyond dispute, by the Re* 
 port of the Government Commission of inquiry. The 
 secular instruction of many of the lower schools is 
 glaringly defective ; while, notwithstanding the grow 
 ing improvement in this respect, there is a great want 
 of healthy, vigorous, attractive, religious teaching. 
 Difficulties indeed beset the subject. But, in the full 
 view of all these difficulties, we hold by the clear tan- 
 gible principle that the religious element is indispens 
 able to a sound and elevating system of education. 
 The mode in which religious instruction has been 
 imparted, in a large proportion of our schools, has 
 
552 THE SCHOOLS. 
 
 been far from satisfactory. It has tended to make 
 young people formalists rather than to inspire them 
 with a loving regard for the truth of Scripture. This 
 fact is being recognized in many quarters; and the 
 more excellent way is being followed of rescuing the 
 Bible from the position of a mere task book, and of 
 informing the mind, and impressing the conscience, 
 with its histories, doctrines and precepts. Let re 
 ligion be shut out from the daily school, and irreligion 
 will grow up and abound, just as weeds overrun a 
 garden which is not properly cropped and cultivated. 
 Or let religion be taught merely as a matter of dull 
 routine, and a habit of formalism may be contracted, 
 which it may take much to loosen. Without expect 
 ing too much from improved systems of education, 
 we cannot help thinking that had the religious ele 
 ment in teaching occupied in our schools, generally, 
 the genial and influential place which it ought to 
 occupy, young men, in passing from the school to the 
 factory or workshop, would not have become so often 
 the prey of the infidel. 
 
 Many of the higher seminaries of the country are 
 renowned for their scholarship, whence many young 
 persons pertaining to the educated classes are drafted 
 off every year to the universities. Not a few dis 
 tinguished Christian teachers are to be found in. 
 some of these schools. But, as has recently been 
 remarked, "their presence does not suffice to create 
 a Christian atmosphere. Their influence is neutral 
 ized by the contrary influence of others." 1 Upwards 
 1 Evangelical Christendom, vol. vi., p. 94. 
 
THE SCHOOLS. 553 
 
 of five and twenty years ago, the want of anything 
 like a systematic effort to give a thoroughly Christian 
 character to the education of the higher classes, was, 
 in many quarters, keenly felt. It was about this 
 period that Dr. Arnold was elected to Rugby, where 
 he began to practise, what he so energetically advo 
 cated, making our public schools places of really 
 Christian education. He endeavored to create (the 
 absence of which seemed to him the great cause of 
 all the evil,) a public opinion among the scholars 
 themselves in favor of decidedly Christian principles, 
 so that each new comer might find himself at once 
 in a healthy moral atmosphere. The testimony of 
 Dr. Maberly, head master at Winchester, at once 
 shows the irreligious influences of many of our public 
 schools at the period referred to, and the beneficial 
 change introduced by the great and good Arnold. 
 " The tone of young men at the university," he re 
 marks, "whether they came from Winchester, Eton, 
 Rugby. Harrow, or wherever else, was universally ir 
 religious. A religious under-graduate was very rare, 
 very much laughed at when he appeared, and I think 
 I may say hardly to be found among public-school 
 men ; or, if this be too strongly expressed, hardly to 
 be found except in cases where private and domestic 
 training, or good dispositions, had prevailed over the 
 school habits and tendencies." "Dr. Arnold s pupils," 
 he adds, "were thoughtful, manly-minded, conscious 
 of duty and obligation, when they first came to col 
 lege." 1 Genuine religion has, of late years, been pro- 
 
 1 Stanley s Life and Correspondence of Arnold, vol. ii. 
 
554 THE SCHOOLS. 
 
 gressing among the higher classes of our country, 
 and while improvement has been carried into the 
 schools, that improvement has not been so thorough 
 and beneficent as Christian parents would wish, for 
 the sake of their sons, that it were. Enlightened, 
 liberal, good men, still complain, that Eton, Harrow, 
 Rugby, and other public schools, want that supremacy 
 of the Christian influence, without which the sons of 
 the educated classes will lie open to the inroads of 
 infidelity. 
 
 Oxford and Cambridge rise up before the mind at 
 once, in proceeding to notice the universities of Eng 
 land. With these venerable seats of learning, are 
 associated some of the greatest names that have 
 adorned the British senate and the British churches, 
 and that have given our country a world-wide renown 
 for its brilliant literature and scientific achievements. 
 Here the scions of our nobility are taught, and re 
 ceive, in a great measure, their mental moulding. 
 And here, as the schools of the prophets, the youth 
 of every rank, destined to fill the pulpits of the Eng 
 lish Establishment, imbibe, for the most part, those 
 principles which they are henceforth to disseminate 
 over the length and breadth of the land. The great 
 influence of the teaching of these schools on the 
 English mind, from the peer down to the peasant, 
 is obvious. It is true that their power, for good or 
 evil, is not so great as when they furnished nearly all 
 the instruction that was given to the educated youth 
 of our country. 1 The Non-conformists, who are e.x- 
 1 The Oxford Commission Report estimates the number of students 
 
THE SCHOOLS. 555 
 
 eluded by statute from these old universities, have 
 their academic institutions in considerable numbers 
 and efficiency, and presided over by men, many of 
 whom would adorn the chairs of Oxford or Cambridge. 
 But as the mountains rise above the hills, so are 
 these two ancient seats of learning among the more 
 modern schools that possess the land. They are still 
 entitled to their old distinctive appellation the eyes 
 of England, however much these eyes need to be 
 purged. 
 
 It is not of their ancient glory, but of their recent 
 influence, and that especially in its bearing on our 
 common Scriptural Christianity, that we speak. And 
 truth demands the statement that these two schools, 
 which once, as Thomas Fuller, in his filial regard, 
 says, "became the fruitful nurseries of Protestant 
 worthies, to the envy and admiration of all Christen 
 dom," 1 have, of late, to a great extent, proved the hot 
 beds of Romanism and of an infidel sentimentalism. 
 Sir W. Hamilton has said, " the nearest approxima 
 tion to the learned freedom of the German divines, 
 and the most enthusiastic encomiasts of their writings, 
 have been found among the English clergy, and in 
 that clergy, among . the teachers and dignitaries of 
 
 actually resident in Oxford at the present time to be about 1,300; 
 which is a greater number than at any time in the last two centuries. 
 The number of students at Cambridge is greater. Mr. Hallarn re 
 marks (Europe during the Middle Ages, vol. iii., p. 526,) that " at 
 Oxford under Henry III., it is said that there were 30,000 scholars ; 
 an exaggeration which seems to imply that the real number was 
 very great." 
 
 1 Fuller s History of the University of Cambridge. 
 
556 THE SCHOOLS. 
 
 the English, universities." 1 These two enemies 
 rationalism and semi-Popery have been, and still 
 are, the besetting dangers of the English clergy, and 
 no wonder, considering the countenance they have 
 received in the high places of learning. Men in 
 the situations, and with the authority of Lloyd and 
 Marsh, (the former many years ago professor of 
 Hebrew in Cambridge, the latter late Margaret pro 
 fessor of divinity in the same university,) endeavored 
 to promote the study of Eichhorn and his school 
 among the academic youth. Great has been the joy 
 in the Vatican at Oxford tendencies, and the chiefs 
 of "our Lord, the Pope," did not fail to repair to 
 the banks of the Isis to express it. " Most sincerely 
 and unaffectedly," said the "Catholic Magazine," a 
 few years ago, "do we tender our congratulations to 
 our brethren of Oxford, that their eyes have been 
 opened to the evils of private judgment, and the 
 consequent necessity of curbing its multiform extrav 
 agance." 
 
 The quaint historian of the University of Cam 
 bridge, tells of a grave divine preaching before the 
 university, at St. Mary s more than two centuries ago, 
 who had this " smart passage" in his sermon : "That, 
 as at the Olympian games HE was counted the con 
 queror who could drive his chariot wheels nearest 
 the mark, yet so as not to hinder his running, or to 
 stick thereon, 
 
 mctaque fervidis 
 
 Evitata rotis 
 
 1 Sir W. Hamilton s Discussions, p. 507, 508. 
 
THE SCHOOLS. 557 
 
 so he who in his sermons could preach near popery, 
 and yet no popery, there was your man." This, 
 Dr. Fuller follows up by a remark applicable to our 
 own time : " It now began to be the general com 
 plaint of most moderate men, that many in the uni 
 versity, both in the schools and pulpits, approached the 
 opinions of the church of Rome nearer than ever 
 before." Many of our modern university charioteers 
 have been running a like course. Not a few, how 
 ever, have driven the chariot wheels up to the mark, 
 and have stuck thereon. Open desertions to the 
 church of Rome, the result for the most part of uni 
 versity teaching, have taken place; and, as one of 
 her distinguished evangelical ministers has recently 
 said, " enough remain behind, tainted with the same 
 principles, and imbued with the same doctrines, to 
 make the Church of England like a camp divided 
 against itself, where two parties, representing the 
 Middle Age and the Reformation, are in open and 
 almost deadly hostility one to the other." 1 
 
 The English Universities, as regards pecuniary en 
 dowments, are the wealthiest in Europe; but, in 
 contrast with this, is their inefficiency in advancing 
 the cause of an enlarged and healthy education. 
 They have, in this respect, come to be looked upon 
 rather as counteractives, than as auxiliaries. The 
 physical sciences at Oxford have long been in a de 
 pressed condition. The Tutorial system has absorbed 
 the Professorial. Distinguished professors of as- 
 
 t l The Religious Condition of Christendom, p. 1 49. 
 
558 THE SCHOOLS. 
 
 tronomy, geology, and other branches of physical 
 science, can scarcely form a class. But the crying 
 evil is the want of efficient theological training. It is 
 as a school of sacred learning a chief avenue to the 
 ministry of the Established Church that Oxford is 
 to be regarded ; and with ample means for theologi 
 cal teaching the theological chairs being the best 
 endowed in the University theology itself, as was 
 shown in the evidence before the University Com 
 mission, is there at a low ebb. " No efficient means," 
 says the invaluable report, "at present exist in the 
 University for training candidates for holy Orders in 
 those studies which belong peculiarly to their profess 
 ion. . . The University must be to blame if 
 theological studies languish. Few of the clergy 
 apply themselves in earnest to the study of Hebrew. 
 Ecclesiastical History, some detached portions ex- 
 cepted, is unknown to the great majority. The his 
 tory of doctrines has scarcely been treated in this 
 country. It may be safely stated, that the epistles of 
 St. Paul have not been studied critically by the great 
 bulk of those in orders." 1 The theology, which has 
 found favor at the Alma Mater of Laud and Sache- 
 verel, is patriotic rather than Biblical. The spirit of 
 the Reformation has all along had to struggle there 
 with the evil genius of a modified popery. Oxford, 
 more than ever, has become the great school of a 
 corrupt theology. It is this theology that we rank 
 among the anti-Christian systems of the age; and 
 
 1 Oxford Commission Report p. 71, (1852.) 
 
THE SCHOOLS. 559 
 
 Oxford, the seat of its strength, we look upon as 
 having gained an unenviable distinction among 
 British schools, in doing service on the side of evil. 
 
 We need not enter into any minute details of the 
 Tractarian heresy. It is not a system shrouded in 
 mystery. The Oxford writers have fully enunciated 
 it in tract after tract. Their disciples promulgate it 
 week after week from many of the pulpits of the land. 
 It has been battled with both by great men and small. 
 The goodly octavo volume, the brilliant review, the 
 little pamphlet, have exposed this great foe of Scrip 
 tural Christianity, driven it crest-fallen from the pre 
 eminence to which it was aspiring in literature; if 
 not, in other respects, having checked its march. It 
 is a corrupting and destructive bastard in the church 
 of the Reformation a system of spiritual despotism, 
 of awful delusion, tending to undermine the very 
 foundations of evangelical truth, and social morality. 
 The spirit of her Reformers frowns upon it. It gives 
 the lie to her doctrinal articles; and is much more 
 to be dreaded than an avowed infidel enemy. It may 
 have been one of the forms of reaction against the 
 materialism of the age, but compared with the spiritual 
 Christianity of the New Testament, it is gross mate 
 rialism itself. It may have originated in a reviving 
 earnestness, and, as the author of the Nemesis of 
 Faith declares, "in a desire of the church to win back 
 the love of her children, to draw them from doing to 
 praying, from early hours in the office, or in the field, 
 to matins and daily service." 1 But, like every form of 
 1 Nemesis of Faith, p. 154. 
 
560 THE SCHOOLS. 
 
 corrupt Christianity, it is likely to foster infidelity 
 under its ecclesiastical pageantry, and provoke the 
 spirit of an infidel reaction against the despotism 
 which it imposes. 
 
 Such is the influence exerted by the Oxford school. 
 From the bosom of this university, have gone forth 
 large numbers of the guides and teachers of the 
 people, impregnated with a set of religious principles 
 alike opposed to the church under whose shadow they 
 abide, and destructive of that Gospel whose ministers 
 they profess to be. This anti-scriptural influence 
 is brought to bear week after week, and day after day, 
 on many of the schools and churches in our English 
 towns and rural parishes. Nor is the heart of the evil 
 less active in its movements than it was, now that the 
 excitement of the first battle is past. " A voice from 
 Oxford," whose witness is true, has said : " Many seem 
 to think that the influence of the Romanizing party 
 in the University, is on the decline, and that their 
 doctrines have fallen into disrepute ; but it is far 
 otherwise. Open aggression, on their part, may not be 
 so rife as during the publication of the Tracts for the 
 Times ; but their action is perhaps more vigorous than 
 ever, and their quiescence only apparent. A great 
 portion of the young clergy, and of those looking for 
 ward to holy Orders, while professedly deriving health 
 ful nourishment from their Alma Mater, drink in the 
 poisonous heresy ; and, when scattered over the 
 length and breadth of the land, it is not to be 
 expected that they will be inactive or indifferent 
 to the propagation of those Romish doctrines and 
 
THE SCHOOLS. 561 
 
 principles with which they have been impregnat 
 ed." 
 
 It is a significant fact, and tells on what side our 
 old English universities are doing service, that within 
 a short period, about a hundred members of Oxford 
 and fifty of Cambridge, have passed over to the 
 Romish communion. The great modern satirist has 
 said, " according to the ancient proverb, c every road 
 leads to Rome, but the nearest way is the Tracts 
 through Oxford." " Newnianism," said Dr. Arnold, 
 when the water was just letting out, " Newnianism, 1 
 suppose, will grow and grow, till it provokes a reaction 
 of infidelity." The reaction has begun. The house 
 has been divided against itself. In the brothers 
 Newman, not to mention others, we see the double 
 workings of the system. A large and increasing 
 party has shot over to Rome ; a smaller, but still an 
 increasing party, has been drifted on till they landed 
 in unbelief. The evil is great. Oxford is giving to 
 our country, and sending abroad, the religion of man 
 for the religion of God. And whatever glory from the 
 past may encircle her, she now occupies the bad pre 
 eminence among British schools, in corrupting the 
 truth of Christ. 
 
 The educational institutions in the northern part 
 of the island, whatever may be their imperfections 
 otherwise, are not chargeable, in our day at least, of 
 exerting any direct influence that is adverse to Bible 
 Christianity. Scotland, as a nation, has long occu 
 pied a proud position among the other civilized na 
 tions of the world, for the religious intelligence of her 
 
 36 
 
562 THE SCHOOLS. 
 
 people. This doubtless has been partly owing to her 
 parish schools, which, however sectarian now in their 
 character, and needing to be adapted to the wants of 
 the age, have been, in some measure, the means of 
 grounding her youth in scriptural knowledge to an 
 extent which strikingly contrasts with the southern 
 division of the country. Scotland has had her sys 
 tems of rank scepticism and infidelity, which have 
 told for evil far beyond her own land, and throughout 
 generations; but these have, generally, been found 
 without the pale of her high seats of learning, and, 
 in her famed schools, have met with their stoutest 
 antagonists. 
 
 But our northern universities cannot be altogether 
 exempted from the charge of having done some ser 
 vice on the wrong side. Their moral philosophies, 
 like the moral philosophies of the age in general, have 
 too much ignored Christianity as a remedied system, 
 if they have not placed themselves in antagonism to 
 it. And we cannot but regard it, as a disastrous 
 thing, that the lessons of the moral teacher, if not 
 given from under the shadow of the cross, should fail 
 to point the way to it. The great sin of them all, as 
 has often been noticed, has been the want of a dis 
 tinct recognition of human depravity ; and in failing to 
 conduct their disciples to such a turn at the end of 
 the road, as that on looking up they might at once 
 see the finger-post that points to the faith and hope 
 of the gospel. The theological chairs, both in the 
 endowed and unendowed schools, have often felt it 
 necessary, in their prelections, to counteract the in- 
 
THE SCHOOLS. 563 
 
 fluence of such adverse teaching, instead of being free 
 to treat at once of the grand remedy, the way to which 
 should at least have been indicated by the moral pre 
 lections. The ethical chairs of some of our Scottish 
 schools, have been filled by men of a more than 
 European reputation ; but in their systems, generally, 
 ethics have been very much divorced from Christian 
 ity, and attempts have been made to build up and 
 complete the one without the other. 
 
 But this is not all. It is matter of fact that at the 
 close of last century, and at the beginning of the pres 
 ent, the period when a baptized pagan philosophy 
 held place in our Scottish schools, an appalling dead- 
 ness had, to a considerable extent, crept over the 
 church establishment. A cold inoperative morality 
 was substituted for the spirit and life of the Gospel. 
 Gross heresies were winked at, or softly admonished, 
 by the supreme ecclesiastical judicatories. Men held 
 an orthodox creed in their hands which they had 
 solemnly vowed to exhibit, while doctrines dropped 
 from their lips which tended to destroy or cast it 
 aside. The state of the universities at that period is 
 made known by one who speaks from personal experi 
 ence. Dr. Chalmers, speaking of the oldest of these 
 venerable seats of learning, says, u St. Andrew s was, 
 at this time (end of last century), overrun with Moder- 
 atism, under the chilling influences of which we in 
 haled not a distaste only, but a positive contempt for 
 all that is properly and peculiarly gospel; insomuch 
 that our confidence was nearly as entire in the suf 
 ficiency of natural theology, as in the sufficiency of 
 
564 THE SCHOOLS. 
 
 natural science." The biographer of the great and 
 good man remarks, that from the religious lapse into 
 which he had been seduced at his Alma Mater, "it 
 needed many years, and other than human influences 
 to recall him." 1 This case, of itself, shows the moral 
 power which a university exerts on young and ardent 
 minds, filled with enthusiasm for its studies and 
 charmed with its associations; and leaves us to 
 imagine how many who have sat under the shadow 
 of such seats of learning, may have imbibed a similar 
 disrelish for spiritual Christianity; and how wide 
 spread it may have been, and how disastrous its in 
 fluence, if not overcome by another and a mightier 
 influence than human. We are not forgetful, how 
 ever, of the great agency of our Scottish schools for 
 good, while we make mention of their agency, es 
 pecially in the past, for evil. Nor can we forbear 
 adverting to the fact that the logical and metaphys 
 ical chair of Edinburgh is, at the present day, 
 filled by the most distinguished philosopher of the 
 age, and that his philosophy is at once profound and 
 healthy, counteractive of scepticism, and subservient to 
 truth. 
 
 But let us turn to Continental Europe. There, 
 infidelity, in its many forms, comes more broadly 
 and palpably before our view ; and there the influence 
 of the schools is more powerfully exerted on the side 
 of it. In everything relating to language, science, 
 and art, the educational institutions of France might 
 
 1 Harma s Life of Chalmers, vol. i., p. 15. 
 
THE SCHOOLS. 565 
 
 be said to be almost perfect. These departments, 
 with their full complement of sections, leave nothing 
 wanting, viewed merely as a great system of human 
 knowledge. But the wisdom that cometh from above 
 has little or no part in it. Christianity as a remedial 
 economy, is either disowned by French philosophy, 
 or the theological faculty, which should represent 
 it, is dedicated not to the pure and undefiled, but to 
 the corrupt form. Philosophy, in the schools of 
 France, has been allied either with a gross mate 
 rialism, or a proud spiritualism ; and, in either case, 
 has had an influence adverse to the truth of God. 
 During the latter half of the last century, and the early 
 part of the present, an infidel sensationalism sat 
 in the high places of learning, and gave forth its 
 oracles. This became the predominant doctrine in 
 France; and from it Voltaire and the Encyclopaedists 
 deduced those gross infidel principles which desolated 
 the land. For the last twenty-five years, Cousin, 
 the eloquent " apostle of Rationalism in France," 
 and others of the Eclectic school, have been incul 
 cating, in the Ecole Normale, at Paris, a system 
 much more favorable to pantheism than to the 
 Christian revelation ; and have raised up not a few 
 instructors to disseminate the same throughout the 
 country. The Jesuits in France, at the present day, 
 are striving to get the schools of every grade com 
 pletely under their control. Government, by its 
 concessions to the clerical power, has opened the 
 door to them. Ultramontanism is in the ascendant. 
 The university has become subservient to Romanism. 
 
566 THE SCHOOLS. 
 
 Protestant schools, in consequence of Romish interfer 
 ence, have to struggle with a load of difficulties ; while 
 the educational institutions in general, and the village 
 schools especially, are wielded for advancing a corrupt 
 religious system, which in turn provokes a reaction in 
 favor of infidelity. 
 
 In Germany, the university life is seen to be all- 
 important, and the teaching of the professors to be 
 greatly influential. The great religious movements 
 that have ever and anon blessed the German father 
 land, are to be traced up to the seats of learning. It 
 was so in the past, and it is so at the present day. 
 But if the German schools have the credit of those 
 revivals that have been as streams in the desert, 1 they 
 have also the unenviable renown of having been the 
 chief agencies in sending abroad that amount of 
 infidelity which has desolated both the church and 
 the state. It is an unquestionable fact that, at the 
 beginning of the present century, the schools of 
 every grade were, almost without exception, under 
 the influence of men whose opinions were adverse 
 to Scriptural Christianity. Rationalistic teachers 
 presided over the elementary schools. There the 
 truth, as it is in Jesus, was gradually undermined. 
 The German youth imbibed infidelity with their 
 earliest lessons, and hence the readiness of the 
 adult population to abjure the very symbols of the 
 Christian faith. Tholuck tells us that, even in 
 
 1 e.g. Wittemberg produced the Reformation; Halle, under 
 Francke s influence, became a source of life to the German 
 churches. 
 
THE SCHOOLS. 567 
 
 boyhood, infidelity had forced its way into his heart, 
 and that at the age of twelve he was wont to scoff 
 at Christianity. And how decided must have been 
 the infidel spirit that pervaded the schools, when 
 it happened not only that his unbelief strengthened 
 during his stay at the Gymnasium, but that, on 
 leaving it, he was suffered to maintain, in an oration, 
 the superiority of Mahomedanism to Christianity. 
 This case is somewhat solitary only on account of 
 the illustrious name associated with it. Thousands, 
 unknown to fame, who have lived and died infidels, 
 could have pointed to the lower and higher schools 
 as the agencies of their unbelief. And, at the 
 present day, in which infidelity is still so prevalent, 
 if the faithful men in Germany are asked to account 
 for such a general abandonment of the faith by 
 the male population, they at once refer, among other 
 agencies, to the infidel influences of the schools. 
 Many of the schoolmasters in the country parishes, 
 and the higher teachers in the gymnasia, are decided 
 rationalists, who, though under the necessity of 
 using the Bible, accompany their teachings with 
 such comments as tend to make their scholars 
 avowed unbelievers. Institutions, designed to instil 
 into the minds of youth the principles of Christian 
 truth, have thus, in a great measure, become nurse 
 ries of the most withering scepticism. 1 
 
 1 " Pedagogy," says Dr. Krummacher, " in respect to evangelical 
 faith, has not kept pace with theology ; on the contrary, the ration 
 alist maxims of Dinter and Diesterweg continue to prevail in most 
 of the elementary schools. . . The people in general are continually 
 nourished with the milk of the old false enlightening, and robbed 
 
568 THE SCHOOLS. 
 
 The universities also, about the beginning of the 
 present century, and till within the last few years 
 (in which a decided change has taken place, espe 
 cially in the theological faculty), were almost entirely 
 exerting the same evil influence. In a former part 
 of this essay, we have spoken of the bitter fruits 
 which the German speculative philosophy has borne 
 in the field of German theology. It is to an extreme 
 philosophical influence, we have seen, that all the 
 rationalistic and pantheistic views, which have been 
 developed by the German theologians, are to be 
 ascribed. That influence has had its chief seat 
 in the universities. Hegel, whose philosophy de 
 stroyed the personality of God, and included in 
 its sweep of necessary development, the whole Christ- 
 tian doctrine, occupied for many years an influential 
 position in the university of Berlin. Here he de 
 veloped to a number of admiring pupils that system 
 which, being carried into the province of theology, 
 has swept away a historical Christianity. He sup 
 plied from his armory the weapons which such 
 daring men as Strauss, Fuerbach, and Bruno 
 Bauer, have wielded on the side of the most deter 
 mined unbelief. The success which attended his 
 lectures is said to have been great, and their in- 
 
 in the school-room of that good which they perhaps receive in the 
 catechumen instruction. The teachers of the higher schools, par 
 ticularly of the grammar-schools, arc, for the most part, either 
 addicted to pantheistic philosophy, or altogether indifferent to 
 religion, and fully satisfied with the ideas of their Socrates and 
 Plato." The Religious Condition of Christendom, p. 428-9. (1852.) 
 
THE SCHOOLS. 569 
 
 ilueiice lias told disastrously on the German churches 
 and people. 
 
 While Berlin was thus fostering and sending forth 
 a pantheistic philosophy, Halle, the first theological 
 university in the land, was occupied by neologieal 
 professors. Wegscheider was propounding to the 
 future ministers of the church the lowest ration 
 alism, and Gesenius, the corypheus of Hebrew 
 literature, was stripping the Old Testament of its 
 divine glory. 1 Heidelberg, Gottingen, Jena, and 
 other universities, were lending their influence to 
 the same side of avowed hostility to spiritual Chris 
 tianity. The celebrated rationalistic professor, Dr. 
 Paulus, was the presiding mind over the first of 
 these seats of learning. A large number of the 
 pulpits throughout the land were occupied by his 
 disciples. From the chair he had gone on, for 
 years, expounding to them, or rather explaining 
 away the marvellous facts of the New Testament. 
 The Gospels, in his hands, lost all their miraculous 
 character, and the mighty works of the great teacher 
 
 Dr. Robinson, who attended Gesenius lectures in the winter of 
 1829-30, says: "Halle is the favorite resort of almost all the 
 followers of rationalism, who, at the present day, constitute a very 
 large class among the theological students. . , Rationalism, through 
 the exertions of Wegscheider, the countenance of Gesenius, and 
 the indifference of Niemeyer, had obtained firm footing, and seduced 
 the understanding of the great body of the students." As an instance 
 of the influence of Gesenius, it is stated that when he began his course 
 on Genesis, which he treated as a mere collection of myths or fables, 
 he had only fourteen hearers, but at the period referred to ho was 
 addressing five hundred. Robinson s Concise View of the German 
 Universities, fyc., p. 20, 36. &c. 
 
570 THE SCHOOLS. 
 
 sent from God were accounted for on purely natural 
 principles. The influence of this one professor, 
 in strengthening and extending infidelity within 
 the church was very great. He is reputed to have 
 been the chief agent in propagating unbelief through 
 out Baden and the whole palatinate of the Rhine. 
 A number of such men of learning and influence 
 scattered throughout the colleges and seminaries 
 of Germany, and employed incessantly in instilling 
 into the minds of the future teachers of the people 
 principles involving the denial of all that is super 
 natural in Christianity, must have contributed much 
 of that infidelity which twenty or thirty years ago 
 deluged the land, and which covers much of the 
 country still. 
 
 Berlin and Halle have, for some years, possessed 
 a strong evangelical element, counteractive of the 
 low rationalism that once reigned almost alone. 
 And this illustrates the powerful influence which 
 a professor in Germany has over the minds of his 
 disciples, and the great responsibility of the govern 
 ment in filling up the chairs. Neander, the great, 
 the good, the loved Neander who was but lately 
 at the head of the theological faculty in Berlin, 
 and who for long had to battle, almost single- 
 handed, with a dominant rationalism, has been 
 instrumental in raising up a noble band of men, 
 valiant in the good fight, who with himself, have 
 lifted up a standard, and in some measure driven 
 back the flood of the enemy, Tholuck, whose hal 
 lowed zeal is very much the effect of Neander s 
 
THE SCHOOLS. 571 
 
 influence, is, as a son, doing at Halle, what his 
 spiritual father had long been doing at Berlin. The 
 influence on the side of Scriptural truth of such 
 a noble corps of university teachers as Neander, 
 Hengstenberg, Muller, Tholuck, and others, has 
 told, and is telling, powerfully for good on the 
 churches and schools of Germany. But what a vast 
 amount of low rationalism and indifferentism have 
 they had to strive against, a considerable portion 
 of which must be laid at the door of the universities 
 and other schools. 1 
 
 Holland also has been renowned for its seats 
 of learning. Sir W. Hamilton says of Leyden, 
 the oldest of them, she "has been surpassed by 
 many other universities, in the emoluments and 
 
 1 Tholuck, speaking recently of the universities, said : " If we 
 look back to the time a little before the liberation of Germany from 
 the French yoke, with the exception of Wurtemberg, we may say 
 that there were, perhaps, amongst all the rest of the teachers of 
 divinity, not more than three or four that may be called evangelical. 
 . . The University of Halle that very university which has, in 
 two memorable periods of our ecclesiastical history, decided, as it 
 were, the faith of the Protestant religion in our country, and which 
 numbered during a long period no less than 900 pupils of divinity 
 lay entirely in the darkness of Socinianism and Unitarianism ; and 
 only one voice it was a timid one, but yet a candid one was lifted 
 up among the professors. He here refers to Professor Knapp, who, 
 in a letter to a friend, inquiring about the state of vital Christianity 
 among the large number of nearly 1000 divinity students, replied 
 that he had only known one student whom he considered to be a 
 real Christian, and that he came from the Moravians. It is cheering 
 to hear from Tholuck, who twenty-four years before had to tell 
 nothing but sad tidings in England, that a glorious change has 
 taken place in the German universities, and chiefly in Halle. See 
 " The Religious Condition of Christendom? p. 431-3 (1852). 
 
572 THE SCHOOLS. 
 
 in the number of her chairs, but has been equalled 
 by none in the average eminence of her professors. 
 Of these, the obscurer names would be luminaries 
 in many other schools; and from the circle of her 
 twelve professors, and in an existence of two hundred 
 years, she can select a more numerous company of 
 a higher erudition than can be found among the 
 public teachers of any other seminary in the world." 1 
 Affording, as Holland once did, a refuge to our per 
 secuted nonconforniing forefathers, its schools were 
 much resorted to by many of our English and Scottish 
 students. Leyden, at the beginning of last century, 
 was framed as a school of Christian theology. John 
 a Mark and Wesselius, whose teaching exerted a 
 hallowing influence on the Dutch Reformed Church, 
 adorned its chairs. But at the beginning of the 
 present century, it happened with the schools of 
 Holland as with the schools of Germany. Ration 
 alism attained to the dominion within their walls. 
 Neological professors sent forth a deformed and 
 powerless Christianity from, the chairs of Leyden, 
 Groningen, and Utrecht. And we see much of 
 their influence in the low state of religion through 
 out the land, and in the torpor that has, in a great 
 measure, crept over the church. There are, how 
 ever, hopeful indications of a re-awakening of the 
 religious life in Holland. The Gospel is progressing 
 among all classes. But the true Protestant faith 
 has still to struggle with an infidel theology as 
 
 1 Sir. AY. Hamilton s Discussions^ p. 364. 
 
THE SCHOOLS. 573 
 
 taught in the universities, especially those of Groningen 
 and Leyden. 
 
 Geneva, one of the lights of the world, shows 
 also the powerful agency exerted by a theological 
 school. Three centuries ago, Calvin founded that 
 celebrated academy in which he and Beza taught, 
 and from which was carried that sacred fire which 
 is now burning brightly on the altars of other lands. 
 But at the end of last century, and the beginning of 
 the present, when the adversaries of the truth almost 
 everywhere lengthened their cords and strengthened 
 their stakes, a Unitarian rationalism, enthroned itself 
 in the sacred place, and held dominion over the 
 church and state of Geneva. From this school, 
 where the illustrious reformer set up the lamp of 
 heavenly truth that shone to the ends of the civilized 
 world, proceeded pastors and teachers to fill the 
 pulpits of the Genevese church, who had been 
 taught doctrines opposed alike to the Eeformation 
 and the truth of Scripture. D Aubigne, Gaussen, 
 Malan, and other noble men who are doing valiantly 
 in the war against pernicious error and on the side 
 of Scriptural Christianity, sat at the feet of a divinity 
 professor who, in a great measure, substituted hea 
 then morality for Bible truth, and preferred Seneca 
 and Plato as oracles, to such authorities as John 
 the Evangelist and the Apostle Paul. 1 The ex- 
 
 1 M. Bost, who in 1817 became one of the pastors of the Evan 
 gelical Dissenting Church then formed, thus describes the course 
 of instruction through which the students at the College of Geneva 
 had to pass. He is writing in 1825 : " For more than thirty years. 
 
574 THE SCHOOLS. 
 
 cellent Haldane, on his arrival in Geneva in the 
 year 1816, found the students deeply sunk in So- 
 cinian theology ; and among them were such men as 
 D Aubigne and Adolph Monod, whom he was in 
 strumental in leading to the truth. The city of 
 Calvin has had for some years in such men as the 
 author of the History of the Reformation, and the 
 author of Theopneustia, a theological school worthy 
 of the great reformer, and second to none in the 
 world for talent and piety. It is there, as Dr. 
 Cheever remarks, "that D Aubigne first utters some 
 of those voices of truth and freedom those declar 
 ations of independence which afterwards go echoing 
 through the world." 1 These few, but noble-spirited 
 
 the ministers who have gone out of our schools of theology to serve 
 either the churches of our own land, or those of France and other 
 foreign countries, have not received one single lecture on the truths 
 which exclusively belong to revelation, such as the redemption of 
 mankind, by the death of Christ, the justification of the sinner by 
 faith, the corruption of our nature, the divinity of our Saviour, &c. 
 In theology we were taught nothing but what are called the dogmas 
 of natural religion. The extent to which this practical incredulity 
 was carried, is clear from the fact, elsewhere unheard of, I suspect, 
 in the annals of the Protestant churches that excepting for a lecture 
 in the Hebrew language, when the Bible was used simply as a 
 Hebrew book, and not for anything which it contained, the word 
 of God was never used throughout our course; in particular, the 
 New Testament never appeared either as a language-book, or for 
 any other purpose ; there was no need of the New Testament what 
 ever, in order to complete our four years course in theology ; in other 
 words, that book, especially in the original, was not at all among the 
 number of books required in order to accomplish the career of our 
 studies for the sacred ministry." See Dr. Alexander s Switzerland 
 and tJie Swiss Churches, p. 194. 
 1 Cheevers Wanderings, p. 34. 
 
THE SCHOOLS. 575 
 
 and truly great reformers of the nineteenth century, 
 placed as they are between Unitarian rationalism 
 on the one hand and despotic Jesuitism on the 
 other, are doing good service, by means of their 
 theological institute, to Christ s cause in Geneva 
 and in other parts of the Continent. But, as re 
 gards numerical strength, they are like Gideon 
 and his three hundred men opposed to the Midian- 
 ites. The Lord, however, is with them, and is 
 saying unto them, "Go in this your might, and ye 
 shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites: 
 have not I sent you?" This relieves the gloom, 
 but it is still dense and disastrous. Socinianism, 
 having long held its place in the Academy and 
 the Church, and being supported by the secular 
 arm, has left the way open for a reviving Romanism, 
 or for the doctrines of Strauss. It is from this 
 rationalistic school too, be it observed, that the 
 French Protestant churches have chiefly derived 
 those pastors who must be numbered among the 
 rationalists and latitudinarians whose influence is 
 adverse to spiritual Christianity. Geneva is justly 
 regarded as one of the most important centres of 
 influence for extending Christianity on the Continent. 
 But if we look to the New Academy as an effective 
 agency in diffusing around and abroad the light of the 
 Gospel, we must reckon the old as having exerted no 
 inconsiderable power on the side of rationalism, and 
 infidelity. 
 
 Our survey of the schools, in so far as they have 
 exerted an influence hostile to the Gospel and favor- 
 
576 THE SCHOOLS. 
 
 able to infidelity, has been far from complete. But it 
 has been extensive enough to let us see that they 
 have been, and in many instances are, no mean 
 agencies in forming and disseminating those many- 
 shaped systems of unbelief which, during the last 
 sixty years or more, have been rampant in many 
 lands. If the fountains are polluted what must be 
 the streams? And how great the responsibility of 
 governments in appointing men to chairs in the 
 national schools, who, by their teaching, infuse prin 
 ciples into the minds of youth, that are destructive at 
 once of loyalty to the powers on earth and of devotion 
 to the God of heaven. Were all the seats of learn 
 ing in which the human sciences are taught, instru 
 mental in guiding the minds of their disciples aright, 
 instead of, as has often been the case, grievously per 
 verting them and were the schools which are es 
 pecially designed for sacred instruction, made reservoirs 
 of the pure river of the water of life what a mighty 
 agency for good would be brought to bear upon the 
 world. Many would then run to and fro, and, in 
 the best sense of the expression, knowledge would be 
 increased. " A Christianized university, in respect 
 of its professorships," says Dr. Chalmers, u would be 
 to me a mightier accession than a Christianized 
 country in respect of its parishes. And should there 
 be a fountain out of which there emanated a thousand 
 rills, it would be to the source that I should carry the 
 salt of purification, and not to any of the streams which 
 flow from it." 1 
 
 1 Hanna s Life of Chalmers, vol. ii., p. 37G. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE PULPIT. 
 
 The pulpit no bad criterion Divides now its former influence with 
 the Press Can never be superseded Lines of Cowper Exten 
 sively employed on the side of evil Deplorable state of the Ger 
 man churches Testimonies of Drs. Wichern and Krummacher 
 Dishonesty of the rationalistic preachers Fault of the con 
 sistories Evil of uniting churches on a loose doctrinal basis 
 Rationalism in the Protestant pulpits of Hungary National 
 Church of Geneva State of the Reformed Church of Holland A 
 glance at Belgium Pulpit agency in France Ministering to old 
 superstitions or to infidelity The Abbe Lacordaire Rationalism 
 in the French Protestant church Causes of this State of the 
 British Pulpit Much that is cheering Ruinous influence of mere 
 moral preaching in the Establishment Tractarianism the growing 
 evil Concluding Remark. 
 
 THE state of the pulpit among any people is, gener 
 ally, no bad criterion of the state of religion itself. 
 It does not indeed indicate, as infallibly as the ther 
 mometer, or the water-mark, the temperature of the 
 surrounding atmosphere, or the height to which the 
 river of the water of life has risen. In some places 
 there may be much light and heat in the pulpit, 
 while the people to a considerable extent may be 
 frigid and sitting in darkness. In other places, on 
 the contrary, there may be much more vital godliness 
 among the people than among their teachers ; just as 
 
 37 
 
578 THE PULPIT. 
 
 the lowlands may be bathed in sun-light while the 
 uplands are shrouded in mists. But these cases are 
 like exceptions to a general rule. It commonly hap 
 pens that where a pulpit agency exists in any consider 
 able extent, as in European countries, it exerts no 
 little influence on the faith and morals of the popula 
 tion. The continual droppings from this quarter make 
 an impression for good or evil, on the hearts of the 
 millions that come under them. 
 
 The pulpit, at one time, was almost the only means 
 of imparting instruction to the people. Books existed 
 only in manuscript, and these were scarcely known 
 beyond the walls of monasteries and the libraries of 
 the learned. Down to the end of the middle ages, 
 the oral teacher had nothing deserving the name of 
 a competitor. During much of that period, however, 
 the power of the pulpit was in a great measure dor 
 mant, owing to the corruptions of the church and the 
 indolence of the clergy. At the Reformation it awoke ; 
 and, like the blast of a trumpet startled the nations. 
 And from that time onward to the present, the pulpit, 
 as in the early ages of the Christian church, has 
 wielded an extensive influence over the minds of men. 
 Ever since the invention of printing, it has had a 
 rival in the press. The rivalry, in a great measure 
 and for long, has been a salutary one. Both agencies 
 have done mighty service to the world, in disseminat 
 ing that truth wherewith men are made free. The 
 press, within a few years, owing to the removal of re 
 strictions that crippled its energies, has made rapid 
 strides, and is, at the present moment, perhaps the 
 
THE PULPIT. 579 
 
 most powerful agent for good or evil that is brought 
 to bear on the minds of men. The pulpit, it cannot 
 be denied, has lost something of its influence. At 
 least as an agent in moulding and controlling the 
 minds of the people, it must divide, with the advanc 
 ing press, the influence which it once exerted alone. 
 But the pulpit can never be superseded. It is pre 
 eminently heaven s instrumentality in operating on 
 men s minds and hearts. u It hath pleased God by 
 the foolishness of preaching," or by what worldly men 
 count foolishness, u to save them that believe." Relig 
 ious truth has hitherto been propagated mainly by a 
 pulpit agency, and so will it continue to be. By this 
 the battles of the Lord must be fought, darkness and 
 error driven back, and the kingdom not of this 
 world extended. Men, in general, are much more 
 influenced by what they hear than by what they read. 
 The living voice of the preacher is better fitted to 
 excite attention to divine things, to awaken an in 
 terest in them, and to impress them on the mind, 
 than the press. 
 
 " the pulpit (in the sober use 
 
 Of its legitimate, peculiar powers) 
 
 Must stand acknowledged, while the world shall stand, 
 
 The most important and effectual guard, 
 
 Support, and ornament of virtue s cause. 
 
 There stands the messenger of truth : there stands 
 
 The legate of the skies ! His theme divine, 
 
 His office sacred, his credentials clear. 
 
 By him the violated law speaks out 
 
 Its thunders ; and by him, in strains as sweet 
 
 As angels use, the gospel whispers peace. 
 
 He stablishes the strong, restores the weak, 
 
580 THE PULPIT. 
 
 Reclaims the wanderer, binds the broken heart, 
 
 And, arm d himself in panoply complete 
 
 Of heuvenly temper, furnishes with arms 
 
 Bright as his own, and trains, by every rule 
 
 Of holy discipline, to glorious war, 
 
 The sacramental host of God s elect ! 
 
 Are all such teachers? would to heaven all were I" 1 
 
 The poet drew from life. It was no mere fanciful 
 sketch a thing to be desired, but seldom or never 
 realized. Many a hamlet and town throughout our 
 country and other lands, can tell of such a "messen 
 ger of truth," such a " legate of the skies." But all 
 are not " such teachers." " Would to heaven all were !" 
 How very different would be the state of the church 
 and the world! 
 
 The pulpit, notwithanding its high sacredness, is 
 extensively employed, in many lands, on the side of 
 evil. All the forms of infidelity, from the grossest 
 pantheism to the most lifeless formalism, have their 
 abettors in the pulpit. The unbelief of the schools 
 works chiefly, by this agency, on the minds of the 
 people. If the seats of learning, where the future 
 ministers of the church are reared, be occupied by 
 infidel teachers, it will generally happen that the 
 pulpits are much on the side of infidelity. Conti 
 nental Europe, during the last half century and more, 
 affords sad evidence of the truth of this. And not 
 withstanding so much of the pulpit power in our own 
 land is. on the side of scriptural truth, we see that it 
 is also much exerted on behalf of pernicious error. 
 
 Look at Germany. There the power of the pul- 
 
 1 Cowper s Task. 
 
THE PULPIT. 581 
 
 pit is seen to preponderate mightily on the side of 
 infidelity. Nothing can be more deplorable than 
 the state of the German churches. Rationalism of 
 every shape sits enthroned in the holy place. It is, 
 or has been, deeply rooted in the universities, in the 
 lower schools, and in the pulpits. Saxony, the cradle 
 of the Reformation, and the country of Luther, has 
 been its stronghold. Most of the old pastors have 
 sat at the feet of the rationalist chief Wegscheider, 
 and are faithful to his principles; while multitudes 
 of the younger, who have not corne under the benign 
 influence of such men as Tholuck and Miiller, belong 
 to the extreme left of the Hegelian school, and ac 
 knowledge as their guides, Strauss, Bruno Bauer, 
 and such like. The light shines amid the darkness, 
 but it is hated. A fervid evangelism is to be found 
 bearing witness against the low rationalism that has 
 usurped its place. But pietism bears the obloquy 
 that once belonged, in our own country, to Puritanism 
 and Methodism. The German churches, with some 
 illustrious exceptions, present, on a large scale, the 
 spectacle of men sheltered under an evangelical creed, 
 but throwing out doctrines that give the lie to it ; men 
 holding the Bible in their hand as their text-book, 
 who exalt their fallible reason above its true sayings ; 
 men who rob Christ of his glory and his word of its 
 supreme authority; men who eat the church s bread 
 and lift up the heel against her. By such a pulpit 
 agency as this, exerted on the side to which lean the 
 depraved tendencies of human nature, a pantheistic 
 and rationalistic creed has made wide conquests over 
 
582 THE PULPIT. 
 
 a Scriptural Christianity, among thousands and tens 
 of thousands of all classes in Germany. 
 
 It was stated, a very few years ago, that at Dresden, 
 in the chapel of whose castle the great reformer 
 preached the doctrines of salvation, only one of the 
 many Lutheran pulpits sounded forth the gospel of 
 grace. In such parts as Baden, Rhenish Bavaria, 
 and Hesse Darmstadt, the rationalistic ministers were 
 said to preponderate over the evangelical in the pro 
 portion of ten to one. 1 The adage, like priest, like 
 people, is in such places strongly exemplified. Their 
 religious principles have long been undermined by a 
 systematic course of rationalistic preaching from the 
 pulpit. Infidelity and indifferentism, especially in 
 large towns, characterize to a fearful extent all classes 
 from the highest to the lowest. Dr. Krummacher 
 stated, very lately, that in Berlin, which contains 
 more than 400,000 persons, not more than one twen 
 tieth visit the house of God. The remainder, to all 
 appearance, being the disciples of a vulgar rationalism. 
 There are other parts, it is true, such as Wurtemberg, 
 Old Bavaria, Westphalia, and Pomerania, where the 
 doctrines of the Reformation have some hold of the 
 minds of the people, and where believing preachers 
 are to be found. Dr. Wichern, who is full of hope in 
 reference to Germany, tells of a large province con 
 taining three hundred clergymen, in which evangeli 
 cal doctrine was not preached twenty -five years ago by 
 more than one or two of them, but where now two 
 hundred believing, faithful men are holding forth 
 
 1 Evangelical Christendom, Dec. 1849. 
 
THE PULPIT. 583 
 
 the word of life. But, after reckoning up all that 
 can be claimed for the pure Gospel, a vast pre 
 ponderance of discipleship and pulpit agency in the 
 German Fatherland, is on the side that is adverse to 
 Scripture Christianity. " In short, a popular philoso 
 phic inundation of the most shallow kind, which bears 
 nothing of true Christianity but the assumed name, 
 covers up to this day an immeasurable extent of the 
 ground of the German church." 1 
 
 No more disastrous influence can come upon a 
 church, and, through the church, upon a country, 
 than to admit unconverted and unbelieving men into 
 her pulpits. It is like allowing traitors to enter the 
 army, thieves to preside at the treasury, and states 
 men, who are bribed by foreign gold, to guide the 
 destinies of a nation. The pitiful meanness and 
 base hypocrisy of the men who cling to the emolu 
 ments of a church, while their principles are glaringly 
 opposed to its creed and destructive of its influence, 
 cannot be too severely reprobated. How would it 
 have incurred the woful denunciations of Him who, 
 though meek and lowly, frowned upon the false and 
 deluding guides of the people. Strauss, at the end 
 of his Leben Jesu, after having reduced Christianity to 
 a system of myths, and thereby destroyed its histori 
 cal validity, claims for himself, and those who think 
 with him, the right of ministering at the altar, and 
 preaching the Gospel, that is, the right of being a 
 Christian and an infidel at the same time. The 
 dishonesty with which he handles the evangelical 
 1 The Religious Condition of Christendom, (1852,) p. 425. 
 
584 THE PULPIT. 
 
 histories, forbid us to expect over strict morality in 
 discussing such questions. May not the language 
 which the God of truth addresses to certain other 
 personages, be addressed to such aspirants after two 
 incompatible chararacters. "What hast thou to do to 
 declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my 
 covenant in thy mouth ? Seeing thou hatest instruc 
 tion, and castest my words behind thee." 1 
 
 But our condemnation must be pronounced, also, 
 on the authorities with whom lies the responsibility 
 of admitting infidel teachers into the pulpits of the 
 church. The Protestant church in Germany, as is 
 well known, is governed by consistories which are 
 composed partly of ecclesiastical and partly of lay- 
 members. "With them, generally, rests the power of 
 
 1 Dr. Beard says: "Immediately on the appearance, in June, 
 1835, of the first part of his Life of Jesus, Strauss received from 
 the Wurtemberg Council of Education a formal inquiry whether he 
 considered a position in an institution, designed to prepare young 
 men for the Christian ministry, tenable by one who had put forth 
 such views as he had published in his book. In answer, Strauss 
 endeavored to show, that his opinions did not disqualify him for 
 holding an office in the Church, since the clergyman conceived that 
 as an idea which the people assumed as history, and that the two 
 must be brought into accordance." In the last chapter of the Leben 
 Jesu, Strauss presents us with a similar piece of precious morality. 
 He says : " He who does not believe the Gospel history may 
 still recognize the religious influence, as well as he who receives 
 the history; it is only a difference of form, by which the sub 
 stance remains unaffected. Wherefore it is discourteous to impute 
 a lie to a minister who preaches on the resurrection of Christ ; 
 and, while he does not think this a reality as an individual, sen 
 sible fact, yet holds for true the spectacle of the living process of the 
 spirit which lies therein." Dr. Beard s " Strauss, Hegel, and their 
 Opinions? pp. 16,23. 
 
THE PULPIT. 585 
 
 deciding on the election of pastors, subject indeed to 
 the sanction of the supreme civil power. In some 
 parts, as in Prussia and Bavaria, these bodies are for 
 the most part composed of men of evangelical prin 
 ciples ; but their influence is not unfrequently coun 
 teracted by the dominant ungodliness of the people, 
 and the indifferentism of the members of the govern 
 ment. In other places again, as in the Palatinate, 
 those who have the administration of church affairs, 
 instead of endeavoring to check the current of irre- 
 ligion, would let it flow and float on the bosom of it. 
 While in other parts, among which are especially signi 
 fied the smaller Saxon Principalities, the consistories 
 are, without any other spot or wrinkle, grossly ration 
 alistic in their character. 1 
 
 It deserves notice also, as bearing upon, and in 
 some measure accounting for the infidelity of the pul 
 pits, that in Germany there has been cherished, on the 
 part of the church rulers at least, a strong desire of 
 mere external unity. The late king of Prussia aimed 
 at uniting all the Protestant churches. The Augsburg 
 and the Genevan confessions were amalgamated, about 
 thirty years ago, in Prussia, in Rhenish Bavaria, and 
 in other parts of the land ; and out of the amalgama 
 tion, arose the United, or, as it is not very correctly 
 called, the Evangelical church. But the doctrinal 
 basis, under this state dictatorship, was very loosely 
 defined; and hence, amid an external uniformity, 
 exists much doctrinal dissension. The coat is one, 
 but it is made up of many colors. The right of 
 1 Evangelical Christendom, vol. ill, p. 362. 
 
586 THE PULPIT. 
 
 private judgment in interpreting the Lutheran sym 
 bols, has been tolerated so far as to let men of the 
 lowest rationalistic views as well as the most orthodox 
 dwell under the shadow of the same church. A 
 loose rule of faith, a wavering doctrinal standard, and 
 a latitudinarian interpretation, have thus opened a 
 door for the admission of pastors and teachers whose 
 influence is exerted against Scriptural Christianity. 
 Be the governors of the church, civil or ecclesiastical, 
 or both be they independent of the state or con 
 nected with it, great responsibility lies upon them in 
 admitting, directly or indirectly, unconverted and infi 
 del men into the pulpit from which should sound forth 
 the Gospel of the grace of God. And this shows the 
 importance of no man, or body of men, having any 
 thing to do with the government of Christ s house, 
 but those who are true members of the household of 
 faith. 1 
 
 1 Dr. Kobinson, speaking of the examinations to which candidates 
 for the pastoral office in Germany are subjected examinations which 
 in point of scholarship are very testing, says : " In these examina 
 tions, rigorous and decisive as they are, there is one omission which 
 strikes our feelings with surprise and grief. By this door enter all 
 the pastors and teachers of the church ; of that church, the object of 
 which is to keep alive the pure and holy flame of the Christian re. 
 ligion, and to extend the boundaries of God s kingdom upon earth. 
 But to those thus entering the question is never put, whether they 
 have any regard for this kingdom of God. The church, alas ! is no 
 longer at her own disposal, and cannot prove " the spirits of her 
 prophets, whether they be of God." She is but the slave of civil 
 power ; and all that she is at liberty to ask or know is, whether 
 her prophets are regularly appointed by the king and his ministers. 
 Not one question is ever asked as to their belief in a revelation, nor 
 as to their personal motives in thus undertaking to be the ambassa- 
 
THE PULPIT. 587 
 
 We speak not of Popish Austria, whose pulpit 
 agency, like that of all countries enslaved by Rome, 
 is on the side of the corruptions of Christianity, and 
 thus hostile to the pure Gospel of Christ. But we 
 advert to Hungary, that interesting land under Aus 
 trian rule, whose political struggles and religious con 
 dition have, of late years, drawn forth the sympathies 
 of the lovers of civil and religious freedom. The 
 Hungarian protestant church flourished both in nu 
 merical and spiritual vigor for some time after the 
 Reformation, and her pulpit agency was a blessing to 
 the country. But the persecutions of last century, 
 and the rationalism of later times, have corrupted 
 her principles and prostrated her strength. This pro 
 testant church reckons up about four millions of 
 members at the present day. Almost all their minis 
 ters, however, are rationalists, having been educated in 
 rationalistic academies, not in Hungary, but in other 
 parts of the Continent. The consequence of infi 
 delity and lukewarmness among the ministers, has 
 been infidelity and a wide-spread degeneracy among 
 the flocks. The pulpit agency which was once on 
 the side of the pure Christian faith, has been largely 
 employed on the side of unbelief. A few faithful 
 men in Hungary are endeavoring to build up the 
 
 dors of God to man. When the shepherds are thus chosen without 
 any reference to their fidelity, are we to wonder that the flock should 
 go astray, and become widely scattered ?" Robinson s Concise Views 
 of tlie German Universities, fy-c., p. 97. 
 
 The above, written about twenty years ago, if not an exact descrip 
 tion of matters, still shows, at least, on what side the pulpit agency 
 of Germany has for long been exerted. 
 
588 THE PULPIT. 
 
 walls of their Jerusalem, and bring the church back to 
 her first love. Christian education is occupying their 
 attention. They are aiming at undoing the evils of 
 neological training received from abroad, by establish 
 ing a sound theological faculty among themselves. 
 And from this evangelical school, in the establishment 
 and support of which they need Christian help, they 
 design to supply faithful ministers to the protestant 
 church of Hungary and Austria. 1 
 
 There are other parts of the Continent where the 
 agency of the pulpit is not less strongly exerted on 
 the side of infidelity, and where the powers that be 
 give that evil agency their support. Look, for exam 
 ple, at Switzerland. In Geneva, not to mention 
 other parts where socinianism and neologianism have 
 extensively prevailed, a rationalistic unitarianism, 
 for nearly a century, has had possession of the 
 national pulpits. It is well known that the great 
 chiefs of the French infidelity hailed the Genevese 
 pastors as allies in the work of demolishing every 
 thing peculiarly Christian. D Alembert, in the article 
 Geneva, in the French Encyclopedic, says, "all the 
 religion that many of the ministers of Geneva have 
 is a complete socinianism, rejecting everything called 
 mystery, and supposing that the first principle of a 
 true religion is to propose nothing to be received 
 as a matter of faith which strikes against reason." 2 
 And it was significant of the leanings of the pastors, 
 that some of the most intellectual among them were 
 
 1 See Evang. Christendom, vol. iv., p. 334, and vol. v., p. 179. 
 
 2 Dr. Smith s Scripture Testimony, vol. i., p. 134. 
 
THE PULPIT. 589 
 
 admiring visitors of Voltaire during his residence at 
 Ferney. The departure of the Genevese church from 
 the doctrines of the Reformation, and the occupancy 
 of her pulpits by socinian and deistical teachers, are 
 considered to have had no small share in bringing in 
 that flood of ungodliness and immorality which, as in 
 the case of France, at last deluged the country. 
 
 Previous to the revolution of 1846, which deprived 
 the church of her constitution, as she had formerly 
 been deprived of her evangelical doctrine, the right 
 of nomination to all the ecclesiastical vacancies in 
 the canton, resided with the " Company of Pastors." 
 And it is an indisputable fact that they chose men of 
 rationalistic principles. Malan, Gaussen, D Aubigne, 
 and others of that noble band, who, on being awakened 
 themselves, summoned the Genevese to the faith and 
 hope of the gospel, were censured and severely 
 treated for so doing by the company referred to. 
 Cheever, in his delightful "Wanderings," tells us 
 that Gaussen mentioned, what to him was a startling 
 fact, that out of forty pastors in the national church, 
 only three were regarded as evangelical. By the new 
 constitution given to Geneva, in May 1847, an infidel 
 radicalism has stretched its hand over the church. 
 All opinions are tolerated within her pale, and may 
 have their representatives in her pulpits ; and though, 
 through this opened door, evangelical doctrines may 
 enter, as well as the most rationalistic, yet the license 
 must be more favorable to the latter than to the 
 former. Every protestant citizen who has reached 
 
690 THE PULPIT. 
 
 the age of twenty-one, be he Christian or infidel, is 
 by law a member of the church, and has a right to 
 all her privileges. The pulpit and the pew, in the 
 hands of an infidel government, to which the church 
 is subjected, are thus made agents in strengthening 
 and propagating socinian and rationalistic principles. 
 "Calvin s vessel," remarks D Aubigne, u which for a 
 century past lay half-sunken in the waters, has now 
 suddenly been engulfed." 
 
 If we cast our eye upon Holland, we see that ration 
 alism, as in the Protestant churches of Germany, 
 there wields, in a great measure, the pulpit agency 
 of the Reformed Church. Those doctrines which 
 form the very marrow of the Christian creed, such as 
 the trinity, the true and proper divinity of Christ, 
 and his atonement for human salvation, are very 
 generally repudiated by the teachers of the people. 
 The infidelity of the schools is boldly enunciated 
 from the pulpit. A pure fervid evangelism, as held 
 forth by the faithful in the land, is frowned upon by 
 those who have been ordained to preach it. The 
 laity are even said to contrast favorably with the 
 clergy: the departure from the doctrines of the 
 Reformation being much more general among the 
 latter than among the former. The Dutch people 
 have still, to some extent, a love for the doctrines of 
 the cross, and that love is increasing both among 
 the higher and lower classes of society. Another 
 favorable sign is that the younger ministers who are 
 coming forth to occupy the pulpits, evince in a great 
 
THE PULPIT. 591 
 
 measure, an attachment to the old Gospel truth. 
 But, (as one who knows the Netherlands, and is 
 well remembered there, has said,) the great body of 
 the clergy represented by the National Synod seem 
 to be still decidedly unfavorable to pure evangelical 
 religion. 1 
 
 Belgium, the other division of the Netherlands, 
 with the exception of its small number of Protestant 
 Evangelical churches, and notwithstanding its free 
 constitution, lies under the blighting influence of 
 Popery. The pulpit agency, as in Italy and Spain, 
 in so far as it is employed, advocates man s religion, 
 not God s. It is on the side of superstition and 
 materialism, and adverse to spiritual Christianity. 
 There are good grounds for believing that not a few 
 of the priests, disgusted with the Romish system, have 
 become deists or infidels, but cling to the priest s 
 office for the sake of bread. " One may attend 
 whole years on the prayers and sermons without ever 
 hearing it proclaimed, that whoso believeth on the 
 Son hath eternal life; or having those words of the 
 apostle repeated and developed, 4 for by grace are ye 
 saved through faith ; and that not of yourselves : it is 
 the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should 
 boast, for we are his workmanship, created in 
 Christ Jesus unto good works. But you will hear 
 sermons enough on the authority of the Church, the 
 excellence of the priesthood, the mediation of the 
 
 1 The Religious Condition of Christendom, p. 409 ; and Evangelical 
 Christendom, vol. vii., p. 47. 
 
592 THE PULPIT. 
 
 Virgin, the intercession of saints, purgatory, con 
 fession, works of satisfaction, and indulgences," 1 all 
 of which are destructive of the authority of God s 
 word and of the perfection of Christ s work. 
 
 If we turn to France, we see that, with a few bril 
 liant exceptions, all the existing pulpit agency is 
 on the side of materialism, or rationalism, or a grossly 
 corrupted Christianity. France, like every other 
 Roman Catholic country, swarms with priests. Be 
 sides the higher classes of ecclesiastics, who amount 
 to three or four thousand, there are more than thirty 
 thousand curates scattered throughout the country. 
 But it is not so much by the pulpit, as by imposing 
 rites and ceremonies, that Popery influences the 
 minds of the People. The Roman Catholic church, 
 in France, has had her pulpit orators, men whose 
 names shone like stars in the seventeennth cen 
 tury; and, though her glory in this respect has 
 departed with the Bossuets and Massillons, she is 
 not without celebrated preachers still. But as a 
 church, the pulpit is by no means the seat of her 
 power. The performance of the mass, the pomp and 
 pageantry of her ceremonies, the readiness with which 
 she grants absolution from sin, and such like, exert 
 the influence, and more than the influence, which 
 belongs to the pulpit in Protestant countries. It is 
 well known that the church of France previous to 
 the great revolution, was filled with men of secret or 
 avowed infidel principles. That church, as we have 
 1 The Religious Condition of Christendom, p. 347. 
 
THE PULPIT. 593 
 
 seen, left the people in deplorable ignorance ; and 
 must bear a considerable portion of the guilt of those 
 terrible excesses which stained the Revolution. At 
 the present day, her clergy, while wondrously apt 
 and vigorous in accommodating themselves to every 
 turn of the political wheel, now blessing, in the pre 
 sence of the people, trees of liberty, and preaching 
 up equality and fraternity, and anon intriguing with 
 others to promote a reaction in favor of despotism, 
 are doing nothing to put France in possession of faith 
 in God. They are yielding rather to the infidel spirit 
 that pervades all ranks; or, at best, having recourse 
 to their old superstitions and frauds; and both by 
 their political intrigues and religious impostures, are 
 calling forth the demon that would destroy every 
 thing that bears the Christian name. The Abbe 
 Lacordaire, who is at present perhaps the most 
 popular and influential preacher in France, has been 
 wielding his pulpit power over the thousands that 
 crowd the old cathedral of Notre Dame, not on the 
 side of Scriptural Christianity, but on the side of its 
 corruptions. He has since the last revolution, and 
 until lately, been declaiming rather on political and 
 social questions, than exhibiting and enforcing relig 
 ious truth ; flattering the national vanity of the peo 
 ple by telling them that they are beloved of God and 
 will have the first rank in heaven, instead of begetting 
 in them humility, repentance toward God, and faith 
 toward the Lord Jesus Christ. In so far, then, as 
 the pulpit of the Roman Catholic church in France 
 
 38 
 
594 THE PULPIT. 
 
 is concerned, we have an agency that, upon the whole, 
 is powerless for good, and which is exerting whatever 
 influence it possesses, either directly or indirectly, 
 against spiritual Christianity. One red republican, 
 pointing to the Bible, which he had been induced 
 to read, said to another revolutionist that had come 
 to discuss other matters, "Robert, Robert, not till 
 that book fills the empty throne of France can 
 France be happy." 1 Rather would we say, not till 
 the pure Gospel be enthroned in her many pulpits, 
 and she possess an extensive thoroughly Christian 
 pulpit agency, can she cease to resemble the troubled 
 sea which cannot rest. 
 
 If from the Roman Catholic, we turn to the Protest 
 ant reformed church in France, matters, considering 
 what we expect from Protestantism, are far from 
 cheering. French protestantism, which owed its 
 organization to the great Calvin, flourished vigorously 
 for a lengthened period, and exerted a happy influence 
 on the country. It has been calculated that, at one 
 time, there were in France about five millions of 
 Calvinists forming between two and three thousand 
 churches, and that from their pulpits sounded forth 
 that Gospel which multitudes from all lands flocked 
 to hear from the reformer s lips. The revocation of 
 the Edict of Nantes gave a fatal blow to the Protest- 
 ant churches, dissolved their organization, and dis 
 persed the faithful. The blood of the Huguenots is 
 still upon France and upon her children. Religious 
 
 1 Evangelical Christendom, March, 1851. 
 
THE PULPIT. 595 
 
 liberty, a thing long unknown, was in some measure 
 established under the consulate of Napoleon, but the 
 Protestants were not free to assemble as an ecclesias 
 tical body. This right they enjoyed, amid the disso 
 lution of the social frame work that happened at the 
 February revolution. And the assembly of the Pro 
 testant delegates held in Paris a few years ago, indi 
 cated, in some measure, the kind of influence exerted 
 by the pulpit of the French Protestant church. That 
 there are men of evangelical views, of devoted piety 
 and of pulpit power, among her teachers, besides the 
 noble few who have seceded and formed an indepen 
 dent church on the true principle of individual pro 
 fession, we gladly acknowledge, but they are decidedly 
 in a minority. And what is to be thought of a church 
 which, not having met in assembly for a very long 
 period, shrinks, when it does meet, from adverting 
 to the state of its doctrines, and rejects, almost 
 unanimously, a proposal to place a confession of 
 positive faith at the base of its organization? The 
 latitudinarian and the orthodox repose under the 
 same shadow, and, for the sake of preserving an 
 external uniformity, the utmost license in inter 
 preting Bible and symbol is conceded. This system 
 so widely prevalent on the Continent, is well cal 
 culated to rationalize a church, and to admit men 
 of pantheistical or neological views into her pulpits. 
 The majority of the Paris synod were unquestionably 
 rationalistic in their leanings, men adverse or ii> 
 different to those great doctrines which constitute 
 
596 THE PULPIT. 
 
 the glory of the Reformation. The pulpit agency 
 of the French Protestant church must, therefore, 
 to a large extent, be counted among the agencies 
 that are against Scriptural Christianity. 
 
 Various influences have contributed to produce this 
 result. The sceptical philosophy of last century in 
 fected the minds of many of the pastors. It entered 
 into the sacred place as well as ran riot in the outer 
 courts. Numbers of the sworn servants of Christ 
 yielded to the deadly power of the reign of material 
 ism. In addition to this, the rationalistic socinian- 
 ism of Geneva came over and gradually took possess 
 ion of almost all the Protestant pulpits. It is from 
 the low Socinian Academy of Geneva that the greater 
 number of the preachers that minister in the French 
 church, have been obtained. Here, then, in the 
 church of Farel and Calvin and Beza, a church 
 which should prove a check to the superstitions of 
 Romanism on the one hand, and to the doctrines of 
 an infidel socialism on the other, we have the greater 
 portion of the pulpit agency on the wrong side. Over 
 against that we set the few good men within her pale, 
 and that little but increasing band who bid fair to do 
 valiantly without taking, as they do, for their motto, 
 "No indifferentism, no exclusiveness." And while 
 we beseech God to send prosperity both to the one and 
 the other, the thought is depressing that the pulpit 
 of such a church should, for the most part, be of a 
 character much more gratifying to the infidel than to 
 the Christian. 
 
THE PULPIT. 597 
 
 If from this rapid glance at the state of the pulpit 
 on the Continent, we fix our attention on our own 
 country, we witness much more that is cheering ; but 
 here also the pulpit, to some extent, is made an agent 
 of evil. The Gospel is the glory and defence of our 
 beloved land, and to its influence more than to any 
 thing else, we owe the high position that our sea-girt 
 isle occupies among the nations, and the stability of 
 our social fabric amid the shakings of principalities and 
 powers. England and Scotland are indebted to the 
 treasure which the Reformation gave, or rather re 
 stored to them, for their intellectual, moral, social, 
 and physical prosperity. In both parts of the island, 
 we exult in thinking that there are thousands of pul 
 pits, both in the established and dissenting churches, 
 sounding forth every sabbath, to millions of our popu 
 lation, the genuine Gospel of the grace of God. " We 
 regard the evangelical pulpit of Great Britain," says 
 a writer whose judgment in such matters is to be 
 confided in, 1 "with all its faults, as presenting to the 
 millions of our people, a fuller and better proportioned 
 view of revealed truth, and of the piety which that 
 truth should produce, than has been exhibited to any 
 generation since the age of inspired teachers." But 
 while this is gratefully and joyfully acknowledged, it 
 must not blind us to the existence of a pulpit agency 
 among us which is the very opposite of evangelical. 
 We refer not so much to the rationalistic preachers 
 who are to be found here and there, in a solitary 
 1 Dr. Vaughan. 
 
598 THE PULPIT. 
 
 state, in our large towns, and whose influence is by 
 no means very great, as to the tractarians who fill, 
 in considerable numbers, the pulpits of the Episcopal 
 Church. 
 
 It is to the praise of all the Evangelical Noncon- 
 forming churches on both sides of the Tweed, that a 
 departure from what is generally regarded as the arti- 
 culus stantis vel cadentis ecdesice, is followed either by 
 deposition or a forfeiture of communion. It must be 
 admitted, also, that the Scottish Establishment is 
 generally much more careful to guard against the ad 
 mission of faithless men into her pulpits, than the 
 Establishment in England. The time was when mod- 
 eratism had the ascendency in the church of Knox, 
 when all that is peculiarly evangelical was frowned 
 upon, and much that is opposed to evangelism was 
 winked at, when many of her pulpits gave forth mo 
 rality for the Gospel, and doctrines disparaging to 
 the person and work of the Redeemer. But that 
 time happily is gone ; and, however much formalism 
 and lifelessness may be seen in some places, it cannot 
 be said that in the establishment, or in the several 
 vigorous evangelical nonconforniing churches by which 
 she is surrounded, there is anything deserving the 
 name of a pulpit agency on the side adverse to spirit 
 ual Christianity. 
 
 It is otherwise, however, in the Episcopal Church 
 of England. There, it must not be forgotten, are 
 a number of choice saintly men, both in large towns 
 and rural parishes, upon whom the mantle of the 
 
THE PULPIT. 599 
 
 apostolic band, that labored within her during the 
 deadness of last century, seems to have fallen, and 
 who have great sorrow and heaviness of heart for 
 the state of their Zion. It is unquestionable that, 
 during the last fifty or sixty years, the evangelical 
 leaven has made much progress within her pale, and 
 that the number of her earnest believing preachers 
 has greatly increased. But these are just like scat 
 tered lights in a wide extent of dark space. It is 
 no slander, but the very truth, when it is asserted 
 that under the shadow of that great establishment 
 are to be found multitudes of pastors and teachers 
 who are preaching Sabbath after Sabbath another 
 gospel than the gospel of Christ. Men who know 
 not the truth, and care not a fig about it, readily get 
 admission into her pulpits. Personal conversion to 
 God is not generally inquired after, as an indispens 
 able qualification for the ministry. Such a qualifi 
 cation, in hundreds of cases, would be stigmatized 
 as puritanism, or methodism, or pietism. A formal 
 subscription to the thirty-nine articles, is, in such 
 cases, the sure passport to investure with the sacred 
 office. Thus multitudes of men, who know not 
 the way of salvation themselves, are constituted the 
 spiritual guides of others. It is the blind leading 
 the blind. From the ministrations of such teachers, 
 we could glean little more of the gospel of Christ, 
 than from the pages of Seneca or Epictetus. A cold 
 prudential morality is substituted for the truth as it 
 is in Jesus, that truth in the belief of which the 
 
600 THE PULPIT. 
 
 sinner is justified, sanctified and saved. This is 
 an agency at once adverse to Scriptural Christianity 
 and ruinous to men s souls. 
 
 But this is not all. Tractarianism is the growing 
 evil. It may be resolved, as we have said, into a re 
 action against the materialism that had crept over 
 the church, but it is not less fatal to the spiritual 
 Christianity of the New Testament. It is not merely 
 the preaching of a lifeless morality that makes the 
 pulpit an agency in deluding and destroying men, 
 but the inculcation of doctrines that are in open 
 conflict with the great Scriptural principles of the 
 Reformation. The last few years have shown a 
 wide-spread defection in this direction on the part of 
 the ordained instructors of the people. " Those men 
 at Oxford," said Dr. Arnold, on the first appearance 
 of the Tracts, "I necessarily shrink from them when 
 I see them laboring so incessantly, though I doubt 
 not so ignorantly, to enthrone the very mystery of 
 falsehood and iniquity in that neglected and dishon 
 ored temple, the church of God." Oxford, the seat 
 of the pernicious heresy, sends forth her disciples 
 thoroughly imbued with tractarianisrn, who find their 
 way into the pulpits. And there they, in number 
 and strength no contemptible band, advocate sabbath 
 after sabbath, and day after day, a theological system 
 that is in direct antagonism with Scripture and the 
 evangelical religion of England. The teaching of 
 innumerable pulpits in the church of Cranmer, exalts 
 the church into the place of her Lord, assigns an 
 
THE PULPIT. 601 
 
 efficacy to a mere ritual which belongs only to the 
 Divine Spirit, and leads men to rest in mere outward 
 observances, instead of bringing them to rest exclu 
 sively in the finished work of Christ. Tractarianism 
 indeed, when full blown, would throw the pulpit into 
 the shade, make the ministers of religion little more 
 than masters of ceremonies; and, instead of saying 
 with Paul, " Christ sent me not to baptize, but to 
 preach the Gospel," would teach each of them to say, 
 u Christ sent me not to preach the Gospel, but to 
 baptize." But the pulpit, at present, must minister 
 to the forms. Baptismal regeneration and such like 
 errors must have an advocate in the preacher. The 
 tendency of such a system of pulpit ministration is 
 at once to enervate the manliness of the British 
 mind, and obscure, or take away, that foundation 
 other than which can no man lay. This agency 
 is extensively exerted on thousands of our coun 
 trymen of all classes, in a church which was one 
 of the glories of the Reformation. Its influence 
 on many of our aristocracy has been made too ob 
 vious, its influence on multitudes of humbler parish 
 ioners can be easily imagined, and, unless checked, 
 it promises to eat out the evangelicalism that remains 
 in the Church of England. Spiritual Christianity 
 being supplanted by this formalism, the consequence 
 will be, as in like cases, an increase of indifferentism 
 or avowed infidelity. "If the Church of England," 
 remarks D Aubigne, "were well administered, she 
 would only admit to her pulpits teachers who submit 
 
602 THE PULPIT. 
 
 to the Word of God agreeably to the thirty-nine arti 
 cles, and banish from them all those who violate her 
 laws, and poison the minds of youth, trouble souls, and 
 seek to overthrow the Gospel of Jesus Christ." 1 
 
 We have not attempted anything like a full estimate 
 of pulpit agency. Much, both of good and evil at 
 tributable to its influence, has necessarily escaped our 
 notice. We have limited our view to those parts of 
 Christendom where the various forms of infidelity 
 have appeared most conspicuous. And, without ig 
 noring the vast amount of good effected by the pulpit, 
 we see that its agency is much employed on the side 
 of evil. The office hallowed by the labors of our 
 Lord and his apostles, and which occupies the fore 
 most place among the means of promoting religion 
 in the world, has been largely perverted to the service 
 of the adversary. That agency which stands apart 
 from and lifted high above all other agencies by its 
 sanctity has often been degraded to unholy purposes. 
 And in the pulpit, the divinely appointed instrument 
 of publishing truth and extending Christ s kingdom, 
 all the forms of unbelief have had and still have their 
 abettors in considerable numbers. 
 
 In looking at the aspects, in tracing the causes, 
 and in estimating the agencies of infidelity, we have 
 found much to excite our fears, but nothing whatever 
 1 Geneva and Oxford. By D Aubigne. 
 
THE PULPIT. 603 
 
 to shake our faith. No one can view the amount of 
 evil embodied in the various forms of unbelief, and 
 the divers agencies employed for its propagation, 
 without a feeling of apprehension. Infidelity is a 
 siren that allures men but to destroy them. No one, 
 on the other hand, can contemplate Christianity in 
 itself, in its evidences, in its past history, and in its 
 present position and influence, without lively hope. 
 We have seen the argumentative resources of infidelity 
 to be miserably weak, but infidelity itself to be pliant, 
 active, and strong for mischief. Beaten though every 
 form of it has been, thousands of times, in the field of 
 argument, it has had the daring, a season after each 
 defeat, to reappear in a somewhat modified form and 
 renew the attack. The modern assailants of Chris 
 tianity are not men of more metal than its assailants 
 of old ; and notwithstanding their wily and insidious 
 movements, we are persuaded that they will be 
 as thoroughly beaten as ever their predecessors were. 
 Our fears are not for Christianity. She is not now 
 on her trial. She has passed through the furnace 
 long ago ; and, in coming out of the trial, has been 
 powerfully declared to be* heavenly in her origin, in 
 her nature, and in her aims. The battle has been 
 fought, the victory has been won. Each succeeding 
 strife is only the opening up of an already decided 
 contest, to be closed again with new triumphs to the 
 Christian cause. More deeply rooted than ever in 
 the belief that the Gospel of Christ is of God, that it 
 is destined to march onward among the nations, 
 
604 THE PULPIT. 
 
 and ultimately to bless all tlie families of tlie earth, we 
 would close in offering up in the church s name, the 
 devout ode which she offered of old : 
 
 GOD be merciful unto us and bless us; and cause his face to shine 
 upon us. 
 
 That thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all 
 nations. 
 
 Let the people praise thee, God ; let all the people praise thee. 
 
 let the nations be glad and sing for joy : 
 
 For thou shalt judge the people righteously, and govern the nations 
 upon earth. 
 
 Let the people praise thee, God ; let all the people praise thee. 
 
 Then shall the earth yield her increase ; and God, even our own God, 
 shall bless us. 
 
 God shall bless us ; and all the ends of the earth shall fear him. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 REMARKS ON SECULARISM. 1 
 
 GRECIAN mythology tells us of a marine deity whose 
 distinguishing characteristic was the faculty of assum 
 ing different shapes. Proteus was the very symbol of 
 infidelity. Its history is but a history of changes. 
 Exceedingly pliable in its principles, and versatile in 
 its form passing out of one phase into another, ever 
 modifying its professions and changing its names 
 it would be nothing less than a libel to say that it is 
 the same yesterday, to-day and forever. In our age 
 the thing has put on new garbs, undergone one or 
 more baptisms, and altered its tone. It is unstable 
 as water, it cannot excel. Proteus was, however, 
 the same wanton sea-god, under all the different 
 shapes which he had assumed. And we detect in 
 every form of modern infidelity despite its wonderful 
 pliancy and softened names the old enemy of God s 
 truth and man s weal. 
 
 Since treating of the aspects of infidelity in the 
 preceeding essay, what seems, at first sight, a new 
 phase, has turned up. Undisguised atheism has 
 failed to reach the dominion to which it aspired 
 among the working classes. Thorough-going infidel 
 1 Chiefly suggested by the recent London debate. 
 
606 APPENDIX. 
 
 principles, bearing the appropriate mark, do not take 
 nearly so well, as could be wished, with the public. 
 The representatives of the Owen school have accord 
 ingly applied themselves " to the re-inspection of the 
 general field of controversy," and the result, as we 
 have already hinted, has been the rejection of the 
 old ill-reputed names, and the adoption of the better- 
 looking title SECULARISM. From being one of the 
 most intolerant, they are about to become the most 
 tolerant of all sects in the world. They are "to 
 recognize the sincerity of the clergy, and the good 
 intention of Christians generally." They are no 
 longer to doubt "the truthful purpose of the pro 
 phets and the apostles, and the moral excellence of 
 many passages in their writings." The door is 
 widened so as to admit the " various classes of per 
 sons known for their dissent from the popular Chris 
 tian tenets of the day," these various classes com 
 prehending men who " reject the authority of miracles," 
 and "allege general objections to the inspiration of 
 the Bible," as well as those who " question the dogma 
 of the immortality of the soul," and "an increasing 
 party" who cannot " subscribe to the arguments sup 
 posed to establish the existence of a Being distinct 
 from nature." We cannot conceal our gratification 
 at these shifts, symptomatic as they are of anything 
 but strength. But we are not to be imposed upon 
 by them. Our secularists claim the right of preserv 
 ing a " discretionary silence." There would be little 
 discretion on the part of us who have at heart the 
 best interests of the working classes, did we not 
 
APPENDIX. 607 
 
 break silence, and say, u secularism" is atheism in 
 disguise that it is designed to inculcate the latter 
 when the people are able to bear it, secularism in 
 the meantime being the cry while a discretionary 
 silence" is to be kept in reference to atheism. The 
 secularist apostle himself has so far outgrown the 
 common covering, that he cannot preserve the " dis 
 cretionary silence," even when insisting on the right 
 and propriety of doing so. u There are many of us," 
 said he, when lately expounding " secularism" before 
 a large London audience, " who trace all religious 
 evil to one root, and regard the belief in a God as 
 an Atlas of error bearing on its broad shoulders a 
 world of immoralities. . . . What some call 
 atheism is in one sense suspensive in secularism." 
 It is not, then, really a new phase of infidelity, but 
 a compound of old systems. It is not an u aspect" 
 essentially different from those aspects which have 
 passed under our review, but inclusive of all of them 
 except the last. Down the broad way and through 
 the wide gate of "secularism," the atheist, the pan 
 theist, the rationalist, the spiritualist, and the man 
 who denies responsibility all may pass, except the 
 individul who has the form of godliness. 
 
 1. We notice, first, the "suspensive" principle 
 the non-belief in the existence of a Supreme Being 
 distinct from nature. Mr. Holyoake s position, is 
 "the nature which we know must be the God which 
 we seek." The wondrous manifestations of nature 
 indispose him to degrade it to a secondary rank." 
 He is not satisfied with the arguments for the exist- 
 
608 APPENDIX. 
 
 ence of a God they do not give him certainty. We 
 have here two questions to ask: the first is, What 
 arguments give him certainty that the nature which 
 we know must be the God which we seek ? The 
 second is, Has the mind of man been so constituted 
 as to rest satisfied with nature for a God ? A direct 
 negative must be given to both questions. The 
 position occupied by the secularist apostle is an ex 
 tremely absurd one. He demands evidence of a kind 
 or degree that the subject from its nature does not 
 admit. It is tantamount to saying " there may be a 
 God, but no evidence for his existence will convince 
 me." The only way to meet such a man in contro 
 versy is to take him up on his own ground. You 
 demand entire satisfaction to the intellect before you 
 will believe in the Divine existence. Partial satisfac 
 tion to the intellect is all that is attainable on the 
 subject. And you can pretend to no more than par 
 tial satisfaction in adopting the proposition that the 
 nature which we know must be the God which we 
 seek. You renounce the belief in God for want of 
 certainty, and you believe in nature as occupying the 
 first rank in existence, without anything deserving 
 the name of certainty. But man has moral instincts 
 as well as an intellectual faculty, and in the strength of 
 these instincts has been kindly provided a compensa 
 tion for the weakness of our intellects. These moral 
 instincts refuse to rest in "the nature which we 
 know," the soul and conscience recoil from accept 
 ing it as u The God which we seek." In other words, 
 the mind of man, from its very constitution, goes 
 
APPENDIX. 609 
 
 beyond nature, and demands for its rest the existence 
 of a Supreme Being distinct from nature. The 
 choice then, on this ground, lies between non-belief 
 in the Divine existence for want of entire certainty, 
 with thwarting or repressing the moral instincts ; 
 and belief in that existence which partially, at least, 
 satisfies the intellect, and which is fully demanded 
 by the heart. The light of intellect in that man is 
 surely darkness, and prodigious violence must have 
 been done to the instincts of his soul and conscience, 
 who, in view of "the wondrous manifestations of 
 nature," can maintain that nature is degraded in 
 placing over it a creating and presiding mind! The 
 top-stone of secularism would be laid in material 
 idolatry. Men will not suffer " the existence of 
 Deity" to be thrust aside as an "abstract question," 
 and labelled "not settled." If men are to be robbed 
 of the conception of an immutably glorious Being 
 distinct from nature a conception which "borrows 
 splendor from all that is fair, subordinates to itself 
 all that is great, and sits enthroned on the riches of 
 the universe" the substitute inevitably will be 
 fetichism or nature-worship. 
 
 2. The first fundamental principle of secularism a 
 principle not "suspensive," but openly avowed, and 
 to which all secularists must subscribe is, " that 
 precedence should be given to duties of this life 
 over those which pertain to another world;" the as 
 sumption being that "this life being the first in cer 
 tainty, it ought to have the first place in importance." 
 This simply resolves itself into the proposition that 
 
 39 
 
610 APPENDIX. 
 
 the seen is more certain than the unseen, that what 
 we know personally is more certain than what we 
 know only by testimony, and the inference is that there 
 fore the former must, in importance, take precedence 
 of the latter. Now, in the first place, we deny that 
 the seen, strictly speaking, is more certain than the 
 unseen; and, secondly, admitting that it is relatively 
 more certain, it does not follow that it is more import 
 ant. It is not more certain that water always exists 
 in a fluid state in a warm eastern climate than it is 
 that water exists as ice in cold regions, though to the 
 King of Siam who had always lived in a warm climate, 
 the one was more certain than the other. Again, the 
 seen, in one sense, may be more certain than the un 
 seen, and yet the latter may be the more important. 
 Relatively to myself it is more certain that I am 
 thinking and acting just now, than it is that I will be 
 doing so to-morrow, and yet to-morrow, in the sum of 
 my thoughts and actions, may be a day of greater 
 importance in my history than the day now present. 
 Mathematical truth, in one sense, is more certain 
 than moral truth, but no one will say that it is of 
 greater importance. In short, no man is warranted 
 to assume the first and fundamental position of Secu 
 larism unless he is sure that there is no future life. 
 Our secularists have no certainty on this point, yet 
 they build their system on the supposition that they 
 have that is to say, they build upon the uncertain, 
 the very ground, as they allege, on which the doctrine 
 of a future life stands, and for which they ignore or 
 reject it. The doctrine itself does not admit of de- 
 
APPENDIX. 611 
 
 monstrative but of probable evidence. Independent 
 of the Scripture testimony, there are (as Dr. Chalmers 
 in his Lectures on Butler s Analogy has remarked,) 
 high probabilities for the immortality of man, founded 
 not on that which is common to him with the other 
 organic creatures, but on that which is peculiar and 
 which signalizes him from or above the others as 
 the conscience which is his exclusively, and those 
 indefinite powers and aspirations which are his exclus 
 ively. These, which point man to a future life, will 
 lead him to believe in such a well-attested revelation 
 of it as the Gospel, unless the hand of violence, 
 thwarting the moral instincts, puts it away from him. 
 Secularism prefers the present over the future for no 
 better reason than that it is present, a reason repu 
 diated by every secularist who takes his passage to 
 Australia. Some men who act rationally enough in 
 the region of the material, doff their rationality when 
 ever they touch upon the borders of the spiritual. 
 Again, our secularists, on the supposition of a future 
 life, are guilty of a fundamental error in mapping off 
 the moral duties saying, these belong exclusively to 
 the present, and those belong to the future they are 
 chargeable too with much misrepresentation in affirm 
 ing that the teachings of Christianity make men in 
 different to the one and absorb them in the other. 
 There is no such separation of duties. All the duties 
 of Christianity pertain to the present life, and are 
 related to the future just as the seed sown is related 
 to the harvest to be reaped. The duties of Chris 
 tianity may be Bald to be summed up in the word 
 
 *"**\ 
 
612 APPENDIX. 
 
 faith. But, as has been well expressed by Mr. Riddle 
 in his Bampton Lecture, " the man who lives the life 
 of faith is the man who at the same time works the 
 works of God, works of integrity and uprightness, 
 works of benevolence and mercy, works of industry 
 and labor, works for the glory of God and for the 
 welfare of mankind, works as of one who has a 
 spring of activity within him, as well as a glorious 
 reward before him." "It is wholly a mistake," ob 
 serves Chalmers in his Prelections on Paley, "that 
 in a mind of ordinary soundness the force of the re 
 ligious principle, even to the utmost, either unfits or 
 withdraws from the necessary attention we should 
 give to the business of the day, and the accommoda 
 tions of the day. . . ..,, ., . Suppose a person setting 
 out on a far journey to a place where, on his arrival, 
 he knew that a magnificent fortune awaited him. 
 His heart would be there. His thoughts would be 
 ever carrying him forward in contemplation there; 
 yet all this engrossment and big expectation of what 
 he was tending to, would not strip him of the neces 
 sary attention and self-command for giving the requi 
 site directions on the road, for ordering the right 
 accommodation at night, for arranging a constant 
 conveyance from one place to another, or even for 
 remarking on the loveliness of the successive scenes, 
 and noting either the comfort that gladdens or the 
 beauty that smiles on the passing traveller." 
 
 3. A second avowed principle of secularism is, 
 that "science is the providence of man, and that 
 absolute spiritual dependency may involve material 
 
APPENDIX. 613 
 
 destruction." By science is meant "those method 
 ized agencies which are at our command that sys 
 tematized knowledge which enables us to use the 
 powers of nature for human benefit." By spiritual 
 dependency is meant " application to heaven by prayer, 
 expecting that help will come to us." On this plat 
 form such men as Combe, Owen, and Holyoake 
 meet. The former part of the proposition is a mere 
 assertion without proof. The latter part involves a 
 gross misrepresentation of the scriptural doctrine of 
 providence. The secularist teacher argues thus: "if 
 the despot and the knave accomplish their end by a 
 vigorous use of material appliances, it is clear that 
 natural resources are independent of any form of re 
 ligious faith, and the patriot and the honest man 
 may hope to succeed by equal or greater vigor, 
 whatever may be his speculative opinions." It is not 
 so clear. The force of the argument is this: if a 
 knave uses money effectually for accomplishing his 
 bad ends, therefore a good man needs no help from 
 God to enable him to use it for good ends. This is 
 the death of logic. Science and Christianity are not 
 antagonists. A vigorous use of the one is in perfect 
 harmony with a believing reliance on the other. A 
 true science has made the most brilliant progress in 
 lands the most illumined with the light of Christian 
 ity. But the noblest minds minds of spiritual depth 
 and possessed of vigorous moral instincts after hav 
 ing mastered all known science, have felt that it is 
 not the providence of life. Dependence of a different 
 kind is needed to satisfy the outgoings and aspirations 
 
614 APPENDIX. 
 
 of the human heart, and that is only found in a 
 Divine Providence. The providence which secularism 
 repudiates is not the Scriptural doctrine, but a gross 
 caricature of it. "Absolute spiritual dependency 
 may involve material destruction." Most assuredly it 
 may. "It has a great tendency to check human 
 exertion." Most assuredly it has. Let the mariner 
 put to sea in a leaky and ill-rigged ship, under the 
 pretence of trusting Divine Providence, and the proba 
 bility is that in the storm his " absolute spiritual de 
 pendency " will "involve material destruction." It was 
 absolute spiritual dependency which the tempter 
 wished the Saviour to exercise when he said to Him, 
 " If thou be the son of God, cast thyself down from 
 the battlement of the temple: for it is written, He 
 
 % 
 
 shall give his angels charge concerning thee." But 
 Jesus, who taught that not a sparrow falls without 
 our heavenly Father, said unto him, "thou shalt not 
 tempt the Lord thy God." Absolute spiritual de 
 pendency is not enlightened trust but impious pre 
 sumption. The Gospel teaches no such doctrine. 
 Its doctrine is not "pray," but "watch and pray." By 
 providing a ground of dependence, and calling forth 
 a man s activities, it checks presumption on the one 
 hand, and prevents despair on the other. The most 
 firm and enlightened believers in this doctrine have 
 been the men who have labored most for the good 
 of humanity. They have never felt any contradiction 
 and no man of any spiritual discernment and moral 
 honesty ever can between the Divine injunction "be 
 anxiously solicitous for nothing," and the duty to guard 
 
APPENDIY. 615 
 
 against flood and fire, between the precept " lay not 
 up treasures upon earth," and making provision, 
 through the savings-bank, for those of their own 
 house. It is here that we see the narrow view, the 
 little depth, the irreverent dogmatism of the secular 
 ist philosophy. The amount of what our secularist 
 teacher says is ; If there be a Providence, that Prov 
 idence would do this and that ; and because this and 
 that are not done, there is no Providence. Our 
 sympathies are all on the side of the freedom of 
 Poland, and against the oppressors of Italy; but it 
 were intolerable presumption and daring impiety in 
 us whose survey is so limited, to say, as the expounder 
 of secularism has said, that were there a Providence, 
 Poland would be free and Mazzini would rule in Italy 
 to-morrow. All history shows that national as well 
 as individual suffering is disciplinary, that God is 
 ever educing good out of evil, and that protracted op 
 pressions which ive would soon bring to an end, are 
 made under his control to contribute the more effect 
 ually at last to the overthrow of despotism and to the 
 stability of true liberty. Would not the special inter 
 position of providence that secularism demands check 
 human exertion ? It would assuredly leave no room 
 for the cultivation of those virtues which national 
 struggles call forth, and which have made our own 
 people the richest inheritors and the best guardians 
 of freedom. Secularism stands condemned at the bar 
 of the world s history. 
 
 4. The third avowed principle of secularism is, 
 u that there exist, independently of Scriptural author- 
 
616 APPENDIX. 
 
 ity, guarantees of morals in human nature, intelligence, 
 and utility." For proofs of these guarantees, we have 
 nothing but assertions. " There are certainly," it is 
 said, " many persons who hardly ever sin." An ex 
 pression contrary to individual experience and 
 universal observation, and, even if true, no proof of 
 the position itself. What is wanted is a broad proof 
 not that many persons hardly ever sin but that men 
 in general never sin. It is altogether an assump 
 tion an assumption disowned by every man of self- 
 knowledge that human nature in the sum of its 
 passions and natural qualities is incorrupt and un- 
 defiled, and that the corruption manifested is to be 
 attributed to a "doubtfully-conditioned state of 
 society." It is a sort of upside-down logic, a 
 complete reversal of the order of cause and effect. 
 But secularism is here self-contradictory. Human 
 nature, it is said, is itself a guarantee of morality. 
 Yet secularists, "do not say to the young, without 
 qualification, consult your aptitude, follow your 
 bias ;" for if that language were used, " the immoral 
 and unprincipled might victimize their fellows." 
 Now if it be not safe to follow the "bias," how can it 
 be held that human nature itself is a guarantee of 
 morality ? It is not by telling us that men s judgments 
 are on the side of truth and justice, it is not by 
 adducing some stray sentiments in heathen literature 
 some solitary saying of Confucius, or some beautiful 
 maxim of a Persian poet that we are to be con 
 vinced of the existence in human nature of indepen 
 dent and sufficient guarantees of morals. No one de- 
 
APPENDIX. 617 
 
 nies the existence of a moral sense in man. But the 
 question is not on what side lie the judgments of 
 conscience, but what is the natural bent of men s in 
 clinations. Many an individual can say, 
 " Video meliora proboque ;" 
 
 while the "Deteriora sequor" must be applied to his 
 conduct. Look at human nature on a broad scale 
 on human nature that has been kept entirely free of 
 the influences of Christianity and ask where are 
 the independent guarantees of morality ? We place 
 the wide world of facts over against proofless 
 assertions. 
 
 Secularism admits, after all, that "there is another 
 order of persons besides those whose well-balanced 
 feelings incline them to morality an order less 
 happily constituted whom error misdirects." Con 
 fucius wonderful saying, at which our secularist 
 expounder can get no one to wonder but himself, and 
 which may be paralleled anywhere except "in the 
 Jewish Scriptures," belongs to this side of the account 
 rather than to the other. Here it is, "alas I find no 
 one who prefers virtue to personal beauty!" One 
 thing about it is very wonderful, viz., that it should 
 be adduced in proof of independent and sufficient 
 guarantees of morality in human nature. The lament 
 of the "poet-moralist" may be taken, however, as an 
 incidental proof of the secularist admission that there 
 exists a class of men whose constitutional tendencies 
 lead them to error. These "less happily con 
 stituted" persons^^^sjsffi^iq^ would govern by 
 knowledge and put under the dominion of ideas. 
 
 r 
 
618 APPENDIX. 
 
 "The majestic influence of intelligence rules a 
 million of men now, whom lust, rage and rapine 
 would have ruled in a former age." Christianity, of 
 course, gets no credit for it. Oh no ! it is all u in 
 dependent" of " the Jewish Scriptures!" The accom 
 plished mechanic, we are told, dislikes bad machinery, 
 the expert builder hates the sight of an ill-contrived 
 house, the musician is enraged at false notes, and 
 the true painter will not endure a mediocre picture. 
 Knowledge is power: only put man under the 
 dominion of ideas, and all his errors will be rectified 
 and his bad tendencies checked! Now this talk, we 
 submit, is not to the point. Christianity seeks to 
 put men under the dominion of ideas. The Sermon 
 on the Mount, of which secularists think so little, 
 and the Gospel call which they utterly repudiate, 
 have this for their aim. The question is what are 
 the ideas which exert a regenerating influence on the 
 minds of men, or where in the absence of Christian 
 ideas and influences, do we find men exemplifying 
 such conduct in relation to morals, as expert builders 
 and true painters do in reference to science and art ? 
 Our secularist would appeal to the u artistic sense." 
 The appeal has been made and the decision given 
 long ago. Intellectual refinement and moral vicious- 
 ness are not strangers to each other. The age of 
 Pericles and Alcibiades was a period in which Greece 
 stood at the highest degree of intellectual improve 
 ment; and "here," as Tholuck remarks, "we see 
 directly, in the clearest manner, how little the mere 
 cultivation of knowledge and refined feeling can benefit 
 
APPENDIX. 619 
 
 man, when not accompanied by the sanctification of 
 the heart." The light of purity stands closely con 
 nected with the light of knowledge, but the inference 
 from history and experience is that it is only the 
 knowledge of Christian truth. 
 
 But " allowing that some men and women are good 
 by nature, and that it is possible by the culture of the 
 artistic sense to control others usefully," what does 
 secularism propose to do with those who are "both 
 vicious and dull?" The appeal then is u to utility, to 
 the sense of interest." If you can make nothing of 
 the artistic sense, you may make something of the 
 sense of profit. If you cannot get men to follow vir 
 tue because of its native loveliness, you may allure 
 them by a calculating regard to the benefit that arises 
 from it. This is the last resort of secularism. We 
 need not predict its failure. It is no new expedient. 
 Men s sense of utility has been appealed to by social 
 reformers in all ages. The ancient schools appealed 
 to this as well as to the artistic sense, and in so far as 
 human regeneration was concerned the appeal miser 
 ably failed. Men are not led to practice virtue as 
 they are led to the market and the exchange. The 
 strength of vicious inclination can bear down all sug 
 gestions as to real and ultimate profit. Appeal to 
 utility ! Carry it round the dens of vice and intem 
 perance, and it is withstood by the preference for the 
 pleasures of sin which are but for a season. It is, at 
 the best, like descanting to the poor and naked of the 
 golden fields at a distance, while you give them 
 no provisions to enable them to prosecute the way. 
 
620 APPENDIX. 
 
 We have not a few publications of merit appealing to 
 men s sense of utility and prudence, but because the 
 appeal goes no deeper and is caried up no higher, 
 they have confessedly failed in morally elevating the 
 people for whom they were designed. Christianity 
 appeals to utility. It says, " Godliness is profitable 
 unto all things, having promise of the life that now 
 is, and of that which is to come." But Christianity 
 has constraining influences, and adequate provisions, 
 of which other systems are destitute. It has a line 
 to reach the very lowest depth of human viciousness ; 
 and in thousands of cases it has turned the will to 
 choose virtue, brought the affections to delight in it, 
 and all the active powers to practice it, where appeals 
 to the mere "artistic sense," or to the mere sense of 
 utility, have left men depraved and vile. The great 
 and good things to be effected by secularism are 
 only suspended in promise not so surely suspended 
 indeed as atheism is suspended in secularism itself 
 but the good deeds of Christianity are broad palpable 
 realities, marking off the regenerated from the unre- 
 generated world. It is only in proportion as the race 
 of men is leavened by it, that we find guarantees in 
 human nature for morality, that a true culture is pro 
 moted, and that the lovely and the useful meet to 
 gether. This is no mere assertion. We appeal to 
 the out-lying world for proof. 
 
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