x -V ., DISCOURSE OF MATTERS PERTAINING TO RELIGION. DISCOURSE OF MATTERS PERTAINING TO tTiriTBRSITt THEODORE PARKER, MINISTER OF THE SECOND P H IN ROXBURY, MASS. If an offence come out of the Truth, better is it that the offence come, than the Truth be concealed." JEROME. LONDON: CHAPMAN, BROTHERS, 121, NEWGATE STREET. M. DCCC. XLYI. r/2-* Pa THE PEEFACE. THE following pages contain the substance of a series of five Lectures delivered in Boston, during the last autumn, at the request of several gentlemen. In pre- paring the work for the press, I have enlarged on many subjects, which could be but slightly touched in a brief lecture. It was with much diffidence that I then gave my opinions to the public in that form ; but considering the state of theological learning amongst us, and the frequent abuse of the name of Religion, I can no longer withhold my humble mite. It is the design of this work to recall men from the transient shows of time, to the permanent substance of Religion; from a worship of Creeds and empty Belief, to a worship in Spirit and in Life. If it satisfy the doubting soul, and help the serious inquirer to true views of God, man, the relation between them, and the duties which come of that relation; if it make Religion appear more congenial and ^attractive, and a divine life more beautiful and sweet than heretofore 6 PREFACE. my end is answered, I have not sought to pull down, but to build up ; to remove the rubbish of human in- ventions from the fair temple of divine Truth, that men may enter its shining gates, and be blessed now and forever. I have found it necessary though painful to speak of many popular delusions, and expose their fallacy and dangerous character, but have not, I trust, been blind to " the soul of goodness in things evil," though I have taken no great pains to speak smooth things, or say Peace, peace, when there was NO peace. The subject of Book IV. might seem to require a greater space than I have allowed it ; but a cursory examination of many points there hinted at would re- quire a volume, and I did not wish to repeat what is / said elsewhere, and therefore have referred to an " In- " troduction to the Old Testament on the basis of De Wette," which is now in the press, and will probably come before the public in a few months.* Some of the thoughts here set forth have also appeared in the Dial for 1840-42. I can only wish that the errors of this book may find no favour, but perish speedily, and that the truths it humbly aims to set forth may do their good and beautiful work. WEST ROXBURY, MASS. ) 7th May 1842. ( * The Work referred to above was published at Boston, U. S., 1843. CONTENTS. THE INTRODUCTION, page 3 BOOK I. OP RELIGION IN GENERAL ; OR A DISCOURSE OP THE RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT AND ITS MANIFESTATIONS. CHAP. I. An Examination of the Eeligious Element in Man, and the Existence of its Object, 9 II. Of the Sentiment, Idea, and Conception of God, . 16 III. Extent and Power of the Religious Sentiment, . . 22 IV. The Idea of Religion connected with Science and Life, 33 V. The three great Historical Forms of Religion, . 39 VI. Of certain Doctrines connected with Religion : I. Of the Primitive State of Mankind. II. Of the Im- mortality of the Soul, 84 VII. The Influence of the Religious Sentiment on Life, . 99 BOOK II. THE RELATION OP THE RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT TO GOD, OR A DISCOURSE OP INSPIRATION. CHAP. I. The Idea and Conception of God, . . . .119 II. The Relation of Nature to God, . . . . ^ 127 III. Statement of the Analogy drawn from God's Relation to Nature, 135 IV. The General Relation of Supply to Want, . . 136 V. Statement of the Analogy from this Relation, . .141 VI. The Rationalistic View, or Naturalism, . .. 146 VII. The Anti-rationalistic View, or Supernaturalism, . 154 VIII. The Natural-Religious View, or Spiritualism, . 160 Vlll CONTENTS. BOOK III. THE RELATION OP THE RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT TO JESUS OP NAZARETH, OR A DISCOURSE OP CHRISTIANITY. CHAP. I. Statement of the Question, and the Method of Inquiry, 177 II. Eemoval of some Difficulties Character of the Chris- tian Records, 184 III. The main Features of Christianity, . . . .189 IV. The Authority of Jesus, its real and pretended Source, 196 V. The Essential Peculiarity of the Christian Eeligion, . 210 VI. The Moral and Eeligious Character of Jesus of Nazareth, 216 VII. Mistakes about Jesus his Reception and Influence, 223 BOOK IV. THE RELATION OF THE RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT TO THE GREATEST OF BOOKS, OR A DISCOURSE OF THE BIBLE. CHAP. I. Position of the Bible Claims made for it Statement of the Question, 237 II. An Examination of the Claims of the Old Tertament to be a Divine, Miraculous, or Infallible Composition, 244 III. An Examination of the Claims of the New Testament to be a Divine, Miraculous, or Infallible Composition, 262 IV. The Absolute Religion Independent of Historical Do- cumentsThe Bible as it is, . . . . 272 V. Cause of the False and the Real Veneration for the Bible, 276 BOOK V. THE RELATION OP THE RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT TO THE GREATEST OF HUMAN INSTITUTIONS, OR A DISCOURSE OF THE CHURCH. CHAP. I. Claims of the Christian Church, .... 285 II. The Gradual Formation of the Christian Church, 291 III. The Fundamental and Distinctive Idea of the Christian Church Division of the Christian Sects, . . 304 IV. The Catholic Party, 307 V. The Protestant Party, 328 VI. Of the Party that are neither Catholics nor Protestants, 359 VII. The Final Answer to the Question, . . . .363 THE CONCLUSION, 369 THE INTRODUCTION. " To false Religion we are indebted for persecutors, zealots, and bigots ; and per haps human depravity has assumed no forms, at once more odious and despicable, than those in which it has appeared in such men. I will say nothing of persecution ; it has passed away, I trust for ever ; and torture will no more be inflicted, and mur- der no more committed, under pretence of extending- the spirit and influence of Christianity. But the temper which produced it still remains; its parent bigotry is still in existence ; and what is there more adapted to excite thorough disgust, than the disposition, the feelings, the motives, the kind of intellect and degree of knowledge discovered by some of those, who are pretending to be the sole defenders 1 nitrons of religious truth in this unhappy world, and the true and exclusive ^^Mirs of all the mercy of God ? It is a particular misfortune, that when gross errors iu religion prevail, the vices of which I speak show themselves especially in the clergy ; and that we find them ignorant, narrow-minded, presumptuous, and, as far as they have it in their power, oppressive and imperious. The disgust which this character in those who appear as ministers of religion, naturally produces, is often transferred to Christianity itself. It ought to be associated only with that form of religion by which those vices are occasioned." ANDREWS NORTON, Thoughts on true and false Religion, second edition, pp. 15, 16. THE INTRODUCTION. THE history of the world shows clearly that Religion is the highest of all human concerns. Yet the greatest good is often subject to the worst abuse. The doctrines and cere- monies that represent the popular religion at this time, offer a strange mingling of truth and error. Theology is often confounded with religion ; men exhaust their strength in believing, and have little Reason to inquire with, or solid Piety to live by. It requires no prophet to see that what is popularly taught and accepted as religion is no very divine thing; not fitted to make the world purer, and man more worthy to live in it. In .the popular Belief of the present, as of all time, there is something mutable and fleeting; something also which is eternally the same. The former lies on the surface, and all can see it ; the latter lies deep and often escapes observation. Our theology is mainly based on the superficial and transient element. It stands by the forbearance of the sceptic. They who rely on it, are always in danger and always in dread. A doubt strongly put, shakes the pulpits of New England, and wakens the thunder of the churches; the more reasonable the doubt, the greater is the alarm. Do men fear lest the mountains fall? Tradition is always uncertain. " Perhaps yes, perhaps no," is all we can say of it. Yet is it made the basis of Religion. Authority is taken for Truth, and not Truth for Authority. Belief is made the Substance of Re- 4 THE INTRODUCTION. ligion, as Authority its Sanction, and Tradition its Ground. The name of Infidel is applied to the best of men, the wisest, the most spiritual and heavenly of our brothers. The bad and the foolish naturally ask, If the name be deserved, what is the use of Religion, as good men and wise men can be good and wise, heavenly and spiritual, without it? The an- swer is plain but not to the blind. Practical Religion implies both a Sentiment and a Life. We honour a phantom which is neither life nor sentiment. Yes, we have two Spectres that often take the place of Re- ligion with us. The one is a Shadow of the sentiment ; that is our creed, belief, theology, by whatever name we call it. The other is the Ghost of Life ; this is our ceremonies, forms, devout practices. The two Spectres by turns act the part of Religion, and we are called Christians because we assist at the show. Real piety is expected of but few. He is the Christian that bows to the Idol of his Tribe, and sets up also a lesser, but orthodox idol in his own Den. One word of the Prophet is true of our religion Its voice is not heard in the streets. Our theology is full of confusion. They who admit Reason to look upon it confound the mat- ter still more, for a great revolution of thought alone can * set matters right. Religion is separated from Life, divorced from bed and board. We think to be religious without love for man, and pious with none for God; or, which is the same thing, that we can love our neighbour without helping him, and God without having an Idea of Him. The prevailing theology - represents God as a being whom a good man must hate ; / Religion as something alien to our nature, which can only \ rise as Reason falls. A despair of man pervades our theo- logy. Pious men mourn at the famine in our churches; we do not believe in the inspiration of goodness now; only in the tradition, of goodness long ago. For all theological purposes, God might have been buried after the ascension of Jesus. We dare not approach the Infinite One face to THE INTRODUCTION. 5 face ; we whine and whimper in our brother's name, as if we could only appear before the Omnipresent bj Attorney. Our reverence for the Past, is just in proportion to our ignorance of it. We think God was once everywhere in the world in the Soul; but has now crept into a corner as good as dead; that the Bible was his last word. Instead of the Father of All for our God, we have two Idols, the Bible, a record of men's words and works ; and Jesus of Nazareth, a man who lived divinely some centuries ago. These are the idols of the religious ; our standard of truth ; the gods in whom we trust. Mammon, the great Idol of men not religious who overtops them both, and has the truest wor- shippers need not now be named. His votaries know they are idolaters; the others worship in ignorance, their faith fixed mainly on transient things. I know there are exceptions to this rule. Saints never fail from the earth. Reason will claim some deserted niche in every church. But wise men grieve over our notions of religion ; so poor, so alien to Reason. Pious men weep over our practice of religion; so far from Christianity. What passes for Christianity in our times is not reasonable; no man pretends it. It can only be defended by forbidding a reasonable man to open his mouth. We go from the street to the church. What a change ! Reason and good sense and manly energy, which do their work in the world, have here little to do; their voice is not heard. The morality, however, is the same in both places; it has only laid oif its working dress, smoothed its face, put on its Sunday-clothes. The popular religion is hostile to man; tells us he is an outcast not a child of God, but a spurious issue of the devil. He must not even pray in his own name. His duty is an impossible thing. No man can do it. He deserves nothing but damnation. Theology tells him that is all he is sure of. It teaches the doctrine of immortality; but in such guise, that, if true, it is a misfortune to mankind. Its heaven is a place no man has a right to. Would a good A 2 THE INTRODUCTION. man willingly accept what is not his? pray for it? This theology rests on a lie. Men have made it out of assump- tions. The conclusions came from the premises; but the premises were made for the sake of the conclusions. Each vouches for the other's truth. But what else will vouch for either? The historical basis of popular doctrines, such as Depravity, Redemption, Resurrection, the Incarnation; is it formed of Facts or of No-Facts? Who shall tell us? Do not the wise men look after these things? One must needs blush for the patience of mankind. But has Religion only the bubble of Tradition to rest on ; no other sanction than Authority; no substance but Belief? They know little of the matter who say it. Did Religion begin with what we call Christianity? Were there no Saints before Peter? Religion is the first thing man learned ; the last thing he will abandon. There is but one Religion, as one Ocean; though we call it Faith in our church, and Infidelity out of our church. It is my design in these pages to recall men from the transient Form to the eternal Substance; from outward and false Belief to real and inward Life; from this partial Theology and its Idols of human device, to that universal Religion and its ever-living God; from the temples of hu- man Folly and Sin, which every day crumble and fall, to the inner sanctuary of the Heart, where the still small voice will never cease to speak. I would show men Religion as she is most fair of all God's fairest children. If I fail in this, it is the head that is weak, not the heart that is wanting. BOOK I. Who is there almost that has not opinions planted in him by education time out of mind; which by that means came to be as the municipal laws of the country, which must not be questioned, but are then looked on with reverence, as the stand- ard of right and' wrong, truth and falsehood, when perhaps these so sacred opinions are but the oracles of the nursery, or the traditional grave talk of those who pretend to inform our childhood ; who receive them from hand to hand without ever exa- mining them? .... These ancient preoccupations of our minds, these several and almost sacred opinions, are to be examined if we will make way for truth, and put our minds in that freedom which belongs and is necessary to them. A mistake is not the less so, and will never grow into a truth because we have believed it a long time, though perhaps it be the harder to part with ; and an error is not the less dan- gerous, nor the less contrary to truth, because it is cried up and had in veneration by any party." LOCKE, in KING'S Life of him, second edition; Vol. I. pp. 188, 192. BOOK I. OF RELIGION IN GENERAL ; OR A DISCOURSE OF THE RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT AND ITS MANIFESTATIONS. CHAPTER I. AN EXAMINATION OF THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT IN MAN, AND THE EXISTENCE OF ITS OBJECT. As we look on the world which man has added to that which came from the hand of its Maker, we are struck with the variety of its objects, and the contradiction between them. There are institutions to prevent crime; institutions that of necessity perpetuate crime. This is built on selfish- ness; would stand by the downfall of Justice and Truth. Side by side therewith is another, whose broad foundation is universal love love for all that are of woman born. Thus we see palaces and hovels ; jails and asylums for the weak, arsenals and churches, huddled together in the strangest and most intricate confusion. How shall we bring order out of this chaos; account for the existence of these contra- dictions'? It is serious work to decompose these phenomena, so various and conflicting; to detect the one cause in the many results. But in doing this, we find the root of all in Man himself. In him is the same perplexing antithesis which we meet in all his works. These conflicting things existed as ideas in him before they took their present and concrete shape. Discordant causes have produced effects 10 THE RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT. not harmonious. Out of man these institutions have grown; out of his passions or his judgment, his senses or his soul. Taken together, they are the exponent which indicates the character and degree of development the race has now at- tained; they are both the result of the past and the pro- phecy of the future. From a survey of society, and an examination of human nature, we come at once to the conclusion, that for every institution out of man, except that of Religion, there is a cause within him, either fleeting or permanent; that the natural wants of the body, the desire of food and raiment, comfort and shelter, have organized themselves, and insti- tuted agriculture and the mechanic arts ; that the more delicate principles of our nature, love of the Beautiful, the True, the Good, have their organization also ; that the pas- sions have their artillery, and each of the gentler emotions somewhat external to represent themselves, and reflect their image. Thus the institution of Laws, with their concomi- tants, the Court-house and the Jail, we refer to the Moral Sense of mankind, combining with the despotic selfishness of the strong, whose might often usurps the place of Justice. Factories and Commerce, Railroads and Banks, Schools and Shops, Armies and Newspapers, are quite easily referred to something analogous in the wants of man ; to a lasting principle, or a transient desire which has projected them out of itself. Thus we see that these institutions out of man are but the exhibitions of what is in him, and must be re- ferred either to eternal principles, or momentary passions. Society is the work of man. There is nothing in society which is not also in man. Now there is one vast institution, which extends more widely than human statutes ; claims the larger place in hu- man affairs ; takes a deeper hold on man than the terrible pomp of War, the machinery of Science, the panoply of Comfort. This is the institution of Religion, coeval and THE RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT. 11 coextensive with the human race. Whence comes this? Is there an eternal principle in man's nature, which legiti- mately and of necessity leads to this? or does it come, like Piracy, War, the Slave-trade, and so much other business of society, from the abuse, misdirection, and disease of human nature? Shall we refer this vast institution to a passing passion, which the advancing race will outgrow? or does it come from a principle in us deep and lasting as man? To this question, for many ages two answers have been given one foolish, and one wise. The foolish answer, which may be read in Lucretius and elsewhere, is, that Re- ligion is not a necessity of man's nature, which comes from the action of eternal demands within him, but is the result of mental disease, so to say the effect of fear, of ignorance, combining with selfishness; that hypocritical Priests and knavish Kings, practising on the ignorance, the credulity, the passions, and the fears of men, invented for their own sake, and got up a religion, in which they put no belief, and felt no spiritual concern. But judging from a superficial view, it might as well be said that food and comfort were not necessities of man's nature, but only cunning devices of butchers, mechanics, and artists, to gain wealth and power. Besides, it is not given to hypocrites under the mitre, nor over the throne, to lay hold on the world and move it. Honest conviction and living faith are needed for that work. To move the world of man, firm footing is needed. The hypocrite deceives few but himself, as the attempts at pious frauds, in ancient and modern times, abundantly prove. The wise answer is, that this institution of Religion, like Society, Friendship, and Marriage, comes out of a principle, deep and permanent in the heart; that as humble, and transient, and partial institutions come out of humble, tran- sient, and partial wants, and are to be traced to the senses and the phenomena of life ; so this sublime, permanent, and universal institution, came out from sublime, permanent, and universal wants, and must be referred to the soul, and 12 THE RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT. the unchanging realities of life. Looking, even superficially, but with earnestness, upon human affairs, we are driven to confess, that there is in man a spiritual nature, which directly and legitimately leads to Religion ; that as man's body is connected with the world of Matter rooted in it has bodily wants, bodily senses to minister thereto, and a fund of external materials, wherewith to gratify these senses, and appease these wants ; so man's soul is connected with the world of Spirit rooted in God; has spiritual wants and spiritual senses, and a fund of materials wherewith to gratify these spiritual senses, and appease these spiritual wants. If this be so, then do not religious institutions come equally from man? May it not be that there is nothing in Eeligion, more than in Society, which is not implied in man ? Now the existence of a religious element in us, is not a matter of hazardous and random conjecture, nor attested only by a superficial glance at the history of man, but this principle is found out, and its existence demonstrated in several legiti- mate ways. We see the phenomena of worship and religious obser- vances of religious wants, and actions to supply those wants. Work implies a hand that did, and a head that planned it. A sound induction from these facts carries us back to a re- ligious principle in man, though the induction does not determine the nature of this principle, except that it is the cause of these phenomena. This common and notorious fact of religious phenomena being found everywhere, can be explained only on the supposition that man is, by the neces- sity of his nature, inclined to Religion; that worship, in some form, gross or refined in act, or word, or thought, or life is natural and quite indispensable to the race. If the opposite view be taken, that there is no religious principle in man, then there are permanent and universal phenomena without a corresponding cause, and the fact remains unex- plained and unaccountable. THE RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT. 13 Again, we feel conscious of this element within us. We are not sufficient for ourselves ; not self-originated ; nor self-sustained. A few years ago, and we were not; a few years hence, and our bodies shall not be. A mystery is gathered about our little life. We have but small control over things around us j are limited and hemmed in on all sides. Our schemes fail. Our plans miscarry. One after another, our lights go out. Our realities prove dreams. Our hopes waste away. We are not where we would be, nor what we would be. After much experience, men powerful as Napoleon, victorious as CaBsar, confess, what simpler men knew by instinct long before, that it is not in man that walketh, to direct his steps. We find our circumference very near the centre, every where. An exceedingly short radius measures all our strength. We can know little of material things ; nothing but their phenomena. As the circle of our knowledge widens its ring, we feel our ignorance on more numerous points, and the Unknown seems greater than before. At the end of a toilsome life, we confess, with a great man of modern times, that we have wandered on the shore, and gathered here a bright pebble, and there a shining shell but the ocean of Truth, boundless and unfathomed, lies before us, and all unknown. The wisest Ancient knew only this, that he knew nothing. We feel an irresistible tendency to refer all outward things, and ourselves with them, to a power beyond us, sublime and mysterious, which we cannot measure, nor even comprehend. We are filled with reverence at the thought of this power. Outward matters give us the occasion which awakens consciousness, and spontaneous nature leads us to something higher than ourselves, and greater than all the eyes behold. We are bowed down at the thought. Thus the sentiment of some- thing superhuman comes natural as breath. This primitive, spiritual sensation comes over the soul, when a sudden cala- mity throws us from our habitual state ; when joy fills our cup to its brim, at " a wedding or a funeral, a mourning or 14 THE BELIGIOUS SENTIMENT. a festival ;" when we stand beside a great work of nature, a mountain, a waterfall ; when the twilight gloom of a pri- mitive forest sends awe into the heart ; when we sit alone with ourselves, and turn in the eye, and ask, What am I ? Whence came I ? Whither shall I go ? There is no man who has not felt this sensation, this mysterious sentiment of something unbounded. Still further, we arrive at the same result from a philoso- phical analysis of man's nature. We set aside the Body with its senses as the man's house, having doors and windows ; we examine the Understanding, which is his handmaid ; we separate the Affections, which unite soul with soul ; we dis- cover the Moral Sense, by which the man can discern be- tween right and wrong, as by the body's eye between black and white, or night and day ; and behind all these, and deeper down, beneath all the shifting phenomena of life, we discover the RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT OF MAN. Looking care- fully at this sentiment ; separating this as a cause from its actions, and these from their effects ; stripping the faculty of all accidental circumstances peculiar to the age, nation, sect, or individual, and pursuing a sharp and final analysis till the subject and predicate can no longer be separated ; we find as the ultimate fact, that the religious sentiment is this : A SENSE OF DEPENDENCE.* This sentiment does not, itself, disclose the character, and still less the nature and essence of the object on which it depends ; no more than the senses disclose the nature of their objects ; no more * The religious and moral elements mutually involve each other in practice; neither can attain a perfect development without the other ; but they are yet as distinct from one another as the faculties of sight and hearing, or memory and imagination. Perhaps all will not agree with that analysis which makes a sense of de- pendence the ultimate fact in the case. This is the statement of Schleiermacher, not to mention more ancient authorities. See his Christliche Glaube nach der Grund- satzen der ev. Kirche, B. I. 4, p. 15, et seq. in his Works; 1 Abt. B. III. Berlin, 1835- Of course a sense of infinite as well as finite dependence is intended. Others may call it a consciousness of the infinite; I contend less for the analysis than for the fact of a religious element in man. This theory has been assailed by several philoso- phers ; amongst others by Hegel. See his Philosophic der Religion, 2d improved edition, B. L p. 85, ,et seq. in B. XL of his Works, Berlin, 1840. THE RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT. 15 han the -eye or ear discovers the essence of light or sound. Like them, it acts spontaneously and unconsciously, soon as the outward occasion offers, with no effort of will, fore- thought, or making up the mind. Thus, then, it appears that induction from notorious facts ; \ consciousness spontaneously active, and a philosophical ana- / lysis of man's nature, all lead equally to some religious senti- j ment or principle as an essential part of man's constitution, f Now when it is stated thus nakedly and abstractly, that > man has in his nature a permanent religious element, it is not easy to see on what grounds this primary quality can be denied by any thinking man, who will notice the religious phenomena in history, trust his own consciousness, or exa- mine and analyze the combined elements of his own Being. It is true, men do not often say to themselves, " Go to now. Lo, I have a religious sentiment in the bottom of my heart." But neither do they often say, " Behold, I have hands and feet, and am the same being that I was last night or forty years ago." In a natural and healthy state of mind, men rarely speak or think of what is felt unconsciously to be most true, and the basis of all spiritual action. It is, in- deed, most abundantly established, that there is a religious element in man. 16 IDEA OF GOD. CHAPTER II. OF THE SENTIMENT, IDEA, AND CONCEPTION OF GOD. Now the existence of this religious element of this sense of dependence, this sentiment of something without bounds, is itself a proof by implication of the existence of its object, something on which dependence rests. A belief in this relation between the feeling in us, and its object indepen- dent of us, comes unavoidably from the laws of man's nature. ; There is nothing of which we can be more certain.* A natural want in man's constitution implies satisfaction in some quarter, just as the faculty of seeing implies something .to correspond to this faculty, namely, objects to be seen and a medium of light to see by. As the tendency to love im- plies something lovely for its object, so the religious sen- timent implies its object. If it is regarded as a sense of absolute dependence, it implies the Absolute on which this dependence rests, independent of ourselves. Now spiritual, like bodily faculties, act jointly, and not one at a time, and when the occasion is given from without us, Reason, spontaneously, independent of our forethought and volition, acting by its own laws, gives us, by intuition, an IDEA of that on which we depend. To this Idea we give * The truth of the human faculties must be assumed in all arguments ; and if this be admitted, we have then the same evidence for spiritual facts as for the maxims or the demonstrations of Geometry. If any one denies the trustworthiness of the human faculties, there can be no argument with him ; the axioms of morals and of mathematics are alike nonsense to such a reasoner. Demonstration presupposes \ something so certain that it requires no demonstrating. So Reasoning presupposes the trustworthiness of Reason. IDEA OF GOD. 17 the name of GOD or GODS as it is represented by one or several separate conceptions. Thus the existence of God is implied by the natural sense of dependence, in the religious sentiment itself; it is expressed by the spontaneous intui- , tion of Eeason. Now men come to this Idea early. It is the logical con- dition of all other ideas ; without this as an element of our consciousness, or lying latent, as it were, and unrecognised in us, we could have no ideas at all. The senses reveal to us something external to the body, and independent thereof, on which it depends; they tell not what it is. Con- sciousness reveals something in like manner not the soul only, but its absolute ground, on which the soul depends. Outward circumstances furnish the occasion by which we \ approach and discover the Idea of God; but they do not furnish the Idea itself. That is a fact given by the nature of man. Hence some philosophers have called it an innate idea ; others a reminiscence of what the soul knew in a higher state of life before it took the body. Both opinions may be regarded as rhetorical statements of the truth that the Idea of God is a fact given by man's nature, and not an invention or device of ours. The belief in God's existence therefore is natural not against nature. It comes unavoid- ably from the legitimate action of Reason and the religious sentiment, just as the belief in light comes from using the eyes, and belief in our existence from mere existing. The knowledge of God's existence, therefore, may be called an INTUITION OF REASON in the language of Philosophy ; or a REVELATION FROM GOD, in the language of the elder The- logy. If the above statement be correct, then our belief in God's t existence does not depend on the a posteriori argument on considerations drawn from the order, fitness and beauty dis- covered by observations made in the material world; nor yet on the a priori argument on considerations drawn B 2 18 IDEA OF GOD. from the eternal nature of things, and observations made in the spiritual world. It depends primarily on no argument whatever, not on reasoning but Eeason. The fact is given outright, as it were, and comes to the man, as soon and as naturally, as the consciousness of his own existence, and is indeed logically inseparable from it, for we cannot be con- scious of ourselves except as dependent beings. / This intuitive perception of God is afterwards fundamen- tally and logically established by the a priori argument, and beautifully confirmed by the d posteriori argument ; but we are not left without the Idea of God till we become meta- physicians and naturalists, and so can discover it by much thinking. It comes spontaneously, by a law, of 'whose ac- tion we are, at first, not conscious. The belief always pre- cedes the proof; intuition gives the thing to be reasoned about. Unless this intuitive function be performed, it is not possible to attain a knowledge of God. All arguments to that end must be addressed to a faculty which cannot origi- nate the Idea of God, but only confirm it when given from some other quarter. Any argument is vain when the logi- cal condition of all argument has not been complied with.* If the reasoner, as Dr. Clarke has done, presuppose that his opponent has " no transcendent idea of God," all his reason- ing could never produce it, howsoever capable of confirming and legitimating that idea if already existing in the con- sciousnesss. As we may speak of sights to the blind, and sounds to the deaf, and convince them that things called sights and sounds actually exist, but can furnish no Idea of those things when there is no corresponding sensation; so we may convince a man's understanding of the soundness of our argumentation, but yet give him no Idea of God un- less he have previously an intuitive sense thereof. Without * Kant lias abundantly shown the insufficiency of all the philosophical arguments for the existence of God, the physico-theological, the cosmological, and the ontolo- gical ; Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 7th edition, p. 444, et seq. But the fact of the Idea given in man's nature cannot be got rid of. IDEA OF GOD. 19 the intuitive perception, the metaphysical argument gives us only an idea of abstract Power and Wisdom ; the argu- ment from design gives only a limited and imperfect Cause for the limited and imperfect effects. Neither reveals to us the Infinite God. The Idea of God, then, transcends all possible external experience, and is given by intuition, or revelation, which comes of the joint and spontaneous action of Reason and the religious sentiment.* Now theoretically this Idea in- volves no contradiction, and is perfect : that is, when the proper conditions are complied with, and nothing disturbs the free action of the soul, we receive the Idea of a Being, infinite in Power, Wisdom, and Goodness ; that is, infinite, or perfect, in all possible relations. But practically, in the majority of cases, these conditions are not observed; men attempt to form a complex and definite conception of God. The primitive Idea, eternal in man, is lost sight of. The conception of God, as men express it in their language, is always imperfect, sometimes self-contradictory and impos- sible. Human actions, human thoughts, human feelings yes, human passions and all the limitations of mortal man, are collected about the Idea of God. Its primitive simpli- city and beauty are lost. It becomes self-destructive ; and the conception of God, as many minds set it forth, like that of a Griffin, or Centaur, or " men whose heads do grow be- neath their shoulders," is self-contradictory; the notion of a being who, from the very nature of things, could not exist. They for the most part have been called Atheists who denied the popular conception of God, showed its inconsistency, and proved that such a being could not be.t The early , * The Idea of God, like that of Liberty and Immortality, may be called & judg- ment a priori, and from the necessity of the case transcends aU objective experience, as it is logically anterior to it. t The best men have often been branded as Atheists. The following benefactors of the world have borne that stigma: Thales, Anaxagoras, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Xenophanes, and both the Zenos ; Cicero, Seneca, Abelard, Galileo, Kepler, Des Cartes, Leibnitz, Wolf, Locke, Cudworth, Samuel Clarke, Jacob Bohme ; 20 CONCEPTION OF GOD. Christians and all the most distinguished and religious philo- sophers have borne that name, simply because they were too far before men for their sympathy, too far above them for their comprehension, and because, therefore, their Idea of God was sublimer and nearer the truth than that held by their opponents. Now the conception we form of God, under the most per- fect circumstances, must, from the nature of things, fall short of the reality. The finite can form no adequate con- ception or imagination of the Infinite. All the conceptions of the human mind are conceived under the limitation of Time and Space of dependence on a cause exterior to it- self; while the Infinite is necessarily free from these limi- tations. Man can comprehend no form of being but his own finite form, which answers to the Supreme Being even less than a grain of dust to the world itself. There is no conceivable ratio between Finite and Infinite.* Our human personal! tyt gives a false modification to all our conceptions Kant and Fichte, and Schelling and Hegel, are still under the ban. See some curious details of this subject in Reimmann's Historia Atheism!, of the mark. See the discussion of the same subject, and a very different conclu \ sion, in Paley's Moral Philosophy, and Dymond's Essays. UNIVERSAL IN MAN. ing within us, and this alone, renders Religion the dutyj"' the privilege, and the welfare of mankind. Thus Religion is not a superinduction upon the race, as some would make it appear not an after-thought of God interpolated in human affairs, when the work was otherwise complete; but it is an original necessity of man's nature; the religious sentiment is deep, and essentially laid in the very foundation of man. I. Now this rpligrjni^ glpmpTjf f jg imivftrgfll This may be -\ proved in several ways. Whatever exists in the fundamen- / tal nature of one man, exists likewise in all men, though in \ different degrees, and variously modified by different circum- stances. Human nature is the same in the men of all races, ages, and countries. Man remains always identical; only the differing circumstances of climate, condition, culture, race, nation and individual, modify the manifestations of what is at bottom the same. Races, ages, nations and in- dividuals, differ only in the various degrees they possess of particular faculties, and in the development or 'the neglect of these faculties. When, therefore, it is shown that the religious sentiment exists as a natural principle in any one man, its existence in all other men that are, were, or shall be, follows unavoidably from the unity of human nature. Again, the universality of the religious element is con- firmed by historical arguments, which also have some force. We discover religious phenomena in all lands, wherever man is found. They appear alike in the rudest and most civilized state; among the cannibals of New Zealand, and the refined voluptuaries of old Babylon; in the Esquimaux fisherman and the Parisian philosopher. The history of man shows no period in which these phenomena do not appear. Man worships in spirit; feels dependence and accounta- bility, and gives signs of these spiritual emotions all the world over. No nation has been found so savage that they have not attained this none so refined as to outgrow it. The widest observation, therefore, as well as a philosophical 24 THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT and necessary deduction from the nature of man, warrants the conclusion that this sentiment is universal.* But there are some apparent exceptions to this rule, at first glance. A few persons from time to time arise and claim the name of Atheist. But even they admit that they feel this religious tendency ; they acknowledge a sense of dependence, which they refer, not to the sound action of a natural element in their constitution, but to a disease of the soul, to the influence of culture, the instruction of their nurses, and count it as an obstinate disease of their mind, or else a prejudice, early imbibed and not easily removed. t Even if some one could be found who denied that he ever felt any religious emotion whatever, however feebly, this would prove nothing against the universality of its exist- ence, and no more against the general rule of its manifesta- tion, than the rare fact of a child born with a single arm, proves against the general rule that man by nature has two arms. t Again, travellers tell us some nations have no God, no } Priests, no Worship, and therefore give no sign of the ex- / istence of the religious element in them. Admitting they state a fact, we are not to conclude the religious element is wanting in the savages ; only that they, like infants, have not attained the proper stage when we could discover signs of its action. But these travellers are mistaken. t Their * Empirical observation alone would not teach the universality of this element, unless it were detected in each man, for a generalization can never go beyond the facts it embraces; but observation, so far as it goes, confirms the abstract conclusion which we reach independent of observation. t See Hume's Natural History of Religion, Introduction. Essays, Lond. 1822, Vol. II. p. 379. t It seems surprising that so acute a philosopher as Locke (Essays, B. I. ch. 4, 8) should prove a negative by hearsay, and assert on such evidence as Rhoe, Jo. de Lery, Martiniere, Tory, Ovington, &c., that there were " whole nations amongst whom there was to be found no notion of a God, no religion." See the able remarks of his friend Shaftesbury (who is most unrighteously reckoned a speculative enemy to re- ligion) against this opinion, in his Characteristics, ed. 1758, Vol. IV. p. 81, et seg., 8th Letter to a Student, fcc. Some writers seem to think Christianity is never safe until they have shown, as they fancy, that men cannot, by the natural exercise of UNIVERSAL IN MAN. 25 observations have, in such cases, been superficial, made with \ but a slight knowledge of the manners and customs of the nation they treat of. And, besides, their prejudice blinded their eyes. They looked for a regular worship, doctrines of religion, priests, temples, images, forms and ceremonies. But there is one stage of religious development in which \ none of these signs appear ; and yet the religious sentiment j is at its work. The travellers, not finding the usual signs of worship, denied the existence of worship itself, and even of any religious element in the nation. But if they had found a people ignorant of cookery, and without the imple- ments of that art, it would be quite as wise to conclude from this negative testimony, that the nation never ate nor drank. On such evidence, the early Christians were convicted of Atheism by the Pagans, and subsequently the Pagans by the Christians. * There is still one other case of apparent exception to the rule. Some persons have been found, who in early child- hood were separated from human society, and grew up to- wards the years of maturity in an isolated state, having no contact with their fellow-mortals. These give no signs of his faculties, attain a knowledge of even the simplest and most obvious religious truths. Many foolish books have been based on this idea, which is yet the staple of many sermons. It is not long since the whole nation of the Chinese were accused of Atheism, and that by writers so respectable as Le Pere de Sainte Marie, and Le Pere Longobardi. See, who will, Leibnitz's refutation of the charge. Opp. ed. Dutens, Vol. IV. Part I. p. 170, et seg. * Winslow, with others, at first declared the American Indians had no religion or knowledge of God ; but he afterwards corrected his mistake. See Francis's Life of ) Eliot, p. 32, et seq. Even Meiners, Kritische Geschichte der Religionen, VoL I., ( p. 11-1 2, admits there is no nation without religious observances. See also Catlin's Letters, &c. on the North American Indians, New York, 1841, Vol. I. p. 156. See / also iu Pritchard's Physical_History of Mankind, 4th ed., London 1841, Vol. I. p. iss. the statements relative to the Esquimaux, and his correction of the erroneous and ill-natured accounts of others. If any nation is destitute of religious opinions and observances, it must be the Esquimaux, and the Bushmen of South Africa, who i to be the lowest of the human race. But it is clear, from the statements of travellers and missionaries, that both have religious sentiments and opinions. See some of/ the most important evidence collected in Pritchard. admitted it as a fact ttnim-fuUtt acknoc-^^c/ed, that there \\a- 26 THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT the religious sentiment in their nature. But other univer- sal faculties of the race, the tendency to laugh, and to speak articulate words, give quite as little sign of their existence.* But when these unfortunate persons are exposed to the ordinary influence of life, the religious, like other faculties, does its work. Hence we may conclude it existed, though dormant until the proper conditions for its development were supplied. These three apparent exceptions serve only to confirm the rule that the religious sentiment, like the power f attention, thought, and love, is universal in the race. However, like other faculties, this is possessed in different degrees by different races, nations, and individuals, and at particular epochs of the world's or the individual's history acquires a predominance it has not at other times. It seems God never creates two races, nations, or men, with precisely the same endowments. There is a difference, more or less striking, between the intellectual, aesthetic, and moral de- velopment of two races, or nations, or even between two men of the same race and nation. This difference seems to be the effect, not merely of the different circumstances whereto they are exposed, but also of the different endowments with which they set out. If we watch in history the gradual development and evolution of the human race, we see that one nation takes the lead in the march of mind, pursues science, literature, and the arts; another in war, and the practical business of political thrift; while a third nation, prominent neither for science nor political skill, takes the lead in Religion, and in the comparative purity of its reli- gious conceptions surpasses both. Three forms of monotheistic Religion have, at various ( times, come up in the world's history. Two of them at this } moment outnumber the votaries of all other religions, and [ divide between them the more advanced civilization of man- * See a collection of the most remarkable of these cases in Jahn's Appendix Hcr- meneuticse, etc. Vieunse 1815, Vol. II. p. 208, et seq., and the authors there cited. UNIVERSAL IN MAN. 27 kind. These three are the Mosaic, the Christian, and the \ Mahometan ; all recognizing the unity of God, the religious / nature of man, and the relation between God and man. All J of these, surprising as it is, came from one family of men, who spoke, in substance, the same language, lived in the same country, and had the same customs and political insti- tutions. Even that wide-spread and more monstrous form of Religion, which our fathers had in the wilds of Europe, betrays its likeness to this Oriental stock; and that form, still earlier, which dotted Greece all over with its temples, and filled the isles of the Mediterranean with its solemn and mysterious chant, came obviously from the same source.* The beautiful spirit of the Greek, modified, enlarged, and embellished what oriental piety alone called down from the Empyrean. The nations now at the head of modern civili- zation do not appear possessed of creative religious genius, so to say, for each form of worship that has prevailed with them is derived from some other race, and has perhaps lost more than it has gained by the transfer. These nations are more scientific than religious; reflective rather than spon- taneous; utilitarian more than reverential; and, so far as history informs us, have never created a mode of Religion. Their faith, like their choicer fruits, is an importation from abroad, not an indigenous plant, though now happily naturalized, and rendered productive in their soil. Of all nations hitherto known, these are the most disposed to reflection, literature, science, and the practical arts; while the Shemitish tribes are above all others religious, and have an influence in history entirely disproportionate to their \ numbers, their arts, their science, or their laws. Out of the( heart of this ancient people flowed forth that triple stream ] of pious life, which even now gives energy to the pulsations/ of the world. Egypt and Greece have stirred the intellect \ * This Orientalism of the religious opinions among the Europeans has led to some very absurd conceits. See a notorious instance in Davie's Mythology of the Druids. 28 THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT of mankind, and spoken to our love of the Grand, the Beautiful, the True faculties that lie deep in us. But this Oriental people have touched the soul of man, and awakened reverence for the Good, the Holy, the Altogether Beautiful, which lies in the profoundest deep of all. The religious element appears least conspicuous, perhaps, in some nations of Australia : with savages in general it is in its infancy, like all the nobler attributes of man; but as man developes his nature, this faculty becomes more and more apparent.* II. Again. This element is indestructible in human nature. It is not in the power of caprice within, nor external circum- stances, war or peace, freedom or slavery, ignorance or re- finement, wholly to abolish or destroy it. Its growth may be retarded, or quickened ; its power misdirected, or suffered to flow in its proper channel. But no violence from within, no violence from without, can ever destroy this element. It were as easy to extirpate hunger and thirst from the sound living body, as this sentiment from the soul. It may sleep : it never dies. Kept down by external force to-day, it flames up to heaven in streams of light to-morrow. When perverted from its natural course, it writes, in devastation, its chronicle of wrongs a horrid page of human history which proves its awful and mysterious power, as the strength of the human muscle is proved by the distortions of the maniac. Sensual men, who hate the restraints of Religion, who know nothing of its encouragements, strive to pluck up by the roots this plant which God has set in the midst of the Garden. But there it stands the tree of Knowledge, the tree of Life. Even such as boast the name of Infidel and Atheist find, unconsciously, repose in its wide shadow, and refreshment in its fruit. It blesses obedient man. He who violates the divine law, and thus would wring this feel- 'l * M. Comte takes a very different view of the matter, and has both fact and philo- ( sophy against him. INDESTRUCTIBLE IN MAN. 29 ing from his heart, feels it, like a heated iron, in the marrow of his bones. III. Still further. This religious sentiment is the strongest and deepest element in human nature. It depends on no- thing outside, conventional or artificial. It is identical in all men; not a similar thing, but the same. Superficially, man differs from man, in the less and more; but in the nature of the sentiment all agree, as in whatever is deepest and most divine. Out of the profoundest abyss in man proceed his worship, his prayer, his hymn, of/pra^e. The* history of the world shows us what a space Religion firfsT"^ She is the mother of Philosophy and the Arts ; has presided over the greatest wars. She holds now all nations with her unseen hand ; restrains their passions more powerfully than all the cunning statutes of the lawgiver; awakens their vir- tue ; allays their sorrows with a mild comfort all her own ; brightens their hopes with the purple ray of faith, shed through the sombre curtains of necessity. Religion founds society inspires the Lawgiver and t Artist is the deep-moving principle. Religion has call forth the greatest heroism of past ages ; the proudest deeds ** of daring and endurance have been done in her name. Without Religion, all the sages of a kingdom cannot build a city; but with it, a rude fanatic sways the mass of men. The greatest works of human art have risen only at Reli- gion's call. The marble is pliant at her magic touch, and seems to breathe a pious life. The chiseled stone is instinct with a living soul, and stands there, silent, yet full of hymns and prayers; an embodied aspiration, a thought with wings that mock at space and time. The Temples of the East, the Cathedrals of the west Altar and Column and Statue and Image these are the tribute Art pays to her. Whence did Michael Angelo, Phidias, Praxiteles, and all the mighty sons of Art, who chronicled their *w?45rthoughts in stone, shaping brute matter to a divine form, or building up the 2 30 THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT pyramid and colonnade, or forcing the hard elements to swell into the arch, aspire into the dome or the fantastic tower, whence did they draw their inspiration? All their greatest wonders are wrought in Religion's name. In the very dawn of time. Genius looks through the clouds and lifts up his voice in hymns and songs and stories of the Gods, and the Angel of Music carves out her thanksgiving, her penitence, her prayers for man, on the unseen air, as a votive gift for her. Her sweetest note, her most majestic chant, she breathes only at Religion's call. Thus it has al- ways been. Men are found without cities, towns, houses without lights for the dark, or clothes for the cold ; without Religion no nation. A thousand men will become celi- bate monks for Religion. Would they for Gold, or Ease, or Fame? The greatest sacrifices ever made are offered in the name of Religion. For this, man will forego ease, peace, friends, society, wife and child, all that mortal flesh holds dearest; no danger is too dangerous no suffering too stern to bear, if Religion say the word. Simeon the Stylite will stand years long on his pillar's top ; the devotee of Budha and Fo tear off his palpitating flesh to serve his God. The Pagan idolator, bowing down to a false image of Stone, renounces his possessions, submits to barbarous and cruel rites, shame- ful mutilations of his limbs ; gives the first-born of his body for the sin of his soul; casts his own person to destruction, because he dreams Baal or Saturn, Jehovah or Moloch, de- mands the sacrifice. The Christian idolator, doing equal homage to a lying thought, gives up Common Sense, Reason, Conscience, Love of his brother, at the same fancied man- date ; is ready to credit the most obvious absurdities, accept contradictions, do what conflicts with the moral sense ; be- lieve dogmas that make life dark, eternity dreadful, man a worm, and God a tyrant dogmas that make him count as cursed half his brother men, because told such is his duty, in the name of Religion. In this name Thomas More, the THE STRONGEST IN MAN. 31 ablest head of his times, will believe a bit of bread becomes ) the Almighty God, when a lewd priest mumbles his juggling S Latin, and lifts up his hands. In our day, heads able as * Thomas More's believe doctrines quite as absurd, because taught as Eeligion, and God's command. In its behalf, the most foolish teaching becomes acceptable ; the foulest doc- trines, the grossest conduct crimes that, like the fabled banquet of Thyestes, might make the sun sicken at the sight and turn back affrighted in his course, these things are counted as beautiful, superior to Reason, acceptable to God. The wicked man may bless his brother in crime tba.uiM'igktefKftB blast the holy with his curse, and devotees shall shout " Amen!" to both the blessing and the ban. On what other authority have rites so bloody been ac- \ cepted? or doctrines so false to reason, so libellous of God? ( For what else has man achieved such works, and made such f sacrifice 1 ? In what name but this, will the man of vast and { far out-stretching mind, the Counsellor, the Chief, the Sage, j the native King of men, forego the vastness of his thought, ( put out his spirit's eyes, and bow him to a drivelling wretch / who knows nothing but treacherous mummery and juggling j tricks'? In Religion this has been done from the first false prophet to the last false priest, and the pride of the Un- derstanding is abased ; the supremacy of Reason degraded ; the majesty of Conscience trampled on; the beautifulness of Faith and Love trodden down into the mire of the streets. The hand, the foot, the eye, the ear, the tongue, the most sacred members of the body judgment, imagination, the over-mastering faculties of mind justice, mercy, and love, the fairest affections of the soul, all these have been reckoned a poor and paltry sacrifice, and lopped off at the shrine of God as things unholy. This has been done, not only by Pagan polytheists, and savage idolaters, but by Christian devotees, accomplished scholars, the enlightened men of enlightened times. These melancholy results, which are but aberrations of ^ 32 THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT THE STRONGEST IN MAN. the religious sentiment the disease, not the soundness of mankind have often been confounded with Eeligion itself, or regarded as its legitimate fruit. Hence men have said, "such results prove that Religion itself is a popular fury; the foolishness of the people ; the madness of mankind." They prove a very different thing. They show the depth, the strength, the awful power of that element, which thus can overmaster all the rest of man, passion and conscience, reason and love. Tell a man his interest requires a sacrifice, he hesitates; convince him his Religion demands it, and crowds rush at once, and joyfully, to a martyr's fiery death. It is the best things that are capable of the worst abuse; the very abuse may test the value.* * On this theme, see the forcible and eloquent remarks of Professor Whewell, in his Sermons on the foundation of morals, 2d edition, p. 28, et seq., a work well worthy, in its spirit and general tone, of his illustrious predecessors, "the Latitude men about Cambridge," in the brightest noon of England's intellect. IDEA OF RELIGION. 33 CHAPTER IV. THE IDEA OF RELIGION CONNECTED WITH SCIENCE AND LIFE. Now the legitimate action of the religious element produces ") reverence. This reverence may ascend into Trust, Hope, C and Love, which is according to its nature ; or descend into ( Doubt, Fear, and Hate, which is against its nature. It thus J rises, or falls, as it coexists in the individual with wisdom ( and goodness, or with ignorance and vice. However, the ) legitimate and normal action of the religious sentiment leads k straightway, and of necessity, to reverence, absolute trust, ( and perfect love of God. These are the results of its sound ) and healthy action. Thus there can be but one kind of'/ Religion, as there can be but one kind of time and space. \ It may exist in different degrees, weak or powerful ; in J combination with other sentiments love or hate, with wis-/ dom or folly; and thus it is superficially modified, just as\ love, which is always the same thing, is modified by the [ character of the man who feels it, and by that of the object ] to which it is directed. Of course, then, there is no differ- / ence but of wordsbetwe^n revealed Religion and natural Religion; for all actual Religion is. revealed in us ; or it could not be felt, and alTrevealed religion is .natural, or it would be of no use.* What is of use to man lies in the plane of * This distinction between natural and revealed religion is very old. But it is evidently a distinction inform, not in substance. The terms seem to have arisen from taking an exclusive view of some positive and historical form of religion : all religions claim to have been revealed. 34 IDEA OF RELIGION. his consciousness, neither above it nor below it. We may regard this one Religion from different points of view, and give corresponding names to our partial conceptions, which we have purposely limited, and so speak of natural and revealed religion Monotheistic, Polytheistic or Pantheistic, Pagan, Jewish, Christian, Mahometan religion. But in these cases the distinction indicated by the terms belongs to the thinker's mind, not to Religion itself, the object of thought. Historical phenomena of Religion vary in the more and less. Some express it purely and beautifully; others mingle foreign emotions with it, and but feebly re- present the pious feeling. p 10 a / feet: To determine the question what is Absolute that is, per- Religion, we are not to gather to a focus the scattered rays of all the various forms under which Religion has appeared in history, for we can never collect the Absolute from any number of imperfect phenomena; and besides, in making the search and forming an eclecticism from all the historical religious phenomena, we presuppose in ourselves . the criterion by which they are judged; namely, the Abso- lute itself which we seek to construct, and thus move only in a circle, and end where we began. To answer the ques- 1 tion, we must go back to the primitive facts of religious I consciousness within us. Then we iincl religion is VOLUN- TARY OBEDIENCE TO THE LAW OF GOD INWARD AND OUXWAfiP OBEDIENCE to that law he has written on our nature, revealed in various ways, through Instinct, Reason, Conscience, ..and the Religious Sentiment. Through it we regard Him as the absolute object of Reverence, Faith, and Love.* This obe- x^ * The above definition or Idea of Religion is not given as the only or the best that can possibly be given, but simply as my own, the best I can find ; if others have a better, I shall rejoice at it I will give some of the more striking that have been set forth by others. Plato: "A Likeness to God, according to our ability." John .fimith: "God is first Truth and primitive Goodness. True Religion is a vigorous efflux and emanation of both upon the Spirit of man, and therefore is called a par- RELIGION AND THEOLOGY. 35 dience may be unconscious, as in little children who have known no contradiction between duty and desire; and per- haps also in the perfect saint, to whom all duties are de- sirable, who has ended the contradiction by: willing Jiimself iifldla^will, and thus becoTp,ipfl t one with God. It may be conscious, as with many men whose strife is not yet over. e are, two tendencies, connected with Religion. One is speculative : here the man is employed in matters pertaining to Religion, to God, to man's religious nature, and his relation and connection with God. The result of this tendency is Theology. This is not Religion itself: it^ isjnan's thought about Religion j the, philosophy of divine things; the science of Religion. Its sphere is the mind of man. Religion and Theology are,no more than the stars with astronomy. Religion itself is always the same : Theology changes from age to age. The most various doctrines may exist in connection with Religion. But it depends not on them.* Theother tendencyjs_practical : here the man is employed ticipatiou of the divine nature Religion is a heaven-born thing ; the seed of God in the spirits of men whereby they are formed to a similitude and likeness of Himself." Iant: " Reverence for the moral law as a divine command." Scheming : " The union of the Finite and the Infinite." Fjfihj : " Faith in a moral government of the world/' Hqgel: "Morality becoming conscious of the fiw. uniy^ality of its concrete essence." This will convey no idea toone not acquainted with the peculiar phraseology of Hegel. It seems to mean, Perfect mind becoming conscious of itself. Schletermacher: "Immediate self-consciousness of the absolute dependence of all the finite on the infinite." Hase : ' ; Striving after the Absolute, which is in itself unattainable ; but by love of it man participates of the divine perfection." Wgllas- ton : An obligation to do what ought not to be omitted, and to forbear what ought not to be done." Jer,ejnv_JCaloi % = " The whole duty of man, comprehending in it justice, charity, and sobriety." * Much difficulty has arisen from this confusion of Religion and Theology ; it is one proximate cause of that rancorous hatred which exists between the theological parties of the present day. Each connects Religion exclusively with its own sec- tarian theology. But there were great men before Agamemnon ; good men before Moses. Theology is a natural product of the human mind. Each man has some notion of divine things that is, a theology; if he collect them into a system, it is a system of theology, which differs from that of every other man living. one Religion, thouglimanv Theologies. rv 36 KELIGION AND MORALITY. in acts of obedience to Religion, ^he result oO^a ...ten- dency is Morality. This is not Religion itself, but the life Religion demands. There may be morality deep and true with little Religion, for a sharp analysis separates between the religious and moral elements in man.* Morality is the , harmony between man's action and God's law; it is the sign of Religion. In its highest and only true form, it implies Religion, just as Wisdom implies Love. Eity^..pr Love of God, is the substance of Religion; morality, or love of man, its form : they mutually involve one another. Still experience shows that man may sjee and observe the distinc- tion between right and Avrong, clearly and disinterestedly, without consciously feeling as such, reverence, or love of God ; that is, he may be truly moral up to a certain point, without being religious, though he cannot be truly religious without at the same time being moral also. But in a harmo- nioiis man, the two are as practically inseparable as substance and form. The purely moral man, in the actions, thoughts, and feelings which relate to his fellow-mortal, obeys the eternal law of duty, revealed in his nature, as such, and from love of that law, without regard to its Author. The religious man obeys the same law, but regards it as the will of God. One rests in the Law, the other only in its Author. Now Religion itself must be the same thing in each man; not a similar thing, but just the same thing; differing only in degree, not in kind, and in its direction towards one or many objects; in both of which particulars it is influenced in some measure by external circumstances. Now, since man exists under most various conditions, and in widely different * ! seems plain, that the ethical and religious clement in man arc not the :-;mie : at least, that they are as unlike as Memory and Imagination, though, like those, they act most harmoniously in conjunction. It is true, we cannot draw a line between them as between sight and hearing, but this inability to tell where one begins and the other ends, is no argument against the separate existence of the faculties them- selves. See Kant. Religion, Vorrede. DIFFERENCES IN RELIGION. 37 degrees of civilization, it is plain that the religious element must appear under various forms, accompanied with various doctrines, as to the number and nature of its Objects the Deities; with various rites, forms, and ceremonies, as its means to appease, propitiate, and serve these Objects; with various organizations, designed to accomplish the purposes which Religion is supposed to demand; and in short, with apparently various and even opposite effects upon life and character. As all men are at bottom the same, but as no two nations or ages are exactly alike in character, circum- stances, or development, therefore, though the religious element be the same in all, we must expect to find that its manifestations are never exactly alike in any two ages or nations, though they give the same name to their form of worship. If we look still more minutely, we see that no *\ two men are exactly alike in character, circumstances, and / development, and therefore that no two men can exhibit / their Religion in just the same way, though they kneel at the same altar, and. pronounce the same creed. From the ( difference between men, it follows, that there must be as \ many different subjective conceptions of God, and forms of/ Religion, as there are men and women who think about \ God, and apply their thoughts and feelings to life. Hence, y though Religion itself is always the same in all, the doc- \ trines of Religion or theology the forms of Religion, or mode of worship and the practice of Religion, which is morality, cannot be the same thing in any two men, though one mother bore them, and they were educated in j the same way. The conception we form of God our no-^ tion about man of the relation between him and God of the duties which grow out of that relation, may be taken as the exponent of all the man's thoughts, feelings and life. They are therefore alike the measure and the result of the total development of a man, an age, or race. If these things are so, then the phenomena of Religion like those of , Science and Art must vary from land to land, and age to/ 38 RELIGIOUS PHENOMENA. age, with the varying civilization of mankind ; must be one thing in New Zealand and the first century, and something quite different in New England and the fifty-ninth century. They must be one thing in the wise man, and another in the foolish man. They must vary also in the same indivi- dual, for a man's wisdom, goodness, and general character, affect the phenomena of his Eeligion. The Religion of the &.^L boy and the man of Saul the youthjand Paul the aged Jaow unlike they appear ! The boy's prayer will not fill the "*" man's heart; nor the stripling son of Zebedee comprehend that devotion and life which he shall enjoy when he be- comes the saint mature in years. FOBMS OF RELIGION. 39 CHAPTER V. THE THREE GREAT HISTORICAL FORMS OF RELIGION, LOOKING at the religious history of the race, and especially at that portion of the human race which has risen highest in the scale of progress, we see that the various phenomena of Religion may be summed up in three distinct classes or types, corresponding to three distinct degrees of civiliza- tion, and almost inseparable from them. These are FETICH- ISM, POLYTHEISM, and MONOTHEISM. But this classification is imperfect, and wholly external, though of use for the present purpose. It must be borne in mind, that we never find a nation in which either mode prevails alone. No- thing is truer than this, that minds of the same spiritual growth see the same spiritual truth. Thus a savage saint, living in a nation of Idolaters or Polytheists, worships the one true God, as Jesus of Nazareth has done. In a Chris- tian land, superstitious men may be found, who are as much Idolaters as Nebuchadnezzar or Jeroboam. I. Fetichism denotes the worship of visible objects, such as beasts, birds, fishes, insects, trees, mountains, the stars, the sun, the moon, the earth, 'the sea and air, as types of the Infinite Spirit. It is the worship of Nature. * It includes * It will probably be denied by some that these objects were worshipped as sym- bols of the Deity. It seems, however, that even the most savage nations regarded their Idols only as Types of God. On this subject see Constant, Religion, &c., 5 vols. 1824; Oldendorp, Geschichte der Mission auf St. Thomas, &c., Barby 1777, p. 318, et seq. ; Comte, Cours de Philosophic positive, Vol. V. ; Stuhr. Allg. Gesch. der Religionsformen, 2 vols. Berlin 1838, 8vo ; Meiners, iihi supra., and the munerous 40 FETICHISM. many forms of religious observances that prevailed widely in ancient days, and still continue among savage tribes. It belongs to a period in the progress of the individual, or so- ciety, when civilization is low, the manners wild and bar- barous, and the intellect acts in ignorance of the causes at work around it; when man neither understands nature nor himself. Some writers suppose that the human race started at first with a pure Theism; for the knowledge of truth, say they, must be older than the perception of error, in this respect. It seems the sentiment of man would lead him to the ONE GOD. Doubtless it would, if the conditions of its action were perfectly fulfilled. But as this is not done in a state of ignorance and barbarism, therefore the religious sentiment mistakes its object, and sometimes worships the symbol more than the spirit it stands for. In this form, not only the common objects above enu- merated, but gems, metals, stones that fell from heaven,* images, carved bits of wood, stuffed skins of beasts, like the medicine -lags of the North -American Indians, are reckoned as divinities, and so become objects of adoration. t But in this case the visible object is idealized; not wor- shipped as the brute thing it really is, but as the type and symbol of God. Nature is an Apparition of the Deity, God- in a mask. Brute matter was never an object of adoration. " Thus the Egyptians, who worshipped the Crocodile, did accounts of the savage nations, by missionaries, travellers, &c. ; Catlin, ub i supra, Vol. I. p. 35 et seq., p. 88 et seq., p. 156 et seq., &c. * These Stone-fetiches are called Baetylia by the learned. Cybele was worshipped in the form of a black stone, in Asia Minor. Theophrast. Charact. 16 ; Lucian Psu- domant, 30. The ancient Laplanders also worshipped large stones called Seiteh. See Scheffer's Lappland. In the time of Pausanias, at Phorse, in Achaia, there were nearly thirty square stones, called by the names of the Gods, and worshipped. Lib. VII. ch. 22, ed. Lips. 1838. Vol. II. p. 618. Rough stones, he adds, formerly received divine honours universally in Greece. t See Catlin, ubi supra. See also Legis Fundgruben des Alten Nordens, 2 vols. 8vo, Leip. 1829, and his Alkuna, Nordische und Nord-Slawische Mythologie, Vol. I. 8vo, Leip. 1831; Mone, Geschichte tier Heidenthums in Nordlichen Europa, 2 vols. 8vo, Leip. 1822. See Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie, Gott. 1835, for this worship of nature in the North. FETICHISM. 41 not worship it as a Crocodile, but as a symbol of God, an appropriate one," says Plutarch, " for it alone of all animals has no tongue, and God needs none to speak his power and glory." Similar causes, it may be, led to the worship of other animals. Thus the Hawk was a type of divine foresight ; the Bull, of strength ; the Serpent, of mystery; the Savage did not worship the Buffalo, but the Manitou of all Buffaloes, the universal cause of each parti- cular effect. Still more, there is something mysterious about the animals. Their instinctive knowledge of coming storms, and other events; the wondrous foresight of the Beaver, the Bee ; the sagacity of the Dog ; the obscurity attending all their emotions, helped, no doubt, to procure them a place among powers greater than human. It is the Unknown they worship in common things; at this stage, man, whose emotions are understood, is never an object of adoration. J^ejicjiismjs_the _infa_ncy of Religion.* Here the religious sentiment is still in the arms of rude, savage life : sensa- tion prevails over reflection. It is a deification of nature : " All is God, but God himself." It loses the Infinite in the finite; worships the creature more than the Creator. Its lowest form for in this lowest deep there is a lower deep is the worship of beasts; the 'highest, the sublime but deceitful reverence which the old Sabean paid the host of Heaven, or which some Grecian or Indian philosopher offered to the Universe personifed, and called Pan, or ) Brahma. Then all the mass of created things was a Fetiche. ; God was worshipped in a sublime and devout, but bewilder- ing Pantheism : He was not considered as distinct from the Universe. Pantheism and Fetichism are nearly allied.t * Some writers have supposed there was a state anterior to the fetichistic, in which man had no religious ideas or emotions whatever. But the supposition is not only gratuitous, but unphilosophical also, for man being always the same, his essential wants are likewise the same, and differ only in the degree of their development. t In consequence of the opinion in fetichistic nations, that external things have a D 2 42 FETIOHISM. In the lowest form of this worship, so far as we can ga- ther from the savage tribes, each individual has his own peculiar fetiche a beast, an image, a stone, a mountain, or a star, a concrete and visible type of God ! For it seems, in this state, that all or most external things are supposed to have a life analogous in kind to ours, but more or less intense in degree. Tha^fiorinretpi form is hnt th^-raj] of God, like that before Isis in Egypt. There are no priests, for each man has access to his own deity at will. Worship and prayer are personal, and without mediators. The age of the priesthood, as a distinct class, has not come. Wor- ship is entirely free ; there is no rite, established and fixed. Theological doctrines are not yet formed. There are no mysteries in which each may not share. \^ This state of Fetichism continues as long as man is in the gross state of ignorance which renders it possible. Next, as the power of abstraction and generalization becomes en- larged, and the qualities of external nature are understood, there are concrete and visible Gods for the family; next for the tribe; then for the nation. But their power is sup- posed to be limited within certain bounds. A subsequent generalization gives an invisible but still concrete Deity for each department of nature the earth, the sea, the sky. -s. Now as soon as there is a Fetiche for the family, or the tribe, a mediator becomes needed to interpret the will, and ensure the favour of that fetiche to bring rain, or plenty, or success, and to avert impending evils. Such are the an- gekoks of the Esquimaux, the medicine-men of the Mandans, the jugglers of the negroes. Then a priesthood gradually springs up; at first possessing none but spiritual powers; at length it surrounds its God with mysteries ; excludes mysterious life, M. Comte, Cours de Philosophic positive, Paris 1830-41, Vol. V. p. 36, et seq., discovers traces of it in animals. "When a savage, a child, or a dog, first hears a watch tick, each supposes it endowed with life, " whence results, by natural consequence, a Fetichism, which, at bottom, is common to all three ! " Here he con- founds the sign with the cause. FETICHISM. 43 him from the public eye; establishes forms, sacrifices, and doctrines; limits access to the Gods; becomes tyrannical; aspires after political power, and founds a theocracy the worst of despotisms, the earliest, and the most lasting.* Still it has occupied a vast and indispensable position in the development of the human race. The highest form of Fetichism is the worship of the stars, > or of tne universe. Here it easily branches off into Poly- theism. Indeed it is impossible to tell where one begins and the other ends, for traces of each are found in all the others. The GREAT SPIRIT is worshipped, perhaps, in all stages of Fetichism : the Fetiche and the Manitou, visible types, are not the Great Spirit. But even in the worship of many Gods, or of ONE alone, traces of the ruder form still linger. The individual fetiche is preserved in the Amulet, worn as a charm ; in the figure of an animal paint- ed on the dress, the armour, or the flesh of the worshipper. The family fetiche survives in the household Gods the ' Penates of the Komans, the Teraphim of Laban, the Idol of Micah. The fetiche of the tribe still lives in the Lares of the Roman ; the patron God of each Grecian people ; in some animal treated with great respect , or idealized in art, as the Bull Apis, the brazen Serpent, Horses consecrated to the Sun in Solomon's Temple ;t in an image of the Deity, like the old wooden statues of Minerva, always religiously kept, or the magnificent figures of the Gods in marble, ivory, or gold, the productions of maturest art ; in some chosen * See at the end of Hodges' " Elihu," &c., London 1750, 1 vol. 4to, a striking ac- count of the manner in which religious forms are established, taken from a French publication which was burned by the common hangman at Paris. See also, on the establishment and influence of the priesthood upon Religion, Constant, ubi supra, Vol. II. Liv. III. IV. ; Vol. IV. passim. His judgment of the Priesthood, though often just, is sometimes too severe. Comte, ubi supra, Vol. V. p. 57, et seq. On the Priest- hood among savage nations, see Pritchard, ubi supra, VoL I. p. 206, et seq. ; Meiners, ubi supra, Vol. II. p. 481-602. t Vatke, Biblische Theologie, Vol. I., 1835, attempts to trace out the connection of Fetichism with the Jewish ritual, but sometimes sees Fetichisni, where nothing but prejudice could discover it, perhaps. 44 FETICHISM. symbol the Palladium, the Ancilia, the Ark of the Cove- nant. The fetiche of the nation, almost inseparably con- nected with the former, is still remembered in the mystical cherubim, and most holy place among the Jews; in the Olympian Jove of Greece, and the Capitoline Jupiter of Rome ; in the Image of the " Great Goddess Diana, which fell down from Jupiter." It appears also in reverence for particular places formerly deemed the local and exclusive residence of the fetiche, such as the Caaba at Mecca; IJe^ bron, Moriah, and Bethel in Judea; Delphi in Greece, and the great gathering places of the North-men in Europe; spots deemed holy by the superstitious even now, and there- fore made the site of Christian Churches.* Other and more general vestiges of Fetichism remain in the popular superstitions; in the belief of signs, omens, auguries, divination by the flight of birds, and other acci- dental occurrences; in the notion that unusual events, thun- der and earthquakes and pestilence, are peculiar manifesta- tions of God ; that he is more specially present in a certain place, as a Church, or time, as the Sabbath, or the hour of death ; is pleased with actions not natural, sacrifices, fasts, penance, and the like.t Perhaps no form of Religion has yet been adopted, which has not the stain of Fetichism upon it. The popular Christian theology is full of it. The names of the constellations are records of Fetichism that will long endure. I Under this form Religion has the smallest sound influence upon life. The religious affords but little aid to the moral element. The supposed demands of Religion seem capri- cious to the last degree, unnatural and absurd. The im- * See Mone, uU supra, Vol. I. p. 2& et seq., p. 43 et seq., p. 113 et seq., p. 249 et seq., and elsewhere. t The great religious festivals of the Christians, Yule and Easter, are easily traced back to siich an occasion, at least to analogous festivals of fetichistic or polytheistic people. The festival of John the Baptist must be put in the same class. See some details on this subject in a veiy poor book of Nork's, Der Mystagog, &c. I See Creutzer, Symbolik und Mythologie, 3d ed. VoL I. p. 30, et seq. FETICHISM. 45 perfect priesthood of necromancers and jugglers, which belong to this period, enhances the evil by multiplying rites, encouraging asceticism, laying heavy burthens upon the people demanding odious mutilations and horrible sa- crifices, often of human victims, in the name of God and in helping to keep Keligion in its infant state, by prohibit- ing the secular eye to look upon its mysterious jugglery, and forbidding the bans between Faith and Knowledge. Still this class, devoted to speculation and study, does great immediate service to the race by promoting science and art, and indirectly and against its will contributes to overturn the form it designs to support. The priesthood comes un- avoidably.* In a low form of Fetichism, a law of nature seems scarcely ever recognised. All things have a life of their own; all phenomena, growth, decay, and reproduction; the seasons of the year, the changes in the sky, and similar things, de- pend on the caprice of the Deities : the jugglers can make it rain; a witch can split the moon; a magician heal the sick. Law is resolved jnto miracle: the most cunning men, who understand the laws of nature better than others, are miracle-workers, magicians, priests, necromancers, astrolo- gers, soothsayers, physicians, general mediators and inter- < preters of the Gods ; as the Mandans called them, " great j medicine-men." t Then as men experience both joy and grief, pain and pleasure, and as they are too rude in thought to see that both are but different phases of the same thing, and afflic- tion is but success in a mask, it is supposed they cannot be the work of the same Divinity. Hence comes the wide * See the remarks of Lafltau, Mceurs des Sauvages Ameriquains, Polytheism which only makes him a slave, there is a great 5 gulf which it required long centuries to fill up and pass over. Anger has given place to Interest perhaps to Mercy. Without this change, with the advance of the art to destroy, the human race must have perished. By means of slavery the art of production was advanced; the Gibeonite and the Helot must work and not fight. Thus by forced labour, the repugnance against work, which is so powerful among the barbarous and half-civilized, is overcome ; systematic indus- try is developed; the human race is helped forward in this mysterious way. Both the theocratic and the military caste demanded a servile class, inseparable from the spirit of bar- barism, and the worship of many Gods ; which falls as that spirit dies out, and the recognition of one God, Father of all, drives selfishness out of the heart. In an age of Poly- theism, Slavery and War were in harmony with the institu- tions of society and the spirit of the age. Murder and Can- nibalism, two other shoots from the same stock, had enjoyed their day. All are revolting to the spirit of Monotheism at variance with its idea of life uncertain and dangerous monstrous anomalies full of deadly peril. The Priesthood of Polytheism, like all castes based on a lie, upheld the sys- tem of slavery, which rested on the same foundation with itself. The slavery of sacerdotal governments is more op- pressive and degrading than that of a military despotism : it binds the Soul makes distinctions in the nature of man. The Prophet would, free men ; but the Priest enslaves. As Polytheism does its work, and man developes his nature higher than the selfish, the condition of the slave is made better. It becomes a religious duty to free the bondsmen 58 TEMPORAL AND SPIRITUAL POWER. at their master's death, as formerly the priests had burned them on his funeral pile, or buried them alive in his tomb, to attend him in the realm of shades.* Just as civilization advanced, and the form of Eeligion therewith, it was found difficult to preserve the institution of ancient crime, which Sensuality and Sin clung to and embraced.t IV. Another striking feature of polytheistic influence was the union of power over the Body with power over the Soul the divine right to prescribe actions and prohibit thoughts. This is the fundamental principle of all theo- cracies. The Priests were the speculative class; their su- perior knowledge was natural power; superstition in the people and selfishness in the Priest converted that power into despotic tyranny. The military were the active caste ; superior strength and skill gave them also a natural power. But he who alone in an age of barbarism can foretell an eclipse, or poison a flock of sheep, can subdue an army by these means. At an early stage of polytheism, wa find the political subject to the priestly power. The latter holds * See, who will, the mingling of profound and superficial remarks on this subject in Montesquieu, ubi supra, Liv. XV.; Grotius, De Jure Belli ac Pacis, Lib. IIL ch. vii.-viii. ; Selden, De Jure Natural!, &c., ed. 1680, Lib. I. ch. v. p. 174, and Lib. VII. VIII. XII. et al. Wejieed only compare the popular opinion respecting -slavery among the Jews, with that of the Greeks or Romans in their best days, to see the influence of Monotheism and Polytheism in regard to this subject. See some re- murks on the. Jewish slavery in Michaelis's Laws of Moses. Slavery in the East has in general been of a much milder character than in any other portion of the world. Wolf somewhere says the Greeks received this relic of barbarism from the Asiatics. If so, they made the evil institution worse than they found it. According to Burck- hardt, it exists in a very mild form among the Mahometans, everywhere. Of course his remarks do not apply to the Turks, the most cruel of Mussulmen. N v Qj4ej!f_ ancient laws (to say nothing of modern legislation) was so humane as the Jewish in^. this respect. t See Comte, ubi supra, VoL V. p. 186, et seq. On the subject of slavery in Poly- theistic nations, see Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ed. Paris 1840, VoL I. ch. ii. p. 37, et seq., and the valuable notes of Milman and Guizot For the influence of Monotheism on this frightful evil, compare Schlosser, Geschichte der Alteu Welt. VoL III. Part III. ch. ix. 2, et al.; in particular the story of Paulinus, and Deo Gratias, p. 284 et seq., and p. 334 et seq., p. 427 et seq. ; and compare it with the conduct of Cato, as given by Plutarch, Life of Cato the Censor; and Schlosser, ubi supra, Vol. II. Part II. p. 189, et seq. TEMPORAL AND SPIRITUAL POWER. 59 communion with the Gods, whom none dare disobey. Ro- mulus, JE&cus, Minos, Moses, receive their laws from God. To disobey them, therefore, is to incur the wrath of the powers that hold the thunder and lightning. Thus man- ners and laws, opinions and actions, are subject to the same external authority. The theocratic governor controls the conscience and the passions of the people. Thus the radical evil, arising from the confusion between the Priests of dif- ferent Gods, was partially removed, for the spiritual and temporal power was lodged in the same hand. In some nations the Priesthood was inferior to the poli- tical power, as in Greece. Here the sacerdotal class held an inferior rank, from Homer's time to that of Laertius; the Genius of the nation demanded it. Accordingly there sprang up a body of men, neither political, sacerdotal, nor military the philosophers.* They could have found no place in any theocratic government but have done the world great religious service, building " wiser than they knew." It was comparatively easy for Art, Science, and all the great works of man, to go forward under such circumstances. Hence comes that wonderful development of mind in the country of Homer, Socrates, and Phidias. But in countries where the temporal was subject to the spiritual power, the reverse followed ; there was no change without a revolution. The character of the nation becomes monotonous; science, literature, morals, cease to improve. When the nation goes down, it " falls like Lucifer, never to rise again." The story of Samuel affords us an instance, among the Jews, of the sacerdotal class resisting, and successfully, the attempt to take away its power. Here the Priest, finding there must be a King, succeeded at length in placing on the throne a " man after God's own heart," that is, one who would sacri- * Perhaps none of the polytheistic nations offers an instance of the spiritual and temporal power existing in separate hands, when one party was entirely indepen dent of the other. The separation of the two was reserved for a different age, and will be treated of in its place. 60 WORSHIP OF MEN. fice as the Priest allowed. The effort to separate the tem- poral from the spiritual power, to disenthral mankind from the tyranny of sacerdotal corporations, is one of the great battles for the souls of the world. It begins early, and continues long. The contest shakes the earth in its time. V. Another trait of the polytheistic period is the deifica- ) tion of men.* Fetichism makes gods of cattle Polytheism ^ of men. This exaltation of men exerted great influence in the early stage of polytheism, when it was a real belief of the people and the priest, and not a verbal form, as in the decline of the old worship. Stout hearts could look forward to a wider sphere in the untrod world of spirit, where they could wield the sceptre of command, and sit down with the immortal Gods, renewed in never-ending youth. ' The ex- amples of ^acus, Minos, Rhadamanthus, of Bacchus and Hercules mortals promoted to the Godhead by merit and not birth crowned the ambition of the aspiring. The kindred belief that the soul, dislodged from its " fleshly nook," still had an influence on the affairs of men, and came, a guardian spirit, to bless mankind, was a powerful auxiliary in a rude state of religious growth a notion which has not yet faded out of the civilized world.t This worship seems unaccountable in our times : but when these men were sup- posed to be descendants of the Gods, or born miraculously, and sustained by superhuman power; or mediators between these and the human race ; when it was believed that they in life had possessed celestial powers, or were incarnations of * See Farmer on the Worship of Human Spirits, London 1783. Plutarch (Isis and Osiris) denies that human spirits were ever worshipped ; but he is opposed hy no- torious facts. See Creutzer, ubi supra, p. 137, et seq. The deification of human beings of course imph'ed a belief in the immortality of the human soul, and is one of the many standing proofs of that belief. See Heyne's remarks on Iliad, XXIII. 64 and 104, Vol. VIII. p. 368, 378, et seq. t The Christians began at an early age to imitate this, as well as other parts of the old polytheistic system. Eusebius, P. E. XIII. 11; Augustine, De Civitate Dei. VIII. 27. MORALS OF POLYTHEISM. 61 some deity or heavenly spirit, the transition to their Apo- theosis is less violent and absurd; it follows as a natural result. The divine being is more glorious when he has shaken off the robe of flesh.* Certain it is, this belief was clung to with astonishing tenacity, and, under several forms, still retains its place in the Christian church.f The moral effect of Polytheism, on the whole, is difficult to understand. However, it is safe to say it is greater than that of Fetichism. The constant evil of war in public, and slavery in private; the arbitrary character assigned to the Gods; the influence of the priesthood, laying more stress on the ritual and the creed than on the life; the exceeding outwardness of many popular forms of worship; the con- stant separation made between Religion and Morality; the indifference of the priesthood in Greece, their despotism in India, do not offer a very favourable picture of the in- fluence of Polytheism in producing a beautiful life. Yet, on the other hand, the high tone of morality which pervades the literature of Greece, the reverential piety displayed by poets and philosophers, and still more the undeniable fact of characters in her story, rarely surpassed in nobleness of aim and loftiness of attainment, these things lead to the opinion that the moral influence of this worship, when free from the shackles of a sacerdotal caste, has been vastly un- derrated by Christian scholars. $ * On this subject, see Meiners, vU supra, Vol. I. B. III. ch. i. and ii. t See in Gibbon (Decline and Fall, ch. xMi. 3), the lament of Serapion at the ^ loss of his concrete Gods. But it was only the Arian notions that deprived him of his finite God. Jerome condemns the Anthropomorphism of the Polytheists as stiiltissimam hceresin, but believed the divine incarnation in Jesus. See also Pruden- tius, Apotheosis, Opp. I. p. 430, et seq., London 1824. J The special influence of Polytheism upon morals differed with the different forms /- it assumed. In India it sometimes led to rigid asceticism, and lofty contemplative quietism; in Rome, to great public activity and manly vigour; in Greece, to a gay abandonment to the natural emotions; in Persia, to ascetic purity and formal de- votion. On this subject see the curious and able, but one-sided and partial treatise of Tholuck on the Moral Influence of Heathenism, in the American Biblical Repo- sitory, VoL II. He has shown up the dark side of heathenism, but seems to have no true conception of ancient manners and life. See Ackermann, das Christliche, in Plato, &c., ch. i. (See next page, note t-) F 62 MORALS OP POLYTHEISM. To trace the connection between the public virtue and the popular theology is a great and difficult matter, not to be attempted here. But this fact is plain, that in a rude state of life, this connection is slight, scarce perceptible : the popular worship expresses Fear, Reverence it may be perhaps a Hope or even Trust; but the services it de- mands are rites and offerings, not a divine life. As civiliza- tion is advanced, Religion claims a more reasonable service, and we find enlightened men, whom the spirit of God made wise, demanding only a divine life as an offering to Him. ( Spiritual men, of the same elevation, see always the same ( spiritual truth. We notice a gradual ascent in the scale of moral ideas, from the time of Homer, through Solon, Theo- gnis, the Seven Wise Men, Pindar, ^Eschylus, Sophocles, and the philosophers of their day.* The philosophers and sages of Greece and Rome recommend absolute goodness as the only perfect service of God. With them Sin is the disease of the soul Virtue its health ; a divine Life the true good of mankind Perfection the aim. None have set forth this more ably.t In the higher stages of Polytheism, man is regarded as fallen. He felt his alienation from his Father. Religion looks back longingly to the Golden Age, when Gods dwelt familiar with men. It seeks to restore the links broken out of the divine chain. Hence its sacrifices, and above all its mysteries,^ both of which were often abused, and made substitutes for holiness, and not symbols thereof. When War is a normal state, and Slavery is common, the * See the proof of this in Brandis, Geschichte der Philosophic, Vol. I. 24, 25. t See, on the moral culture of the Greeks, in special, Jacob's Vermischte Schriften, Vol. III. p. 374. He has done justice to both sides of this difficult subject. I Cicero, De Leg. II. See on this subject of the mysteries in general, Lobeck, Aglaophamus, sive de Theologise Mysticae Causis, Ac. Pars III. ch. iii. and iv. The mysteries seem sometimes to have offered beautiful symbols to aid man in returning to union with the Gods. Warburton, in spite of his erroneous views, has collected much useful information on this sxibject; Divine Legation, Book II. 4. But he sometimes sees out of him what existed only in himself. MORALS OF POLYTHEISM. 63 condition of one-half the human race is soon told. Woman is a tool or a toy : her story is hitherto the dark side of the world. If a distinction be made between public morality, private morality, and domestic morality, it may safely be said that Polytheism did much for the outward regulation of the two first, but little for the last. However, since there were Gods that watched over the affairs of the house- hold, a limit was theoretically set to domestic immorality, spite of the temptations which both slavery and public opi- nion spread in the way. When there were Gods, whose special vocation was to guard the craftsmen of a certain trade, protect travellers, and defenceless men when there were general, never-dying avengers of wrong, who stopped at no goal but justice, a bound was fixed, in some mea- sure, to private oppression. Man, however, was not honoured as man. Even in Plato's ideal State, the strong tyrannized over the weak; human selfishness wore a bloody robe; Pa- triotism was greater than Philanthropy. The popular view of sin and holiness was low. It was absurd for Mercury to conduct men to hell for adultery and lies. Heal thyself, the Shade would say. All Pagan antiquity offers nothing akin to our lives of pious men.* It is true, as St. Augus- tine has well said, " that matter which is now called the Christian religion was in existence among the ancients; it has never been wanting, from the beginning of the human race."t There is but one Religion, and it can never die out. Unquestionably there were souls beautifully pious, and devoutly moral, who felt the Kingdom of Heaven in their bosom, and lived it out in their lowly life. Still, it must be confessed, the beneficial influence of the public Religion of Polytheists on public and private virtue, was sadly weak. The popular life is determined, in some measure, by the popular conception of God, and that was low, and did not * But see in Plutarch the singular story of Thespesius, his miraculous conversion, &c. De sera Numinis Vindicta, Opp. II. ch. xxvii. p. 563, et seg., ert. Xylander. t Retract. 1. 13. See also Civ. Dei, VIII., and Cont Acad. III. 20. 64 MORALS OF POLYTHEISM. correspond to the pure idea of Him;* still the sentiment was at its work. But Eeligion was more obviously woven up with public life under this form, than under that which subsequently took its place. A wedding or a funeral, peace and war, seed-time and harvest, had each its religious rite. She was the mother of philosophy, of art, and science, though, like / Saturn in the fable, she sought to devour her own children, and met a similar and well-merited fate. Classic Polytheism led to contentedness with the world as it was, and a sound cheerful enjoyment of its goodness and beauty. Eeligion itself was glad and beautiful, t But its idea of life was lit- tle higher than its fact. However, that weakish cant and snivelling sentimentality usurping the name of Keligion which disgrace our day, were unknown at that stage. % The popular faith oscillated between Unbelief and Superstition. Plato wisely excluded the mythological poets from his ideal commonwealth. The character of the Gods, as it was painted by the popular mythology of Egypt, Greece, and India, like some of the legends of the Old Testament, served to con- found moral distinctions and encourage crime. Polytheists themselves confess it. Yet a distinction seems often to have been made between the private and the official charac- * Plato is seldom surpassed in his conception of the Divine Being, by any one since his day. He was mostly free from that anthropomorphitic tendency which Chris- tians have derived from the Old Testament. See Rep. Lib. VI. t See the pleasant remarks of Plutarch on the cheerful character of public wor- ship, Opp. Vol. II. p. 1101, etseq.; Strabo, Lib. X. ch. iii. iv. Opp. iv. p. 169, et seq., ed. Siebenkees and Tschucke. > $ Many beautiful traits of Polytheism may be seen in Plutarch's Moral Works, especially the treatises on Superstition. That it is not possible to live well accord- ing to Epicurus; of Isis and Osiris; of the tardy vengeance of God, see the English version, Lond. 1691, 4 vols. 8vo. Xenophanes, a contemporary of Pythagoras, censures Homer and Hesiod for their narratives of the Gods, imputing to them what it was shameful for a man to think of. I See Karsten, Phil. Vett. Reliquae, Vol. I. p. 43, et seq. See Plato, Repub. II. p. 377; Pindar, Olymp. I. 28. But no religion was ever designed to favour im- purity, even when it allows it in the Gods. See the fine remarks of Seneca, De Vita Beata, ch. xxvi. 5-6. Even the Gods were subject to the eternal laws. Fate pu- nished Zeus for each offence : he smarted at home for his infidelity abroad. "*!&** &l **, V a*. MORALS OP POLYTHEISM. ^ ' ter of the deities. There was no devil nor pandemonium in Grecian Polytheism as in the modern Church : Antiquity has no such disgrace to bear. Perhaps the poetic fictions about the Gods were regarded always as fictions, and no more. Still this influence must have been pernicious.* It would seem, at first glance, that only strong intellectual insight, or great moral purity, or a happy combination of external circumstances, could free man from the evil. How- ever, in forming the morals of a people, it is not so much the doctrine that penetrates and moves the nation's soul, as it is the feeling of that sublimity which resides only in God, and of that enchanting loveliness which alone belongs to what is filled with God. Isocrates well called the mytho- logical tales blasphemies against the Gods. Aristophanes exposes in public the absurdities which were honoured in the recesses of the temples. The priesthood in Greece had no armour of offence against ridicule.t But goodness never dies out of man's heart. Mankind pass slowly from stage to stage : " Slowly as spreads the green of earth O'er the receding ocean's bed^ Dim as the distant stars come forth, Uncertain as a vision fled," seems the gradual progress of the race. But in the midst of the absurd doctrines of the priests, and the immoral tales wherewith mistaken poets sought to adorn their con- ception of God, pure hearts beat, and lofty minds rose above the grovelling ideas of the temple and the market-place. The people who know not the law, are often better off than the sage or the soothsayer, for they know only what it is needed to know. " He is oft the wisest man that is not wise at all." J Religion lies so close to man, that a pure * See the classic passages in Aiistophanes, Clouds, 1065, et seq. t It still remains unexplained how the Athenians, on a religious festival, could attend the exhibitions of the comic drama, which exposed the popular mythology to ridicule as it is done in the Birds of Aristophanes, to mention a single example and still continue the popular worship. F 2 66 DUALISM. heart and mind, free from prejudice, see its truths, its du- ties, and its hopes. ' But before mankind passes from Fe- tichism to pure Monotheism, at a certain stage of religious progress, there are two subordinate forms of religious spe- culation, which claim the attention of the race, namely, Dualism and Pantheism. The one is the highest form of Polytheism ; the other a degenerate expression of Mono- theism ; and both together form the logical tie between the two. Dualism is the deification of two principles the Abso- lute Good, and the greatest Evil. The origin of this form of religious speculation has been already hinted at.* Phi- losophically stated, it is the recognition of two absolute beings the one Supreme Good, the other Supreme Evil. But this involves a contradiction; for if the Good is abso- lute, the Evil is not, and the reverse. Another form, there- fore, was invented. The Good Being was absolute and in- finite; the Evil Principle was originally good, but did not keep his first estate. Here also was another difficulty : an independent and divine being cannot be mutable and frail; therefore the evil principle must of necessity be a depen- dent creature, and not divine in the proper sense. So a third form takes place, in which it is supposed that both the Good and the Evil are emanations from one Absolute Being; that Evil is only negative, and will at last end; that all wicked, as all good principles, are subject to the Infinite God. At this point Dualism coalesces with the doctrine of one God, and dies its death. This system of Dualism, in its various forms, has extended widely. It seems to have been most fully developed in Persia. It came early into the Christian Church, and still retains its hold throughout the greater part of Christendom, though it is fast dying away before the advance of Reason and Faith. * See above, p. 40. t The doctrine of two principles is older than the time of Zoroaster. Hyde, Hist. PANTHEISM. 67 Pantheism has, perhaps, never been altogether a stranger to the world. It makes all things God, and God all things. This view seems at first congenial to a poetic and religious mind. If the world be regarded as a collection of powers, the awful force of the storm, of the thunder, the earth- quake ; the huge magnificence of the ocean, in its slumber or its wrath; the sublimity of the ever-during hills; the rocks which resist all but the unseen hand of time; these might lead to the thought that they were God. If men look at the order, fitness, beauty, love, everywhere apparent in nature, the impression is confirmed. The All of things appears so beautiful to the comprehensive eye, that we al- most think it is its own Cause and Creator. The animals find their support and their pleasure ; the painted leopard and the snowy swan, each living by its own law; the bird of passage, that pursues from zone to zone its unmarked path; the summer warbler which sings out its melodious existence in the woodbine ; the flowers that come unasked, charming the youthful year; the golden fruit maturing in its wilderness of green ; the dew and the rainbow ; the frost- flake and the mountain snow; the glories that wait upon the morning, or sing the sun to his ambrosial rest ; the pomp of the sun at noon, amid the clouds of a June day ; the awful majesty of night, when all the stars with a serene step come out, and tread their round, and seem to watch in blest tranquillity about the slumbering world ; the moon waning and waxing, walking in beauty through the night : Religionis Vet. Persarum. ch. ix. and xx. xx'i. ; Bayle's Dictionary, article Zoroaster, Vol. V. p. 636. See also Cudworth, ch. iv. 13, p. 289, et seq. ; and Mosheim's Notes, Vol. I. p. 320, et seq.; Rhode, Heilige Sage der Zendvolks, B. II. ch. ix. x. xii.; Bmcker, Historia Philosophic, Vol. I. p. 176, et seq. Plutarch was a Dualist, though in a mo- dified sense. See his Isis and Osiris, and Psychogonia. Marcion, among the early Christians, was accused of this belief ; and indeed the existence of a devil is still be- lieved, by most Christian divines, to be second only in importance to the belief of a God ; at the very least a scriptural doctrine, and of great value. See a curious book of Mayer (Historia Diaboli), who thinks it a matter of divine revelation. See also the ingenious remarks of Professor Woods, in his translation of Knapp's Theology, New York 1831, VoL I. et seq., 62-66. See the early forms of Dualism among the Chris- tians, in Beausobre, Histoire de Maniche'e et du Maniche'isme, 2 vols. 4to. 68 PANTHEISM. daily the water is rough with the winds; they come or abide at no man's bidding, and roll the yellow corn, or wake religious music at night-fall in the pines. These things are all so fair, so wondrous, so wrapt in mystery, that it is no marvel men say, " This is divine ! " Yes ! the All is God. He is the light of the morning, the beauty of the noon, and the strength of the sun. The little grass grows by his presence. He preserveth the cedars. The stars are serene because He is in them. The lilies are re- dolent of God. He is the One the All. God is the mind of man ; the soul of all more moving than motion, more stable than rest, fairer than beauty, and stronger than strength. The power of nature is God. The universe broad and deep and high a handful of dust, which God enchants. He is the mysterious magic that possesses the world. Yes ! He is the All the Reality of all phenomena ! But an old writer thus pleasantly rebukes this conclusion: " Surely, vain are all men by nature, who are ignorant of God, and could not, out of the good things that are seen, know him that is but deemed either Fire, or Wind, or the swift Air, or the Circle of the Stars, or the violent Water, or the Lights of Heaven, to be the Gods which govern the world : with whose beauty, if they being delighted, took them to be Gods; let them know how much better the Lord of them is, for the first Author of Beauty hath created them."* * Wisdom of Solomon, xiii. 1, et seq. At the present day, Pantheism seems to be the bugbear of some excellent persons. They see it everywhere except in the dark walls of their own churches. The disciples of Locke find it in all schools of philo- sophy but the Sensual; the followers of Calvin see it in the liberal churches. It has become dangerous to say " God is Spirit:'" a definite God, \fhosepersonality tee understand, is the orthodox article. M. Maret, in his Essai sur le Pantheisme dans lea Socie'te's Modernes, Paris 1840, 1 vol. 8vo, finds it the natural result of Protestant- ism, and places before us the pleasant alternatives either the Catholic Church or Pantheism ; Preface, p. xv. et al. The rationalism of the nineteenth century must end in scepticism, or leap over to Pantheism. According to him, all the philosophers of the Spiiitual School in our day are Pantheists. Formerly, divines condemned Philosophy because it had too little of God ; now, because it has too much. It would seem difficult to get the orthodox medium ; too much and too little are found equally MATERIAL PANTHEISM. 69 - To view the subject in a philosophical and abstract way: Pantheism is the worship of All as God. He is the One and All; not conceived as distinct from the Universe, nor independent of it. It is said to have prevailed widely in ancient times, and, if we may believe what is reported, it has not ended with Spinoza. It may be divided into two , , forms, Material Pantheism, sometimes called Hylozoism and Spiritual Pantheism, or Psycho Zoism. Material Pan- theism affirms the existence of matter, but denies the exist- ence of spirit, or anything besides matter. Creation is not possible ; the Phenomena of nature and life are not the re- ^v suit of a " fortuitous concourse of atoms," as in Atheism, but of Laws in nature itself. Matter is in a constant flux ; but it changes only by laws which are themselves immutable. Of course this does not admit God as the Absolute or Infi- nite, but the sum total of material things; He is limited both to the extension and the qualities of matter; He is merely immanent therein, but does not transcend material form. This seems to have been the Pantheism of Strato, of Lampsacus, of Democritus, perhaps of Hippocrates, and as some think, though erroneously, of Xenophanes, Parmenides, and, in general, of the Eleatic Philosophers in Greece,* and of many others whose tendency is more spiritual. t Its philosophic form is the last result of an attempt to form an adequate Conception of God. It has sometimes been called Kosmo-theism (World-Divinity), but it gives us a world without a God. - dangerous. See the pleasant remarks of Hegel on this charge of Pantheism, Ency- - f clopadie der philosoph. Wissenschaften, &c., third edition, 573. * See Karsten, nbi sup., Vol. I. and II. See the opinions of these men ably summed up by Ritter, Geschichte der Philosophic, VoL I. B. V. ; and Brandis, uli sup., VoL I. 66-72. Cudworth has many fine observations on this sort of Pantheism, VoL I. ch. iv. 15-26, and elsewhere. He denies that this school makes the Deity corporeal, and charges this upon others. See ch. iii. t See Jasche, Der Pantheismus, ?/* - .^<- '*(/ At*. 70 SPIRITUAL PANTHEISM. Spiritual Pantheism affirms the existence of Spirit, and sometimes, either expressly or by implication, denies the existence of matter. This makes all Spirit God; always the same, but ever unfolding into new forms, and therefore a perpetual Becoming; God is the absolute substance, with these two Attributes Thought and Extension. He is self-conscious in man, without self-consciousness in animals ; before the creation of man, he was not subconscious. All beside God is devoid of Substantiality; it is not, but only APPEARS ; its being is its being seen. This is Psycho-theism (Soul-Divinity.) It gives us a God without a World, and He is the only cause that exists, the Sum-total of Spirit; immanent in spirit, but not transcending spiritual manifes- tations. This was the Pantheism of Spinoza and some others. It lies at the bottom of many mystical discourses, and ap- pears more or less in most of the pious and spiritual writers of the middle ages, who confound the Divine Being with their own personality, and yet find some support for their doctrines in the language, more or less figurative, of the New Testament. This system appears more or less in the writings of John the Evangelist, in Dionysius the Areopagite, and the many authors who have drawn from him. It tinges in some mea- sure the spiritual philosophy of the present day.* But the charge of Pantheism is very vague, and is usually urged most by such as know least of its meaning. He who con- ceives of God, as transcending Creation indeed, but at the same time as the immanent cause of all things as infinitely * See the curious forms this assumes in Theologia Mystica speculativa et affectiva, per Henric Harph, etc., Colon. 1538. Jasche and Maret find it in all the modern spiritual philosophy. Indeed the two rocks that threaten theo- logy seem to be a Theosophy which resolves all into God, and Anthropomorphism, which in fact denies the Infinite. This mystical tendency, popularly denominated Pantheism, appears in the ancient religions of the East; it enters largely into the doctrine of the Sufis, a Mahometan sect. See Tholuck, Bliithensamlung aus der Morgenlandischen Mystik, p. 33 et seq. and passim. Von-Hammer also, in his Ge- schichte der schb'nen Redekunste Persens, &c. p. 340 et seq., 347 et seq., et al, gives extracts from those Oriental speculators who are charged with Pantheism. MONOTHEISM. 7 1 present and infinitely active, with no limitations is sure to be called a Pantheist in these days, as he would have passed for an Atheist two centuries ago. Some who have been called by this easy but obnoxious name, both in ancient and modern times, have been philosophical defenders of the doctrine of one God, but have given him the historical form neither of Brahma nor Jehovah.* III. Monotheism is the worship of one Supreme God. It may admit numerous divine beings superior to man, yet beneath the Supreme Divinity, as the Jews, the Mahometans, and the Christians, have done ; or it may deny these subsi- diary beings, as some philosophers have taught. The Idea of God which legitimately belongs to Monotheism, is that of a Being infinitely powerful, wise, and good. He may, how- ever, be supposed to manifest himself in one form only, as the Jehovah of the Hebrews, and the Allah of the Mahome- tans; in three forms, as the Triune God of most Christians; or in all forms, as the Pan and Brahma of the Greek and Indian ; for it is indifferent whether we ascribe no form, or all forms, to the Infinite. Since the form of Monotheism prevails at this day, little need be said to pourtray its most important features. It annihilates all distinction of nations, tribes, and men : there is one God for all mankind. He has no favourites, but is the equal Father of them all. War and Slavery are repug- nant to its Spirit, for men are brothers. There is no envy, strife, or confusion among the Gods, to justify hostility * The writings of Spinoza have hitherto been supposed to contain the most per- nicious form of Pantheism; but of late the poison has been detected also in the works of Schleiermacher, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Cousin, not to mention others of less note. Pantheism is a word of convenient ambiguity, and serves as well to express the odium theotogicum as the more ancient word Atheism, which has been deemed, by some, to be synonymous with Philosophy. See the recent controversial writings of Mr. Norton and Mr. Ripley, respecting the Pantheism of Spinoza and Schleiermacher. It has been well said, the question between the alleged Pantheist and the pure Theist is simply this: Is God the immanent cause of the World, or is he not? 72 MONOTHEISM. among men. He hears equally the prayer of all, and gives them infinite good at last. No priesthood is needed to serve Him. Under Fetichism, every man could have access to his God, for divine symbols were more numerous than men; miracles were performed every day; inspiration was com- mon, but of little value; the favour of the Gods was a wonderful and miraculous command over nature. Under Polytheism, only a chosen few had direct access to God; an appointed Priesthood, a sacerdotal caste; they stood between man and the Gods. Divine symbols became more rare. Inspiration was not usual; a miracle was a most un- common thing ; the favourites of heaven were children born of the Gods, admitted to intercourse with them, or enabled by them to do wonderful works. Now Monotheism would restore inspiration to all. By representing God as Spiritual and Omnipresent, it brings him within every man's reach ; by making him infinitely perfect, it shows his Wisdom, Love, and Will, always the same. Therefore, it annihilates favouritism and all capricious miracles. Inspiration, like the sun-light, awaits all who will accept its conditions. All are Sons of God ; they only are his favoured ones who serve him best. No day, nor spot, nor deed, is exclusively sacred ; but all time, and each place, and every noble act. The created All is a Symbol of God. But here also human perversity and ignorance have done their work; have attempted to lessen the symbols of the Deity ; to make him of difficult access ; to bar up the foun- tain of Truth and source of Light still more than under Polytheism, by the establishment of places and times, of rituals and creeds ; by the appointment of exclusive priests to mediate, where no mediator is needed or possible ; by the notion that God is capricious, revengeful, uncertain, partial to individuals or nations; by taking a few doctrines, and insisting on exclusive belief; by selecting a few from the many alleged miracles, insisting that these, and these alone, shall be accepted, and thus making the religious duty of MONOTHEISM. 73 man arbitrary and almost contemptible. Still, however, no human ignorance, no perversity, no pride of priest or king, can long prevent this doctrine from doing its vast and beautiful work. It struggles mightily with the Sin and Superstition of the world, and at last will overcome them. The history of this doctrine is instructive. It was said above that there were three elements to be considered in this matter, namely, the Sentiment of God; the Idea of God; and the Conception of God. The Sentiment is vague and mysterious, but always the same thing in kind, only felt more or less strongly, and with more or less admixture of foreign elements. The Idea is always the same in itself, as it is implied and writ in man's constitution; but is seen with more or less of a distinct consciousness. Both of these lead to Unity to Monotheism; and accordingly, in the prayers and hymns, the festivals and fasts of Fetichists and Polytheists, we find often as clear and definite intimations of Monotheism, as in the devotional writings of professed Monotheists. In this sense the doctrine is as old as the human race, and has never been lost sight of. This is so plain as to require no proof. But the Conception of God, which men superadd to the Sentiment and Idea of Him, is continually changing with the advance of the world, of the nation, or the man. We can trace its historical develop- ment in the writings of Priests and Philosophers and Poets, though it is impossible to say when and where it was first taught with distinct philosophical consciousness that there is one God one only. The history of this subject demands a treatise by itself.* This, however, is certain, that we find * Meiners, in his work, Historia Doctrinae de Vero Deo, &c. 12mo, 1780 (which, though celebrated, is a passionate and one-sided book, altogether unworthy of the subject, and "behind the times" of its composition), maintains that the Heathens knew nothing of the one God till about 3554 years after the creation of the world, when Anaxagoras helped them to this doctrine. See, on the other hand, the broad and philosophical views of Cudworth, ch. iv. passim, who, however, seems to push his hypothesis too far sometimes. A history of Monotheism is still to be desired, though Tenneman, Hitter, Brandis, and even Brucker, have collected many facts, and formed valuable contributions to such a work. Rliinscher has collected valuable passages G 74 MONOTHEISM OF THE JEWS. signs and proofs of its existence among the earliest poets and philosophers of Greece; in the dim remnants of Egyp- tian splendour; in the uncertain records of the East; in the spontaneous effusions of savage hearts, and in the most ancient writings of the Jews. The latter have produced such an influence on the world, that their doctrine requires a few words on this point. The Deity was conceived of by the Hebrews as entirely separate from nature; this distinguishes Judaism from all forms which had a pantheistic tendency, and which deified matter or men. He was the primitive ground and cause of all. But the Jewish Religion did not, with logical con- sistency, deny the existence of other Gods, inferior to the highest. Here we must consider the doctrine of the Jewish books, and that of the Jewish people. In the first, the reality of other deities is generally assumed. The first command- ment of the decalogue implies the existence of other Gods. The mention of Sons of God who visited the daughters of men; of the divine council or Host of Heaven; the Con- tract Jacob makes with Jehovah; the frequent reference to strange Gods; the preeminence claimed for Jehovah above all the deities of the other nations;* these things show that the mind of the writers was not decided in favour of the exclusive existence of Jehovah. The people and their kings, before the exile, were strongly inclined to a mingled worship of Fetichism and Polytheism, a medium between the ideal religion of Moses and the actual worship of the from the Fathers, relating to the history of the doctrine among the Christians, and their controversies with the Heathen ; Lehrbuch der Christlichen Dogmengeschichte, 3d ed. by Von Coin, Vol. I. ch. iv. 53, et seq. But Warburton, -who wrote like an attorney, gives the most erroneous judgments upon the ancient heathen doctrine respecting the unity of God. See the temperate remarks of Mosheim, De Rebus ante Constant. 's PERFECT LAW. cannot help doing.* Their obedience, therefore, is not their merit, but their necessity; it is power they passively yield to not a duty they voluntarily and consciously per- form. All the action, therefore, of the material, inorganic, vegetable, and animal world, is mechanical, vital, or, at the utmost, instinctive ; not self-conscious, the result of pri- vate will.t There is, therefore, no room for caprice in this department. The Crystal must form itself after a pre- scribed patera; the Leaf assume a given shape; the Bee build her cell with six angles. The mantle of Destiny is girt about these things; to study the laws of Nature, therefore, is to study the modes of God's action. Science becomes sacred, and passes into a sort of devotion. Well says the old Sage " Geometry is the praise of God." It reveals the perfections of the divine Mind; for God mani- fests himself in every object of science, in the half-living Molecules of powdered wood in the Comet with its orbit which imagination cannot surround in the Cones and Cycloids of the Mathematician, that exist nowhere in the world of concrete things, but which the conscious mind carries thither. * This point has been happily touched upon by Hooker, Eccles. Polity, Book I. chap. iii. 2. See his curious reflections in the following sections. f I have not the presumption to attempt to draw a line between these three de- partments of Nature, nor to tell what is the essence of mechanical, vital, or instinctive action. I would only indicate a distinction that, to my mind, is very plain ; but I cannot pretend to say where one ends and the other begins. Again, it may seem unphilosophical to deny consciousness, or even self-consciousness, to the superior animals; but if they possess a self-consciousness, it is something apparently so re- mote from ours, that it only leads to confusion if both are called by the same term. The functions of a plant we cannot explain by the laws of mechanical action ; nor the functions of an animal a Dog for example by any qualities of body. On this subject see Whewell, Hist. Inductive Sciences, Book IX. ch. i.-iii. Cud worth, ch. iii. 37, No. 17, et seq., has shown that there may be sentient, and not mere mechanical life, without consciousness, and therefore without free-will. Is not this near the truth, that God alone is absolutely free, and man has a relative freedom, the degree of which may be constantly increased ? Taking a certain stand-point, it is true that Freedom and Necessity are the same tiling, and may be predicated or denied of Deity indifferently; thus, if God is perfect, all his action is perfect: He can do no otherwise than as he does. Perfection, therefore, is his necessity; but it is his free- dom none the less. Here the difference is merely in words. RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE OF NATURAL SCENERY. 133 Since all these objects represent, more or less, the divine mind, and are in perfect harmony with it, and so always at one with God, they express, it may be, all of Deity which matter in these three modes can contain, and thus exhibit all of God that can be made manifest to the eye, the ear, and the other senses of man. Since these things are so, Nature is not only strong and beautiful, but has likewise a religious aspect. This fact was noticed in the very earliest times; appears in the rudest worship, which is an adoration of God in Nature; it will move man's heart to the latest day, and exert an influence on souls that are deepest and most holy. Who that looks on the ocean, in its anger or its play who that walks at twilight under a mountain's brow, listens to the sighing of the pines touched by the in- dolent wind of summer, and hears the light tinkle of the brook murmuring its quiet tune, who is there but feels the deep Religion of the scene? In the heart of a city we are called away from God; the dust of man's foot, and the sooty print of his fingers, are on all we see ; the very earth is unnatural, and the heaven scarce seen. In the crowd of busy men who set through its streets, or flow together of an holiday in the dust and jar, the bustle and strife of business, there is little to remind us of God: men must build a cathedral for that. But everywhere in nature, we are carried straightway back to Him. The fern, green and growing amid the frost each little grass and lichen is a silent memento. The first bird of spring, and the last rose of summer; the grandeur or the dullness of evening and morning; the rain, the dew, the sunshine; the stars that come out to watch over the farmer's rising corn ; the birds that nestle contentedly, brooding over their young, quietly tending the little strugglers with their beak; all these have a religious significance to a thinking soul. Every vio- let blooms of God, each lily is fragrant with the presence of Deity. The awful scenes of storm and lightning and thunder seem but the sterner sounds of the great concert M 134 GOD IN NATURE. wherewith God speaks to man. Is this an accident? Ay, earth is full of such accidents. When the seer rests from religious thought, or when the world's temptations make his soul tremble, and though the spirit be willing the flesh is weak; when the perishable body weighs down the mind, musing on many things ; when he wishes to draw near to God, he goes not to the city there conscious men obstruct him with their works, but to the meadow, spangled all over with flowers, and sung to by every bird; to the moun- tain, "visited all night by troops of stars;" to the ocean, the undying type of shifting phenomena and unchanging law ; to the forest, stretching out motherly arms, with its mighty growth and awful shade; and here, in the obedi- ence these things pay, in their order, strength, beauty, he is encountered front to front with the awful presence of Almighty power. A voice cries to him from the thicket, " God will provide." The Bushes burn with Deity. Angels minister to him. There is no mortal pang but it is allayed by God's fair voice as it whispers in nature, still and small, it may be, but moving on the face of the deep, and bring- ing light out of darkness. " Oh joy that in our embers Is something that doth live, That Nature yet remembers What was so fugitive." Now to sum up the result. It seems, from the very Idea of God, that He must be infinitely present in each point of space. This immanence of God in matter is the basis of his influence; this is modified by the capacities of the ob- jects in nature; all of its action is God's action; its laws, modes of that action. The imposition of a law, then, which is perfect, and is also perfectly obeyed, though blindly and without self-consciousness, seems to be the measure of God's relation to matter. Its action therefore is only mechanical, vital or instinctive, not voluntary and self-conscious. From the nature of these things, it must be so. GOD IN MAN. 135 CHAPTER III. STATEMENT OF THE ANALOGY DRAWN FROM GOD'S RELATION TO NATURE. Now if God be present in Matter, the analogy is that He is also present in Man. But to examine this point more closely, let us set out as before from the Idea of God. If He have not the limitations of matter, but is Infinite, as the Idea declares, then He pervades Spirit as well as Space is in man as well as out of him. If it follows from the Idea that He is immanent in the material world in a moss; it follows also that he must be immanent in the spi- ritual world in a man. If he is immanently active, and thus totally and essentially present, in each corner of space and each atom of creation, then is He as universally present in all spirit. If the reverse be true, then He is not omni- present ; therefore not Infinite, and of course not God. The Infinite God must fill each point of Spirit as of Space. Here then, in God's presence in the soul, is a basis laid for his direct influence on Man; as his presence in Nature is the basis of his direct influence there. As in nature his influence was modified only by the ca- pacities of material things, so here must it be modified only by the capabilities of spiritual things ; there it assumed the forms of mechanical, vital, and instinctive action; here it must ascend to the form of voluntary and self-conscious action. This conclusion follows undeniably from the ana- logy of God's presence and activity in matter. It follows as necessarily from the Idea of God; for as He is the ma- teriality of matter, so is He the spirituality of spirit. 136 RELATION OF SUPPLY TO WANT. CHAPTER IV. THE GENERAL RELATION OF SUPPLY TO WANT. WE find in Nature that every want is naturally supplied ; that is, there is something external to each created being to answer all the internal wants of that being. This con- clusion could have been anticipated without experience, since it follows from the perfections of the Deity, that all his direct works must be perfect. Experience shows this is the rule in nature. We never find a race of animals des- titute of what is most needed for them, wandering up and down, seeking rest and finding none; what is most cer- tainly needed for each, is most bountifully provided; the supply answers the demand. The natural circumstances, therefore, attending a race of animals, for example, are per- fect; the animal keeps perfectly the law or condition of its nature. The result of these perfect circumstances on the one hand, and perfect obedience on the other, is this, each animal, in its natural state, attains its legitimate end, reaches perfection after its kind. Thus every Sparrow in a flock is perfect in the qualities of a Sparrow, such at least is the general rule; the exceptions to it are so rare that they only seem to confirm that rule. Now to apply this general maxim to the special case of man. We are mixed beings spirits wedded to bodies. Setting aside the religious nature of man for the moment, and for the present purpose distributing our faculties into the animal, intellectual, aifectional, and moral, let us see the relation between man's four-fold wants and the supply thereof. We have certain animal wants, such as the desire ANIMAL WANTS SUPPLIED. 137 of food, shelter, and comfort. Our animal welfare, even our animal existence, depends on the relation of the world to these wants, on the condition that they are supplied. Now we find in the world of nature, exterior to ourselves, a sup- ply for these demands. It is so placed that man can reach it for himself. To speak in general terms, there is not a natural want in our body which has not its corresponding supply, placed out of the body; there is not even a disease of the body, brought upon us by disobedience of its law, but there is somewhere a remedy, at least an alleviation of that disease. The peculiar supply of peculiar wants is pro- vided most abundantly when most needed, and where most needed furs in the North, spices in the South, antidotes where the poison is found. God is a bountiful parent and no stepfather to the body, and does not pay off, to his obe- dient children, a penny of satisfaction for a pound of want. Natural supply balances natural want the world over. But this is not all. How shall man find the supply that is provided 1 It will be useless unless there is some faculty to mediate between it and the want. Now man is furnished with a faculty to perform this office. It is instinct, which we have in common with the lower animals, 'and under- standing, which we have more exclusively, at least no other animal possessing it in the same degree with ourselves. In- stinct anticipates experience. It acts spontaneously where we have no previous knowledge, yet as if we were fully pos- sessed of ideas; it shows itself as soon as we are born, in the impulse that prompts the infant to his natural food. It appears complete in all animals; it looks only forward, and is a perfect guide so far as it goes. The young chick pecks adroitly at the tiny worm it meets the first hour it leaves the shell;* it needs no instruction. The lower animals have nothing but instinct for their guide; it is sufficient for their purpose. They act, therefore, without * See Lord Brougham, Dialogues on Instinct, for some remarkable facts. M 2 138 INSTINCT AND UNDERSTANDING. reflection; from necessity, and are subordinate to their in- stinct, and therefore must always remain in the instinctive state.* Children, and savages who are in some respects the children of the human race act chiefly by instinct, but constantly approach the development of the understanding. This acts in a different way. It generalizes from experi- ence; makes an induction from facts a deduction from principles. It looks both backwards and forwards. The man of understanding acts from experience, reflection, fore- thought, and habit. If he had no other impelling principle, all his action must be of this character. But though un- derstanding be capable of indefinite increase, instinct can never be wholly extirpated from this compound being, man. The most artificial or cultivated feels the twinges of instinc- tive nature. The lower animals rely entirely on instinct the savage chiefly thereon; while the civilized and matured man depends mostly on understanding for his guide. As the sphere of action enlarges, which takes place as the boy outgrows his childhood, and the savage emerges from barbarism, instinct ceases to be an adequate guide, and the understanding spontaneously developes itself to take its place.f In respect, then, to man's animal nature, this fact re- mains, that there is an external supply for each internal want, and a guide to conduct from the want to the supply. This guide is adequate to the purpose. When it is followed, and thus the conditions of our animal nature complied with, the want is satisfied, becomes a source of pleasure, a means of development. In this case there is nothing miraculous intervening between the desire and its gratification. Man * Whewell, ubi sup., Vol. II. Pt. I. Book IX. ch. iii. Man may subdue the instinct of an animal, and apparently improve the creature, by superinducing his own un- derstanding upon it. The pliant nature of dogs and horses enables them to yield to him in this case. But they are not really improved in the qualities of a dog or a horse, but only become caricatures of their master's caprice. t See some profound remarks on the force of the instinctive life among savages, in Bancroft, ubi sup., ch. xxii. INTELLECTUAL WANTS SUPPLIED. 139 is hungry; instinct leads him to the ripened fruit ; he eats and is appeased. The satisfaction of the want comes naturally, by a regular law, which God has imposed upon the constitution of man; he is blessed by obeying, and cursed by violating this law. God himself does not tran- scend this law, but acts through it, by it, in it. We observe the law, and obtain what we need. Thus for every point of natural desire in the body, there is a point of natural sa- tisfaction out of the body. This guide conducts from one to the other, as a radius connects the centre with the cir- cumference. Our animal welfare is complete when the two are thus brought into contact. Now the same rule may be shown to hold good in each other department into which we have divided the human fa- culties. There is something without us to correspond to each want of the intellect. This is found in the objects of nature; in the sublime, the useful, the beautiful, the common things we meet; in the ideas and conceptions that arise unavoid- ably when man, the thinking subject, comes intellectually in contact with external things, the object of thought. We turn to these things instinctively, at first, "The eye, it cannot choose but see; We cannot bid the ear be still; Our bodies feel where'er they be, Against or with our wilL" Man is not sufficient for himself intellectually, more than physically. He cannot rely wholly on what he is. There is at first nothing in man but man himself; a being of mul- tiform tendencies, and many powers lying latent germ sheathed in germ. Without some external object to rouse the senses, excite curiosity, to stimulate the understanding, induce reflection, exercise reason, judgment, imagination, all these faculties would sleep in their causes, unused and worthless in the soul. Obeying the instinctive tendency of the mind, which impels to thought, keeping its laws, we 140 MORAL AND AFFECTION AL WANTS SUPPLIED. gain satisfaction for the intellectual desires. One after an- other the faculties come into action, grow up to maturity ; and intellectual welfare is complete with no miracle, but by obedience to the laws of mind. The same may be said of the affectional and moral nature of man. There is something without us to answer the de- mands of the Affections and the Moral Sense, and we turn instinctively to them. Does God provide for the animal wants, and no more ? He is no stepfather, but a bountiful parent to the intellectual, affectional, and moral elements of his child. There is a point of satisfaction out of these for each point of desire in them, and a guide to mediate between the two. This general rule may then be laid down, That for each animal, intellectual, affectional, moral want of man, there is a supply set within his reach, and a guide to connect the two; that no miracle is needed to supply the want; but satisfaction is given as soon as the guide is followed and the law kept which instinct or the understand- ing reveals. ANALOGY FROM THIS RELATION. 141 CHAPTER V. STATEMENT OF THE ANALOGY FROM THIS RELATION. Now it was said before, that the religious was the deepest, highest, strongest element in man ; and since the wants of the lower faculties are so abundantly provided with natural means of satisfying them, the Analogy leads us irresistibly to conclude that the higher faculty would not be neglected; that here as elsewhere there must be a natural and not mi- raculous supply for natural wants a natural guide to con- duct from one to the other, and natural laws, or conditions, to be observed, and natural satisfaction to be obtained in this way; that as God was no stepfather, but a bountiful parent to the lower elements, so he must be to the higher ; that as there was a point of satisfaction out of the body, mind, and heart, for each desire in it, so there must be a point of satisfaction out of the soul, for each desire in the soul. Is it God's way to take care of oxen, and leave man uncared for? In a system where every spot on an insect's wing is rounded as diligently, and as carefully finished off as a world, are we to suppose that the Soul of man is left without natural protection? If there is a law, a permanent mode of divine action, whereby each atom of dust keeps its place and holds its own, surely we are not to dream that the soul of man is left with no law for its religious life and satisfaction. To draw the parallels still closer. By the religious con- sciousness we feel the want of some assured support to de- pend on, who has infinite Power to sustain us, infinite Wis- dom to provide for us, infinite Goodness to cherish us. As 142 SUPPLY FOB SPIRITUAL WANTS. we must know the will of Him on whom we depend, and thus determine what is religious truth and religious duty, in order that we may do that duty, receive that truth, obey that will, and thus obtain rest for the soul, and the highest spiritual welfare, by knowing and fulfilling its conditions; so Analogy teaches that in this, as in the other case, there must be a supply for the wants, and some plain, regular, and not miraculous means, accessible to each man, whereby he can get a knowledge of this Support, discover this Will, and thus, by observing the proper conditions, obtain the highest spiritual welfare. This argument for a direct connection between man and God is only rebutted in one of these two ways: either, first, by denying that man has any religious wants; or, secondly, by affirming that he is himself alone a supply to them, without need of reliance on anything independent of himself. The last is contrary to philosophy; for, theoreti- cally speaking, by nature there is nothing in man but man himself, his tendencies, and powers of action and reception ; in the religious element there is nothing but the religious ele- ment, as, theoretically speaking, by nature there is in the body nothing but the body in hunger, nothing but hunger. To make man dependent on nothing but man the reli- gious sentiment on nothing but the religious sentiment, and therefore sufficient for itself, is quite as absurd as to make the body dependent only on the body the appetite of hunger on nothing but hunger, sufficient to satisfy itself. Besides, our consciousness, and above all our religious con- sciousness, is that of dependence. The soul feels its direct dependence on God, as much as the body sees it own direct dependence on matter. If the one statement is contrary to philosophy, the other is contrary to fact. We feel religious wants ; the history of man is a perpetual expression of these wants an effort for satisfaction. It cannot be denied that we need some- thing that shall bear the same relation to the religious sen- *& OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. Y^i 143 \ , timent which food bears to the palate, light td ithe eye, sound to the ear, beauty to the imagination, truth to the understanding, friendship to the heart, and duty to con- science. How shall we pass from the want to its satisfac- tion? Now the force of the Analogy is this: it leads us to expect such a natural satisfaction for spiritual wants, as we have for the humbler wants. The very wants themselves imply the satisfaction; as soon as we begin to act, there awakes by nature a Sentiment of God. Keason gives us a distinct Idea of Him; and from this Idea also it follows that He must supply these wants. The question then comes as to the fact, is there, or is there not, a regular law by which the religious wants are supplied, as by a regular law the body's wants are met? Now, animated by the natural trust, or faith, which is the spontaneous action of the religious sentiment, we should say, Yes, it must be so. God takes care of the sparrow's body: can he neglect man's soul? Then reasoning again from the general analogy of God's providence, as before shown, and still more from the Idea of God, as above laid down, we say again, It must be so ; man must, through the religious sentiment, have a connection with God, as by the senses with matter. He is, relative to us, the object of the soul, as much as matter is the object of the senses. As God has an influence on passive and unconscious matter, so he must have on active and conscious man. As this action, in the one case, is only modified by the conditions of matter; so will it be, in the other, only by the conditions of man. As no obedient animal is doomed to wander up and down, seeking rest, but finding none; so no obedient man can left hopeless, forlorn without a supply without a gui . Now it might be supposed that the spontaneous presenti- ment of this supply for our spiritual demands this tw fold argument from the Idea of God and the Analogy o his action in general, would satisfy both the spontaneous and the reflective mind, convincing them of man's general 144 DOUBTS OF THINKING MEN capability of a connection with God of receiving truth in a regular and natural way from him, by revelation, inspira- tion, suggestion, or by what other name we may call the joint action of the divine and human mind. Such indeed is the belief of nations in an early and simple state. It is attested by the literature, traditions, and monuments of all primitive people. They believe that God held converse with man: He spoke in the voices of nature in signs and omens in dreams by night in deep, silent thoughts by day; skill, strength, wisdom, goodness, were referred to Him. The highest function of man was God's Gift : He made the Laws of Minos, Moses, Numa, Ehadamanthus ; He inspires the Poet, Artist, Patriot works with the righteous everywhere. Had Fetichism no meaning? was Polytheism only a lie with no truth at the bottom 1 ? Prayers, sacrifices, fasts, priesthoods, show that men believed in in- tercourse with God. Good, simple-hearted men and women, who live lives of piety, believe it now, and never dream that it is a great philosophical truth which lies in their mind; they wonder anybody should doubt it. But yet, among thinking men, who have thought just enough to distrust instinct, but not enough to see by the understanding the object which instinct discloses, espe- cially, it seems, among thinking Englishmen and Americans, a general doubt prevails on this point. The material world is before our eyes; its phenomena are obvious to the senses, and most men having active senses, which develope before the understanding, and the lower faculties of intellect also, somewhat active, get pretty clear notions about these phenomena, though not of their cause and philosophy. But as the soul is rarely so active as the senses as the whole spiritual nature is not often so well developed as the sensual, so spiritual phenomena are little noticed ; very few men have clear notions about them. Hence to many men all spiritual and religious matters are vague " Perhaps yes, and perhaps no," is all they can say. Then again the matter is made worse, for they hear extra- FAVOURED BY THE BIGOTS. 145 vagant claims made in relation to spiritual things and in- tercourse with God. One man says, he was healed of a fever, or saved from drowning, not by the medicine, or the boatman, but by the direct interposition of God; another will have it that he has direct and miraculous illuminations, though it is plain he is still sitting in darkness. This bigot would destroy all human knowledge, that there may be clean paper to receive the divine word, miraculously written thereon; that fanatic bids men trust the doctrine that is reputed of miraculous origin, and even at variance with human faculties. Both the bigot and the fanatic condemn Science as the " Pride of Reason," and talk boastingly of their special revelations, their new light, the signs and won- ders they have seen or heard of to attest this revelation. The sincere man of good sense is disgusted by these things, and asks if there be no Pride of Folly as well as of Reason, and no revelation of nonsense from the man's own brain, which is mistaken as an eternal truth coming winged from the Godhead? He rests, therefore, in his notions of mere material things; will see nothing which he cannot see through ; believe nothing he cannot handle. These material notions have already become systematized ; and so far as there is any philosophy commonly accredited amongst us, it is one which grows mainly out of this sensual way of looking at things, a philosophy which logically denies the possibility of inspiration or intercourse with God, except through a miracle that shall transcend the faculties of man. Now on this subject of inspiration there are but three views possible. Each of these is supported by no one writer exclusively or perfectly, but by many taken in the aggregate. Let us examine each of them as it appears in recent times, with its philosophy and logical consequences. However, it is to be remembered that all conclusions which follow logically, are not to be charged on men who admit the premises. 146 NATURALISM. CHAPTER VI. THE RATIONALISTIC VIEW, OR NATURALISM. THIS allows that the original powers of Nature, as shown in the inorganic, the vegetable, and the animal world, all came from God at the first; that he is a principle, either mate- rial or spiritual, separate from the world, and independent thereof. He made the world, and all things, including man, and stamped on them certain laws, which they are to keep.* He was but transiently present and active in nature at creation; is not immanently present and active therein. He has now, nothing to do with the world but to see it go. Here, then, is God on the one side ; on the other, Man and Nature. But there is a great gulf fixed between them, over which there passes, neither God nor man. This theory teaches that man, in addition to his organs of perception, has certain intellectual faculties by which he can reason from effect to cause ; can discover truth, which is the statement of a fact ; from a number of facts in science can discern a scientific law, the relation of thing to thing; from a number of facts in morals, can learn the relation of man to man; deduce a moral law, which shall teach the most expedient and profitable way of managing affairs. Its * There is another form of Naturalism which denies the existence of a God sepa- rate, or separable from the universe. Since this system would annihilate all Reli- gion, it may be called irreligious Naturalism; with that I have now nothing to do. Some have been called Rationalists, who deny that God is separate from the world. See above, Book I. METAPHYSICS OF NATURALISM. 147 statement of both scientific and moral facts rests solely on experience, and never goes beyond its precedents. Still farther, it allows that man can find out that there is a God, by reasoning experimentally from observations in the mate- rial world, and metaphysically also, from the connection of notions in the mindL But this conclusion is only to be reached, in either case, by a process that is long, compli- cated, tortuous, and so difficult that but one man in some thousands has the necessary experimental knowledge, and but one in some millions the metaphysical subtlety requisite to go through it, and become certain that there is a God. Its notion of God is this, a Being who exists as the Power, Mind, and Will, that caused the universe. The metaphysical philosophy of this system may be brief- ly stated. In man, by nature, there is nothing but man. There is but one channel by which knowledge can come into man, that is, sensation perception through the senses. That is an assumption ; nobody pretends it is proved. This knowledge is modified by reflection the mind's process of ruminating upon the knowledge which sensation affords. At any given time, therefore, if we examine what is in man, we find nothing which has not first been in the senses. Now the senses converse only with finite phenomena. Ee- flection what can it get out of these ? The Absolute ? The premise does not warrant the conclusion. Something " as good as Infinite ? " Let us see. It makes a scientific law a mere generalization from observed facts, which it can never go beyond. Its science, therefore, is in the rear of observation ; we do not know thereby whether the next stone shall fall to the ground or from it. All it can say of the universality of any law of science is this " So far as we have seen, it is so." It cannot pass from the Particular to the Universal It makes a moral law the result of exter- nal experience; merely an induction from moral facts; not the affirmation of man's moral nature declaring the eternal rule of Bight. It learns morality by seeing what plan sue- 148 ITS SCIENCE, MORALS, GOD. ceeds best in the long-run. Its morality is selfishness veri- fied by experiment. A man in a new case, for which he can find no precedents, knows not what to do; he is never certain he is right till he gets the reward. Its moral law at present, like the statute law, is the slowly-elaborated pro- duct of centuries of experience. It pretends to find out God, as a law in science, solely by reasoning from effect to cause from a plan to the designer. Then on what does a man's belief in God depend? On man's nature, acting spon- taneously? No; for there is nothing in man but man, and nothing comes in but sensations, which do not directly give us God. It depends on reflection, argument that process of reasoning mentioned before. Now, admitting that sen- sation affords sufficient premise for the conclusion, there is a difficulty in the way : the man must either depend on his own reasoning, or that of another. In the one case he may be mistaken, in an argument so long, crooked, and difficult. It is at best an inference. The " Hypothesis of a God," as some impiously call it, may thus rest on no better argument than the hypothesis of Vortices, or Epicycles. In the other case, if we trust another man, he may be mistaken; still worse, may design to deceive the inquirer, as we are told the Heathen Sages did. Where, then, is the certain conviction of any God at all? This theory allows none. Its " proof of the existence of God " is a proof of the possibility of a God, perhaps of the probability thereof; surely no more. But the case is yet worse. In any argumentation there must be no more expressed in the conclusion than is logic- ally and confessedly implied in the premises. When finite phenomena are the only premises, whence comes the Idea of Infinite God? It denies that man has any Idea of the Absolute, Infinite, Perfect. Instead of this, it allows only an accumulative notion, formed from a series of conceptions of what is finite and imperfect. The little we can know of God came from reasoning about objects of sense. Its notion of God is deduced purely from empirical observation : what ITS GOD ONLY FINITE. 149 notion of a God can rest legitimately on that basis? Nature infinite: to infer an infinite Author, is false logic. We see but in part, and have not grasped up this sum of things, nor seen how seeming evil consists with real good, nor ac- counted for the great amount of misery, apparently unli- quidated, in the world; therefore Nature is imperfect to man's eye : why infer a perfect Author from an imperfect work? Injustice and cruelty are allowed in the world: how then can its Maker be relied on as just and merciful ? Let there be nothing in the conclusion which is not in the pre- mises. This theory gives us only a finite and imperfect God, which is no God at all. He cannot be trusted out of sight ; for its faith is only an inference from what is seen. Instead of a religious sentiment in man, which craves all the perfec- tions of the Godhead reaches out after the Infinite " first Good, first Perfect, and first Fair," it gives us only a ten- dency to reverence or fear what is superior to ourselves, and above our comprehension; a tendency which the Bat and the Owl have in common with Socrates and Fenelon. It makes man the slave of his organization. Free-will is not possible. His highest aim is self-preservation ; his greatest evil death. It denies the immortality of man, and foolishly asks " proofs" of the fact proofs palpable to the senses. Its finite God is not to be trusted, except under His bond and covenant to give us what we ask for. It makes no difference between Good and Evil; Expe- dient and Inexpedient are the better words. These are to be learned only by long study and much cunning. All men have not the requisite skill to find out moral and religious doctrines, and no means of proving either in their own heart ; therefore they must take the word of their appointed teachers and philosophers, who " have investigated the mat- ter;" found there is " an expedient way" for men to follow, and a " God " to punish them if they do not follow it. In moral and religious matters the mass of men must rely on N 2 150 ITS MORALS AND RELIGION. the authority of their teachers. Millions of men, who never made an astronomical observation, believe that the distance between the Earth and the Sun is what Newton or Laplace declares it to be : why should not men take moral and re- ligious doctrines on the same evidence? It is true, astro- nomers have differed a little some making the Earth the centre, some the Sun, and divines still more. But men must learn the moral law as the statute law. The State is above each man's private notions about good and evil, and controls these, as well as their passions. Man must act always from mean and selfish views, never from Love of the Good, the Beautiful, the True. This system would have religious forms and ceremonies to take up the mind of the people ; moral precepts, and re- ligious creeds, " published by authority," to keep man from unprofitable crimes; an established Church like the Jail and the Gallows a piece of state machinery. It is logical in this ; for it fears that without such a provision the sen- sual nature would overlay the intellectual ; the few religious ideas common men could get, would be so shadowy and un- certain, and men be so blinded by Prejudice, Superstition, and Fancy, or so far misled by Passion and ignorant Selfish- ness, that nothing but want and anarchy would ensue. It tells men to pray. None can escape the conviction that prayer, vocal or silent, put up as a request, or felt as a sense of supplication, is as natural as hunger and thirst, or tears and smiles. Even an Atheist* talks of the important phy- siological functions of prayer. This theory makes prayer a Soliloquy of the man a thinking with the upper part of the head a sort of moral gymnastics. Thereby we get no- thing from God : He is on the other side of the world ; " He is a journeying, or pursuing, or peradventure he sleepeth." Prayer is useful to the worshipper, as the poet's frenzy when he apostrophizes a Mountain, or the Moon, and works him- * M. Comte. ITS IDEA OF GOD. 151 self into a rapture, but gets nothing from the Mountain, or the Moon, except what he carried out. In a word, this theory reduces the Idea of God to that of an abstract cause, and excludes this cause both from man and the world. It has only a finite God, which is no God at all, for the two terms cancel each other. It has only a selfish morality, which is no morality at all, for the same reason. It reduces the soul to the aggregate functions of the flesh, Providence to a law, Infinity to a dream, Religion to priestcraft, Prayer to an apostrophe, Morality to making a good bargain, Conscience to cunning. It denies the pos- sibility of any connection between God and man. Revela- tion and inspiration it regards as figures of speech, by which we refer to an agency purely ideal, what was the result of the senses and matter acting thereon. Men calling them- selves inspired speaking in the name of God were de- ceivers, or deceived. Prophets, the religious Geniuses of the world, mistook their fancies for revelations ; embraced a cloud instead of a Goddess, and produced only misshapen dreams. Judged by this system, Jesus of Nazareth was a pure-minded fanatic, who knew no more about God than Peter Bayle and Pomponatius, but yet did the world service, by teaching the result of his own or others' experience, as revelations from God, accompanied with the promise of an- other life, which is reckoned a pleasant delusion, useful to keep men out of crime a clever auxiliary of the powers that be. This system has perhaps never been held in all its parts by any one man, but each portion has often been defended, and all its parts go together, and come unavoidably from that notion that there is nothing in man which was not first in the senses.* The best representatives of this school were, it may be, the French Materialists of the last century, * See the judicious observations of Shaftesbury, eijrhth Letter to a Student. 152 EEPBESENTATIVE OF NATURALISM. and some of the English Deists. The latter term Deist is applied to men of the most various character and ways of thinking. Some of them were most excellent men in all respects; men who did mankind great service by exposing the fanaticism of the Superstitious, and by showing the ab- surdities embraced by many of the Christians. Some of them were much more religious and heavenly- minded than their opponents, and had a theology much more Christian, which called Goodness by its proper name, and worshipped God in lowliness of heart, and a divine life. But the spirit of this system takes different forms in different men. It appears in the cold morality and repulsive religion of Dr. Priestley, who was yet one of the best of men ; in the scep- ticism of Hume and his followers, which has been a useful medicine to the Church; in the selfish system of Paley, far more dangerous than the doubts of Hume or the scoffs of Gibbon and Voltaire; in the coarse, vulgar materialism of Hobbes, who may be taken as one of the best representa- tives of the system. It is obvious enough that this system of Naturalism is the philosophy which lies at the foundation of much of the popular theology in New England; that it is very little understood by the men, out of pulpits and in pulpits, who adhere to it ; who, while they hold fast to the theory of the worst of the English Deists though of only the worst; while they deny the immanence of God in matter and man, and therefore take away the natural possibility of inspira- tion, and cling to that system of Philosophy which justifies the Doubt of Hume, the Selfishness of Paley, the coarse Materialism of Hobbes, are yet ashamed of their de- scent, and seek to point out others of a quite different spi- ritual complexion, as the lineal descendants of that ancient stock. This system has one negative merit: it can, as such, never lead to fanaticism. Those sects, or individuals, who approach most nearly to pure Naturalism, have never been ITS NEGATIVE MERIT. 153 accused, in religious matters, of going too fast or too far. But it has a positive excellence : it lays great stress on the human mind, and cultivates the understanding to the last degree. However, its Philosophy, its Theology, its Reli- gion, are of the senses, and the senses alone.* * I have not thought it necessary to refer particularly to the authors representing this system. I have rather taken pains to express their doctrine in my own words, lest individuals should be thought responsible for the sins of the system. One may read many works of divinity, and see that this philosophy lay unconsciously in the writer's mind. I do not mean to insinuate that many persons fully and knowingly believe this doctrine, but that they are yet governed by it, under the modification treated of hi the next chapter. Locke has sometimes been charged with follies of this character, but unjustly, as it seems to me, for though many passages do cer- tainly look that way, others are of a quite spiritual tendency. See lung's Life of Locke, Vol. I. p. 366. et seq., and his theological writings. 154 SUPERNATURALISM. CHAPTER VII. THE ANTI-RATIONALISTIC VIEW, OR SUPERNATURALISM. THIS system differs in many respects from the other; but its philosophy is at bottom the same. It denies that by natural action there can be anything in man which was not first in the senses. Whatever transcends the senses can come to man only by a miracle ; and the miracle is attended with phenomena obvious to the senses. To develope the natural side of the theory, it sets God on the one side and man on the other. However, it admits the immanence of God in matter, and talks very little about the laws of mat- ter, which it thinks require revision, amendment, and even repeal; as if the nature of things changed, or God grew wiser by experiment. It does not see that if God is always the same, and immanent in nature, the laws of nature can neither change nor be changed. It limits the power of man still farther than the former theory. It denies that he can, of himself, discover the existence of God; or find out that it is better to love his brother than to hate him to subject the Passions to Reason, Desire to Duty, rather than to sub- ject Reason to Passion, Duty to Desire.* Man can find * Some Supernaturalists admit that man by nature can find out the most impor- tant religious truths in the way set down before ; and some admit a moral sense in man; others deny both. A recent writer denies that man can find by the light of Nature AUT THEOLOGICAL TRDTH ; Natural Theology is not possible. See Irons On the whole Doctrine of Final Causes, Lond. 1836, p. 34, 129, and passim. His intro- ductory chapter on modern Deism is very curious. He has some excellent remarks (for there are two kingdoms of philosophy in him), but wishes to advance what he calls revealed religion, at the expense of the foundation of all religion. The Ottoman King never thinks himself secure on the throne till he has slain all his brothers. ABSURDITY OF SUPEENATURALISM. 155 out all that is needed for his animal and intellectual wel- fare, with no miracle ; but can learn nothing that is needed for his moral and religious welfare. He can invent the steam-engine, and calculate the orbit of Halley's comet; but cannot tell Good from Evil, nor determine that there is a God. The Unnecessary is given him ; the Indispensable he cannot get by nature. Man, therefore, is the veriest wretch in creation. His mind forces him to inquire on religious matters, but brings him into doubt, and leaves him in the very slough of Despond; he goes up and down sorrowing, seeking rest, but finding none. Nay, it goes farther still, and declares that, by nature, all men's actions are sin, hateful to God. On the other hand, it teaches that God works a miracle from time to time, and makes to man a positive revelation of moral and religious truth, which man could not other- wise gain. Its history of revelations is this : God revealed his own existence in a visible form to the first man ; taught him religious and moral duties by words orally spoken. The first man communicated this knowledge to his descen- dants, from whom the tradition of the fact has spread over all the world. Men know there is a God, and distinction between right and wrong, only by hearsay, as they know there was a Flood in the time of Noah, or Deucalion. The first man sinned, and fell from the state of frequent com- munion with God. Revelations have since become rare exceptions in the history of man. However, as man having no connection with the Infinite must soon perish, God con- tinued to make miraculous revelations to one single people. To them he gave laws, religious and civil ; made predictions, and accompanied each revelation by some miraculous sign, for without it none could distinguish the truth from a lie. Other nations received reflections of this light, which was directly imparted to the favoured people. At length he made a revelation of all religious and moral truth by means of his Son, a divine and miraculous being, both God and 156 REVELATION BY MEDIATORS. man, and confirmed the tidings by miracles the most sur- prising. As this revelation is to last forever, it has been recorded miraculously, and preserved for all coming time. The persons who received direct communication miracu- lously from God are of course Mediators between Him and the human race. Now to live as religious men, we must have a knowledge of religious truth; for this we must depend alone on these mediators. Without them we have no access to God. They have established a new relation between man and God. But they are mortal, and have deceased. However, their say- ings are recorded by miraculous aid. A knowledge of God's will, of morality and religion, therefore, is only to be got at by studying the documents which contain a record of their words and works; for the Word of God has become the letter of Scripture. We can know nothing of God, re- ligion, or morals, at first hand. God was but transiently present in a small number of the race, and has now left it altogether. This theory forgets that a verbal revelation can never communicate a simple idea, like that of God, Justice, Love, Religion, more than a word can give a deaf man an idea of sound. It makes inspiration a very rare miracle, confined to one nation, and to some scores of men in that nation, who stand between us and God. We cannot pray in our own name, but in that of the mediator, who hears the prayer, and makes intercession for us. It exalts certain miraculous persons, but degrades man. In prophets and saints, in Moses and Jesus, it does not see the possibility of the race made real, but only the miraculous work of God. Our duty is not to inquire into the truth of their word; Reason is no judge of that. We must put faith in all which all of them tell us, though they contradict each other never so often. Thus it makes an antithesis between Faith and Knowledge, Reason and Revelation. It denies that com- mon men, in the nineteenth century, can get at Truth, and FOUNDATION OF SUPEENATURALISM. 157 God, as Paul and John in the first century. It sacrifices Reason, Conscience, and Love, to the words of the miracu- lous men, and thus makes its mediator a tyrant, who rules over the soul by external authority, restricting Reason, Con- science, and Love not a brother, who acts in the soul, by waking its dormant powers, disclosing truth, and leading others, by a divine life, to God, the Source of Light. It says the words of Jesus are true because he spoke them ; not that he spoke them because true. It relies entirely on past times; does not give us the absolute Religion, as it exists in man's nature, and the Ideas of the Almighty only an historical mode of worship, as lived out here or there. It says the canon of Revelation is closed; God will no longer act on man as heretofore. We have come at the end of the feast, are born in the latter days and dotage of mankind, and can only get light by raking amid the ashes of the past, and blowing its brands, now almost extinct. It denies that God is present and active in all spirit, as in all space; thus it denies that He is Infinite. In the mi- raculous documents it gives us an objective standard, " the only infallible rule of religious faith and practice." These mediators are greater than the Soul; the Bible the master of Reason, Conscience, and the Religious Sentiment; they stand in the place of God. Men ask of this system, " How do you know there is in man nothing but the product of sensation, or miraculous tradition; that man cannot approach God except by miracle; that these mediators received truth miraculously, taught all truth, nothing but the truth; that you have their words, pure and unmixed, in your scriptures; that God has no farther revelation to make ? The answer is " We find it convenient to assume all this, and accordingly have banished Reason from the premises; for she asked troublesome ques- tions. We condescend to no proof of the facts ; you must take our word for that." Thus the main doctrines of the theory rest on assumptions on no facts. o 158 THE TRUTH IN SUPERNATURALISM This system represents the despair of man groping after God. The religious sentiment acts, but is crippled by a philosophy poor and sensual. Is man nothing but a com- bination of five senses and a thinking machine, to grind up and bolter sensations, and learn of God only by hearsay 1 The God of Supernaturalism is a God afar off its Keli- gion worn out and second-handed. We cannot meet God face to face. In one respect it is worse than Naturalism; that sets great value on the faculties of man, which this depreciates and profanes. But all systems rest on a truth, or they could not be ; this on a great truth, or it could not prevail widely. It admits the immanence of God in Na- ture, and declares also that mankind is dependent on Him for religious and moral truth, as for all things else; has a connection with God, who really guides, educates, and blesses the race, for he is transiently present therein. The doctrine of miraculous events, births, persons, deaths, and the like, this is the veil of Poetry drawn over the face of Fact. It has a truth not admitted by Naturalism. Now only a few " thinking" men even in fancy can be satisfied without a connection with God; so Naturalism is always confined to a few reflective and cultivated persons, while the mass of men believe in the supernatural theory, at least in the truth it covers up. Its truth is of great moment; its vice is to make God transiently active in man, not im- manent in him ; to restrict the divine presence and action to times, places, and persons. It overlooks the fact, that if religious truth be necessary for all, then it must ^either have been provided for and put within the reach of all, or else there is a fault in the divine plan. Then again, if God gives a natural supply for the lower wants, it is probable, to say the least, that he will not neglect the higher. Now for the religious consciousness of Man, a knowledge of two great truths is indispensable; namely, a knowledge of the exist- e^ce of the Infinite God, and of the duty we owe to Him ; for a knowledge of these two is implied in all religious DENIES THE LIGHT OP NATURE. 159 teaching and life. Now one of two things must he admit- ted, and a third is not possible: either man can discover these two things by the light of nature,-*- or he cannot. If the latter be the case, then is man the most hopeless of all ' >,, beings. Kevelation of these truths is confined to a few ; it ^ >j&L is indispensably necessary to all. Accordingly, the first / hypothesis is generally admitted by the supernaturalists, in New England though in spite of their philosophy that TfafJ these two things can be discovered by the light of nature. Then if the two main points the premises which involve the whole of Morals and Religion lie within the reach of man's natural powers, how is a miracle, or the tradition of a miracle, necessary to reveal the minor doctrines involved in the universal truth ? Does not the faculty to discern the greater, include the faculty to discern the less?What ,AJl covers an acre will cover a yard. Where then is the use of ' the miraculous interposition ? Neither Naturalism nor Supernaturalism legitimates the fact of man's religious consciousness; both fail of satis- fying the natural religious wants of the race. Each has merits and vices of its own. Neither gives for the Soul's wants a supply analogous to that so bountifully provided for the wants of the Body, or the Mind. A - - /'- 1 60 SPIRITUALISM. CHAPTER VIII. THE NATURAL-RELIGIOUS VIEW, OR SPIRITUALISM. THIS theory teaches that there is a natural supply for spi- ritual as well as for corporeal wants; that there is a con- nection 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 ; that as we follow an instinctive tendency, obey the body's law, get a natural supply for its wants, attain health and strength, the body's welfare, as we keep the law of the mind, and get a supply for its wants, attain wisdom and skill, the mind's welfare, so if, following another instinctive tendency, we keep the law of the moral and religious nature, we get a supply for their wants moral and religious truth; obtain peace of conscience and rest for the soul, the highest moral and re- ligious welfare. It teaches that the world is not nearer to our bodies than God to the soul ; " for in Him we live and move, and have our being." As we have bodily senses to lay hold on matter, and supply bodily wants, through which we obtain, naturally, all needed material things; so we have spiritual faculties, to lay hold on God, and supply spiritual wants; through them we obtain all needed spiritual things. As we observe the conditions of the body, we have nature on our side; as we observe the Law of the Soul, we have God on our side. He imparts truth to all men who observe these conditions; we have direct access to Him, through Reason, Conscience, and the religious Sentiment, just as we INSPIRATION UNIVERSAL. 161 have direct access to nature, through the eye, the ear, or the hand. Through these channels, and by means of a law, certain, regular, and universal as gravitation, God inspires men, makes revelation of truth; for is not truth as much a phenomenon of God, as motion of matter? Therefore, if God be omnipresent and omniactive, this inspiration is no miracle, but a regular mode of God's action on conscious spirit, as gravitation is on unconscious matter; it is not a rare condescension of God, but a universal uplifting of man. To obtain a knowledge of duty, man is not sent away, out- side of himself, to ancient documents, for the only rule of faith and practice : the Word is very nigh him, even in his heart, and by this Word he is to try all documents what- ever. Inspiration, like God's omnipresence, is not limited to the few writers claimed by the Jews, Christians, or Ma- hometans, but is coextensive with the race. As God fills all space, so all spirit; as he influences and constrains un- conscious and necessitated matter, so he inspires and helps free and conscious man. This theory does not make God limited, partial, or capri- cious. It exalts man. While it honous the excellence of a religious genius of a Moses or a Jesus, it does not pro- nounce their character monstrous, as the supernatural, nor fanatical, as the rationalistic theory; but natural, human, and beautiful, revealing the possibility of mankind. Prayer, whether conscious or spontaneous, a word or a feeling, felt in gratitude or penitence, or joy or resignation, is not a soliloquy of the man, not a physiological function, nor an address to a deceased man, but a sally into the infinite spi- ritual world, whence we bring back light and truth. There are windows towards God, as towards the world. There is no intercessor, angel, mediator between man and God; for man can speak and God hear, each for himself. He re- quires no advocate to plead for men, who need not pray by attorney. Each soul stands close to the omnipresent God; may feel his beautiful presence, and have familiar access to o 2 162 BUT ONE KIND OF INSPIRATION. the All-Father; get truth at first-hand from its Author. Wisdom, Righteousness, and Love, are the Spirit of God in the soul of man; wherever these are, and just in propor- tion to their power, there is inspiration from God. Thus God is not the author of confusion, but of Concord; Faith and Knowledge, and Revelation and Reason, tell the same tale, and so legitimate and confirm one another."* God's action on matter and on man is perhaps the same thing to Him, though it appear differently modified to us. But it is plain, from the nature of things, that there can be but one kind of Inspiration, as of Truth, Faith, or Love. It is the direct and intuitive perception of some truth, either of thought or of sentiment: there can be but one mode of Inspiration; it is the action of the Highest within the soul, the divine presence imparting light; this presence as Truth, Justice, Holiness, Love, infusing itself into the soul, giving it new life.; the breathing in of Deity; the income of God to the soul, in the form of Truth through the Reason, of Right through the Conscience, of Love and Faith through the Affections and Religious Sentiment. Is Inspiration confined to theological matters alone? Most surely not. Is Newton less inspired than Simon Peter? t * See Jonathan Edwards' view of Inspiration, in his sermon on a Divine Light imparted to the Soul, &o, Works, ed. Lond. 1840, Vol. II. p. 12, et seq., and VoL I. p. cclxix. No. 20. t So long as inspiration is regarded as purely miraculous, good sense will lessen instances of it, as far as possible; for most thinking men feel more or less repug- nance at believing in any violation, on God's part, of regular laws. As spiritual things are commonly less attended to than material, the belief in miraculous inspi- ration remains longer in religious than in secular affairs. A man would be looked on as mad, who should claim miraculous inspiration for Newton, as they have been who denied it in the case of Moses. But no candid man will doubt that, humanly speaking, it was a more difficult thing to write the Principia than the Decalogue. Man must have a nature most sadly anomalous, if, unassisted, he is able to accom- plish all the triumphs of modern science, and yet cannot discover the plainest and most important principles of Religion and Morality without a miraculous revelation ; and still more so, if, being able to discover, by God's natural aid, these chief and most important principles, he needs a miraculous inspiration to disclose minor de- tails. Science is by no means indispensable, as Religion and Morals. The doctrine of the immortality of the soul, if it is a real advantage, follows unavoidably from the DEGREES OF INSPIRATION. 163 Now, if the above views be true, there seems no ground for supposing that there are different kinds or modes of in- spiration in different persons, nations, or ages, in Minos or Moses, in Gentiles or Jews, in the first century or the last. If God be infinitely perfect, He does not change ; then his modes of action are perfect and unchangeable. The laws of mind, like those of matter, remain immutable and not transcended. As God has left no age nor man destitute, by nature, of Reason, Conscience, Eeligion, so he leaves none destitute of inspiration. It is, therefore, the light of all our being; the background of all human faculties; the sole means by which we gain a knowledge of what is not seen and felt; the logical condition of all sensual knowledge; our highway to the world of spirit. Man cannot, more than matter, exist without God. Inspiration, then, like vision, must be everywhere the same thing in kind, however it differs in degree, from race to race, from man to man. The degree of inspiration must depend on two things : first, on the natural ability, the particular intellectual, moral, and religious endowment, or genius, wherewith each man is fur- nished by God ; and next, on the use each man makes of this endowment. In one word, it depends on the man's Quantity of Being, and his Quantity of Obedience. Now as men differ widely in their natural endowments, and much more widely in the use and development thereof, there must of course be various degrees of inspiration, from the lowest sinner up to the highest saint. All men are not by birth capable of the same degree of inspiration; and by culture, and acquired character, they are still less capable of it. A man of noble intellect, of deep, rich, benevolent affections, is by his endowments capable of more than one less gifted. Idea of God. The Best being, he must win the best of good things; the Wisest, he must devise plans for that effect ; the most Powerful, he must bring it about. None can deny this. Does one ask another " proof of the fact? " Is fie so very full of faith who cannot trust God, except he have His bond in black and white, given under oath, and attested by witnesses ? 164 CONDITIONS OF INSPIRATION. He that perfectly keeps the soul's law, thus fulfilling the conditions of inspiration, has more than he who keeps it imperfectly; the former must receive all his soul can con- tain at that stage of his growth. Thus it depends on a man's own will, in great measure, to what extent he will be inspired. The man of humble gifts at first, by faithful obedience, may attain a greater degree than one of larger outfit, who neglects his talent. The Apostles of the New Testament, and the true saints of all countries, are proofs of this. Inspiration, then, is the consequence of a faithful use of our faculties. Each man is its subject God its source Truth its only test. But as truth appears in vari- ous modes to us, higher and lower, and may be superficially divided, according to our faculties, into truths of the Senses, of the Understanding, of Reason, of Conscience, of the Re- ligious Sentiment, so the perception of truth in the highest mode, that of Reason, Morals, Religion, is the highest in- spiration. He, then, that has the most of Wisdom, Good- ness, Religion, the most of Truth, in the highest modes, is the most inspired. Now universal and infallible inspiration can of course only be the attendant and result of a perfect fulfilment of all the laws of mind, of the moral and the religious nature ; and as man's faculties are limited, it is not possible to man : a foolish man, as such, cannot be inspired to reveal Wisdom, nor a wicked man to reveal Virtue, nor an impious man to reveal Religion. Unto him that hath, more is given. The poet reveals poetry, the artist art, the philosopher science, the saint religion. The greater, purer, loftier, more com- plete the character, so is the, inspiration; for he that is true to Conscience, faithful to Reason, obedient to Religion, has not only the strength of his own virtue, wisdom, and piety, but the whole strength of omnipotence on his side; for goodness, truth, and love, as we conceive them, are not one thing in man, and another in God, but the same thing in each. Thus man partakes the divine nature, as the Plato- VARIOUS FOEMS OF INSPIRATION. 165 nists, Christians, and Mystics call it. By these means the Soul of all flows into the man; what is private, personal, peculiar, ebbs off before that mighty influx from on high. What is universal, absolute, true, speaks out of his lips, in rude, homely utterance, it may be, or in words that burn and sparkle like the lightning's fiery flash. This inspiration reveals itself in various forms, modified by the country, character, education, peculiarity of him who receives it, just as water takes the form and the colour of the cup into which it flows, and must needs mingle with the impurities it chances to meet. Thus Minos and Moses were inspired to make laws; David to pour out his soul in pious strains, deep and sweet as an angel's psaltery; Pindar to celebrate virtuous deeds in high heroic song; John the Baptist to denounce sin ; Gerson and Luther and Bohme, and Fenelon and Fox, to do each his peculiar work, and stir the world's heart deep, very deep. Plato and New- ton, Milton and Isaiah, Leibnitz and Paul, Mozart, Kaphael, Phidias, Praxiteles, and Orpheus, receive into their various forms the one spirit from God most high. It appears in action not less than in speech; the Spirit inspires Dorcas to make coats and garments for the poor, no less than Paul to preach the Gospel. As that bold man himself has said, " there are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit ; diversi- ties of operations, but the same God who worketh all in all." In one man it may appear in the iron hardness of reasoning, which breaks through sophistry and prejudice, the rubbish and diluvial drift of time; in another it is subdued and softened by the flame of affection ; the hard iron of the man is melted, and becomes a stream of persuasion, sparkling as it runs. Inspiration does not destroy the man's freedom ; that is left fetterless by obedience. It does not reduce all to one uniform standard; but Habakkuk speaks in his own way, and Hugh de St. Victor in his. The man can obey or not obey can quench the spirit or feed it, as he will. Thus 166 EFFECT OF INSPIRATION. Jonah flees from his duty; Calchas will not tell the truth till out of danger; Peter dissembles and lies. Each of these men had schemes of his own, which he would carry out, God willing or not willing. But when the sincere man re- ceives the truth of God into his soul, knowing it is God's truth, then it takes such a hold of him as nothing else can do. It makes the weak strong the timid brave; men of slow tongue become full of power and persuasion. There is a new soul in the man, which takes him, as it were, by the hair of his head, and sets him down where the idea he wishes for demands. It takes the man away from the hall of comfort, the society of his friends; makes him austere and lonely cruel to himself, if need be; sleepless in his vigilance, unfaltering in his toil; never resting from his work. It takes the rose out of the cheek; turns the man in on himself, and gives him more of truth. Then, in a poetic fancy, the man sees visions has wondrous revela- tions; every mountain thunders God burns in every bush, flames out in the crimson cloud, speaks in the wind, de- scends with every dove, is All in All. The Soul, deep- wrought in its intense struggle, gives outness to its thought, and on the trees and stars, the fields, the floods, the corn ripe for the sickle, on man and woman, its sees its burthen writ. The Spirit within constrains the man. It is like wine that hath no vent; he is full of the God. While he muses, the fire burns; his bosom will scarce hold his heart; he must speak or he dies, though the earth quake at his word.* Timid flesh may resist, and Moses say, " I am of slow speech." What avails that ? The Soul says, " Go, and I will be with thy mouth, to quicken thy tardy tongue." Shrinking Jeremiah, effeminate and timid, recoils before the fearful work " The flesh will quiver when the pincers tear." He says, " I cannot speak ; I am a child." But the great Soul of All flows into him and says, " Say not I am a * See Lucan IX. 564, et seq. POWEE OF INSPIRATION. 167 child; for I am with thee. Gird up thy loins like a man, and speak all that I command thee. Be not afraid at men's faces, for I will make thee a defenced city, a column of steel, and walls of i>rass. Speak, then, against the whole land of sinners ; against the kings thereof, the princes there- of, its people and its priests. They may fight against thee, but they shall not prevail; for I am with thee." Devils tempt the man, with the terror of defeat and want, with the hopes of selfish ambition. It avails nothing; a "Get- thee-behind-me, Satan!" brings angels to help. Then are the man's lips touched with a live coal from the altar of Truth, brought by a Seraph's hand. He is baptized with the spirit of fire. His countenance, is like lightning. Truth thunders from his tongue his words eloquent as Persua- sion; no terror is terrible no fear formidable. The peace- ful is satisfied to be a man of strife and contention, his hand against every man, to root up and pluck down and destroy, to build with the sword in one hand and the trowel in the other. He came to bring peace, but he must set a fire, and his soul is straitened till his work be done. Elisha must leave his oxen in the furrow ; Amos desert his sum- mer fruit and his friend; and Bohme, and Bunyan, and Fox, and a thousand others, stout-hearted and God-inspired, must go forth of their errand into the faithless world, to accept the prophet's mission, be stoned, hated, scourged, slain. Eesistance is nothing to these men; over them steel loses its power, and public opprobrium its shame; deadly things do not harm them; they count loss gain, shame glory, death triumph. These are the men who move the world; they have an eye to see its follies, a heart to weep and bleed for its sin. Filled with a Soul wide as yes- terday, to-day, and forever, they pray great prayers for sin- ful man; the wild wail of a brother's heart runs through the saddening music of their speech. The destiny of these men is forecast in their birth; they are doomed to fall on evil times and evil tongues, come when they will come. 168 TREATMENT OF PROPHETS. The Priest and the Levite war with the Prophet, and do him to death; they brand his name with infamy; cast his unburied bones into the Gehenna of popular shame; John the Baptist must leave his head in a charger; Socrates die the death; Jesus be nailed to his cross; and Justin, John Huss, and Jerome of Prague, and millions of hearts stout as these, and as full of God, must mix their last prayers, their admonition, and farewell blessing, with the crackling snap of fagots, the hiss of quivering flesh, the impotent tears of wife and child, and the mad roar of the exulting crowd. Every path where mortal feet now tread secure, has been beaten out of the hard flint by prophets and holy men, who went before us, with bare and bleeding feet, to smooth the way for our reluctant tread. It is the blood of prophets that softens the Alpine rock; their bones are scattered in all the high places of mankind. But God lays his burthens on no vulgar men; He never leaves their souls a prey; He paints Elysium on their dungeon wall. In the populous chamber of their heart, the light of Faith shines bright and never dies. For such as are on the side of God, there is no cause to fear. The influence of God in Nature, in its mechanical, vital, or instinctive action, is beautiful. The shapely trees, the leaves that clothe them in loveliness; the corn and the cat- tle, the dew and the flowers ; the bird, the insect, moss and stone, fire and water, and earth and air ; the clear blue sky that folds the world in its soft embrace; the light which rides on swift pinions, enchanting all it touches, reposing harmless on an infant's eyelid, after its long passage from the other side of the universe, all these are noble and beautiful; they admonish while they delight us, these silent counsellors and sovereign aids. But the inspiration of God in man, when faithfully obeyed, is nobler and far more beau- tiful. It is not the passive elegance of unconscious things which we see resulting from man's voluntary obedience, INFLUENCE OF GOD IN NATURE AND IN MAN. 169 that might well charm us in nature; in man, we look for more. Here the beauty is intellectual, the beauty of Thought, which comprehends the world, and understands its laws; it is moral, the beauty of Virtue, which over- comes the world, and lives by its own laws; it is religious, the beauty of Holiness, which rises above the world, and lives by the law of the Spirit of Life. A single good man, at one with God, makes the morning and evening sun seem little and very low. It is a higher mode of the divine Power that appears in him, self-conscious and self-restrained. Now this, it seems, is the only kind of inspiration which is possible. It is coextensive with the faithful use of man's natural powers. Men may call it miraculous, but nothing is more natural; or they may say it is entirely human, for it is the result of man's use of his faculties. But what is more divine than Wisdom, Goodness, Eeligion 1 Are not these the points in which man and God conjoin ? If He- is present and active in spirit, such must be the perfect result of the action. No doubt there is a mystery in it, as in sensation, in all the functions of man. But what then 1 As a good man has said " God worketh with us both to will and to do." Reason, Conscience, Religion, mediate be- tween us and God, as the senses between us and matter. Is one more surprising than the other ? Is the one to be condemned as spiritual mysticism or Pantheism ? Then so is the other as material mysticism or Pantheism. Alas ! we know but in part; our knowledge is circumscribed by our ignorance. Now it is the belief of all primitive nations that God in- spires the wise, the good, the holy;* yes, that he works * On this doctrine see Sonntag, Doctrina Inspiration! s, &c. 1803, 1, et seq., and the authors he cites. De Wette, Dogmatik, 85-96, and 143-148, gives the Old Testament doctrine of Inspiration. See also Hase, Hutterus Redivivus, 41, Dog- matik, 8 ; Bretschneider, ubi sup. VoL I. $ 14, et seq. ; and Baumgarten-Crusius, P 170 INSPIRATION COMMONLY BELIEVED. with man in every noble work. No doubt their poor con- ceptions of God degraded the doctrine, and ascribed to the Deity what came from their disobedience of his law. The wisest and holiest men have spoken in the name of God. Minos, Moses, Zoroaster, Confucius, Zaleucus, Numa, Mahomet, profess to have received their doctrine straight- way from Him. The sacred persons of all nations, from the Druid to the Pope, refer back to His direct inspiration. From this source the Sibylline oracles, the responses at Delphi, the sacred books of all nations, the Vedas and the Bible, alike claim to proceed. Pagans tell us that no man was ever great without a divine afflatus falling upon him.* Much falsity was mingled with the true doctrine, for that was imperfectly understood; and violence, and folly, and lies, were thus ascribed to God. Still the popular belief shows that the human mind turns naturally in this direc- tion. Each prophet, false or true in Palestine, Nubia. India, Greece, spoke in the name of God. In this name the apostles of Christ and of Mahomet, the Catholic and the Protestant, went to their work.f A good man feels that Justice, Goodness, Truth, are immutable, not depen- dent on himself j that certain convictions come by a law over which he has no control. There they stand; he cannot Dogmengeschichte, Vol. II. p. 775, et seq. Much useful matter has been collected by these writers, and by Miinscher, Bauer, Von-Colln, and Strauss ; but a special history of the doctrine is still a desideratum. * See the opinions of the ancients in the classic passages, Cicero de Xat Deorum, II. 66; Orat. pro Arch. c. 8 T Tusc. V. 4; Xenophon. Memorab. I. 1; Seneca, Ep.XLI. See many passages collected in Sonntag. See also Barclay's Apology for the Quakers, Prop. I.-III. XI. ; Sewers History of the Quakers, B. IX. X. XI. XII. and p. 693; and George Fox's Journal, passim. t The history of the formation of the ecclesiastical doctrine of inspiration, which is the Supernatural view, is curious. It did not assume its most exclusive shape in the early teachers. In John of Damascus it appears in its vigour; in Abelard and Peter Lombard, it is more mild and liberal. Since the Reformation, it has been violently attacked. Luther himself is fluctuating in his opinions. As men's eyes opened, they would separate falsehood from truth. The writings of the English Deists had a great influence in this matter. See Walch's Religions-Streitigkeiten, Vol. V. ch. vii. Strauss also, Vol. I. 14, et seq., gives a brief and compendious ac- count of attacks on this doctrine. INSPIRATION UNIVERSAL. 171 alter, though he may refuse to obey them. Some have con- sidered themselves bare tools in the hand of God; they did and said they knew not what, thus charging their follies and sins on God Most High. Others, going to a greater degree of insanity, have confounded God with themselves, declaring that they were God. But even if likeness were perfect, it is not identity. But a ray from the primal light falls on man. No doubt there have been men of an high degree of inspiration, in all countries the founders of the various religions of the world. But they have been limited in their gifts, and their use of them. The doctrine they taught had somewhat national, temporal, even personal, in it, and so was not the Absolute Religion. No man is so great as human Nature, nor can one finite being feed for- ever all his brethren. So their doctrines were limited in extent and duration. Now this inspiration is limited to no sect, age, or nation. It is wide as the world, and common as God. It is not given to a few men, in the infancy of mankind, to mono- polize inspiration, and bar God out of the soul. You and I are not born in the dotage and decay of the world. The stars are beautiful as in their prime ; " the most ancient Heavens are fresh and strong;" the bird merry as ever at its clear heart. God is still everywhere in nature, at the line, the pole, in a mountain or a moss. Wherever a heart beats with love where Faith and Reason utter their ora- cles, there also is God, as formerly in the heart of seers and prophets. Neither Gerizim nor Jerusalem, nor the soil that Jesus blessed, so holy as the good man's heart; no- thing so full of God. This inspiration is not given to the learned alone, not to the great and wise, but to every faith- ful child of God. The world is close to the body; God closer to the soul, not only without but within, for the all- pervading current flows into each. The clear sky bends over each man, little or great; let him uncover his head 172 THE DOCTRINE OF EXPERIENCE. there is nothing between him and infinite space. So the ocean of God encircles all men ; uncover the soul of its sen- suality, selfishness, sin there is nothing between it and God, who flows into the man, as light into the air. Certain as the open eye drinks in the light, do the pure in heart see God ; and he that lives truly, feels Him as a presence not to be put by.* But this is a doctrine of experience as much as of abstract reasoning. Every man who has ever prayed prayed with the mind, prayed with the heart greatly and strong knows the truth of this doctrine, welcomed by pious souls. There are hours, and they come to all men, when the hand of destiny seems heavy upon us ; when the thought of time misspent, the pang of affection misplaced or ill requited, the experience of man's worse nature, and the sense of our own degradation, come over us. In the outward and in- ward trials, we know not which way to turn; the heart faints, and is ready to perish. Then, in the deep silence of the soul, when the man turns inward to God, light, comfort, peace, dawn on him. His troubles they are but a dew- drop on his sandal; his enmities or jealousies, hopes, fears, honours, disgraces, all the undeserved mishaps of life, are lost to the view, diminished, and then hid in the mists of the valley he has left behind and below him. Eesolution comes over him with its vigorous wing ; Truth is clear as noon; the soul in faith rushes to its God. The mystery is at an end. It is no vulgar superstition to say that men are inspired in such times. They are the seedtime of life. Then we live whole years through in a few moments, and afterwards, as we journey on in life, cold and dusty, and travel-worn and faint, we look to that moment as a point of light; the * Such as like to settle questions by authority, will see that this is the doctrine of the more spiritual writers of the Old and New Testaments, especially of John and Paul. POPULAR DOUBTS THEREOF. 173 remembrance of it comes over us like the music of our home heard in a distant land; like Elisha in the fable, we go long years in the strength thereof. It travels with us, a great wakening light, a pillar of fire in the darkness, to guide us through the lonely pilgrimage of life. These hours of inspiration, like the flower of the aloe-tree, may be rare, but are yet the celestial blossoming of man the result of the past, the prophecy of the future. They are not numerous to any man ; happy is he that has ten such in a year, yes, in a life-time. Now to many men, who have but once felt this when heaven lay about them, in their infancy, before the world was too much with them, and they had laid waste their powers, getting and spending when they look back upon it, across the dreary gulf where Honour, Virtue, Religion, have made shipwreck and perished with their youth, it seems visionary a shadow, dream-like, unreal. They count it a phantom of their inexperience the vision of a child's fancy, raw and unused to the world. Now they are wiser. They cease to believe in inspiration; they can only credit the saying of the priests, that long ago there were inspired men, but none now; that you and I must bow our faces to the dust, groping like the Blind- worm and the Beetle not turn our eyes to the broad, free Heaven; that we cannot walk by the great central and celestial light that God made to guide all that come into the world, but only by the farthing-candle of tradition, poor and flickering light, which we get of the priest, which casts strange and fearful shadows around us as we walk, that " leads to be- wilder and dazzles to blind." Alas for us if this be all ! But can it be so? has Infinity laid aside Its omnipre- sence, retreating to some little corner of space? No! The grass grows as green, the birds chirp as gaily, the sun shines as warm, the moon and the stars walk in their pure beauty, sublime as before, morning and evening have lost none of their loveliness not a jewel has fallen from the diadem of p 2 174 GOD NOT AFAR OFF. night. God is still there, ever present in matter, else it were not; else the serpent of Fate would coil him about the All of things, would crush it in his remorseless grasp, and the hour of ruin strike creation's knell. Can it be, then, as so many tell us, that God, transcend- ing time and space, immanent in matter, has forsaken man ; retreated from the Shekinah in the i;holy of holies to the court of the Gentiles'? that now He will stretch forth no aid, but leave his tottering child to wander on, amid the palpable obscure, eyeless and fatherless without a path, with no guide but his feeble brother's words and works groping after God if haply he may find him and learning, at last, that He is but a God afar off, to be approached only by mediators and attorneys, not face to face as before"? Can it be, that Thought shall fly through the Heaven, his pinion glittering in the ray of every star, burnished by a million suns, and then come drooping back, with ruffled plume and flagging wing, and eye that once looked undazzled on the sun now spiritless and cold come back to tell us that God is no Father 1 that He veils his face, and will not look upon his child, his erring child? No more can this be true ! Conscience is still God-with-us; a Prayer is deep as ever of old Reason as true, Religion as blest. Faith still remains the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen; Love is yet mighty to cast out fear. The Soul still searches the deeps of God; the pure in heart see Him. The substance of the Infinite is not yet exhausted, nor the well of Life drunk dry. The Father is near us as ever, else Reason were a traitor, Morality a hollow form, Religion a mockery, and Love an hideous lie ! Now, as in the days of Adam, Moses, Jesus, he that is faithful to Reason, Con- science, and Religion, will, through them, receive inspi- ration to guide him through all his pilgrimage. BOOK III. " Where there is a great deal of smoke and no clear flame, it argueth much moisture in the matter, and yet it witnesseth certainly that there is fire there; and therefore dubious questioning is a much better evidence, than that senseless deadness which most men take for believing. Men that know nothing in sciences have no doubts." LEIGHTON, cited by COLERIDGE, Aids to Reflection, American edi- tion, 1829, p. 64. " He who begins by loving Christianity better than Truth, will proceed by loving his own Sect or Church better than Christianity, and end in loving himself better than all." COLERIDGE, ubi sup., p. 64-65. " While everybody wishes to believe rather than examine and decide, a just judg- ment is never passed upon a matter of the greatest importance; our opinion thereof is taken on trust. The error of our fathers, which has fallen into our hands, whirls us round, and drives us headlong. We are ruined by the example of others. We shall be healed if we separate from the rabble. Now the people, in hostility with Reason, stand up as the defence of what is their own mischief." SENECA, De Vita Beata, ch. i., a free translation. BOOK III. THE RELATION OF THE RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT TO JESUS OF NAZARETH, OR A DISCOURSE OF CHRISTIANITY. CHAPTER I. STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION, AND THE METHOD OF INQUIRY. IT was said before, that Religion, like Love, is always the -same thing in kind, though both are necessarily modified by other emotions combining therewith, and by the concep- tion of the object to which the emotion is directed. Thus Love is modified as it chances to coexist with weakness or strength, folly or wisdom, selfishness or morality, qualities in the sitbject who loves. By these qualities the degree of Love is determined. It is modified also by the qualities of the object; as love is directed towards a child, a wife, or a( friend. Hence come the different modifications of Religion j as it coexists with faith or fear, wisdom or ignorance, love or hate, in the worshipping subject; and again as the object of worship is conceived to be one being, or many beings, or all being as he is conceived of as the absolutely Perfect \ or represented as finite, cruel, capricious, and unlovely. The only perfect form of Religion is produced by all the powers of a man's nature acting harmoniously together. All manifestations of Religion proceed from the religious sentiment in man, and are more or less imperfect represen- 178 RELATION OF TJ3E RELIGIOUS tations of that sentiment, as its action is more or less im- peded or promoted by various causes. If this be so, it follows that the religious Sentiment or Principle in man bears the same relation to each and all particular forms and teachers of Religion, that Reason bears to each and all particular systems or teachers of Philosophy: that is, as no one teacher or system of Philosophy, nor all teachers and systems taken together, have exhausted Rea- son, which is the groundwork and standard-measure of them all, and is represented more or less partially in each of them, and therefore, as new teachers and new systems of Phi- losophy are always possible and necessary until a system is discovered which embraces all the facts of Science, sets forth and legitimates all the laws of nature, and thus represents the Absolute Science, which is implied in the Facts of nature, or the Ideas of God, so no one teacher or form of Religion, nor all teachers and forms put together, have ex- hausted the religious Sentiment, which is the groundwork and standard-measure of them all, and is represented more or less partially in each; and so new teachers and new forms of Religion are always possible and necessary, until a form is discovered which embraces all the facts of man's moral and religious nature, sets forth and legitimates all the laws thereof, and thus represents the Absolute Religion, as it is implied in the Facts of man's nature, or the Ideas of God. As no system or teacher of Philosophy is greater than Rea- son, and competent to give laws to nature, but at the utmost is only coordinate with Reason, and competent to discover and announce the laws of nature previously existing ; no form or teacher of Religion can.be greater than the religious Sentiment, and competent to give laws to man, but at the utmost is only coordinate with the religious Sentiment, and competent to discover and announce the laws of man pre- viously existing. In one word, Absolute Science answers exactly to Reason, and is what Reason demands j Absolute Religion answers exactly to the religious Sentiment, and is SENTIMENT TO A FORM OF RELIGION. 179 what the religious Sentiment demands. Therefore, until Philosophy and Religion attain the Absolute, each form or teacher of either is subject to be modified or supplanted by any man who has a truth not embraced by the Philosophy or Religion at that time extant. However, there are certain jprimary truths of Science and Religion, which alone render the two possible, and which are possessed with more or less of a distinct understanding by all teachers of the two, and attain greater prominence with some. Though the system may have many faults accidentally connected with it, though others may point out the faults and develope the system still farther, yet the first principles remain. Thus in Science the maxims of Geometry, in H orals the first truths thereof, must reappear in all the systems. Now to make a special application of these general re- marks: Christianity can be no greater than the religious Sentiment, though it may be less, as the water can of it- self rise no higher in the pipe than in the fountain, though, if the pipe be defective, it may fail of its former height. Religion is the universal term, and absolute Religion and Morality its highest expression. Christianity is a particular form under this universal term one form of religion among many others. It is either absolute Religion and Morality, or it is less; greater it cannot be, as there is no greater. Christianity, then, is a form of Religion. As it is actual, it must have been revealed; if it is true, it must be natural. I It is therefore to be examined and judged of as other forms / of Religion, by Reason and the religious Sentiment. It is true or false j perfect or imperfect. The question, then, reduces itself to this : Is Christianity the Absolute Religion? To answer the question, we must know, first, what Christianity is; secondly, what Absolute Religion is. If Christianity is not the Absolute, we must of course look for a more perfect revelation of Religion, just as we look for improvements in Science till Philosophy be^ comes absolute. But if Christianity be this, or involve it, 180 METHOD OF INQUIRY. and nothing contradicts or impedes this, then we can ex- pect nothing higher in Religion, for there is no higher, but have only to understand this, and develope its prin- ciples; applying it to life, in order to attain perfect re- ligious welfare. / To ascertain what is Absolute Religion is no difficult mat- tery for Religion is not an external thing, like Astronomy, to be learned by long observation, and the perfection of scientific instruments and algebraic processes; but some- thing above all, inward and natural to man. As it was said before, Absolute Religion is perfect obedience to the Law of God perfect Love towards God and man, exhibited in a life allowing and demanding a harmonious action of all man's faculties, so far as they act at all. But to answer the historical question, " Did Jesus of Nazareth teach Ab- solute Religion?" is a matter vastly more difficult, which it requires learning, critical skill, and no little pains-taking, to make out. To answer the first question, What is Chris- tianity ? is a very difficult thing : no two men seem agreed \ about it ; the wickedest of wars have been fought to settle f it. To answer the query, are we to take what is popularly called Christianity? No Protestant thinks the Christianity of the Catholic Church is Absolute Religion; nor will the Catholic think any better of the Protestant faith. A pious man, free from bigotry, and capable of judging, would surely make very short work of the question, and decide that Christianity, as popularly taught by both these Churches taken together, is not absolute Religion. But we must look deeper than Protestantism and Popery; we must distinguish Christianity from the popular Con- ceptions of Christianity from its Proof and its Form. To do this, -we must go back to the fountain-head, the words of Jesus. We must then take these words in the abstract, separate from any church; apart from all authority, real or pretended; without respect of any application thereof to life that was made by its founder or others. If all churches RELIGIOUS TRUTH ETERNAL. 181 have believed it, if miracles have been wrought in its favour, if its application have been good in this or that case, still it does not follow that Christianity is absolute and final : the Church has been notoriously mistaken on many points. Miracles are claimed for Judaism, Mahometanism, and Idolatry ; each heresy is thought by its followers to work well. We must look away from all these considerations. If Jesus of Nazareth lived out his idea, and was the greatest of saints, it does not follow that his idea was absolute, and therefore final; if he did not perfectly live it out, the re- verse does not follow. The good life of a teacher proves nothing of any speculative doctrine he entertains, either in morals or mathematics. A man would be thought insane who should say Euclid's demonstration of the forty-seventh problem was true, because Euclid lived a good life, and raised men from the dead; or that it was false, because he lived a bad life and murdered his mother. If Christianity be the Absolute, it is independent of all circumstances eternally true, as much before its revelation as after it is brought to light and applied to life. Before its revelation, it was active, but unknown; afterwards, known to be active. To illustrate this point : The three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles. This is eternally true, and ap- plies to all triangles that were, are, or are to be conceived of. It was just as true before any one discovered and de- clared it, as afterwards. Its truth depends not on the fact that Thales or Stilpo demonstrates the theorem, nor on the authority of him who asserts it. Its truth exists in the very nature of things, or, to use other words, in the ideas of God. It was just the same before creation as afterwards. Other things remaining the same, even Omnipotence can- not make these three angles to be more or less than two right angles, for Infinite power of course excludes contra- dictions. Now there are two things : first, Religion as it exists in the facts of man's soul; and secondly, Religion as taught Q 182 THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY by Jesus of Nazareth. The first must be eternally true; but it follows from no premise that the second is eternally true. He may have taught absolute Religion, or an im- perfect form; he may have omitted what was essential, or have added what was national, temporal, personal. In either case, Christianity is not the Absolute Religion. But if it has none of these faults, and really conforms with this ideal standard, or involves this, and if nothing therein contradicts it, then Christianity is the Absolute J&ligion; eternally true, before revelation, after revelation; the Law God made for man, and wrote in his nature. Then, again, if the character of Jesus was not a perfect manifestation of this perfect Religion which he taught or implied; if his application of it to life was limited by his position, his youth, his indiscretion, fanaticism, prejudice, ignorance, selfishness, as some have contended, it does not make the Religion he taught any the less perfect in itself; if true at all, it is eternally true; if Christianity be true at all, it would be just as true if Herod or Catiline had taught it. Therefore, if the intellectual character of Jesus had never so many defects; if he entertained false notions about himself, his office, ministry, destination respecting ancient history and Jewish literature, the existence and agency of devils, and in general, respecting things past, pre- sent, and to come; if he entertained the absurdest notions at the same time with his pure doctrine ; nay, if he had never so many moral deficiencies, if he denounced his enemies, and was frightened at danger, and fled away from death, or had even recanted his most vigorous statements, still his religious doctrine remains unaffected by all of these circumstances. To make this point clear by recurring to a former illustration : A philosopher may show that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, yet lead an immoral life, believe in witches, devils, the philosopher's stone, and imputed righteousness. His absurd belief and wicked life do not affect the truth of his theorem. DEPENDS NOT ON JESUS. 183 Now, then, to determine what Christianity is, we must remove all those extraneous matters relating to the person, character, and authority of him who first taught it; we must separate it from all applications thereof which have been made to life; must view it by itself, as doctrine, as life, and measure it by this ideal standard of absolute Reli- gion. After we have determined this question, we may then judge of the applications of Christianity to life, of the character of its Revealer, and try both by the standard he offers. 184 THE CHRISTIAN RECORDS, CHAPTER II. REMOVAL OF SOME DIFFCULTIES CHARACTER OF THE CHRISTIAN RECORDS. THE method of acquiring a knowledge of Absolute Eeligion is plain and easy ; but to get a knowledge of the doctrine taught by any teacher of ancient times is more difficult. This, however, may be said in general, that there are three sources of knowledge accessible to men ; two of these are di- rect, and one indirect: first, Perception through the senses; by this we only get an acquaintance with material things and their properties; second, Intuition through Reason, Conscience, the Religious Sentiment, by which we get an acquaintance with spiritual things, which are not objects of sense; third, Reflection, a mental process, by which we unfold what is contained or implied or suggested in percep- tions or intuitions. Then as a secondary, but not ultimate source, there is Testimony, by which we learn what others have found out through perception, intuition, or reflection. Now thoughts or objects of thought may be classified in reference to their sources. The truths of absolute Religion are not matters of Sense, it is plain. If objects of Reflection or Intuition, they must be obvious to all who have the intui- tive or reflective faculty, and will use it ; they therefore are matters of direct personal experience; not so a knowledge of any given historical form of Religion. As it has been before said, the great truths of Religion are matters of in- tuition; God helping the faithful, who use their faculties CHARACTER OP THE TESTIMONY. 185 justly. Therefore, theoretically, each may depend on his own intuitions, as each thinker on his own reflections; if not faithful, the aid, the counsel, the example of the good man, help us to the truth. The wise and the pious are the educators whom God appoints for the race; by their supe- rior gift, they help feebler men to understand what else the latter might never have reached. The same rule holds good in both Philosophy and Religion : the weak need the help of the strong, youth of experience, the faithless of the faithful. The works and words of the saint help the sinner to the source of truth. This is the office of prophets and apostles. In historical questions, respecting events that took place out of the sphere of our observation, we must depend on the testimony of others who report what they have seen and heard, felt or thought. To determine what Christianity is, we must depend on the testimony of the Evangelists, who profess to relate the works and words of Jesus, and of the Apostles, who reduced his thought to organization, and applied it to life. To speak of the four Evangelists: ad- mitting, for the sake of the argument, that we have their evidence, and that the books in our hands come really from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and that they bore the relation to Jesus which they claim; the question comes, Are they competent to testify in the case? can we trust them to give us the whole truth, and nothing but the truth ? Admitting that they were honest, yet if they were but men, there must be limitations to the accuracy of their testimony. They must omit many things that Jesus said and did, perhaps both actions and words important in estimating his doctrines. They can express only so much of their teach- er's opinions as they know; to do this they might perhaps modify, at least colour, the doctrine in their own minds. They might sometimes misunderstand what they heard; mistake a general for a particular statement, and the re- verse ; a new doctrine of the teacher might accidentally coincide in part with an old doctrine, and he be supposed to Q2 186 DEFECTS OF HISTORICAL TESTIMONY. teach what he did not teach; a parable or an action might be misunderstood ; a quotation misapplied or forgotten, and another put in its place ; a general prediction, wish, or hope, referred to a specific time, or event, when it had no such reference. He may have merely allowed things which he was afterwards supposed to have commanded. The writers might unconsciously exaggerate or diminish the fact; they might get intelligence at second-hand, from hearsay, and popular rumour. Their national, sectarian, personal pre- judices, must colour their narrative ; they might confound their own notions with his, and represent him as teaching what he did not teach. They might not separate fact from fancy; their love of the marvellous might lead them astray. If they believed in miracles they would ascribe prodigious things to their teacher; had they a faith in ghosts and de- vils, they would naturally interpret his words in favour of their own notions, rather than in opposition thereto. If the writers were ignorant men; if they wrote in one language, and he spoke in another; still more, if they wrote at some distance of time from the events, arid were not skilled in sifting rumours and separating fact from fiction, -the dif- ficulty becomes still greater. These defects are common, more or less, to all historical testimony; in the case of the Evangelists, they constitute a very serious difficulty. We know the character of the writers only from themselves ; they relate much from hearsay ; they mingle their own per- sonal prejudices in their work; their testimony was not reduced to writing, so. far as we know, till long after the event; we see they were often mistaken, and did not always understand the words or actions of their teacher; that they contradict one another, and even themselves ; that they mingle with their story puerile notions and tales which it is charitable to call absurd. Such testimony could not be re- ceived if found in Valerius Maximus and Livy, or offered in a court of justice, when only a few dollars were at stake, without great caution. INCONSISTENCIES IN THE RECORDS. 187 Now the difficulty in this case is enormous; it has been felt from an early age. To get rid of the evil, it has been taught, and even believed, that the Evangelists and Apos- tles were miraculously inspired, to such a degree that they could commit no mistake of any kind in this matter, and had none of the defects above hinted at. The assumption is purely gratuitous; there is not a fact on which to base it. From the doctrine of inspiration as before laid down, it appears that such infallibility is not possible; and from an examination of the facts of the case, it appears it was not actual. The Evangelists differ widely from the Apos- tles ; the Synoptics * give us in Jesus a very different being from the Christ whom John describes; and all four make such contradictory statements on some points, as to show that they were by no means infallibly inspired; for in that case, not only the smallest contradiction would have been impossible, but, without concert, they must all have writ- ten exactly the same thing; yet John omits the most sur- prising facts, the Synoptics the most surprising doctrines. What has been said is sufficient to show that we must proceed with great caution in accepting the statements of the Gospels. The most careless observer sees inconsisten- cies, absurd narrations; finds actions attributed to Jesus, and words put into his mouth, which are directly at vari- ance with his great principles and the general tone of his character. Still there must have been a foundation of fact for such a superstructure ; a great spirit to have commenced such a movement as the Christian ; a great doctrine to have accomplished this, the most profound and wondrous revolu- tion in human affairs. We must conclude that these writers would describe the main features of his life, and set down the great principles of his doctrine, its most salient points and his most memorable sayings, such as were poured out in the highest moments of inspiration. If the teacher were * Matthew, Mark, and Luke. 188 RESULT OF THE EVIDENCE. true, these sayings would involve all the rest of his doctrine, which any man of simple character, religious heart, and mind free from prejudice, could unfold and develope still farther. The condition and nature of the Christian records will not allow us to go farther than this, and to be curious in particulars. Their legendary and mythical character does not warrant full confidence in their narrative. There are certain main features of doctrine in which the Evangelists and the Apostles all agree, though they differ in most other points.* * The character of the record is such that I see not how any stress can be laid on particular actions attributed to Jesus. That he lived a divine life, suffered a violent death, taught and lived a most beautiful religion, this seems the great fact about which a mass of truth and error has been collected. That he should gather disciples, be opposed by the Priests and Pharisees, have controversies with them, this lay in the nature of things. His loftiest sayings seem to me the most likely to be genuine. The great stress laid on the person of Jesus by his followers, shows what the person must have been; they put the person before the thing, the fact above the idea. But it is not about vulgar men that such mythical stories are told. See, who will, the recent literature on this subject, Strauss, Leben Jesu, 4th ed. 1840; Hase, Leben Jesu, 3d ed. 1840 ; Theile, Zur Biographic Jesu, 1837 ; Weisse, Evangelische Geschichte, &c. 1838; Paulus, Leben Jesu, 1828; Gfrorer Urchristenthums, &c. 1830; Hennel, Inquiry concerning the Origin of Christianity, Lond. 1838; Harwood, Ger- man Anti-supernaturalism, Lond. 1840. MAIN FEATURES OF CHRISTIANITY. 189 CHAPTER III. THE MAIN FEATURES OF CHRISTIANITY. Now to leave out of mind the notions about Christianity which prevail in this or that church, age, council, or writer; to get clear of the peculiarities of this or that Apostle and Evangelist; to make a separation from the opinions of Jesus about prophecy, demonology, and other matters but acci- dentally connected with Religion ; to take his own highest statement, the thing in which all the Evangelists and Apos- tles agree, and which has been the heart of the Christian movement, we find the doctrine of Jesus is a simple thing: LOVE TO MAN LOVE TO GOD. The whole of Christianity is summed up in these two elements, its moral, its reli- gious side, practical and contemplative. All the moral and religious teaching of Jesus, the sermon on the mount, so called, the parables of the Synoptics, the discourses of John, are but an amplification of these, an application of them to life; a statement of the blessedness of obedience, the sadness of disobeying. To take the account as it stands : A man asks what he shall do to fulfil the idea of man, and have "eternal life 1 ?" He bids him keep the moral law, written eternally in the nature of man ; specifies some of its plainest prohibitions, and adds, " Love your neighbour as yourself." When asked the greatest commandment of the Law, he thus sums up all the Law, and the Prophets also : " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. Thou shalt 190 THE SUM OF CHRISTIANITY. love thy neighbour as thyself."* Here is the sum of Chris- tian doctrine. He gives the highest aim for man " Be perfect as God." He declares the blessedness, present and eternal, of such as do the Will of God the Spirit of God shall be in them, revealing Truth; the kingdom of God shall be theirs. He gives no extended form of his views in Theology, Anthropology, Politics, or Philosophy. But the great truth of God's goodness, and man's spiritual nature, are implied in all his teachings. He dwells little on the Immortality of the Soul much less than some " Heathens" before him ; but it is everywhere implied. As the doctrine was familiar, he dwells little upon it. In the course of his teaching, he dwells much upon sin, for it was all around him. Taking the highest view of man's nature, power, and duty, he must above all mourn at man's lot when not faithful, and call loudly on his brothers to flee from a state so sad. Matthew would make his first address to be, " Kepent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand."t He speaks of the change from sin to a divine life as a new birth, a common expression, to denote the great- ness of the change. He promises reconciliation with God, on condition of a new life. He speaks of himself if we may trust the words of the record so minutely as the life, the light, the only way to salvation, that is, the teacher who shows the only way. He considers himself as sent by God, his doctrine and works not his own, but the Father's. Yet he never speaks of his connection with God as peculiar; never calls himself the Son of God in any sense wherein all good men are not * Matth. xxli. 37, 39, and the parallels in Mark and Luke. t This phrase, the Kingdom of Heaven, is one of no little ambiguity, and it is cer- tainly possible that, like the Psalms of David, it meant one thing to the writer and another to us. In some places it certainly cannot mean a state of rewards and punish- ments in another life, even if it ever have this meaning. Can it be, that Jesus ex- pected a visible kingdom on the earth ? or were his followers perpetually mistaking his meaning? There can be no doubt that the writers of the New Testament some- times understood, by the Kingdom of Heaven, a local kingdom on the earth. JESUS NOT THE ONLY SON OF GOD. 191 also sons of God ; never speaks of his doctrines or his works as peculiar to himself, which others could not do and teach. He promises that his disciples shall do greater works than his; the Spirit of Truth shall teach them more than he had done. Since he never speaks of his relation to God as pe- culiar to himself, but on the contrary as shared by all; since he calls the peacemakers God's children; says the pure in heart, and all who are of God, shall see Him; that God abides in the hearts of all who love him; and since he defends his divine Son-ship on the ground that the Jewish Scripture calls men sons of God to whom the Word of God came, it is plain that he represents himself as but the type of that relation which all good men sustain to God; that his strength, inspiration, exceeding tranquillity, his rest of soul, and union with God, are what all men may share. To sum up the main points of the matter more briefly : In an age of gross wickedness, among a people arrogant, and proud of their descent from Abraham a mythological character of some excellence; wedded to the ritual Law, which they professed to have received, by miracle from God, through Moses another and greater mythological hero; in a nation of Monotheists, haughty yet cunning, morose, jealous, vindictive, loving the little corner of space called Judea above all the rest of the world, fancying themselves the " chosen people" and special favourites of God; in the midst of a nation wedded to their forms, sunk in ignorance, precipitated into sin, and, still more, expecting a Deliverer who would repel their political foes, reunite the scattered children of Jacob, and restore them to power, conquer all nations, reestablish the formal service of the Temple in all its magnificent pomp, and exalt Jerusalem above all the cities of the earth forever; amid all this, and the opposi- tion it raised to a spiritual man, Jesus fell back on the moral and religious Sentiment in man ; uttered their oracles 192 PRACTICAL LOVE OF GOD. as the Infinite spoke through them; taught absolute Reli- gion, absolute Morality nothing less, nothing more; laid down principles wide as the Soul, true and eternal as God.* Such, then, is the religious doctrine of Jesus. It was al- ways taught with direct application to life not as Science, but as daily Duty. Love of God was no abstraction. It implied love of Wisdom, Justice, Purity, Goodness, Holi- ness, Charity. To love these, is to love God; to love them, is to live them. It implies abhorrence of evil for its own sake; a desire and effort to be perfect as God, to have no wrong action, wrong thought, or wrong feeling; to make the heart right, the head right, the hand right; to serve God, not with the lips alone, but the life not only in Je- rusalem and Gerizim, but everywhere not by tithing mint, anise and cummin, but by judgment, mercy and faith not by saying " Lord ! Lord ! " " Save us, good Lord ! " but by doing the Father's will. It implies a Faith that is stronger than Fear, prevails over every sorrow, grief, disappointment, and asks only this, " Thy will be done!" a Love which is strongest in times of trouble which never fails when hu- man affection goes stooping and feeble, weeping its tears of blood; a Love which annihilates temptation, and, in the hour of mortal agony brings a fair angel from the sky; an absolute trust in God, a brave unconcern for the morrow, so long as the day's duties are faithfully done. It is a love of Goodness and Religion for their own sake, not for the bribe of Heaven, or the dread of Hell. It implies a reunion of man and God, till we think God's thought, and will God's will, and so have God abiding in us, and become one with Him. * In estimating the religious doctrine of Jesus, it should be remembered that tho Synoptics had all strong Jewish prejudices, and therefore gave a Jewish colouring to the doctrine of Jesus, which does not appear so strongly in the fourth Gospel, or the writings of Paul. The careful interpreter will make allowance for this. But, after all, the question, Whether this or that historical person taught Absolute Religion, is of small consequence to the race. PRACTICAL LOVE OF MAN. 193 The other doctrine. Love of Man, is love of all as your- self, not because they have no faults, but in spite thereof. To feel no enmity towards enemies to labour for them with love pray for them with pitying affection, remem- bering that the less they deserve, the more they need, this was the doctrine of Love. It demands that the rich, the wise, the holy, help the poor, the foolish, the sinful; that the strong bear the burdens of the weak, not bind them anew. It tells a man that his excellence and ability are not for himself alone, but for all mankiud, of which he is but one, beginning first with the nearest of the needy. It makes the strong the guardians, not the tyrants of the weak. It said, " Go to the publicans and sinners, and call them to repentance; go to men trodden down by the hoof of the oppressor ; rebuke him lovingly, but snatch the spoil from his bloody teeth ; go to men sick with desolation, covered all over with the leprosy of sin, bowed together and squalid with their inveterate disease; bid them live and sin no more." It despairs of no man; sees the soul of goodness in things evil; knows that the soul in its intimate recess never consents to sin, nor loves the Hateful. It would im- prove men's circumstances to mend their heart their heart to mend their circumstances. It does not say alone, with piteous whine, " God save the wicked and the weak," but puts its own shoulder to the work ; divides its raiment, and shares its loaf. To say all in brief, these two cardinal doctrines demanded a DIVINE LIFE, where every action of the hand, the head, the heart, is in obedience to the Law of the Soul in har- mony with the A 11 -perfect. This was Christ's notion of worship. It asked for nothing ritual, formal; laid no stress on special days, forms, rites, creeds. Its rite, its creed, its substance and its form, are all contained in that one com- mand, LOVE MAN AS YOURSELF; GOD ABOVE ALL. Thus far the application was universal as the doctrine. R 194 BAPTISM AND THE STTPPER. But he taught something which is ritual Baptism and the Supper. The first was a common rite at the time, used even by the " heathens." In a nation dwelling in a warm climate, and so fond of symbols as the Jews, it was a natural expression of the convert's change of life. Sensual men must interpret their Eeligion to the senses, as the Hol- landers have their Bible in Dutch. It seems to have been an accommodation to the wants of the times, as he spoke the popular language. In the same spirit he keeps the Passover, and bids the restored leper offer the customary sacrifice. Did he lay any stress on this watery dispensa- tion 1 ? count it valuable of itself? Then we must drop a tear for the weakness; for no outward act can change the heart, and God is not to be mocked, pleased, or served with a form. Is there any reason to suppose he ever designed it to be permanent 1 It is indeed said that he bade the dis- ciples teach all nations, " baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Ghost."* But since the Apostles never mention the command, nor the forms, since it is opposite to the general spirit of his pre- cepts, it must be put with the many other things which are to be examined with much care before they are referred to him. But if it came from him, we can only say, There is no perfect Guide but the Father. The second form, was it of more account than the first? Who shall tell us the " Lord's Supper" was designed to be permanent more than washing the feet, which the Pope likewise imitates? Did he place any value on the dispensa- tion of wine? design it to extend beyond the company then present ? If we may trust the account, he asks his friends, at supper, to remember him, when they break bread; it was simple, natural, affectionate, beautiful. Was this a foundation of a form to last forever a form valuable in itself, essential to man's spiritual welfare a form pleasing * Matth. xxviii. 19, and the parallels. BAPTISM AND THE SUPPER. 195 to Him who is All in All 1 To say Jesus laid any stress on it as a valuable and perpetual rite, is to go beyond what is written; it needs no reply. The thing may be useful, beautiful, comforting to a million souls; truly it has been so. In Christianity there is milk for babes and meat for men, that the truth may be given as they can receive it. Let each be fed with the Father's bounty. Thus the dispensations of water and of wine are, per- haps, the only limitations set to the universal application of his great doctrines; and if the above views are correct, the limitation does not come from Jesus, and these forms are no more essential or valuable in themselves, no more de- signed to be permanent, than the Syro-Chaldaic tongue in which he spoke. Christianity having no forms essential, can accommodate itself to all ; but these being its only sen- suous appendages, no wonder sensual men cling to them, as the fetichist to his idol, the polytheist to his sacrifice. Render unto the senses what is theirs, and to the soul its own. 196 THE AUTHORITY OF JESUS. CHAPTER IV. THE AUTHORITY OF JESUS, ITS REAL AND PRETENDED SOURCE. ON what authority did Jesus teach? On that of the most high God, as he expressly states, and often. But to have the authority of God, is not that miraculous 1 ? How can man have God's authority in a natural way? Let us look at the matter. I. THE ONLY AUTHORITY OF CHRISTIANITY IS ITS TRUTH. Truth is the relation of things as they are ; falsehood as they are not. No doctrine can have a higher condemnation than to be convicted of falsehood ; none a higher authority than to be proved true. God is the author of things as they are ; therefore of this relation, and therefore of Truth. He that delivers the Truth, then, has so far the authority of Truth's God. Then it will be asked, How do we know Christianity is true, or that it is our duty to love man and God? Now when it is asked, How I do know that I exist; that doubting is doubting ; that half is less than the whole ; that it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be? the questioner is set down as a strange man. But it has somehow come to pass, that he is reckoned a very acute and Christian person who doubts moral and religious axioms, and asks, How do I know that right is right, and wrong wrong, and goodness good? Alas! there are men among KNOWLEDGE OF RELIGIOUS DUTY. 197 the Christians who place virtue and religion on a lower ground than Aristippus and Democritus, men branded as Heathens and Atheists. Let us know what we are about. It was said above,* there are, practically, four sources of knowledge, direct and indirect, primary and secondary, namely, perception for sensible things, intuition for spiritual things, reflection for logical things, and testimony for his- torical things. If the doctrines of Christianity are eternal truths, they are not sensible things, not historical things, and of course do not depend on sensual perception, nor historical testimony, but can be presented directly to the consciousness of men at one age as well as another; and thus, if they are matters of reflection, may be made plain to all who have the reflective faculty, and will use it; if they are matters of intuition, to all who have the intuitive fa- culty, and will let it act. Now the duty we owe to man, that of loving him as ourselves the duty we owe to God, that of loving Him above all, is a matter of intuition; it proceeds from the very nature of man, and is inseparable from that nature ; we recognize the truth of the precept as soon as it is stated, and see the truth of it as soon as the unprejudiced mind looks that way. It is no less a matter of reflection likewise. He that reflects on the Idea of God as given by intuition, on his own nature as he learns it from his mental operations, sees that this two-fold duty flows logically from these premises. The truth of these doctrines, then, may be known by both intuition and reflection. He that teaches a doctrine eternally true, does not set forth a private and peculiar thing resting on private authority and historical evidence, but an everlasting reality, which rests on the ground of all truth, the public and eternal authority of unchanging God. A false doctrine is not of God ; it has no background of Godhead. It rests on the authority of Simon Peter or Simon Magus ; of him that sets it forth ; it * Book III. Ch. II. B 2 198 TRUTH STANDS THOUGH GOSPELS FALL. is his private, personal property. When the Devil speaks a lie, he speaketh of his own ; but when a Son of God speaks the truth, he speaks not his own word but the Father's. Shall man indorse God's word to make it current ? Again, if the truth of these doctrines rest on the personal authority of Jesus, it was not a duty to observe them before he spoke; for he being the cause, or indispensable occasion of the duty, to make the cause precede the effect is an ab- surdity too great for modern divines. Besides, if it depends on Jesus, it is not eternally true; a religious doctrine that was not true and binding yesterday, may become a lie again by to-morrow; if not eternally true, it is no truth at all : ab- solute truth is the same always and everywhere. Personal authority adds nothing to a mathematical demonstration ; can it more to a moral intuition? Can authority alter the relation of things? A voice speaking from Heaven, and working more wonders than ^Esop and the saints, or Moses and the Sibyl relate, cannot make it our duty to hate God, or man; no such voice can add any new obligation to the law God wrote in us. When it is said that these doctrines of Christianity, like the truths of Science, rest on their own authority, or that of unchanging God, they are then seen to stand on the highest and safest ground that is possible the ground of absolute truth. Then if all the Evangelists and Apostles were liars ; if Jesus was mistaken in a thousand things; if he were a hypocrite; yes, if he never lived, but the New Testament were a sheer forgery from end to end, these doctrines are just the same, absolute truth. But, on the other hand, if these depend on the infallible authority of Jesus, then, if he were mistaken in any one point, his authority is gone in all; if the Evangelists were mistaken in any one point, we can never be certain we have the words of Jesus in a particular case; and then where is "historical Christianity?" Now it is a most notorious fact that the Apostles and Evan- gelists were greatly mistaken in some points. It is easy to THE BASIS OF MIRACLES. 199 show, if we have the exact words of Jesus, that he was mis- taken in some points in the interpretation of the Old Testament, in the doctrine of 'demons, in the celebrated prediction of his second coming and the end of the world within a few years. If Christianity rest on his authority, and that alone, it falls when the foundation falls, and that stands at the mercy of a schoolboy. If he is not faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who shall commit to him the true riches? II. OF THE AUTHORITY DERIVED FROM THE ALLEGED MIRACLES OF JESUS. Of late years it has been unpopular with divines to rest the authority of Christianity on its truth, and not its truth on its authority. It must be confessed there is some incon- venience in the case; for if this method of trusting Truth alone, and not Authority, be followed, by-and-by some things which have much Authority and no Truth to support them, may come to the ground. The same thing took place in the middle ages, when Abelard looked into Theology, ex- plaining and defending some of the doctrines of the Church by Reason. The Church said, " If you commend the Rea- sonable, as such, you must condemn the Not-Reasonable, and then where are we?" A significant question truly. So the Church " cried out upon him" as a heretic because he trusted Reason more than a blind belief in the traditions of men, which the Church has long had the impudence to call " Faith in God." It is often said, in our times, that Christianity rests on miracles; that the authority of the miracle-worker authenticates his doctrine ; if a teacher can raise the dead, he must have a commission from God to teach true doctrine; his word is the standard of truth. Here the fact and the value of miracles are both assumed outright. Now if it could be shown that Christianity rested on Miracles, or had more or less connection with them, it 200 MIRACLES IN ALL RELIGIONS. yet proves nothing peculiar in the case; for other religions, fetichistic, polytheistic, and monotheistic, appeal to the same authority. If a nation is rude and superstitious, the claim to miracles is the more common their authority the greater.* To take the popular notion, the Jewish Eeligion began in miracles, was continued, and will end in miracles. The Mahometan tells us the Koran is a miracle; that its author had miraculous inspiration, visions, and revelations. The writings of the Greeks, the Eomans, the Scandinavians and the Hindoos, the Chinese and Persians, are full of mi- racles. In Fetichism all is miracle, and its authority, there- fore, the best in the world. The Catholic Church and the latter-day saints still claim the power of working them, and, therefore, of authenticating whatever they will, if a miracle have the alleged virtue. Now in resting Christianity on this basis, we must do one of two things : either, first, we must admit that Christianity rests on the same foundation with the lowest Fetichism, but has less divine authority than the latter, for if miracles constitute the authority, then that is the best form of Religion which counts the most miracles ; or, secondly, we must deny the reality of all mira- cles except the Christian, in order to give exclusive sway to Christianity. But the devotees of each other form will retort the denial, and claim exclusive credence for their favourite wonders. The serious inquirer will ask, " If such be the Evidence, what is Truth, and how shall I get at it?" And if he does not stop for a time in scepticism, at best in indif- ference, why he is a very rare man, In this state of the case, theologians have felt bound, in logic, either to prove the superiority of Christian miracles, or to deny all other miracles. The first method is not possible, the Hindoo * See a curious story respecting an Eastern Calif and his decision between the conflicting claims of the Christians and Mahometans, in Marco Polo, ed. Marsden, Book I. ch. viii. p. 67-69. See also Book II. ch. ii. p. 275, et seq.; Book III. ch. xx. 4, p. 648, et seq. See the numerous miracles collected by Valerius Maxiinus in his treatise De Prodigiis, Opp. ed. Hase, Vol. I. Lib. I. ch. vi.; De Somniis, ch. vii.; De Miraculis, ch. viii.; Spencer's Discourse concerning Prodigies, Lond. 1665, DEFINITION OF A MIRACLE. 201 Priest surpasses the Christian in the number and magnitude and antiquity of his miracles. The second, therefore, is the only method left. Accordingly most ingenious attempts have been made to devise some test which will spare the Christian, and condemn all other miracles. The Protestant saves only those mentioned in the Bible ; the Catholic, more consistently, thinks the faculty immanent in the Church, and claims miracles down to the present day. But all these attempts to establish a suitable criterion have been fruitless, and even worse, sometimes exposing more than the folly of their authors.* However, they who argue from the miracles alone, assume two things : first, that miracles prove the di- vinity of a doctrine \ secondly, that they were wrought in connection with the Christian doctrine. If one ask proof of these significant premises, it is not easy to come by. This subject of miracles demands a careful attention. Here are two questions to be asked: first, Are miracles possible? second, Did they actually occur in the case of Christianity] 1. Are Miracles Possible? The answer depends on the definition of the term. The point we are to reason from is the Idea of God, who must be the cause of the miracle. Now a miracle is one of three things: 1. It is a transgression of all Law which God has made; or, 2. A transgression of all known laws, but obedience to a law which we may yet discover; or, 3. A transgression of all law known or knowable by man, but yet in conformity with some law out of our reach. 1. To take the first definition: A miracle is not possible, as it involves a contradiction. The Infinite God must have made the most perfect laws admissible in the nature of things; it is absurd and self-contradictory to suppose the * See Douglas's Criterion, or Miracles Examined, Lend. 1754, and Leslie's Short Method with the Deists. See an ingenious illustration of the folly of one of Leslie's canons, in Palfrey, uU sup., VoL II. p. 150, Note 11. 202 POSSIBILITY OF MIRACLES. reverse. But if His laws are perfect, and the nature of tilings unchangeable, why should he alter these laws? The change can be only for the worse. To suppose he does this, is to accuse God of caprice. If He be the ultimate cause of the phenomena of the universe, to suppose in a given case that he changes these phenomena, is either to make God fickle, and therefore not worthy to be relied on; or else in- ferior to nature, of which he is yet the cause. 2. To take the second definition : It is no miracle at all, but simply an act which at first we cannot understand and refer to the process of its causation. The most common events, such as growth, vitality, sensation, affection, thought, are miracles. Besides, the miracle is of a most fluctuating character. The miracle-worker of to-day is a matter-of-fact juggler to-morrow. The explosion of gunpowder, the pro- duction of magnified images of any object, the phenomena of mineral and animal magnetism, are miracles in one age, but common things in the next; such wonders prove only the skill of the performer. Science each year adds new wonders to our store. The master of a locomotive steam- engine would have been thought greater than Jupiter Tonans or the Elohim thirty centuries ago. 3. To take the third hypothesis : There is no antecedent objection, nor metaphysical impossibility in the case. Finite man not only does not, but cannot understand all the modes of God's action all the laws of His Being. There may be higher beings, to whom God reveals himself in modes that we can never know ; for we cannot tell the secrets of God, nor determine a priori the modes of his manifestation. In this sense a miracle is possible; the world is a perpetual miracle of this sort. Nature is the Art of God; can we understand it? Life, Being, Creation, Duration; do we un- derstand these actual things? How then can we say to the Infinite, " Hitherto shalt thou come, but no farther; there are no more ways wherein thy Being acts?" Man is in no- wise the measure of God. OBJECTIONS TO THE MIEACLES. ^^V^/V ^^ 2. Did Miracles occur in the case of Christianity^^ This question is purely historical, to be answered like all other historical questions, by competent testimony. Have we testimony adequate to prove the fact? Antecedent to all experience, one empirical thing is as probable as another. To the first man, with no experience, birth from one parent is no more surprising than birth from two ; to feed five men with five ship-loads of corn, or five thousand with five loaves; the reproduction of an arm, or a finger nail ; the awaking from a four days' death, or a four hours' sleep; to change water into wine, or mineral coal into burning gas; the descent into the sea, or the as- cent into the sky; the prediction of a future, or the me- mory of a past event; all are alike one as credible as the other. But to take our past experience of the nature of things, the case wears a different aspect. We demand more evidence for a strange than for a common thing. From the very constitution of the mind, a prudent man supposes that the Laws of Nature continue; that the same cause produces always the same effects, if the circumstances remain the same. If it were related to us, by four stran- gers who had crossed the ocean in the same vessel, that a man, now in London, cured diseases, opened the blind eyes, restored the wasted limb, and raised men from the dead all by a mere word ; that he himself was born miraculously, and attended by miracles all his life, who would believe the story? We should be justified in demanding a large amount of the most unimpeachable evidence. This opinion is confirmed by the doubt of scientific men in respect of animal magnetism, where no law is violated, but a faculty hitherto little noticed is disclosed. Now if we look after the facts of the case, we find the evidence for the Christian miracles is very scanty in extent, and very uncertain in character. We must depend on the testimony of the epis- tolary and the historical books of the New Testament. 204 WEAKNESS OP THE EVIDENCE Now it is a notorious fact that the genuine Epistles, the earliest Christian documents, make no mention of any miracles performed by Jesus j and when we consider the character of Paul, his strong love of the marvellous, the manner in which he dwells on the appearance of Jesus to him after death, it seems surprising, if he believed the other miracles, that he does not allude to them. To exa- mine the testimony of the Gospels : Two profess to contain the evidence of eye-Avitnesses. But we are not certain these books came in their present shape from John and Matthew; it is certain they were not written till long after the events related. But still more, each of them relates what the writers could not have been witness to ; so we may have nothing but hearsay and conjecture. Besides, these authors shared the common prejudice of their times, and disagree one with the other. The Gospels of Mark and Luke who were not eye-witnesses in some points corroborate the testimony of John and Matthew; in others, add nothing. But there are still other accounts the Apocryphal Gospels some of them perhaps older than the Gospels of Matthew and John, and these make the case worse by disclosing the fondness for miracles that marked the Christians of that early period. Taking all these things into consideration, and remembering that in many respects the three first Gos- pels are but one witness, adding the current belief of the times in favour of miracles, the evidence to prove their historical reality is almost nothing, admitting we have the genuine books of the disciples; it is, at best, such evidence as would not be considered of much value in a court of jus- tice. However, the absence of testimony does not prove that miracles were not performed, for a universal negative of this character cannot be proved.* * See some just remarks in Hennell, ubi sup. ch. viii. ; Strauss, Leben Jesu, 1-15, 90-103, 132-139; Glaubenslehrc, 17; and on the other hand, Neander and Tholuck. FOR THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 205 If one were to look carefully at the evidence in favour of the Christian miracles, and proceed with the caution of a true inquirer, he must come to the conclusion, I think, that they cannot be admitted as facts. The Kesurrection a miracle alleged to be wrought upon Jesus, not ~by him, has more evidence than any other, for it is attested by the Epistles, as well as the Gospels, and was one corner-stone of the Christian church. But here, is the testimony suf- ficient to show that a man thoroughly dead as Abraham and Isaac were, came back to life, passed through closed doors, and ascended into the sky? I cannot speak for others but most certainly I cannot believe such facts on such evidence. There is far more testimony to prove the fact of miracles, witchcraft, and diabolical possessions, in times comparatively modern, than to prove the Christian miracles. It is well known that the most credible writers among the early Christians, Irenseus, Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian, Augustine, Chrysostom, Jerome, Theodoret and others, believed that the miraculous power continued in great vigour in their time.* But to come down still later, the case of St. Ber- nard of Clairvaux is more to the point. He lived in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. His life has been written in part by William, Abbot of St. Thierry; Ernald, Abbot of Bonevaux; and Geoffrey, Abbot of Igny; " all eye-witnesses of the saint's actions." Another life was written by Alanus, Bishop of Auxerre, and still another by John the Her- mit, not long after the death of Bernard, both his contem- poraries. Besides, there are three books on his miracles, one by Philip of Clairvaux, another by the monks of that place, and a third by the above-mentioned Geoffrey. He cures the deaf, the dumb, the lame, the blind, men pos- * On this subject of the miraculous power in the early Church, see the celebrated treatise of Middleton, A free Inquiry- into the Miraculous Powers in the Christiaji Church, Ac., Lond. 1749, in his Works, Lond. 1752, Vol. I. See Mosheim's Eccles. Hist. Part I. ch. i. 8, and Murdock's note. The testimony of Chrysostom is fluc- tuating. See above, Vol. I. p. 105, et seq. S 20 G AS MUCH EVIDENCE FOR sessed with devils, in many cases before multitudes of people. He wrought thirty-six miracles in a single day, says one of these historians; converted men and women that could not understand the language he spoke in. His wonders are set down by the eye-witnesses themselves, men known to us by the testimony of others,* I do not hesi- tate in saying that there is far more evidence to support the miracles of St. Bernard than those mentioned in the New Testament. But we are to accept such testimony with great caution, The tendency of men to believe that the thing happens which they expect to happen; the tendency of rumour te- exagge- rate a real occurrence into a surprising or miraculous affair,, is well known. A century and a half have not gone by since witches were tried by a special court in Massachusetts; convicted by a jury of twelve good men and true; preached against by the clergy, and executed by the common hang- man. Any one who looks carefully and without prejudice into the matter, will see, I think, more evidence for the reality of those "wonders of the invisible world" than for the Christian miracles. Here is the testimony of scholars, clergymen, witnesses examined under oath, jurymen, and judges; the confession of honest men of persons whose character is well known at the present day, to prove the reality of witchcraft and the actual occurrence of miracu- lous facts of the interference of powers more than human in the affairs of the world.t The appearance of the Devil * See these books in Mabillon's edition of Bernard, Paris, 1721, Vol. II. p. 1071, et seq. See Fleury, Histoire Ecclesiastique, Lir. LXVI. et seq., and especially LXIX. oh. xvii., ed. Nisines, 1779, Vol. X. p. 147, et seq., where is a summary of some of his most important miracles. See also Les Vies des Saints, Paris, 1701, Vol. II. p. 288- 326; Butler's Lives of the Saints, Lond. 1815, Vol. VIII. p. 227-274; Milners History of the Church of Christ, c. Vol. III. ; Christian Examiner for March 1841, Art. I. t See, who will, Cotton Mather's Wonders of the Invisible World, Boston, 1693 ; and Increase Mather's Cases of Conscience, ., 1-13, especially Vol. T. p. 130, et seq. See also Gaussen's Theopneusty, or the Plenary Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, translated by E. N. Kirk, New York, 1842. The latter maintains that " all the written Word is inspired of God, even to a single iota or tittle," p. 333, &nd passim. See Musculus, Loci Communes, ed. 1564, p. 178. But see also Socinuf, De Auctoritate Sac. Scrip., in Bibliotheea Fratrr., Polon. Vol. I. ; Limborch, Theol. ch. i. ; Episcopius Instit. P. IV. METHOD OF PROVING ITS DIVINITY. 241 supposed that each book within the lids of the Bible has an absolute right to be there, and that each sentence or word therein is infallibly true.* Eeason has nothing to do in the premises but accept the written statement of "the Word;" the duty of belief is just the same whether the Word con- tradict Reason and Conscience, or agrees with them.t Now this opinion about the Bible is true or not true. If true, it is capable of proof, at least of being shown to be probable. Now there are but four possible ways of esta- blishing the fact, namely, 1. By the authority of the Church, which has either a miraculous inspiration or a miraculous tradition to prove the alleged infallibility of the Bible. But the Church is not agreed on this point. The Roman Church very stoutly denies the fact; and besides, the Protestants deny the authority of the Roman Church. 2. By the direct testimony of God in the heart, assuring us of the miraculous infallibility of the Bible. Here is one miracle to prove another, which is not logical. The proof is only subjective, and is as valuable to prove the divinity of the Koran, the Shaster, and the Book of Mormon, as that of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. It is the argument of the superstitious and enthusiastical. 3. By the fact that the Bible claims this divine infallibility. This is reasoning in a circle, though it is the method com- monly relied on by Christians. It will prove as well the divinity of any impostor who claims it. t * The writings of the Unitarians are exceptions to this general rule. They at- tempt to separate- the spurious from the genuine. See the Christian Examiner, passim; Norton, Statement of Reasons, &c., p. 136, et seq. ; Evidences of the Genuine- ness of the QosceJs, Vol. I. p. liii. et seq.; see especially p. 1x1. Dr. Palfrey, ubi sup., denies the miraculous inspiration of the Old Testament, except the last four books of Moses, and there diminishes its intensity. f See Gaussen, ubi sup.; Home, Introduction to the Holy Scriptures, Philad. 1840, VoL I. p. 1-187. J See this claim made in the Koran, Sale's translation, London, new edition, p. 162, et seq., 206, 372, 400, 152, &c., 219, 127, et al X 242 THE BIBLE A HUMAN WORK. 4. By an examination of the contents of the Bible, and the external history of its origin. To proceed in this way, we must ask, "Are all its statements infallibly true? But to ask this question presupposes the standard-measure to be in ourselves, not in the Bible ; so, at the utmost, the Book can be no more infallible, and have no more authority, than Reason and the moral Sense by which we try it; a single mistake condemns its infallibility, and of course its divinity. But the case is still worse. After the truth of a book is made out, before a work in human language like other books can be referred to God as its author, one of two things must be shown : either, That its contents could not have come from man, and then it follows by implication that they came from God ; or, That at a certain time and place, God did miraculously reveal the contents of the book. Now it is a notorious fact, first, that it has not been, and cannot be proved, that every statement in the Bible is true ; or, secondly, that its contents, such as they are, could not have proceeded from man, under the ordinary influence of God; or, finally, that any one book or word of the Bible was miraculously revealed to man. In the absence of proof for any one of these three points, it has been found a more convenient way to assume the truth of them all, and avoid troublesome questions. Laying aside all prejudices, if we look into the Bible in a general way, as into other books, we find facts which force the conclusion upon us that the Bible is a human work, as much as the Principia of Newton or Descartes. Some things are beautiful and true ; but others, no man in his reason can accept. Here are the works of various writers, from the eleventh century before, to the second century after Christ, it may be, thrown capriciously together, and united by no common tie but the lids of the bookbinder. Here are two forms of religion which differ widely, set forth and enforced by miracles ; the one ritual and formal the other actual and spiritual ; the one the Religion of Fear ITS CONFLICTING CONTENTS. 243 the other of Love; one finite, and resting entirely on the special revelation made to Moses the other absolute, and based on the universal revelation of God, who enlightens all that come into the world; one offers only an earthly recompense the other makes immortality a motive to a divine life ; one compels men the other invites them. One half the Bible repeals the other half: the Gospel annihilates the Law; the Apostles take the place of the Prophets, and go higher up. If Christianity and Judaism be not the same thing, there must be hostility between the Old Testament and the New Testament, for the Jewish form claims to be eternal. To an unprejudiced man, this hostility is very obvious. It may indeed be said, Christianity came not to destroy the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfil them ; and the answer is plain, their fulfilment was their destruction. If we look at the Bible as a whole, we find numerous con- tradictions : conflicting histories which no skill can reconcile with themselves or with facts; Poems which the Christians have agreed to take as histories, but which lead only to confusion on that hypothesis; prophecies that have never been fulfilled, and from the nature of things never can be. We find stories of miracles which could not have happened ; accounts which represent the laws of nature completely transformed, as in fairy-land, to trust the tales of the old romancers; stories that make God a man of war, cruel, capricious, revengful, hateful, and not to be trusted. We find amatory songs, selfish proverbs, sceptical discourses, and the most awful imprecations human fancy ever clothed in speech. Connected with these are lofty thoughts of nature, man, and God; devotion touching and beautiful, and a most reverent faith. Here are works whose authors are known; others, of which the author, age, and country, are alike forgotten. Genuine and spurious works, religious and not religious, are strangely mixed. But the subject demands a more minute and detailed examination in each of its main parts. 244 CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. CHAPTER II. AN EXAMINATION OF THE CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTA- MENT TO BE A DIVINE, MIRACULOUS, OR INFALLIBLE COMPOSITION. IT is not possible to prove directly the divine and miracu- lous character of the Old Testament by showing that God miraculously revealed it to the writers thereof, for we do not know who were the writers of the greater part of the books; and when the authors are known, it is only by their own testimony, which we have no right to assume to be infallible. We have not the faintest direct evidence to show there was anything miraculous in their composition. The indirect evi- dence may be reduced to two branches, that which shows that all the statements of the Old Testament are true; or that which shows that it contains statements of things above human apprehension. From the nature of the case, the former proposition cannot be proved, since many things treated of in the Bible are known to us by that book alone : to say they are true, is to assume the fact at issue. Be- sides, a true statement is not necessarily miraculous; if it were, the multiplication table of Pythagoras would be a divine and miraculous composition. The latter proposition has also its difficulty. How do we know that its state- ments are above human apprehension? But suppose they are, how do we know they are true ? These difficulties are insuperable. To assume the divinity of the Old Testament is quite as absurd as to assume the same for the next book THE BIBLE NOT INFALLIBLE. 245 that shall be printed; to declare it miraculous on account of the beautiful piety in some parts of it, is as foolish as to make the same claim for the Geometry of Euclid and the Poems of Homer, on account of their great excellence; to admit this claim because made by some of the Jews, is no more wise than to admit the claims of the Zoroastrian records and the Sibylline oracles, and the religious books of all nations; then, among so many, one is of no value, for the very excellence of a miraculous work is thought to consist in the fact of its being the only miraculous work. To leave these assumptions and come to facts, this gene- nil thesis may be laid down, and maintained : Every book of the Old Testament bears distinct marks of its human ori- gin; some of human folly and sin; all of human weakness and imperfection. If this thesis be true, the Bible is not the direct work of God not the master of Common Sense, Reason, Conscience, and the religious Sentiment. To prove this proposition, it is necessary to go into some details. The Hebrews divided their scriptures into the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings, to each of which they assigned a peculiar degree of inspiration. The Law was infallibly inspired, God speaking with Moses face to face; the Pro- phets less perfectly, God addressing them by visions and dreams; the Writings still more feebly, God communicating to their authors by figures and enigmas.* This ancient division may well enough be followed in this discussion. I. OP THE LAW. This comprises the first five books of the Bible. They are commonly ascribed to Moses; but there is no proof that he wrote a word of them; only the Decalogue, in a * See Philo, De Monarch. I. p. 820; De Vita Mosia, III. p. 681; II. p. 656, et xq. : Josephus conk Apion, I. 8. X 2 246 THE ACCOUNTS IN THE LAW compendious form, and perhaps a few fragments, can be referred to him with much probability. From the use of peculiar words, from local allusions, and other incidental signs, it is plain here are fragments from several different writers, who lived no one knows when or where, their names perfectly unknown to us. They all bear marks of an age much later than that of Moses, as any one familiar with ancient history, and free from prejudice, may see on exami- nation.* But if they were written by Moses, we are not, on the bare word of a writer, to admit the miraculous infallibility of his statements. Besides, the character of the books is such, that a very high place is not to be assigned them among human compositions, measured by the standard of the present day. The first chapter of Genesis, if taken as a history, in the unavoidable sense of its terms, is at vari- ance with facts. It relates that God created the sun, moon, stars, and earth, and gave the latter its plants, animals, and men, in six days ; while science proves that many thousands, if not millions, of years must have passed between the crea- tion of the first plants, and man, the crown of creation; that the surface of the earth gradually received its present form; one race of plants after the other sprang up; animals succeeded animals, the simpler first, then the more com- plex ; and at last came man. This chapter tells of an ocean of water above our heads, separated from us by a solid ex- panse, in which the greater and lesser lights are fixed; that there was evening and morning, before there was a sun to cause the difference between day and night ; that the sun and stars were created after the earth, for the earth's con- venience; and that God ceased his action, and rested on the seventh day. Here the Bible is at variance with science, which is nature stated in exact language. Few men will * The proofs of this assertion cannot be adduced in a brief discourse like the pre- sent ; they may be found in the work announced in the Preface. AT VAB1ANCE WITH SCIENCE. 247 say directly what the schoolmen said to Galileo, " If Nature is opposed to the Bible, then Nature is mistaken, for the Bible is certainly right;" but the popular view of the Bible logically makes that assertion. Truth and the book of Genesis cannot be reconciled, except on the hypothesis that the Bible means anything it can be made to mean,* but then it means nothing. A similar decision must be pronounced upon many other accounts in the Law, on the creation of woman; the story of the garden, the temptation and fall of man ; the appear- ances of God in human shape, eating and drinking with his favourite, and making covenants; the story of the flood and the ark ; the miraculous birth of Isaac ; the promise to the patriarchs ; the great age of mankind ; the tower of Babel, and the confusion of tongues; the sacrifice of Isaac; the history of Joseph ; of Moses ; the ten plagues, mira- culously sent; the wonderful passage of the Red Sea; the support of the Hebrews in the wilderness on manna ; the miraculous supply of food, water, and clothing ; and the de- livery of the Law at Mount Sinai.f On these it is needless to dwell. But there is one account in the Law, too signifi- cant to be passed over. $ It is briefly this. As the Jews approached the land of Canaan, Moses sent twelve men, " heads of the children of Israel," to examine the land and report to the people. They spent a long time in their tour, reported that the land was fertile, exhibited specimens of its productions, but added, it was full of warlike nations. The Jews were afraid to invade it " They wept all night, and said, Would God we had died in the land of Egypt." They rebelled, and wished to choose a leader and return. Moses and Aaron, and Caleb and Joshua two of the * See Augustine, Confess. Lib. XII. ch. 18, et al t See many valuable remarks in Palfrey, ubi sup., VoL II. p. 1-133. His is, per- haps, the only book in the English tongue which attempts to look the Old Testa- ment in the face. $ Numbers xiv. 248 A REVENGEFUL CHARACTER twelve messengers urged them to battle, and say, " Jeho- vah is with us." The people refuse, and would stone them. Then the glory of Jehovah appeared before the face of the people, and God says to Moses, " How long will this people provoke me ? .... I will smite them with the pestilence, and disinherit them, and make of thee a greater nation and mightier than they." But Moses, more merciful than his God, attempts to appease the Deity, and that by an appeal to his vanity " And Moses said unto Jehovah, Then the Egyptians shall hear of it, and they will tell it to the inha- bitants of this land Now if thou shalt kill all this people as one man, then the nations will speak, saying, Be- cause Jehovah was not able to bring this people into the land he sware unto them, therefore he hath slain them." Then he proceeds to soothe his Deity "Pardon the ini- quity of this people." " Jehovah is long-suffering and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but by no means clearing the guilty." Jehovah consents, but adds, " As truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of Jehovah;" but "because all these men .... have tempted me now these ten times, .... surely they shall not see the land which I sware unto their fathers, your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness, .... in this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die." If an unprejudiced Christian were to read this for the first time in a heathen writer, and it was related of Kronos or Moloch, he would say "What foul ideas these heathens had of God I thank Heaven we are Christians, and cannot believe in a deity so terrible ! " It is true, there are now pious men who believe the story to the letter, profess to find comfort therein, and count it part of their Christianity to believe it. But is God angry with men? passionate, re- vengeful offended because they will not war and butcher the innocent? Would He violate his perfect law, and by a miracle destroy a whole nation, millions of men, women, ASCRIBED TO GOD. 249 and children, because they fall into a natural fit of despair, and refuse to trust ten witnesses rather than two witnesses ? Does God require man's words to restrain His rage, violence, and a degree of fury which Nero and Caracalla butchers of men though they were would have shuddered to think of? Is He to be teazed and coaxed from murder? Are we called on to believe this in the name of Christianity? Then perish Christianity from the face of the earth, and let man learn of his Religion and his God from the stars and the violet, the lion and the lamb ! View this as the savage story of some oriental who attributed a bloodthirsty character to his God, and made a Deity in his own image, and it is a striking remnant of barbarism that has passed away, not destitute of dramatic interest not without its melancholy moral. There are some things which may be true, but must be rejected for lack of evidence to prove them true ; but this story no amount of evidence could make possible. Throughout the whole of the Law, fact and fiction, his- tory and mythology, are so intimately blended, that it seems impossible to tell where the one begins and the other ends. The laws are not perfect; they contain a mingling of good and bad, wise and absurd; and if men will maintain that God is their author, we must still apply to them the words which Ezekiel puts in his mouth " I gave them statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live;" or say with Jeremiah " I spake not unto your fathers in the day that I brought them up out of Egypt, concerning burnt-offerings, or sacrifices." * II. OF THE PROPHETS. The Hebrews divide the Prophets into the earlier and the later: the first including the four historical works of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and the Kings; the second the * Ezekiel, cb. xx. 25 ; Jer. vii. 22. 250 THE EARLY PROPHETS. Prophets properly so called, with the exception of Daniel, the three major, the twelve minor prophets. 1. Of the Early Prophets. No one knows the date or the author of any one of these books. They all contain historical matter of doubtful cha- racter, such as the miraculous passage of the Jordan, the destruction of Jericho, the standing still of the sun and moon at the command of Joshua, the story of Samson, the destruction of the Benjamites, the birth and calling of Sa- muel, the wonders wrought by the Ark, the story of Saul, David, and Goliah, the miraculous pestilence, of Solomon, Elijah, Elisha, and others. Of all these, perhaps the story of Samson is the most strikingly absurd a man of mira- culous birth and miraculous strength, whose ability lay in his long hair, and which went from him when his locks were shorn off. When we read, in Hesiod and elsewhere, the birth and exploits of Hercules who bears a resemblance to Samson in some respects, though vastly his superior on the whole we refer the tale to human fancy in a low state of civilization : a mind free from prejudice will do the same with the story of Samson. * No one can reasonably con- tend that it requires a mind miraculously enlightened to produce such books as these of the early prophets. They belong to the fabulous period of Jewish history; mytho- logy, poetry, fact and fiction, are strangely woven together. The authors, whoever they were, claim no inspiration. How- ever, as a general rule, they contain less to offend a religious mind than the books of the Law. 2. The Prophets, properly so called. It may be said of these writings in general, that they contain nothing above the reach of human faculties. Here are noble and spirit-stirring appeals to men's conscience, * See Palfrey, ubi sup., Vol. II. p. 194, et seq. ; and on these books in general, p. 134-300; Home, ubi sup., Vol. II. p. 216, et seq. INSPIRATION OF THE PROPHETS. 251 patriotism, honour, and religion; beautiful poetic descrip- tions, odes, hymns, expressions of faith, almost beyond praise. But the mark of hnman infirmity is on them all, and proofs or signs of miraculous inspiration are not found in them. In the minor prophets, there is nothing worthy of special notice in this place, unless it be the story of Jonah, which is unique in the ancient Hebrew literature, and tells its own tale. These books do not require a de- tailed examination.* The greater prophets, Isaiah, Jere- miah, and Ezekiel, are more important, and require a more minute notice. In these, as well as in other prophetical books, and the Law, claim is apparently made to miraculous inspiration. " Thus saith Jehovah," is the authority to which the prophet appeals, " Jehovah said unto me," "The command of Jehovah came unto me," "I saw in a vision," "The spirit of Jehovah came upon me;" these and similar expressions occur often in the prophets. But do these phrases denote a claim to miraculous inspiration as we understand it 1 We limit miraculous inspiration to a few cases, where something is to be done above human ability. Not so the Hebrews; they did not make a sharp distinction between the miraculous and the common. All religious and moral power was regarded as the direct gift of God an outpouring of his spirit. God teaches David to fight; commands Gideon to select his soldiers, to arise in the night and attack the foe. The Lord set his enemies to fight amongst themselves. He teaches Bezaleel and Aho- liab ; they, and all the ingenious mechanics, are filled with " the spirit of God." The same " spirit of the Lord" enables Samson to kill a lion and many men. These instances show with what latitude the phrase is used, and how loose were the notions of inspiration.^" The Greeks also referred their * See De Wette's Introduction to the Old Testament, translated, &c. by Theodore Parker, Boston 1843, 2 vols. t See Glassius, Philologia Sacra, ed. Dathe, VoL II. p. 815, et seq. ; Bauer, Theo- logie des A., I. 51-54, et al 252 LANGUAGE OF THE PROPHETS. works to the aid of Phoebus, Pallas, Minerva, Vulcan, or Olympian Jove, in the same way. It has never been ren- dered probable that the phrase, " Thus saith the Lord," and its kindred terms, were understood by the prophets or their hearers to denote any miraculous agency in the case. They employ language with the greatest freedom. Thus a writer says, " I saw Jehovah sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple j above it stood the sera- phim." No thinking man would suppose the prophet de- signed to assert a fact, or that his countrymen understood him to do so. Certainly it is insulting to suppose that a Christian would believe that God sat on a throne, with a troop of courtiers around him, like a Persian king. When a prophet says Jehovah appeared to him in a dream, he can only mean, either he dreamed Jehovah appeared, which is somewhat different, or that he chose this symbolical way of stating his opinion. Thus a Grecian prophet might say, " The Muse came down from high Olympus' shaggy top, and whispered unto me, her favourite son."* Not stating a fact, he would give an outness to what passed in his mind. However, if these writers claimed miraculous inspiration ever so strongly, we are not to grant it unless they abide the test mentioned above. If they utter predictions which they rarely attempt we are not to assume their fulfilment, and then conclude the prophet was miraculously inspired, common as the me- thod is. But what is the value of the claim made for them? Has any one of them ever uttered a distinct, definite, and unambiguous prediction of any future event that has since taken place, which a man without a miracle could not equally well predict? It has never been shown. Most of the prophetic writings relate to the past and the present; to the political, civil, and moral condition of the people at * See Cicero, Do Nat. Deorum, Lib. I. ch. i. and ii. ; Ovid, Metamorph. Lib. II. 640, et seq. PREDICTION OF THE EXILE. 253 the time; they exhort backsliding Israel to forsake his idols, return to Jehovah, live wisely and well. They state the result of obedience or of disobeying, for individuals and the nation. It is rare they predict distinctly and definitely any specific event; sometimes they declare, in the most general terms, good or ill fortune, the destruction of a city, the defeat of an army, the downfall of a king ; but in case the prediction came to pass, who shall tell us, at this distance of time, that it was not either a lucky hit, or the result of sagacious insight? Certainly the supposition is against a miracle. The Tripod of Delphi delivered some oracles that were extraordinarily felicitous; Seneca made a very clear prediction of the discovery of America, and Lactantius of the rise and downfall of Napoleon, and Lotichius of the capture of Magdeburg. Does the fulfilment prove the miraculous inspiration of the oracle in these cases 1 * But to recur to the other test : There are statements in the prophets which are not true -predictions that did not come to pass. Under this rubric may be placed three of the most celebrated predictions in the Old Testament. 1. Jeremiatis Prediction of the Seventy Years of Exile. It was an easy thing, in Jeremiah's position, to see that the little nation of Judea could not hold out against the Babylonian forces, and therefore must experience the com- mon fate of nations they conquered, and be carried into exile.t But would the Lord forsake his people the seed of Abraham? A pious Jew could not believe it. It was unavoidable, with the common opinion of his countrymen, that he should expect their subsequent restoration. But why predict an exile of just seventy years, unless miracii- * See De Wette, ubi supra, Vol. II. t On this custom of the Chaldees, see Ileeren, Ideen, Vol. I. ; Gesenius on Isaiah xxxvi. 16. Y 254 ORACLE AGAINST TYRE, lously directed?* He may have used that term for an in- definite period a common practice; in that case there is no miracle. But on the other hand, if he predicted an exile of just seventy years, the oracle was a failure. The people were not carried into captivity all at once : from which of the two or three times of deportation shall we set out? The books of Kings and Chronicles differ some what, t but to take the chronology of Jeremiah himself, if the passage be genuine, $ the deportation began in the seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar, 599 before Christ; it was continued in the year 588, and concluded in 583. The exile ended in the year 536. The longest period that can be made out extends to but sixty-three, and the shortest to but forty-seven years. To make out the seventy years, we must date arbitrarily from the year 606. 2. EzekieVs Oracle against Tyre. This prophet predicts that Nebuchadnezzar shall destroy Tyre. The prediction is clear and distinct ; the destruc- tion is to be complete and total "With the hoofs of his horses shall he tread down all thy streets ; he shall slay thy people by the sword, and thy strong garrison shall go down to the ground I will make thee like the top of a rock ; thou shalt be to spread nets upon ; thou shalt be built up no more." But it was not so. Nebuchadnezzar was obliged to raise the siege after investing the city for thir- teen years, and to go and fight the Egyptians. Then, six- teen years after the first oracle, Ezekiel takes back his own words " The word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar .... caused his army to serve a great service against Tyrus ; every head was made bald," with the chafing of the helmet, " every shoulder was peeled," with the pressure of burthens; "yet he had no wages, nor * Jer. xxv. f See 2 Rings, xxiv. xxv. ; 2 Chron. xxxvi. t Jer. Hi. 28-30; but see verses 4-15. 5 Ezek. xxvi. 1, et seq. MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 255 his army from Tyrus Therefore, behold, I will give the land of Egypt unto Nebuchadnezzar."* These things speak for themselves, and show the nature of the prophetic discourses, that they were moral ad- dresses, or poetical odes. Ezekiel's celebrated prediction of an impossible city t is a standing monument of the prophetic character, and of the lasting folly of interpreters. It were easy to collect other instances of palpable mistake. J 3. The alleged Predictions of Jesus as the Messiah. The Messianic prophecies are the most famous of all. It is commonly pretended that there are in the Old Testament clear and distinct predictions of Jesus of Nazareth ; but I do not hesitate to say, it has never been shown that there is, in the whole of the Old Testament, one single sentence that in the plain and natural sense of the words foretells the birth, life, or death of Jesus of Nazareth. If the Scrip- tures have seventy-two senses, as one of the Rabbins declares, or if it foretells whatever comes to pass, as Augustine, and means all it can be made to mean, as many moderns seem to think, why, predictions and types of Jesus may be found in the first chapter of Genesis, in Noah and Abra- ham and Samson, as well as in Virgil's fourth Eclogue, the Odes of Horace, and the story of the Trihemerine Hercules. The Messianic expectations and prophecies seem to have originated in this way : After the happy and successful period of David and Solomon, the kingdom was divided into Judah and Israel, the two tribes and the ten; the national prosperity declined. Pious men hoped for better times; they naturally connected these hopes with a personal de- liverer, a descendant of David, their most popular king. * Ezek. xxix. 17, et seq. See Isaiah, xxiii., and Gesenius's remarks, in his Com- mentar. Vol. I. p. 711, et seq.; RosenmuUer, Alterth. VoL II. Pt. I. p. 34. t Ch. xL-xlviiL t On the Prophecies in general, see the Essay of Prof. Stuart, in Bib. Rep. Vol. II. p. 217, eteeq.; of Hengstenberg, ibid. p. 139, et seq. See also the able Essay of Knobel, Prophetisnras der Hebriier, Vol. I. Einleit. 256 MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. The deliverer would unite the two kingdoms under the old form. A poetic fancy endowed him with wonderful powers; made him a model of goodness. Different poets arrayed their expected hero in imaginary drapery to suit their own conceptions. Malachi gives him a forerunner. The Jews were the devoutest of nations; the popular deliverer must be a religious man. They were full of pious faith; so the darker the present, the brighter shone the Pharos of Hope in the future. Sometimes this deliverer was called the Messiah. This term is not common in the Old Testament, however, but is sometimes applied to Cyrus by the pseudo- Isaiah.* These hopes and predictions of a deliverer involved se- veral important things : a reunion of the divided tribes; a return of the exiles; the triumph and extension of the king- dom of Israel, its eternal duration and perfect happiness. Idolatry was to be rooted out; the nations improved in morals and religion; Truth and Righteousness were to reign; Jehovah to be reconciled with his people; all of them were to be taught of God ; other nations were to come up to Jerusalem, and be blessed. But the Mosaic Law was to be eternal; the old ritual to last forever; Jerusalem to be the capital of the Messianic kingdom, and the Jewish nation to be reestablished in greater pomp than in the times of David. Are these predictions of Jesus of Nazareth? He was not the Messiah of Jewish expectation of the prophets' foretelling; the farthest from it possible. The predictions demanded a political and visible kingdom in Palestine, with Jerusalem for its capital, and its ritual the old Law : the Kingdom of Jesus is not of this world. The ten tribes, have they come back to the home of their fathers ? They have perished and are swallowed up in the tide of the na- tions, no one knowing the place of their burial; the king- dom of the two tribes soon went to the ground. These are * Many chapters of Isaiah have been shown to be spurious. The passages, chap. xli.-lxvi., xiii.-xiv., xxiii.-xxvii., xxxiv., xxxv., are of this character. MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 257 notorious facts. The Jews are right when they say, their predicted Messiah has not come. Does the Old Testament foretell a suffering Saviour his kingdom not of this world crucified raised from the dead? The idea is foreign to the Hebrew Scriptures. Well might a Jew ask, " Wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel 1 ?" To trust the uncertain record of the New Testament, Jesus was slow to accept the name of the Messiah ; he knew the " people would take him by force and make him a king." But what means the triumphal entry into Jerusalem? He forbids his disciples to speak of his Messiahship " See that thou tell no man of it;" only proclaims it at Samaria; lets John draw his own inference, whether or not he must " look for another;" thinks Simon Peter could only find it out by in- spiration. Was it not that he knew he was not the Messiah of the prophets, so never formally assumed the title ; but, knowing that he was the true and only deliverer, a thou- sand times greater than their impossible Messiah, suffered the name to be affixed to him, and made the most of the popular Idea? Or, was he himself mistaken? It concerns us little. But this remains, that he was much more than the Jews looked for. The Jewish Christians mistook the matter : Paul would prove that he was the Messiah of the prophets. Mistakes in Theology, like bits of glass in a kaleidoscope, are repeated again and again, in fantastic com- binations.* HI. THE WRITINGS. Under this head are comprised the remaining books of the Old Testament. Here is the dramatic poem of Job, a * See De Wette, Dogmatik, 137-142; Opuscula, I. p. 23-31; the numerous Chris- tologies of modern times, and the Introductions to the Old Testament See also Strauss, Leben Jesu, 60-68 ; Hennell, ubi sup., chap. i.-ii. and xii.-xiii. See also Bretschneider, Dogmatik, 30, 34, p. 356, et seq. ; 137, p. 166, et seq. ; Hahn, Knapp, Hase, Wegscheider, &c. ; and Hengstenberg's Christology. T 2 258 THE WRITINGS. work of surprising beauty, and full of truth. But its au- thor denies the immortality of the soul, and though he attempts " to justify the ways of God to man," he yet leaves the question undecided as he found it. In the Psalms we have beautiful prayers, mixed up with their local occasions ; penitential hymns, songs of praise, expressions of hope, faith, trust in God, that have never been surpassed. The devo- tion of some of these sweet lyrics is beyond praise. But at the same time here are the most awful denunciations that speech ever spoke. In the following passage the writer de- nounces his enemies : " Set thou a wicked man over him. Let Satan stand at his right hand; when he shall be judged, let him be condemned, and let his prayer become sin. Let his days be few; let another take his office. Let his child- ren be fatherless, and his wife a widow. Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg Let there be none to extend mercy unto him, neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children."* These are the words of a man angry and revengeful; the Psalms abound with simi- lar imprecations. To maintain they came directly from the God of love, is to forget Reason, Conscience, and Religion, which teach us to love our enemies, to pray for them that persecute us. The book of Proverbs and the Song of Songs speak for themselves, and neither need nor claim any more inspiration than other collections of Proverbs or Oriental amatory Idyls. The latter belongs to the same class with the writings of Anacreon. The somewhat doubtful book of Ecclesiastes seems to be the work of a sceptic. He denies the immortality of the soul with great clearness; thinks wisdom and folly are alike vanity. Though he concludes most touchingly in praise of virtue on the whole, and de- clares the fear of God, and keeping his commandments, to be the whole duty of man, yet this conclusion is vitiated by the former precept, " Be not righteous over much." The * Ps. cix. 6, et seg. See also Ps. cxxxvii. THE BOOK OF DANIEL. Lamentations of Jeremiah have as little claim to inspira- tion.* The historical books of this division present some pecu- liarities. Ezra and Nehemiah are valuable historical do- cuments, though implicit faith is by no means to be placed in them. The book of Esther is entirely devoid of religious interest, and seems to be a romance designed to show that the Jews will always be provided for. The brief book of Ruth may be an historical or a fictitious work. The book of Daniel is a perfect unique in the Old Testa- ment. It professes to have been written by a captive Jew, at Babylon, in the beginning of the sixth century before Christ; it contains accounts of surprising miracles, dreams, visions; men cast into a den of lions and a furnace of fire, yet escaping unhurt; a man transformed to a beast, and eating grass like an ox for some years, and then restored to human shape ; a miraculous and spectral handwriting on the palace-wall; grotesque fancies that remind us of the Arabian Nights and the Talmud. To judge from internal evidence, it was written in the first part of the second cen- tury, perhaps about one hundred and sixty or seventy years before Christ, in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes. The author seems to have a political and moral end in view, and to write for the encouragement of his countrymen, perhaps designing that his work should pass for what it is, a politico- religious romance.f All of the books hitherto mentioned seem written by ear- nest men, with no intention to deceive ; their manly honesty is everywhere apparent. But the book of Chronicles is of a very different character. Here is an obvious attempt on the writer's part to exalt the character of orthodox kings, and depress that of heretical kings ; to bring forward the Priests * See Leclerc's Five Letters concerning the Inspiration, &c., Lond. 1690; and on the other hand, William Lowth's Vindication of the Divine Authority, &a, Lond. 1699 ; and Gaussen and Home, ubi sup. t See De Wette, ubi supra, Vol. II. 253, et seq. 260 MYTHOLOGY IN THE BIBLE. and the Levites, and give everything a ceremonial appear- ance. This design will be obvious to any one who reads the stories in Chronicles, and then turns to the parallel passages in Samuel and Kings.* To take but a single instance : the writer of the book of Samuel gives an account of David; tells of his good and evil qualities ; does not pass over his cruelty, nor extenuate his sin; but in Chronicles there is not a word of this; nothing of the crime of imperial adul- tery; nothing of Nathan's rousing apologue, and Thou-art- the-man. The thing speaks for itself. Now if these books have any divine authority, what shall we do with such contradictions? deny the fact 1 ? We live too long after Dr. Faustus for so easy a device. Shall we say, with a modern divine, the true believer will accept both statements with the same implicit faith 1 ? This also may be doubtful. To look back upon the field we have passed, it must be confessed that the claims made for the Old Testament have no foundation in fact; its books, like others, have a ming- ling of good and evil. We see a gradual progress of ideas therein, keeping pace with the civilization of the world; vestiges of ignorance, superstition, folly, of unreclaimed selfishness, yet linger there ; fact and fiction are strangely blended; the common and miraculous, the divine and the human, run into one another. We find rude notions of God in some parts, though in others the most lofty; here the moral and religious sentiment are insulted; there, is beautiful instruction for both. Human imperfections meet us everywhere in the Old Testament; the passions of man are ascribed to God. The Jews had a Mythology as well as the Greeks. They transform law into miracles earth into a dream-land ; it rains manna for eight and thirty years, and the smitten rock pours out water. We see a gradual * The passages are conveniently arranged for this purpose, side by side, in Jahn's edition of the Hebrew Bible. PROGRESS OF IDEAS. 261 progress in this as in all mythologies. First, God appears in person ; walks in the garden in the cool of the day ; eats and drinks; makes contracts with his favourites; is angry, resentful, " sudden and quick in quarrel," and changes his plans, at the advice of a cool man. Then it is the angel of God who appears to man; it is deemed fatal for man to see Jehovah. His messenger comes to Manoah, and vanishes in the flame of the sacrifice ; the angel of Jehovah appears to David. Next, it is only in dreams, visions, types, and symbols, that the Most High approaches his children. He speaks to them by night comes in the rush of thoughts, but is not seen; the personal Form, and the visible Angel, have faded and disappeared as the daylight assumed its power. The nation advanced ; its Religion and Mythology advanced with it. Then again, sometimes God is repre- sented as but a local deity; Jacob is surprised to find Him in a foreign land; next, he is only the God of the He- brews; at last, the ONLY LIVING AND TRUE GOD. There is a similar progress in the notions of the service God demands. Abraham must offer Isaac; with Moses, slain beasts are sufficient. Micah has outgrown the Mosaic form in some respects, and says, " Shall Jehovah be pleased with thousands of rams; shall I give the first-born of my body for the sin of my soul] What doth Jehovah require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" A spiritual man in the midst of a formal people saw the pure truth which they saw not. Does the Old Testament claim to be master of the soul? By no means : it is only a phantom conjured up by Superstition that scares us in our sleep. Does the truth it contains make it a miraculous book? It is poor logic which thinks that what is false can cease to be false, though never so many wonders are wrought in its defence.* * On the Old Testament, its authors' inspiration, &c., see some valuable remarks in Spinoza, Tract. Theol. Polit. ch. i.-x., xii.-xiii. 262 CLAIMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. CHAPTER III. AN EXAMINATION OF THE CLAIMS OF THE NEW TESTA- MENT TO BE A DIVINE, MIRACULOUS, OR INFALLIBLE COMPOSITION. LET us look the facts of the New Testament also in the face. Some men are glad to abandon the Old Testament to the Jews, but fear to look into the foundation of the Christian Scriptures, lest it be found sandy. Does much depend on the New Testament? Then the more carefully must its claims be examined. Truth courts the light, its deeds never evil. Are the writings of the New Testament divine, mi- raculous, and infallible compositions? if the Old Testament fail, the only infallible rule of religious faith and practice? Such is the prevalent opinion with us.* After what was said above respecting the points to be proved before such a conclusion could be admitted, it becomes less difficult to de- cide this question. The general remarks respecting the in- spiration of the Old Testament apply also to the new,t and need not be repeated. Bearing these in mind, let us sub- ject these writings to the same test. To do this, we must examine the works themselves. This general thesis may be affirmed: All the writings in the New Testament, as well as the Old, contain marks of their human origin, of human weakness and imperfection. * See Faustus Socinus, De Anctoritate Sac. Script, ch. i. Here he defends tho Scriptures against Christians, and in ch. ii. against the not-Christians. t See above, Book IV. Chap. I. and II. SPURIOUS BOOKS. 263 Now in the New Testament, as in the Old, we have spurious works mixed with the genuine. To separate the former from the latter, is not an easy work perhaps not possible, at this day. However, there are some books of unquestionable genuineness, and others whose spurious character is almost demonstrated. Modern criticism and ancient authority seem to decide that the Epistle to the Hebrews is not the work of Paul, but of some unknown author; that the second Epistle of Peter is not from that apostle, but from one who, as Scaliger said, "abused his leisure time;" that the second and third of John, the Epistles of James and Jude, are not from the apostolic per- sons whose names they bear; and that the book of the Re- velation is not the work of John the Evangelist. Objections have been brought against some other epistles, which how- ever do not appear so well founded, and against some of the Evangelists, which will be presently alluded to. Then, if the above remarks be correct, there are seven works in the New Testament, whose claim to apostolical authority is doubted with more or less reason. As these disputed wri- tings themselves are not of any great practical importance in this connection, even if genuine, they may be neglected in the present examination.* If the other writings, whose claim to an apostolic origin is stronger, are not found mi- raculous and infallible, still less shall be expected of these. The rest of the New Testament may be divided into the Epistolary and the Historical writings. I. OF THE EPISTOLARY WRITINGS OP THE NEW TESTA3IENT. These are the oldest Christian documents; the works of Paul, Peter, and John, the most illustrious of the early dis- * The rum-apostolical origin of these seven books is by no means fixed and agreed upon by all the critics. See the discussions in the Introductions of Michaelis, Hug. de Wette, and the numerous monograms on these points. Some information may be found in a popular shape, in the little work of Olshausen, Genuineness of the New Testament, Andover, 1838. 264 THE LETTEES OF THE APOSTLES. ciples, the " chiefest apostles," and most instrumental in founding the Christian church. If any of the early Chris- tians received miraculous inspiration, it must be the Apos- tles; if any of the Apostles, it must be one or all of these three. To determine their claims, the works of the three may be examined together, for the sake of brevity. Now, at the first view of these fifteen epistles, it does not appear that any miraculous inspiration was required to write these, more than the letters of St. Cyprian or Fenelon. They contain nothing above the reach of human faculties; and to assume a miraculous agency, is contrary to the in- ductive method, to say the least of it. Do the writers ever claim n peculiar and miraculous in- spiration ? The furthest from it possible. Paul speaks of his inspiration, but he ;idinits that, of all Christians, "No man can say Jesus is the Lord," that is, Christianity is true, " but by the Holy Ghost." He refers wisdom, faith, eloquence, learning, skill in the interpretation of tongues, ability to teach or to heal diseases, to inspiration. " All these worketh that one and self-same spirit."* The spirit of Christ was in all Christian hearts; they all received the " Spirit of God." That was Paul's view of inspiration. He and his fellow-apostles were servants that helped others to believe. He had the gift of teaching in a more eminent degree, and enjoyed a greater " abundance of revelations," and therefore taught. John carries the doctrine of the universal inspiration of Christians still farther. Now, if the Apostles had this miraculous and peculiar in- spiration, and through modesty did not state it, they must yet have known the fact. But it is notorious they taught not in the name of any private inspiration, but in that of Jesus, t * 1 Cor. xii. 1, et seq. t This point has been ably touched by Spinoza, Tract. Theol. Polit. chap. xi. ed. Paulus, VoL I. p. 315, et seq. From him both Leclerc (Lettres des quelques Juifs) DIFFICULTIES OF THE APOSTLES. 265 But even if the Apostles claimed miraculous and infallible inspiration, and taught with authority they pretended to derive therefrom, still their claim could not be granted; for, if infallibly inspired, they must be ready for all emer- gencies. Now a practical question arose in a novel case, which was a test of their inspiration : Should they admit the Gentiles to Christianity'? The book of Acts relates that Peter required a special and miraculous vision to enlighten him on this head. He seems surprised to find that " God is no respecter of persons," but will allow all religious men of any nation to become Christians. Had he been miracu- lously inspired before, to what purpose the vision? If the Apostles were infallibly inspired, they could not disagree on any point. Now another question comes up : Shall the Gentiles keep the old ceremonial Law of Moses, and be circumcised? It would seem that men of common freedom of thought, who had heard the teachings of Jesus, would not need miraculous help to decide so plain a ques- tion. If they had the alleged inspiration, each must know at once how to decide, and all would decide in the same way without consultation. But such was not the fact; they were divided on this very question plain as it is and held a meeting of the Christians; the " apostles and elders came together to consider this matter." It was not a plain case; there was "much disputing" about it. Peter, Barna- bas, and Paul, spoke against the Law; James, as chairman of the meeting, sums up the matter before putting the question, takes a middle ground, proposes a resolution that all the Mosaic ritual should not be imposed upon the Gen- tile converts, but only a few of its prohibitions, which he reckons " necessary things." He comes to this conclusion, not by special inspiration of which no mention is made in the meeting but from Peter's statement of facts, and and Rich. Simon (Hist. Grit, du V. T.) seem to have drawn some of their stores. See also the acute remarks of Lessing, Werke, ed. Carlsruhe, 1824, Vol. XXIV. p. 84, ft teq. Z 266 MISTAKES OF THE APOSTLES. from a passage in the Prophet who says, that " all the Gen- tiles might seek after the Lord." The question was put ; the chairman's motion prevailed ; a circular was drawn up in the name of the Holy Spirit and the assembly, and sent to the Churches. But Paul and Peter seem to have disre- garded it, one going beyond, the other falling short of its requisitions. Then, again, the Apostles differed on some points. Paul and Barnabas had a sharp contention, and separated.* Could infallible men fall out? Paul had little respect for those " that were apostles before him," and " withstood Peter to the face."t These Apostles were mistaken in several things; in their interpretation of the Old Testament, as any one may see by examining the passages cited by Peter in the Acts,t or the writings of Paul. They were all mistaken in this capital doctrine, that Jesus would return to Judea, the general resurrection and judgment take place, and the world be destroyed within a very few years, during the lifetime of the Apostles. This is a very strongly-marked feature in their teaching. || From the doubtful epistle ascribed to Peter, it seems that as times went by and the world con- tinued, scoffers very naturally doubted the truth of this opinion, 4. but were assured it would hold good. II. OF THE HISTORICAL WRITINGS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. Here we have, apparently, the works of Matthew and John, two of the immediate disciples of Jesus, and of Mark and Luke, the companions of Peter and Paul. The first * Acts, xv. 39. f GaL L 11 ii. 14. t Acts, ii. 14-21, 25-34; iii. 18, 21-24; iv. 25, 26, et al. Gal. iv. 24, et seq.; 1 Cor. x. 4, et seq., et al || See the Essay of Mr. Norton on this point, in Statement of Reasons^ &c., p. 297, et seq.; and De Potter, vbi sup., Vol. I. p. cxl. et seq. | 2 Pet. ii. 4, et seq. THE EVANGELISTS. 267 question is, Have we really the works of these four writers'? It is a question which can by no means be readily and satis- factorily answered in the affirmative. However, it cannot be entered upon in this place;* but admitting, in argument, that the works are genuine, at the first view there seems no need of miraculous inspiration in the case of honest men wishing to relate what they had seen, heard, or felt. It is not easy to see why miraculous and infallible inspiration was needed to write the memoirs of Jesus and the Acts of the Apostles, more than the memoirs of Socrates, or the Acts of the Martyrs. The writers never claim such an in- spiration. Matthew and Mark never speak of themselves as writers; Luke refers to certain " eye-witnesses and mi- nisters of the Word" as his authority for the facts of the Gospel. John claims it as little as the others, though an unknown writer, at the end of his Gospel, testifies to the truth of the narrative.t But even if they made this claim, so often made for them, it could not be granted, for their testimony does not agree. The Jesus of the Synoptics differs very widely from the Jesus of John, in his actions, discourses, and general spiri- tual character, as much as the Socrates of Xenophon from that of Plato. This point was acknowledged by the Fa- thers. But not to dwell on a general disagreement, nor to come down to the perpetual and well-known disagreement in minute details, there is a most striking difference be- tween the genealogies of Jesus, as given by Matthew and Luke. Both agree that Jesus was descended from David by the father's side; but Matthew counts twenty-jive ances- * On the affirmative side, see Paley, Evidences, Part I.; the masterly Treatise of Mr. Norton, Genuineness of the Gospels; Prof. Stuart's review of it in Bib. Rep. for 1837-8; and Lardner's Credibility, &c. See, on the other side, the popular but im- portant remarks of Hennell, ubi sup., ch. iii.-vi. ; Strauss, Glaubenslehre, 15 ; and the Life of Jesus, by Strauss, Theile, Neander, &c. CANON OF SCRIPTURE. 293 ful hearts ; old covenants and priesthoods were done away, and so all were inspired.* The New Testament was not written, and the Old Testa- ment was but the shadow of good things to come; and since they had come, the children of the free woman were not to sit in the shadow, hut to stand fast in the liberty where- with Christ had made them free. Man, the heir of all things, long time kept under taskmasters and governors, had now come of age and taken possession of his birthright. The decision of a majority of delegates assembled in a coun- cil, bound only themselves. Then the body of men and women worshipping in any one place was subject neither to its own officers, nor to the Church at large; nor to the Scriptures of the Old or the New Testament. No man on earth, no organization, no book, was master of the Soul; each Church made out its canon of Scripture as well as it could. Some of our canon- ical writings were excluded, and apocryphal writings used in their stead. Indeed, respecting this matter of Scripture, there has never been a uniform canon among all Christians. The Bible of the Latin differs from that of the Greek Church, and contains thirteen books more; the Catholic differs from the Protestant; the early Syrians from their contemporaries; the Abyssinians from all other churches, it seems. The Ebionites would not receive the beginning of Matthew and Luke; the Marcionites had a Gospel of their own. The Socinians, and perhaps others, left off the whole of the Old Testament, t or count it unnecessary. The fol- lowers of Swedenborg do not find a spiritual sense in all * On the state of the early Church, and the Bishops, Elders, and Deacons, which is still a matter of controversy, see Campbell, Lectures on Eccl. History, Lect II.- XIII. ; Gieseler, ubi sup., 29 ; Mosheim, ubi sup., Book I. Art. II. chap. ii. ; Neander, Allg. Geschichte der Christlichen Religion, Hamb. 1835, Vol. I. Part I. chap. ii. ; Gibbon, chap, xv.; Schleiermacher, Geschichte der Christlichen Kirche, Berlin, 1840, p. 86, et seq. Among the modern writers Milman takes the other side ; History of Christianity, Lond. 1840, Book II. chap. ii. p. 63, et seq. t See Faustus Socinus, ubi sup., p. 271, et dl. Bb 2 294 CORRUPTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. the books of the canon. Critics yearly make inroads upon the canon, striking out whole books or obnoxious passages, as not genuine. In the first ages of Christianity, the Bible was a subordinate thing ; in modern times, it has been made a vehicle to carry any doctrine the expositor sees fit to interpret into it.* The first preachers of Christianity fell back on the authority of Jesus; appealed to the moral sense of mankind ; applied the doctrines of Christianity to life as well as they could; and with much zeal, and some super- stition and many mistakes, developed the practical side of Christianity much more than its theoretical side. But even in the Apostles, Christianity had lost somewhat of its simplicity. It was not the perfect Religion and Mo- rality coming from the absolute source, and proceeding by the absolute method to the absolute end; it is taught on the authority of Christ. The Jews must believe that he was the Messiah of the prophets; "salvation" is connected with a belief in his person " Neither is there salvation by any other," says Peter, in a different sense from the words, " No man cometh unto the Father but by me." The Jewish doc- trines of " Redemption" and reconciliation by sacrifice ap- pear more or less in the genuine works of the Apostles, and very clearly in the Epistle to the Hebrews. We may ex- plain some of the obnoxious passages as " figures of speech," referring to the " Christ born in us;" but a fair interpre- tation leaves it pretty certain that the writers added some- what to the absolute Religion, though they might not share the gross doctrines often taught in their name. Christ is in some measure a mythological being, even with Paul; he was with the Jews in the desert, and assisted at the creation. The Pharisaic doctrine of the resurrection of the body ap- pears undeniably; a local heaven and a day of judgment, in which Jesus is to appear in person and judge the world, * See, on this point, some ingenious remarks of Hegel, Philosophic der Religion, VoL I. p. 29, et teq. CORRUPTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 295 are very clearly taught. The fourth Gospel speaks of Jesus as he never speaks of himself; the Platonic doctrine of the Logos appears therein. We may separate the apostolic doc- trine into three classes, the Judaizing, the Alexandrine, and the Pauline, each differing more or less essentially from the absolute Religion of the sermon on the mount.* Already with the Apostles Jesus has become in part deified, his personality confounded with the Infinite God. Was it not because of the very vastness and beauty of soul that was in him 1 ? The private and peculiar doctrines of the early Chris- tians appear in strange contrast with the gentle precepts of love to man and God, in which Jesus sums up the essentials of Religion. But, alas ! what is positive and peculiar in each form of worship is of little value ; the best things are the commonest, for no man can lay a new foundation, nor add to the old more than the wood, hay, and stubble of his own folly. The great excellence of Jesus was in restoring natural Religion and Morality to their true place ; an excel- lence which even the Apostles but poorly understood.t In their successors Christianity was a very different thing, and in the course of a few years, alas! a very few, it appeared, in the mass of the Churches, an idle mummery a collection of forms and superstitious rites. Heathenism and Judaism, with all sorts of superstitious absurdities in their train, came into the Church. The first fifteen bishops of Jerusalem clung to the most obnoxious feature of Juda- ism. Christianity was the stalking-horse of ambition. A man stepped at once from the camp to the Bishop's mitre, and brought only the piety of the Roman Legion into the Church. The doctrine of many a Christian writer was less pure and beautiful than the faith of Seneca and Cicero, not * The Epistle to the Hebrews, and the earlier Apocryphal Gospels and Epistles, are valuable monuments of the opinions of the Christians at the tune they were written. t See the impartial remarks of Schloeser respecting the origin and subsequent fate of Christianity, in his Geschichte der alten Welt, Vol. III. Ft. I. p. 249-274, Pt II. p. 110-129, 381-416. 296 THE CLERGY IN THE CHURCH. to name Zoroaster and Socrates. After a couple of centu- ries there was a distinction between Clergy and Laity. The former became " Lords over God's heritage/' not " ensam- ples unto the flock;" they were masters of the doctrine; could bind and loose on earth and in heaven. The majority in a council bound the minority, and the voices of the clergy determined what was " the mind of the Lord." Thus the Clergy became the Church, and were set above Eeason and Conscience in the individual soul. They were chosen by themselves, and responsible to none on earth. Private inspiration was reckoned dangerous ; freedom of conscience was forbidden; he who denied the popular faith was ac- cursed. The organization of the Church was then taken from the Jewish Temple, not the Synagogue. The minis- ter was a priest, and stood between God and the people; the Bishop, an high-priest after the order of Aaron, his kingdom of this world; he was the " Successor of the Apostles ;" the Vicegerent of Christ. Men came to the clerical office with no Christian qualification.* Baptism atoned for all sins, and was sometimes put off till the last hour, that the Christian might give full swing to the flesh, and float into heaven at last on the lustral waters of bap- tism. Bits of bread from the " Lord's table" were a talis- man to preserve the faithful from all dangers by sea and land. Prayers were put up for the dead; the cross was worshipped ; the bones of the martyrs could work miracles, cast out devils, calm a tempest, and even raise the dead. The Eucharist was forced into the mouths of children be- fore they could say, " my father, and my mother." The sign of the cross and the " sacred oil" were powerful as Ca- nidia's spell. In point of toleration the human race went backward for a time, far behind the Athenians and men of Rome.t The clergy assumed power over Conscience; power * The histories of Synesius and Ambrose afford a striking picture of the clerical class in their time, t See the writings of Tertullian and Cyprian, passim, for proofs of this. NUMBERS NO TEST OF TRUTH. 297 to admit to Heaven, or condemn to hell ; and not only de- cided in matters of mummery, whereof they made " divine service" to consist, but decreed what men should believe in order to obtain eternal life; an office which the sublimest of all the sons of men modest because he was great never took upon himself. They collected the writings of the New Testament, and decided what should be the " Stan- dard of faith," and what not. But their canon was arbi- trary, including some spurious books of small value, and rejecting others more edifying. However, they allowed some latitude in the interpretation of the works they had canonized. But next, they went farther, and developed systematically the doctrines of the Scripture, on points deemed the most important, such as the " nature of God" and Christ. Thus the " mind of the Lord" was determined and laid down, so that he might read that ran. The mys- ticism of Plato and the subtleties of the Stagyrite afforded matter for the pulpits and councils to discuss. This method of deciding dark questions by plurality of votes has always been popular in Christendom. In some things the majority are always right; in some always wrong. The four hundred prophets of Baal have a " lying spirit" in them ; Micaiah alone is in the right. The college of Pa- dua, and the Sorbonne, would have voted down Galileo and Newton, a hundred to one. But what then? Majority of voices proves little in morals or mathematics : a single man in Jerusalem on a certain time had more moral and reli- gious truth than Herod and the Sanhedrim. Synods of Dort and assemblies of Divines settle nothing but their own opinions, which will be reversed the next century, or stand, as now, a snare to the conscience of pious men. In the early times of Christianity, the teachers in general were men of little learning, imbued with the prejudices and vain philosophies of the times; men with passions, some of them quite untamed, notwithstanding their pious zeal. In 298 SIN IN THE CHURCH. the first century, no eminent man is reckoned among the Christians. But soon doctrines, which played a great part in the heathen worship, and which do not appear in the teaching of Jesus, were imposed upon men, on pain of dam- nation in two worlds; they are not yet extinct. Rites were adopted from the same source ; the scum of idolatry covered the well of living water; the Flesh and the Devil sat down at the " Lord's Table" in the Christian Church, and with forehead unabashed, pushed away the worthy bid- den guest. What passed for Christianity in many churches during the fourth and a large part of the third century was a vile superstition. The image of Christ was marred; men paid God in Caesar's pence. The shades of great men Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato yesl the shades of humbler men, of name unknown to fame, might have come up, disquieted like Samuel, from their grave, and spit upon the superstition of the Christians defiling Persia, and Athens, and Rome. It deserved the mockery it met. Christianity was basely corrupted long before it gained the Roman Pa- lace. Had it not been corrupted, when would it have reached king's courts? in the time of Constantine? or of Louis XIV. ? The quarrels of the Bishops, the contentions of the councils, the superstition of the laymen, and the despotism and ambition of the clergy the ascetic doctrine taught as morality, the monastic institutions with their plan of a divine life, are striking signs of the times, and con- trast wonderfully with that simple Nazarene and his lowly obedience to God and manly love of his brothers. Yet here and there were men who fed with faith and works the flame of piety, which, rising from their lowly hearth, streamed up towards heaven, making the shadows of superstition and of sin look strange and monstrous as they fell on many a rood of space. These were the men who saved the Sodom of the Church. Did Christianity fail 1 ? The Christianity of Christ is not one thing, and human na- ture another; it is human Virtue, human Religion, man THE WORLD MOVES SLOW. in his highest moments; the effect no less than the cause of human development, and can never fail till man ceases to be man. Under all this load of superstition, the heart of faith still beat. How could the world forget its old institu- tions, riot, and sin, in a moment? It is not thus the dull fact of the world's life yields to the divine idea of a man. The rites of the public worship, the clerical class, the stress laid on dogmas and forms, all this was a tribute to the indolence and sensuality of mankind. The asceticism, celi- bacy, mortification of the body, contempt of the present life ; the hatred of an innocent pleasure ; the scorn of litera- ture, science, and art, these are the natural reaction of mankind, who had been bid to fill themselves with merely sensual delight. The lives of Mark Antony, Sallust, Cras- sus, of Julius Caesar, Nero, and Domitian, explain the origin of asceticism and monastic retirement better than folios will do it. The writings of Petronius Arbiter, of Apuleius and Lucian, render necessary the works of Tertullian, Cyprian, Jerome, and John of Damascus. Individuals might come all at once out of Egyptian darkness into the light of ab- solute Religion; but the world moves slow, and oscillates from one extreme to the opposite. * For a time the leaven of Christianity seemed lost in the lump of human sin ; but it was doing its great work in ways not seen by mortal eyes. The most profound of all revolutions must require centuries for its work; the good never dies. The persecutions di- rected by tyrannical emperors against the new faith only helped the work ; what is written in blood, is widely read and not soon forgot. Could the "holy alliance" of Ease, Hypocrisy, and Sin, put down Christianity, which proclaimed the One God, the equality and brotherhood of all men? Did force ever prevail in the long-run against Reason or Religion? The ashes of a Polycarp and a Justin sow the * But see how reluctantly Synesius comes to the duties of a bishop. Ep. 105, cited in Hampden, Bampton Lectures, Lond. 1837, p. 407, et seq. 300 THE CHRISTIANITY OF CHRIST earth for a Cadmean harvest of heroes of the soul : a man leaving wife and babes, and dying a martyr's death, this is an eloquence the dullest can understand. If a fire is to spread in the forest, let all the winds blow upon it. Even a bad thing is not put down by abuse. However, to see the earnest of that vast result Christianity is destined to work out for the nations, we must not look at king's courts, in Byzantium or Paris; not in the chairs of bishops, noble or selfish ; not at the martyr's firmness when his flesh is torn off, for the unflinching Tuscarora surpasses " the noble army of martyrs" in fortitude; but in the common walks of life, its everyday trials; in the sweet charities of the fireside and the street ; in the self-denial that shares its loaf with the distressed ; the honest heart which respects others as itself. Looking deeper than the straws of the surface, we see a stream of new life is in the world, and, though choked with mud, not to be dammed up. The history of Christianity reveals the majestic preemi- nence of its earthly founder. In him it is noonday light, absolute Religion; no less, no more. Come to the later times of the Apostles, the sky is overcast, and doubtful twi- light begins; take another step, and the darkness deepens. Come down to Justin Martyr, it is deeper still; to Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian; to the times of the Council of Nice; read the letters of Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, the Apo- logies of Christianity, the fierce bickerings of strong men about matters of no moment, we should think it the mid- night of the Christian Church, did we not know that after this " woe was past," there came another woe ; that there was a refuge of lies remaining where the blackness of dark- ness fell, and the shadow of death lingered long, and would not be lifted up. It is not necessary to go into the painful task of tracing the obvious decline of Christianity, and its absorption in the organization of the Church, which assumed the Keys of Heaven, and bound and tortured men on earth. It is beau- AND HIS FOLLOWERS. 301 tiful to see the freedom of Paul a man to whom the world owes so much,* and the happy state of the earlier church- es; when no one controlled another, except by Wisdom and Love; when each was his own Priest, with no middle-man to forestall inspiration, and stand between him and God; when each could come to the Father, and get truth at first- hand if he would. Christ broke every yoke ; but new yokes were soon made, and in his name. He bade men pray as he did; with no mediator, nothing between them and the Father of all; making each place a temple, and each act a divine service. With the doctrines of absolute Keligion on their tongue the example of Jesus to stimulate and en- courage them the certain conviction that Truth and God were on their side; going into the world of men sick of their worn-out rituals, and hungering and thirsting after a religion they could confide in, live and die by ; having stout hearts in their bosoms, which danger could not daunt, nor gold bribe, nor contempt shame, nor death appal, nor friends seduce, no wonder the Apostles prevailed! An earnest man, even in our times, coming in the name of Religion, speaking its word of fire, and appealing to what is deepest and divinest in our heart, never lacks auditors, though a rude man like Bohme, or Bunyan, or Fox. No wonder the Apostles conquered the world; it were a miracle if they had not put to flight " armies of the aliens," the makers of " silver shrines," and " them that sold and bought in the temple." Man moves man the world round, and Eeligion multiplies itself as the Banyan tree. Men with all the science of the nineteenth century, but with no religion, can scarce hold a village together; while every religious fa- natic, from Mahomet to Mormon, finds followers plenty as flowers in summer, and true as steel. Can no man divine the cause? See Miscellaneous Writings, Art. X. p. 237, et seq. G C 302 INTRODUCTION OF THE CLERGY. Blessed was the Christian church while all were brothers. But soon as the Trojan Horse of an organized priesthood was dragged through the ruptured wall, there came out of it, stealthily, men cunning as Ulysses, cruel as Diomed, arrogant as Samuel, exclusive and jealous, armed to the teeth in the panoply of worldliness. The little finger of the Christian priesthood was found thicker than the loins of their fathers the flamens of Jupiter Quirinus, the Levitical priests of Jehovah. Then belief began to take the place of Life ; the priest of the man ; the church of home ; the Flesh and the Devil, of the Word and the Holy Spirit. Divine service was mechanism, Religion priestcraft, Christianity a thing for kings to swear by, and to help priests to wealth and fame. But a seed remained that never bowed the knee to the idol. Righteous men, they are cursed by the Church, and blessed by the God of Truth. We are to blame no class of men, neither the learned who were hostile to Chris- tianity, nor the priests who assumed this power for the loaves' and fishes' sake; they were men, and did as others, with their light and temptations, would have done. Looking with human eyes, it is not possible to see how the evil could have been avoided. The wickedness long entrenched in the world; that under-current of sin which runs through the nations; the low civilization of the race; the selfishness of strong men, their awful wars; the hideous sins of slavery, polygamy; the oppression of the weak; the power of lust, brutality, and every sin, these were obstacles that even Christianity could not sweep away in a moment, though strongest of the daughters of God. Men could sail safely for some years in the light of Jesus, though seen more and more dimly. But as the stream of time swept them farther down, and the cold shadow from mountains of hoary crime came over them anew, they felt the darkness. Let us judge these men lightly. Low as the Church was in the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries, it yet represented the best interests of mankind as no other institution. Individuals but A TRUTH IN THE CHURCH. 303 not societies rose above it, and soared away to the Heaven of peace, amid its cry of excommunication. Let us give the Church its due. Now as no institution exists and claims the unforced ho- mage of men unless it have some real permanent excellence, in virtue of which alone it holds its place, being hindered, not helped by the accidental error, falsity, and sin connected therewith; and since the Church has always stood, in spite of its faults, and filled such a place in human affairs as no other institution, it becomes us to look for the Idea it represents, knowing there must be a great truth to stand so long, extend so wide, and uphold so much that is false. 304 PECULIARITY OF CHRISTIANITY. CHAPTER III. THE FUNDAMENTAL AND DISTINCTIVE IDEA OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH DIVISION OF THE CHRISTIAN SECTS. ALL religions have this common point, an acknowledged sense of dependence on God; and each religion has some special peculiarity of its own, which distinguishes it from all others. Now the essential peculiarity of Christianity is indeed its absolute character; but the formal and theo- retic peculiarity, which contradistinguishes it from all other religions, is this doctrine, that God has made the highest revelation of himself to man through Jesiis of Nazareth. This doctrine which does not proceed from the absolute character, but from the historical origin of Christianity is the common ground on which all Christian sects, the Catholic and the Quaker, the Anabaptist, the Rationalist, and the Mormonite, are agreed. But as this is logically affirmed by all theoretical Christians, it is as logically denied by all not-theoretical Christians. Thus the Jews and Ma- hometans think their prophets superior to Jesus. When we find a man who is a higher " incarnation of God ; " one who teaches and lives out more of Religion and morality than Jesus, we are bound to admit that fact, and then cease to be theoretical Christians. Men may now be essential and practical Christians, if they regard Christianity as the absolute Religion, and live it out, or live the absolute Re- FORMATION OF SECTS. 305 ligion, and give it no name, though not theoretical Chris- tians. This distinctive doctrine of Christianity appears in vari- ous forms in the different sects. Thus some call Jesus the Infinite God; others, the first of created beings; others, a miraculous being of a mixed nature, and hence a God-man, the identity of man and God; others still, a mortal man, the most perfect representation of Goodness and Religion. These may all be regarded, excepting the last, as more or less mythological statements of this distinctive doctrine. Now if Christianity as the absolute Religion, with this theoretical peculiarity, be developed in a man, it has an influence on all his active powers. It affects the mind, he makes a Theology; the Conscience, he lives a divine life; the Imagination, he devises a symbol, rite, penance, or ce- remony. The Theology, the Life, and the Symbol, must depend on the natural endowments and artificial culture of the individual Christian; and as both gifts and the develop- ment thereof differ in different men, it is plain that various sects must naturally be formed, each of which, setting out from the first principle common to all religions, and em- bracing the great theoretical doctrine of Christianity which distinguishes it from all not-Christian religions has, besides, a certain peculiar doctrine of its own which separates it from all other Christian sects. These sects are the necessary forms Religion takes in connection with the varying condition of men. The Christian Church, as a whole, is made up of these parties, all of whom, taken to- gether, with their Theologies, Life, and Symbols, represent the amount of absolute Religion which has been developed in Christendom, in the speculative, practical, or aesthetic way. To understand the Christian Church, therefore, we must understand each of its parties, their truth and error, their virtue and vice, and then form an appreciation of the whole matter. In making the estimate, however, we may neglect such c c 2 306 CHRISTIAN PARTIES. portions of the Christian Church as have had no influence on the present development of Christianity amongst us. Thus we need not consider the Greek and Oriental Churches after the sixth century, as their influence upon Christianity ceased to be considerable, in consequence of the superior practical talents of the Western Churches. The remaining portions may be classified in various ways ; but, for the pre- sent purpose, the following seems the best arrangement, namely, I. THE CATHOLIC PARTY. II. THE PROTESTANT PARTY. III. THOSE NEITHER CATHOLICS NOR PROTESTANTS. These three will be treated each in its turn. GROWTH OF THE ROMAN CHURCH. 307 THE CATHOLIC PARTY. THE Catholic Church is the oldest, and in numbers still the most powerful of all Christian organizations. It grew as the Christian spirit extended among the ruins of the old world, by the might of the truth borne in its bosom, over- powering the old worship, the artifice of priests, the self- ishness of the affluent, the might of the strong, the che- rished forms of a thousand years, the impotent armies of purple kings. It arose from small beginnings. No one knows who first brought Christianity to Home ; nor who planted the seed of that hierarchic power which soon be- came a tree, and at length a whole forest, stretching to the world's end, infolding chapels for the pious, and dens for robbers. The practical spirit of old Rome came into the Church. Its power grew as Christian freedom declined. The mantle of that giant genius which made the seven- hilled city conquerer of the world; the belt of power which girt the loins of her mighty men Fabius, Regulus, Cicero, Caesar passed to the Christian Bishops, as that genius fled from the earth, howling over his crumbled work. The spirit of those ancient heroes came into the church their practical skill, their obstinate endurance, their power of speech with words like battles, their lust of power, their resolution which nothing could overturn or satisfy. The Greek Christians were philosophic, literary; ' they could sling stones at a hair's-breath. In the early times they had 308 GREEK AND LATIN CHURCHES. all the advantage of position; " the chairs of the Apostles;" the Christian Scriptures written in their tongue. Theirs were the great names of the first centuries, Poly carp, Justin, the Clements, Origen, Eusebius, Athanasius, Basil, the Gregories, Chrysostom. But the Latin Church had the practical skill, the soul to dare, and the arm to execute. The power of the Roman church therefore advanced step by step. Its chiefs were dexterous men, with the coolness of Caesar, and the zeal of Hannibal. Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, would have been powerful men anywhere in the court of Sardanapalus, or in a college of Jesuits. They brought the world into the Church; it was the world's gain, but the Church's loss. The Emperor soon learned to stoop his conquering eagles to the spiritual power which shook the capitol. The Church held divided sway with him; the spiritual sceptre was wrested from his hands. Constantine fled to Byzantium as much to escape the Latin clergy as to defend himself from the warriors of the North.* Now the Catholic Church held to the first truths of Re- ligion and of Christianity, as before shown. Its peculiar and distinctive doctrine was this, that God still acts upon and inspires mankind, being in some measure immanent therein. This dootrine is broad enough to cover the world, powerful enough to annihilate the arrogance of any Church. But the Roman party limited this doctrine by adding, that God did not act by a natural law, directly on the mind, heart, and soul of each man who sought faithfully to ap- proach Him, but acted miraculously, through the organiza- tion of the Church, on its members and no otJiers; and on them, not because they were men, but instruments of the church ; not in proportion to a man's gifts or the use of his gifts, but as he stood high or low in the church. The * See the external causes of the superiority of the Roman Church, in Rehm, Ge- schichte des Mittelalters, Vol. I. p. 51G, et seq. CONSISTENCY OF THE CATHOLICS. 309 humblest Priest had a little inspiration, enough to work the greatest of miracles ; the Bishop had more ; the Pope, as head of the Church, must be infallibly inspired, so that he could neither act wrong, think wrong, nor feel wrong. Christianity, as the Absolute Religion and Morality, ne- cessarily sets out from the absolute source the spirit of God in the soul, revealing truth. The Catholic Church, on the contrary, starts from a finite source, the limited work of inspired men, namely, the traditional word preserved in Scripture, and the unscriptural tradition, both written and not written. But then, laying down this indisputable truth, that a book must be interpreted by the same spirit in which it is written, and therefore that a book written by miraculous and superhuman inspiration can be understood only by men inspired in a similar way, and limiting the requisite inspiration to itself, it assumed the office of sole interpreter of the Scriptures ; refused the Bible to the lay- men, because they, as uninspired, could not understand it ; and gave them only its own interpretation. Thus it at- tempted to mediate between mankind and the Bible. Then again, relying on the unscriptural tradition pre- served in the Fathers, the Councils, the organization and memory of the Church, it makes this of the same authority as the Scriptures themselves, and so claims divine sanction for doctrines which are neither countenanced by " human Reason," nor "divine Revelation" as contained in the Bible. This is a point of great importance, as will presently appear. Now the Catholic Church was logically consistent with itself in both these pretensions. Each individual church, at first, received what Scripture it saw fit, and interpreted the Word as well as it could. Next, the Synods decreed for the mass of churches, both the canon of Scripture and the doctrine it contained. The Catholic Church continued to exercise these privileges. Then again, taking the com- mon notion, the Church had a logical and speculative basis for its claim to inspiration, though certainly none in point 310 THREE SOURCES OF RELIGIOUS TRUTH. of fact. If God inspired Jesus to create a new religion Peter, Paul, and John to preach it, and Matthew, Mark, and Luke to record the words and works of Christ and other Christians, when did the inspiration cease? With the Apostles or their sucessors? the direct or the remote? Did it cease at all? It did not appear. Besides, how could the inspired works be interpreted except by men continu- ally inspired? how could the Church, founded and built by miraculous action, be preserved by the ordinary use of man's powers? Were Jude and James inspired, and Clement and Ambrose left with no open vision? Such a conclusion could not come from a comparison of their works. Did not Jesus promise to be with his Church to the end of the world? Here was the warrant for the assumptions of the Catholic party. So it, with logical consistency, claimed a perpetual, miraculous, and exclusive inspiration, on just as good ground as it allowed the claim of earlier men to the same inspira- tion; it made tradition the master over the soul, on just the same pretension that the Bible is made the only certain rule of faith and practice. As the only interpreter of Scripture, the exclusive keeper of tradition, as the vicar of God, and alone inspired by Him, it stood between man on the one side, and the Bible, Antiquity, and God, on the other side. The Church was sacred, for God was immanent therein; the world profane, deserted of Deity. The Church admits three sources of moral and religious truth, namely, 1. The Scripture* of the Old and New Testament and Apocrypha. It declares that these are good and wise, but ambiguous and obscure, and by themselves alone incomplete, not containing the whole of the doctrine, and requiring an inspired expositor to set forth their contents. 2. The unscriptural Tradition, oral and written. This is needed to supply what is left wanting through the imper- fection of Scripture, and to teach the more recondite doc- trines of Christianity, such as the Trinity, Redemption, the THE CHURCH AND HERETICS. 311 Authority of the Church, Purgatory, Intercession, the use of Confession, Penance, and the like; and also to explain the Scriptures themselves. But Tradition also is imperfect, ambiguous, full of apparent contradictions, and impossible for the laity to understand, except through the inspired class, who alone could reconcile its several parts. 3. The direct Inspiration of God, acting on the official members of the Church; that is, on its councils, priests, and above all, on its infallible head. The Church restricted direct inspiration to itself; and even within the Church the action of God was limited, for if an individual of the clerical order taught what was hostile to the doctrine of the Church, or not contained therein, his inspiration was referred to the Devil, not God, and the man burned, not canonized. Thus inspiration was subjected to a very severe process of verification, even with- in the Church itself; it forbade mankind to trust Reason, Conscience, and the religious Sentiment; to approach God through these, and get truth at first-hand, as Moses, Jesus, and the other great men of antiquity had done. For this the laymen must depend on the clergy, and the clergyman must depend on the whole Church, represented by the Fathers or Councils, and idealized in its head. Thus the Church was the judge of the doctrine and the practice; invested with the Keys of Heaven and Hell; with power to bind and loose, remit sins, or retain them, and authority to de- mand absolute submission from the world, or punish with fagots and hell, men who would not believe as the church commanded. In this way it would control private inspira- tion. But not to leave the heretics hopeless, or drive them to violence, it assumes the right to restore them, and to pardon their sins, on condition of submission and penance. The Saviour, the Martyrs, the Saints, had not only expiated their own sins, but performed works of supererogation, and so established a sinking-fund to liquidate the sins of the world. This deposit was at the disposal of the Church, who 312 THE CHURCH MASTER OP THE SOUL. could therewith aided by the intercession of the beatified spirits purchase the salvation of a penitent heretic, though his sins were as crimson. The Church assumed mastery over all souls. The indi- vidual was nothing; the Church was all. Its power stood on a moral basis; its authority was derived from God. The humblest priest, in celebrating the mass, performed a mi- racle greater than all the wonders of Jesus; for he only changed water into wine, and fed five thousand men with five loaves; but the priest, by a single word, changed bread and wine into the flesh and blood of Almighty God. It styles itself God's vicegerent on earth ; and as Christ was a temporary and partial incarnation of the Deity, so itself is a perfect and eternal incarnation thereof. Thus the Church became a Theocracy. It was far more consistent than the Jewish Theocracy, for that allowed private inspiration, and therefore was perpetually troubled by the race of prophets, who never allowed the priests their own way, but cried out with most rousing indignation against the Levites and their followers, and refused to be put down. Besides, the Jewish Theocracy limited infallibility to God and the Law, which was to be made known to all, and though inspired, could be easily understood by the simple son of Israel. It never claimed that for the Priesthood. Now there are but two scales in the balance of power, the Individual who is ruled, and the Institution that go- verns, here represented by the Church. Just as the one scale rises, the other falls. The spiritual freedom of the individual in the Church is contained in an angle too small to be measurable. Did men revolt from this iron rule 1 There was the alternative of eternal damnation, for all men were born depraved, exposed to the wrath of God; their only chance of avoiding hell was to escape through the doors of the Church. Thus men were morally compelled to submit for the sake of its " redemption." Did they throw themselves on the mercy of the Holy Ghost, penitent for MERITS OF THE CHURCH. 313 their disobedience of the Church? they were told that mercy was at the Church's disposal. Did they make the appeal to Scripture, and say, " as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive;" that he had expiated all their sins ? the Church told them their exegesis of the passage was wrong, for Christ only expiated their inherited sins, not the actual sin they had committed, and for which they must smart in hell, atone for in purgatory, or get par- doned by submitting to the vicar of God, and going through the rites, forms, fasts, and penances he should prescribe, and thus purchase a share of the redemption which Christ and the saints, by their works of supererogation, had pro- vided to meet the case. This doctrine was taught in good faith, and in good faith received.* I. THE MERITS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. As we look back upon the history of the Church, and see the striking unity of that institution, we naturally suppose its chiefs had a regular plan: but such was not the fact. The peculiar merit of the Catholic church consists in its assertion of the truth, that God still inspires mankind as muck as ever; that He has not exhausted himself in the creation of a Moses or a Jesus, the Law or the Gospel, but is present and active in spirit as in space. Admitting this truth, so deep, so vital to the race a truth preserved in the religions of Egypt, Greece, and Rome, and above all in the Jewish faith clothing itself with all the authority of ancient days; the word of God in its hands, both tradition and Scripture ; believing it had God's infallible and exclu- sive inspiration at its heart for such no doubt was the * See, who will, Rehm, ubi sup., Vol. II. p. 541, et seq., and Vol. III. p. 1, et seq., for the political aspect of the Roman Church ; Guizot, Histoire de la Civilization. all heirs of Heaven, for whom prophets and apostles had uplifted their voice; yes, for whom GOD had worn this weary, wasting weed of flesh, and died a culprit's death. Then while no- thing but the accident of distinguished birth, or the pos- session of animal fierceness, could save a man from the collar of the thrall, the Church took to her bosom all who gave signs of talent and piety ; sheltered them in her mo- nasteries, ordained them as her priests, welcomed them to the chair of St. Peter; and men who from birth would have ITS GOOD INFLUENCE. 319 been companions of the Galilean fishermen, sat on the spi- ritual throne of the world, and governed with a majesty which Caesar might envy, but could not equal. Priests came up from no Levitical stock, but the children of captives and bondmen, as well as of prince and peer. When northern barbarism swept over the ancient world when temple and tower went to the ground, and the culture of old time, its letters, science, arts, were borne off before the flood, the Church stood up against the tide; shed oil on its wildest waves; cast the seed of truth on its waters, and as they gradually fell, saw the germ send up its shoot, which grow- ing while men watch and while they sleep, after many days bears its hundred-fold a civilization better than the past, and institutions more beneficent and beautiful. The influence of the Church is perhaps greater than even its friends maintain. It laid its hand on the poor and down-trodden; they were raised, fed, and comforted. It rejected, with loathing, from its coffers, wealth got by ex- tortion and crime. It touched the shackles of the slave, and the serf arose disenthralled, the brother of the peer. It annihilated slavery, which Protestant cupidity would keep forever.* It touched the diadem of a wicked king, and it became a crown of thorns; the monarch's sceptre was a broken reed before the crosier of the Church.f Its rod, like the wand of Moses, swallowed up all hostile rods. Like God himself, the Church gave, and took away, rendering no reason to man for its gifts or extortions. It sent mis- * See, in Comte, ubi sup., Vol. V. p. 407, et seq., some Reflections on the milder Character of Slavery in Catholic America, compared with Slavery in Protestant America; and yet Comte is hardly a Theist. For the influence of Christianity on Slavery, see the accounts of Paulinus, Deogratias, Fattens, and Synesius, in Schlos- ser, VoL III. Part III. p. 284, et seq. Gibbon, in his heartless way, passes over with scarce a notice the beautiful spirit Christianity brought into Rome, and its influence on the condition of slaves. Hallam, hi his one-sided appreciation of the Catholic Church, has done no more justice to its merits. t See an early instance of the collision between the spiritual and temporal power, in the case of Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan, and the Queen Justina, in Fleury, ubi tup., Liv. XVIII. chap. 32, et seq. ; and also in Gibbon, chap, xxvii. 320 ITS GOOD INFLUENCE. sionaries to the east and the west, and carried the waters of baptism from the fountains of Nubia to the roaring Geysers of a Northern isle. It limited the power of kings ; gave religious education to the people, which no ancient institution ever aimed to impart; kept on its sacred hearth the smouldering embers of Greek or Eoman thought; che- rished the last faint sparkles of that fire Prometheus brought from Gods more ancient than Jove. It had ceremonies for the sensual ; confessionals for the pious needed and beau- tiful in their time ; labours of love for the true-hearted; pictures and images to rouse devotion in the man of taste ; churches whose aspiring turrets and sombre vaults filled the kneeling crowd with awe ; it had doctrines for the wise, rebukes for the wicked, prayers for the reverent, hopes for the holy, and blessings for the true. It sanctified the babe newly born and welcome; watched over marriage with a jealous eye; fostered good morals; helped men, even by its symbols, to partake the divine nature; smoothed the pil- low of disease and death, giving the Soul wings, as it were, to welcome the death-angel, and gently, calmly pass away. It assured masculine piety of its reward in Heaven; told the weak and wavering that the Divine Being would help him if faithful. In the honours of canonization it promised the most lasting fame on earth; generations to come should call the good man a blessed saint, and his name never perish while the years went round. Heroism of the Soul took the place of boldness in the Flesh. It did not, like Polytheism, deify warriors and statesmen Attila, Theodosius, Clovis their kingdom was of this world; but it canonized martyrs and saints Polycarp, Justin, Ambrose, Paulinus, Bernard of Clairvaux.* Such were some of the excellences, theo- retical or practical, of the Church. This hasty sketch does not allow more particular notice of them. * Canonization among the Catholics seems to come from the same root with the Apotheosis of the Polytheists. Both, no doubt, exerted an influence on men who asked a recompense for being good and religious. MAIN ERROR 0$ THE CHURCH. 321 II. THE DEFECTS AND VICES OF THE CATHOLIC PARTY. But the Church had vices, vast and awful to the thought. As its distinctive excellence was to proclaim the continuance of inspiration, so its sacramental sin was in limiting this inspiration to itself, thus setting bounds to the Spirit of God and the Soul of man. Who shall say to the Infinite God "Hitherto shalt Thou come, but no farther: Thou hast inspired Moses and Jesus, the Apostles and the Church : Well done ! now rest from Thy work, and speak no more, except as we prescribe'"? The Church did say it. The wondrous mechanism of the Church, and much of its power, came from this false assumption, that it alone had the Word of God. So its organization was based on a lie, and required new lies to uphold, and prophets of lies to defend it. Its servants, the priests, became proud of spirit. The only keepers of Scripture and Tradition the only recipients of Inspiration, they forbade Free Inquiry as of no use ; stifled Conscience as only leading men into trouble ; and excom- municated Common Sense, who asked " terrible questions," calling for the title-deeds of the Church. They went far- ther, and forbade the bans between Reason and Religion; and when the parties insisted on the union, turned them both out of doors with a curse. The laity must not ap- proach God as the clergy; must only commune with Him " in one kind." The Church forgot that God grants inspi- ration to no one except on condition that he conforms to the divine law, living pure and true, and grants it only in proportion to his gifts and his use thereof; so, relying on the office and "apostolical succession" for inspiration, the priests lived shameless and wicked lives, rivaling Sardana- palus and Domitian in their cruelty and sin. They forgot that God withholds inspiration from none that is faithful; so they stoned the prophets who rebuked their lies and pub- lished their sin ; they shamefully entreated men whom God 322 WORLDLINESS OF THE CHURCH. sent of his errands to these unworthy husbandmen. They became spiritual tyrants, forcing all men to utter the same creed, submit to the same rite, reverence the same symbol, and be holy in the same way. In its zeal to separate the spiritual power from temporal hands, it took what was not its own power over men's bodies; and made laws for the State.* In its haste to give preeminence to spiritual things, it made its offices a bribe, greater than the State could give. The honour of sainthood, what was the fame of king and conqueror to that? It promised the honours of high clerical office, and even of ca- nonization, to the most mercenary and cruel of men, whose touch was pollution; its list of saints is full of knaves and despots. The State was taken into the Church, a refrac- tory member. The Flesh and the Devil were baptized ; " took holy orders;" governed the Church in some cases, but were still the Flesh and the Devil, though called by a Christian name. That divine man, whose name is ploughed into the world, said, " If a man smite thee on one cheek, turn the other;" but if a man lifted his hand or his voice against the Church, it blasted him with damnation and hell. Christ said his kingdom was not of this world: so said the Church at first, and Christians refused to war, to testify in the courts, to appear in the theatres, and foul their hands with the world's sin. But as soon as there was an organized priesthood, to defend themselves from the tyranny of the State, and to exercise authority over the souls of men, power on the earth became needed. One lie leads to many. What the Church first took in self-defence, it afterwards clung to and increased, and was so taken up with its earthly kingdom that it quite forgot its patri- mony in Heaven; so it played a double game, attempting to serve God, and keep on good terms with the Devil. But it was once said, "no man can serve two masters:" unna- 1 See Hallam, ubi supra, ch. vii., ed. Paris, Vol. I. p. 373, et seq. TYRANNY OF THE CHURCH. 323 tural, spiritual power could not be held without temporal authority to sustain it ; so the Church took fleshly weapons for its carnal ends : Monks raised armies ; Bishops led them ; God was blasphemed by prayers to aid bloodshed. The Church sold her garment to buy a sword. The Church was the exclusive vicar of God; she must have " the tonnage and poundage of all free-spoken truth.' To accomplish this end, and establish her dogmas, she slew men, beginning with Priscillian and " the six Gnostics," in the fourth century, at Triers, and ending no one knows where, or when, or with whom.* It had such zeal for the " unity of the faith," that it put prophets in chains; asked the sons of God if they were " greater than Jacob." It made Belief take the place of Life. It absolved men from their sins, past, present, and future; emancipated the clergy from the secular law, thus giving them license to sin. It sold heaven to extortioners for a little gold, and built St. Peter's with the spoil. It wrung ill-gotten gains out of tyrants on their deathbed; devoured the houses of widows and the weak; built its cathedrals out of the spoil of or- phans, thus literally giving a stone when bread was asked for, as St. Bernard honestly called it. It was greedy of gold and power, and at one time had well-nigh half the lands of England held in mortmain. It absolved men from oaths, broke marriages, told lies, forged charters and decre- tals, burned the philosophers, corrupted the classics, altered the Fathers, changed the decisions of the councils, and filled Europe with its falsehood.t It has fought the most hideous * See the story in Sulpitius Severus, Hist Sac. Lib. II. ch. 50-51 ; Flenry, ubi sup., Liv. XVII. ch. 56, 57; and XVIII. ch. 29, 30. The Pope, St. Leo, commended the action, but Gregory of Tours, and Ambrose of Milan, condemned it. Idacius and Ithacius, the two bishops who caused the execution, were expelled from their office by the popular indignation. t See instances of this forgery in Hallam, ubi sup., ch. vii. p. 391, t seq., et at.; DaUld, On the right Use of the Fathers, ur homes by low aims and lack of love, by sensua- THE POPULAR CHRISTIANITY. 375 lity and sin. We debase the sterling word of God in our soul; we cannot discern between good and evil, nor read nature aright, nor come at first-hand to God; therefore let us set one day apart from our work ; let us build us an house which we will enter only on that day trade does not tempt us; let us take the wisest of books, and make it our oracle ; let it save us from thought, and be to us as a God ; let us take our brother to explain to us this book, to stand between us and God; let him be holy for us, pray for us, represent a divine life. We know these things cannot be, but let us make believe." The work is accomplished, and we have the Sabbath, the Church, the Bible and the Minis- try; each beautiful in itself, but our ruin when made the substitutes for holiness of heart and a divine life. In Christianity we have a Religion wide as the East and the West; deep and high as the Nadir and Zenith; certain as Truth, and everlasting as God. But in our life we are heathens. He that fears God becomes a prey. To be a Christian, with us, in speech and action, a man must take his life in his hand, and be a lamb among the wolves. Does Christianity enter the counting-room the senate-house the jail ? Does it look on ignorance and poverty, seeking to root them out of the land ? The Christian doctrine of work and wages is a plain thing : he that wins the staple from the maternal. earth; who expends strength, skill, taste, on that staple, making it more valuable; who aids men to be healthier, wiser, better, more holy, he does a service to the race; does the world's work. To get commodities won by others' sweat, by violence and the long arm, is ROBBERY the ancient Roman way; to get them by cunning and the long head, is TRADE the modern Christian way. What say Reason and Jesus to that ? No doubt the Christianity of the Pulpit is a poor thing; words cannot utter its poverty; it is neither meat nor drink; the text saves the sermon. But the Christianity of daily life, of the street, 376 THE CONCLUSION. that is still worse; the whole Bible could not save it. The history of Society is summed up in a word : CAIN KILLED ABEL; that of real Christianity also in a word: CHRIST DIED FOR HIS BROTHER. From ancient times we have received two priceless trea- sures : the Sunday, as a day of rest, social meeting, and religious instruction; and the institution of Preaching, whereby a living man is to speak on the deepest of subjects. But what have we made of them? Our Sabbath, what a weariness is it! what superstition denies its sunny hours! And Preaching, what has it to do with life 1 ? Men grace- less and ungifted make it handiwork ; a sermon is the Her- cules-pillar and ultima Thule of dullness. The popular Re- ligion is unmanly and sneaking; it dares not look Reason in the face, but creeps behind tradition, and only quotes; it has nothing new and living to say. To hear its talk, one would think God was dead, or at best asleep. We have enough of church-going, a remnant of our father's venera- tion, which might lead to great good; reverence still for the Sabbath, the best institution the stream of time has brought us; we have still admiration for the name of Jesus : a soul so great and pure could not have lived in vain. But to call ourselves Christians! may God forgive that moc- kery ! Are men to serve God by lengthening the creed and shortening the commandments'? making long prayers, and devouring the weak? by turning Reason out of doors, and condemning such as will not believe our Theology, nor accept a priest's falsehood in God's name 1 ? Religion is Life. Is our Life Religion 1 ? No man pre- tends it. No doubt there are good men in all churches, and out of all churches; there have been such in the holds of pirate-ships and in robbers' dens. I know there are good men and pious women, and I would go leagues long to sit down at their blessed feet, and kiss their garments' hem. But what are the mass of us? disciples of absolute Religion"? Christians after the fashion of Jesus of Nazareth? No THE POPULAR CHRISTIANITY. 377 only Christians in tongue. It is an imputed righteousness that we honour; not ours, but borrowed of Tradition; an " historical Christianity," that was, but is no more. A man is a Christian if he goes to church, pays his pew-tax, bows to the parson, believes with his sect, is as good as other people. That is our religion ; what is lived, what is preached : " like people, like priest," was never more true. It is not that we need new forms and symbols, or even the rejection of the old. Baptism and the Supper are still beautiful and comforting to many a soul. A spiritual man can put spirit upon these. To many they are still power- ful auxiliaries. They commune with God now and then through bread and wine, as others hold converse with Him forever through the symbols of nature, the winds that wake the " soft and soul-like sound " of the pine-tree ; through the earliest violets of spring and the last leaf of autumn ; through calm and storm, and stars and blooming trees, and winter's snows and summer's sunshine. A religious soul never lacks symbols of its own elements of communion with God. What we want is the SOUL of Eeligion Re- ligion that thinks and works: its SIGN will take care of itself. With us, Religion is a nun. She sits, of week-days, be- hind her black veil, in the church ; her hands on her knees ; making her creed more unreadable ; damning " infidels " and " carnal Reason : " she only comes out in the streets of a Sunday, when the shops are shut, and temptation out of sight, and the din of business is still as a baby's sleep. All the week, nobody thinks of that joyless vestal. Meantime strong-handed Cupidity, with his legion of devils, goes up and down the earth, and presses Weakness, Ignorance, and Want into his service; sends Bibles to Africa on the deck of his ship, and Rum and Gunpowder in the hold, knowing that the Church will pray for " the outward bound." He brings home most Christian Cupidity! images of him- self which God has carved in ebony to Christianize and 378 THE CONCLUSION. bless the sable son of Ethiopia ! Verily we are a Christian people! zealous of good works! drawing nigh unto God with our lips! Lives there a savage tribe our sons have visited, that has not cause to curse and hate the name of Christians, who have plundered, polluted, slain, enslaved their children? Not one, the wide world round, from the Mandans to the Malays. If there were but half the Reli- gion in all Christendom, that there is talk of it during a "Revival" in a village, at the baseness political, com- mercial, social baseness daily done in the world, such a shout of indignation would go up from the four corners of the earth, as should make the ears of Cupidity tingle again, and hustle the oppressor out of creation ! The Poor, the Ignorant, the Weak, have we always with us: inasmuch as we do good unto them, we serve God; inas- much as we do it not unto the least of them, we blaspheme God, and cumber the ground we tread on. Was there no meaning in that old word " He that knew his Lord's will and did it not, shall be beaten with many stripes"? They are already laid upon us. Religion meant something with Paul; something with Jesus: what does it mean with us? a divine life from infancy to age? divine all through? Oh no ! a cheaper thing than that : it means talk, creed-making, and creed-believing, and creed-defending. We Christians of the " nineteenth century" have many " inventions to save labour;" a process by which " a man is made as good a Christian in five minutes as in fifty years." Behold Chris- tianity made easy ! Do men love Religion and its divine life, as Gain and Trade? Is it the great moving principle with us ? something loved for itself something to live by? Oh no ! Nobody pretends it. No wonder " ministers cannot bear to hear the truth spoken :" five minutes' talk will not weigh down fifty years' work, save in the Church's balance. The Christianity of the Church stands at the corner of the street, and bellows till all rings again from Cape Sable to the Lake of the Woods, THE POPULAR CHRISTIANITY. .379 if a single " heretic" lift up his voice, though never so weak, in the obscurest corner of the earth : But Giant Sin may go through the land with his hideous rout ; may ride over the poor rough-shod, and burn the standing corn, and poison the waters of the nation, and shake the very church till the steeple rock and there shall not a dog wag his tongue. When did the Christianity of the Church leave a heresy unscathed? when did it ever denounce a popular sin the desolations of intemperance our butchery of Indians the soul-destroying traffic in the flesh and blood of men " for whom Christ died'"? These things need no comment; they tell their own tale. Where is the Infidelity of this age? Read the religious newspapers. We have a theological Reli- gion to defend with tracts, sermons, and scandal : it needs all that to defend it. No wonder young men, and young women too, of the most spiritual stamp, lose their reverence for the Church, or come into it only for a slumber irresistible, profound, and strangely similar to death. What concord hath freedom with slavery ? Talent goes to the world, not to the churches. No wonder Unbelief scoffs in the public print, " beside what that grim wolf, with privy paw, daily devours apace, and nothing said.'" There is an unbelief, worse than the public scoffing, though more secret, which needs not be spoken of. No wonder the old cry is raised, THE CHURCH IN DANGER, as its crazy timbers sway to and fro if a strong man tread its floors. But what then? What is true never fails. Re- ligion is permanent in the race Christianity everlasting as God. These can never perish, through the treachery of their defenders, or the violence of their foes. We look round us, and all seems to change : what was solid last night, is fluid and passed off to-day ; the theology of our fathers is unread- able; the doctrines of the middle-age "divines" are deceased like them. Shall our mountain stand? " Everywhere is in- stability and insecurity." It is only men's heads that swim; not the stars that run round. The soul of man remains the 380 THE CONCLUSION. same ; Absolute Religion does not change ; God still speaks in Reason, Conscience, Faith is still immanent in his chil- dren. We need no new forms : the old, Baptism and the Supper, are still beautiful to many a soul, and speak blessed words of religious significance. Let them continue for such as need them. We want real Christianity, the Absolute Religion, preached with faith, and applied to life, BEING GOOD, AND DOING GOOD. There is but one real Religion; we need only open our eyes to see that ; only live it, in love to God, and love to man, and we are blessed of Him that liveth forever and ever ! THE END. UOBBRT HARDIE AND COMPANY, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH. PUBLISHED BY CHAPMAN, BROTHEBS, (LATE JOHN CHAPMAN,) NEWGATE STREET, Sontion. ANALYTICAL INDEX. gin of Christianity " Christian Theism PHILOSOPHY. Page Bowen's Critical Essays 11 Dod's Philosophy of Mesmerism 14 Dewey's Discourses on Human Life . 13 Emerson's Essays 21 Fichte's Destination of Man 16 " Nature of the Scholar Goethe's Essays on Art 13 Graham's Lectures on the Science of Human Life 13 Human Nature 9 Quinet's Ultramontanism, or the Ro- man Church and Modern Society . . 23 Schelling's Philosophy of Art 20 Schiller's Philosophic and ^Esthetic Letters - 19 THEOLOGY. American Christian Examiner 7 Brownson's Charles Elwood, or The Infidel Converted 17 Burnap's Expository Lectures 14 DeWette's Introduct. to the Old Test. 12 Griesbach's New Testament 12 Hennell's Inquiry concerning the Ori- 12 Livermore's Comment, on the Gospels 15 " Acts .. 14 Martineau's Rationale of Religious Inquiry 16 Noyes' Trans, of the Hebrew Prophets 13 Parker's Discourse of Religion 12 " Miscellaneous Essays ...... 12 Prospective Review 3 Strauss's Life of Jesus 12 Strauss's Soliloquies on the Christian Religion 15 Strauss's Opinions 15 Ware's Inq. into the Truths of Religion 15 Wilson's Concessions of Trinitarians 12 RELIGION AND ETHICS. American Christian Examiner 7 Bowring's Matins and Vespers 15 Colman's Consolatory Views of Death 15 Channing's Works 12 Dewey's Works 13 Discourses 14 Human Life 13 Emerson's Essays 21 Pollen's Works 14 Greenwood's Sermons 13 of Consolation. . 16 Law's Serious Call 12 Maccall's Education of Taste 13 Martineau's Endeavours after the Christian Life 14 " Hymns for the Christian Church and Home 14 Prospective Review 4 HISTORY. Page Burnap's Lectures on the History of Christianity 14 Hewitt's History of Priestcraft 10 Parliamentary Debates 11 Tayler's Retrospect of the Religious Life of England 8 BIOGRAPHY. Autobigraphy of Johannes Ronge . ... . 13 Account of Johannes Ronge 15 Life of J. Blanco White 7 " J. P. Fr. Richter " and Times of Luther 15 " Cranmer 15 " of Charles Follen 14 Spark's American Biography 13, 15 Smith's Memoir of J. G. Fichte 18 Scenes in the Life of Joanna of Sicily 15 Tagart's Sketches of the Reformers . . 14 Ware, Henry, Memoir of the Late ..14 Ware's Life of the Saviour 13 Young's Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers 15 EDUCATION. Burnap's Lectures to Young Men 11 Channing's Self Culture 17 Martineau's Bible and the Child 12 Todd's Student's Manual 15 Ware's Formation of Christian Cha- racter 13 Waterston's Moral and Spiritual Cul- ture 14 Wilson on Grammatical Punctuation 14 FICTION. Brownson's Charles Elwood 17 Pollen's Sketches of Married Life 15 Flight of Armida 13 Gammer Grethel 14 Historical Sketches of the Old Painters 13 Julian, or Scenes in Judea 15 Log Cabin 13 Mountford's Martyria 11 Muzzey's Young Maiden 14 Wood's Tests of Time 14 MISCELLANEOUS. Crompton's Stories for Sunday Aftep- noons 10 Emerson's Emancipation of the Negroes 22 Novalis's Christianity, or Europe 17 Ware's Scenes and Characters 15 Selections from Fenelon 14 Catholic Series 16 Greg's German Schism 13 THE PROSPECTIVE REVIEW: JL Quarterly Journal of Theology and Literature. Respice, Aspice, PROSPICE. St. Bernard. EDITED BY The Rev. JAMES MARTINEAU, of Liverpool ; The Rev. JOHN JAMES TAYLER, of Manchester ; The Rev. JOHN HAMILTON THOM, of Liverpool ; The Rev. CHARLES WICKSTEED, of Leeds* THE PROSPECTIVE REVIEW is devoted to a free THEOLOGY, and the moral aspects of LITERATURE. Under the conviction that lingering influences from the doctrine of verbal inspiration are not only depriving the primitive records of the Gospel of their true interpretation, but even destroying faith in Christianity itself, the Work is conducted in the con- fidence that only a living mind and heart, not in bondage to any letter, can receive the living spirit of Revelation ; and in the fervent belief that for all such there is a true Gospel of God, which no critical or historical speculation can discredit or destroy. It aims to interpret and represent Spiritual Christianity, in its character of the Universal Religion. Fully adopting the sentiment of Coleridge, that "the exercise of the reasoning and reflective powers, increasing insight, and enlarging views, are requisite to keep alive the substantial faith of the heart," with a grateful appre- ciation of the labours of faithful predecessors of all Churches, it esteems it the part of a true reverence not to rest in their conclusions, but to think and live in their spirit. By the name " PROSPECTIVE REVIEW" it is intended to lay no claim to Discovery, but simply to express the desire and the attitude of Progress ; to suggest continually the Duty of using Past and Present as a trust for the Future ; and openly to disown the idolatrous Conservatism, of whatever sect, which makes Christianity but a lifeless formula. Works published by The Prospective Review CONTINUED. The scope of the work is embraced within the two compartments of Religion and Literature. I. RELIGION. (1.) Spiritual and Practical: embracing its applications to Life, indi- vidual and social ; notices of Institutions connected with Education, moral reformation, and the Duties of Society to the People and the Poor; Dissertations on the stirring religious questions and interests of the Day, and on the practical tendencies of dogmatic forms of belief ; Earnest investigation into Nature and the Scriptures, in the solemn faith that " there is yet light to break forth" from God's Works and Word. (2.) Philosophical: embracing the theory of Conscience, the original provisions of our nature for religious developments ; tracing to funda- mental principles in man the various forms of Faith, as modified by edu- cation and circumstance. (3.) Historical and Critical : Ecclesiastical Biography ; the successive developments of Faith and Worship in the Periods of history, especially those which have contributed to the Liberty and Moral Advancement of mankind, and have communicated their spirit to present times ; an attempt to seize and represent such movements and agitations as indicate progress, and affect vital principles in religion. In Critical Theology, the Periodical, though for the most part only presenting and using the results of Biblical Learning, will yet be open to Articles of a strictly critical character. II. LITERATURE. Not professing to do the work of a general Review in this extensive department, but aiming chiefly to exhibit its moral influences and more permanent relations to society. The Periodical partakes more of the character of a Review than of a Magazine. Chapman, Brothers, 121, Newgate Street. The Prospective Review CONTINUED. The following is a summary of the Contents of the Five Numbers of the PROSPECTIVE REVIEW which have already appeared : Number I. (pp. 170.) February 1845. t. HISTORICAL CHRISTIANITY : The Parker Society, for the Publica- tion of the Works of the Early Writers of the Reformed English Church ; a Library of Anglo- Catholic Theology ; the Wycliffe Society, for Reprinting Treatises of the Earlier Reformers, Puri- tans, and Nonconformists of Great Britain. n. An Inquiry concerning the Origin of Christianity. By C. C. Hennell. in. Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. iv. The Evidences of the Genuineness of the Gospels. By A. Norton. v. The Administration of Religion to the Poor, vi. The Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold, D.D. Notices of New Publications. Number II. (pp. 165.) May 1845. i. SYDNEY SMITH. ii. DEMOCRACY. Letters from the United States of America, exhibit- ing the Workings of Democracy for the last Twenty Years. in. MICHELET'S History of France, iv. EMERSON'S Essays. v. German Protestantism and the Right of Private Judgment in the Interpretation of Holy Scripture : a brief History of German Theology, from the Reformation to the present time. By Edward H. Dewar. vi. The White Lady and Undine. vn. CHURCH AND STATE. The Ideal of Christian Church, &c. By the Rev. W. G. Ward, A.M. The Kingdom of Christ delineated": in Two Essays, &c. By Archbishop Whately. On the Constitu- tion of Church and State, according to the idea of each. By Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Fragment on the Church. By Thomas Arnold, D.D. Notices of New Publications. Number III. (pp. 163.) August 1845. i. Introduction to a Scientific System of Mythology. By C, O. Miiller. ii. BENJAMIN CONSTANT. in. Christian Fellowship. iv. The Miscellaneous Works of Thomas Arnold, D.D. v. Miss BARRETT'S Poems. vi. The Life and Character of Blanco White. Works published by The Prospective Review CONTINUED Number IV. (pp. 156.) November 1845. i. THE NEW GERMAN-CATHOLIC CHURCH. ii. REFORM OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. Tracts by the Anti- State-Church Association. Tracts on the Church of England. By the Rev. Thomas Spencer. Fundamental Reform of the Church of England, &c. By a Clergyman. Principles of Church Re- form. By Dr. Arnold. in. Rome, Ancient and Modern, and its Environs. By the Very Rev. Jeremiah Donovan, D.D. iv. WHEWELL'S " Elements of Morality, including Polity." v. Different Views of the Atonement. Of the Moral Principle of the Atonement, &c. By the Rev. John Penrose, M.A. Lectures on the Scripture Doctrine of Atonement, &c. By the late Lant Carpenter, LL.D. vi. Notices of New Publications : 1. German University Education, &c. By W. C. Perry, Ph. Dr. 2. The Rev. M. J. Raphall, M.A. Ph. Dr. Preacher of the Synagogue, On the Unity of God the distinguishing Feature of the Jewish Faith. 3. The Coming of the Mammoth, and other Poems. By H. B. Hirst (Boston, 1845). 4. Mackay's Legends of the Isles, and other Poems. 5. Waterton's Essays on Natural History. 6. Fichte on the Nature of the Scholar and its Manifestations ; with a Memoir of the Author. 7. Professor Smyth's Evidences of Christianity. 8. Rome : its Ecclesiastical and Social Life. Number V. (pp. 158.) February 1846. i. Egypt's Place in the History of the World. By The Chevalier Bunsen. ii. Explanations. A Sequel to the Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. in. French Deists. (Salvador and Dupuis.) iv. Universal Salvation and Inherent Depravity. v. The Forty Shilling Freehold. vi. Theodore Parker's Discourse of Matters pertaining to Religion. vn. Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches. By Thomas Carlyle. THE PROSPECTIVE REVIEW, No. VI., will be published on the 1st of May, 1846. Price 2s. 6d. ** Works for Review to be sent to the Publishers or Editors : Advertisements in all cases to the Publishers. Chapman, Brothers, 121, Newgate Street. CATALOGUE. The American Christian Examiner, and Religious Miscellany. Edited by the Rev. Drs. A. Lamson and E. S. Gannett. A Bi- Monthly Magazine. 8vo. 3s. 6d. " In regard to the character and aim of the Examiner, no more need be done than to refer to the long series of its volumes, and say that such as it has been in purpose and tendency in time past, such will it be the endeavour of the Editor to make it in the future ; those changes only being introduced, but those freely, which the times shall I seem to demand. There will be no slavish adherence to the old ; but on the I other hand no rash adoption of the new. It will continue to " examine" and dis- cuss calmly and well, before it departs from what it has long held and revered as truth, and admits what is proposed as a substitute. Progress will be its motto and aim ground. It will be'coritent to remain stationary no longer than till it can ad- vance with security and into a growing light. A liberal conservatism appears to be the best praise that can be be- stowed upon those, and such we claim to be, who are classed among reformers. Change is not necessarily reform." Prospects of Christian Examiner. " This is a publication which has al- ways great interest, and which exerts a most valuable influence. It fully sus- tains its very high reputation, and brings us most gratifying illustrations of the religious spirit of our brethren in New England." Inquirer. Written by Himself. John Hamilton Thorn. " This is a book which rivets the at- tention, and makes the heart bleed. We The Life of the Rev. Joseph Blanco White. With Portions of his Correspondence. Edited by 3 vols. post 8vo. \. 4s. cloth. the history of the varying opinions of a man made as remarkable by diversified associations as by his personal character. We have a bird's-eye view of the ex- tremes of all the religious parties of Europe. The letters of Channing, of Southey, Coleridge, Lord Holland, and other distinguished men, give value and interest to the memoir ; while the selec- state so much, without taking into ac- count the additional power and interest which it must acquire in the minds of many who still live, from personal asso- ciations with its author and subject. It has, indeed, with regard to himself, in its substance, though not in its arrange- ment, an almost dramatic character ; so clearly and strongly is the living, think- ing, active man pro'jected from the face of the records which he has left. The references to others, accordingly, with which the book abounds, are, by com- parison, thrown into the shade ; and yet our readers may apprehend that even these are sufficiently significant, when we add, that among the many persons to whom Mr. Blanco White alludes as be- loved and intimate friends, perhaps none are more prominently named than Mr. Newman, and, even to a much later period, Archbishop Whately. " His spirit was a battle-field, upon which, with fluctuating fortune and sin- gular intensity, the powers of belief and I scepticism waged, from first to last, their unceasing war ; and within the com- pass of his experience are presented to our view most of the great moral and spiritual problems that attach to the condition of our race." Quarterly Rev. " There is a depth and force in this book which tells." Christian Remembrancer. "The Life of Blanco White contains tions from private correspondents of Mr. Blanco White himself, and the scraps of literary criticism in his jour- nals, will be read with as much advan- tage as any part of his published writ- ings." Tait's Magazine. "We have awaited this book with something more than curiosity we have received it with reverential feelings, and perused it with a deep and sustained in- terest. If ever there existed a sincere lover, and ardent and devoted pursuer of truth, Joseph Blanco White deserves that honourable character." Inquirer. "This book will improve his (Blanco White's) reputation. There is much in the peculiar construction of his mind, in its close union of the moral with the in- tellectual faculties, and in its restless de- sire for truth, which may remind the reader of Doctor Arnold." Examiner. " Nothing is more deeply interesting than a faithful picture of a human mind. Such a picture these volumes present to us. The character they develop is, more- over, calculated to attract an extraordi- nary degree of sympathy ; and the course of circumstances they describe is as pe- Works published by culiar as it is instructive. A man pos- sessed of great intellectual power, exten- sive acquirements, and the highest moral qualities, who was throughout life animated by a sincere and fervent love of truth, is here represented as passing through the different conditions involved in a successive connexion with the Church of Rome and the Church of England, and a final renunciation of all Church authority whatsoever. 'Your experience,' says Dr. Channing to him, 'is a type of the world's history. You have passed, in your short life, through the stages which centuries are required to accomplish in the case of the race.' The feeling with which we follow him from step to step of this progress is one of personal endearment." Christian Reformer. " To a .very considerable extent, the literary character of Joseph Blanco White is inextricably connected with his life. His skilful logic, his extensive reading, his pleasant style, and his ear- nestness of feeling, which threw a kind of animation into what was essentially commonplace, would always have ren- dered him conspicuous in contemporary literature ; though these alone would not have excited so much attention as cir- cumstances caused him to attain during the successive epochs of his career. It should be added, that the volumes have an interest beyond the character of Blanco White. The first part, consisting of his Autobiography to 1826, exhibits an interesting view of a religious Spanish family towards the close of the last cen- tury ; gives a very good account of the character of the education in Spain ; and presents a picture of Spanish Ro- manism and its priesthood, searching, critical, real, and curious. The second part, entitled by the author, ' A Sketch of his Mind in England,' contains a narrative of his religious feelings before and during his connexion with the Anglican Church, exhibited as they arose by extracts from his journal, sub- sequently commented upon by his Uni- tarian lights. And although not without interest, intermingled as this section is with some accounts of his friends and his writings, it will be to many readers the least attractive of the book. The third part, extending from 1825 till his death, consists of extracts from his journals and correspondence, selected and arranged in chronological order by Mr. Thorn, together with a brief narrative of his last days. And beside the intrinsic interest of his self-portrai- ture, whose character is indicated in some of our extracts, the correspond- ence, in the letters of Lord Holland, Southey, Coleridge, Channing, Norton, Mill, Professor Powell, Dr. Hawkins, and other names of celebrity, has con- siderable attractions in itself, without relation to the biographical purpose with which it was published. From these letters, as well as from the narra- tive of his life in Spain, we could draw curious and extractable matter ad libi- tum ; but our space is exhausted, and we must close." Spectator. " We should deem it a dereliction of duty on our part, were we to omit no- ticing the admirable manner in which Mr. Thorn has executed his task. We have seldom seen a work of this kind more ably edited. Mr.Thom possesses the rare virtue of sacrificing self to the full exhibition of the excellencies and the talent of his departed friend. He never interposes between the author and the reader, though he generously takes upon himself the unenviable drudgery connected with the getting up so volu- minous a work." Atlas. 11 It is impossible for us to dp anything more than refer to the deeply interesting correspondence contained in these vo- lumes, between Blanco White and Dr. Channing, Professor Norton, and other distinguished men. We cannot deny ourselves the pleasure of expressing the admiration we feel for the courage, sim- plicity, and modesty with which Mr. Thorn has edited these volumes. None who have not read them can appreciate the temptation he must have withstood to qualify or comment upon parts of the autobiography. We thank him for all he has done, and for all he has left un- done." American Christian Examiner. A Retrospect of the Religious Life of England ; Or, the Church, Puritanism, and Free Inquiry. By John James Tayler, B.A. Post 8vo. 10s. 6d. cloth. The object of this work is briefly in- dicated in the author's own language, as follows : " The idea which possessed my mind, when I first sketched out the plan of this volume, was the desirableness of embracing in a common point of view, the phenomena of the different religious parties, whose unintermitted strife, and sharp contest of manners and opinions, have given such a deep and varied inte- rest to the spiritual history of England, especially during the three centuries which have elapsed since the Reforma- tion. In pursuing this idea, I have tried to discover the governing principles to understand the characteristic working of each party to apprehend their mu- tual relation to show how they have occasionally passed off into each other and, out of their joint operation, to trace the evolution of a more comprehensive Chapman, Brothers, 121, Newgate Street. principle, which looks above the nar- i rowness of their respective views, and, j allying itself with tlie essential elements , of the Christian faith, may in time, per- j haps, devise some method of reconciling an unlimited freedom and variety of the religious life with the friendliness and mutual recognition of universal brother- hood." Preface. "An introductory chapter treats of the relation of the Religious History of England to the general History of the Church; and gives, in a second section, a sketch, very clear and useful, of the external history of religious parties in England. There are three successive chapters devoted to the Church and Puritanism, explaining their origin, progress, characteristics, and varieties of aspect ; another chapter contrasts the Church and Puritanism ; a fifth is de- voted to Free Inquiry, tracing it from its first rise in England, to our own times; and finally, "the conclusion" gives us the results arrived at by the author himself, from the contemplation of the materials he has set before us. About eighty pages of notes complete the volume. The work is written in a chastely beautiful style, manifests ex- tensive reading, and careful research ; is full of thought, and decidedly original in its character. It is marked also by the modesty which usually characterises true merit." Inquirer. " It is not often our good fortune to meet with a book so well conceived, so well written, and so instructive as this. The author has taken a broad compre- hensive survey of the past religious his- tory of this kingdom, with the view of showing the elements which are at work in the present century, and which, how- ever one may supersede the other for a time, continue all in existence, and wait but some favourable moment to call them into energy. For the mere his^ ; torical reader, to "whom the narrative of j conflicting doctrines is uninteresting unless attended with political collision, this work of Mr. Tayler's will be as valuable as to those of a more " serious" Human Nature: A Philosophical Exposition of the Divine Institution of Reward aad Punish- ment, which obtains in the Physical, Intellectual, and Moral Constitutions of Man. 12mo. 2s. Cd. cloth. "Like the speculatist in her 'Sick- I mystics with him. But he consoles Room,' the essayist before us makes ! himself by the reflection, that in no much more account of Being than of | time or country has Christianity ever cast. It shows the origin of that re- ligious torpor in the Anglican Church of the last century, whictTisnow looked back upon with abhorrence by the Evangelicals as the age of "moral dis- courses." And it shows the circum- stances which gave rise to that re- markable body of men, the English deists, who went into the learning of divinity with the zeal of divines, that they might attack the religion of their country ; and who, forming a complete contrast to the light, laughing, French infidels who succeeded them and used the results of their labours, approxi- mated more to the Protestantism of modern Germany ; with, however, this important distinction, that the German rationalists are professors with whom theology is a sort of metier, whereas the utterances of such men as Anthony Collins were spontaneous effusions o'f opinion. These various phases of the national mind, described with the clear- ness and force of Mr. Tayler, furnish an inexhaustible material for reflection. "Mr. Tayler himself is an Unitarian, and therefore belongs to the third class in his statement of sects ; but we exhort our readers, of whatever persuasion, not to let this circumstance dissuade them from the perusal of a work so wise and so useful. Not only does he avoid ail that might give offence to the most tender conscience this would be a mere prudential merit but he regards all parties in turn from an equitable point of view, is tolerant towards intolerance, and admires zeal and excuses fanati- cism, wherever he discerns honesty. Nay, he openly asserts that the religion of mere reason is not the religion to produce a practical effect on a people ; and therefore regards his own class only as one element in a better possible church. The clearness and comprehen- sive grasp with which he marshals his facts are even less admirable than the impartiality, nay, more than that, the general kindliness, with which he re- flects upon them." Examiner. Doing. On this principle it is that the author seeks to explain the institution of reward and punishment. He is, therefore, of opinion, that the final punishment consists not in remorse, as sometimes argued, but in an ultimate insensibility to goodness, which is oppo- site to true being as death is to life. He been exhibited in its simple integrity, and hopes that by an increase and pro- gression of Being, man may assimilate towards the fulness of God; for as man's nature is infinitely progressive, it will ever aspire after a realization, expan- sion, and accession of those attributes h is to life. He which are perfect and infinite in divinity. brings Scripture to his aid, but confesses I Such is the theory of this little bock, that the theologians are against, and the I embodying an amiable vision, with 10 Works published by r t/ which only the contemplative mind can sincerely sympathize." Athenaeum. " Such is the ingenious, and, it must be owned, very beautiful theory ex- pounded by the author of this volume in his introductory essay. Subsequently he proceeds to apply it to the investi- gation of future rewards and punish- ments, picturing 1 , as so many others have done before him, the heaven and hell which seems to him to accord with the argument we have subtracted. That which has been given of it will be suf- ficient to shew that the writer not only thinks profoundly, but expresses him- self eloquently. It is refreshing to light upon a book which has so much origi- nality of conception as this, and in which the writer is bold enough to have an opinion of his own." Critic. "The Introduction is especially re- markable for its power not only power of words, but of ideas." Spectator. " This little volume well deserves a thoughtful perusal, which it will reward with much of truth and much of beauty, though not unmingled, we must think, with obscurity and error." Inquirer. " The Essay we have been reviewing, concludes in an eloquent on-looking strain of thought, which forms a fit se- quel to the interesting views the author has previously developed." Christian Teacher. Stories for Sunday Afternoons. From the Creation to the Advent of the Messiah. For the Use of Children from 5 to 11 Years of Age. By Susan Fanny Crompton. 16mo. 2s. 6d. cloth. " This is a very pleasing little volume, which we can confidently recommend. It is designed and admirably adapted for the use of children from five to eleven years of age. It purposes to infuse into that tender age some acquaintance with the facts, and taste for the study of the Old Testament. The style is simple, easy, and for the most part correct. The stories are told in a spirited and graphic manner. 'You have often asked me,' says the authoress, Miss Crompton, in the pleasing introductory address to her dear nephews and nieces, ' to tell you stories on Sunday afternoons, about real people. Sometimes I have wanted to read my own books at those pleasant quiet times ; and have wished that you could be reading to yourselves, instead of lis- tening to me. But you have often said, that the books which tell of the real people who lived long, long ago, and were called Jews, and who once had the land where Jesus Christ was born, had such long puzzling words in them, that you could not read fast enough to enjoy the story. Now here are the stories I have told you, and a great many more.' " Those who are engaged in teaching the young, and in laying the foundation of good character by early religious and moral impressions, will be thankful for additional resources of a kind so ju- dicious as this volume." Inquirer. Popular History of Priestcraft, In all Ages and Nations. By "William Howitt. Seventh Edition, Improved, with large Additions. 12mo. 6s. cloth. "This is a book of strong facts and striking opinions. * * Such facts have never been blended with such pene- trating and powerful eloquence." Nonconformist. " Mr. Howitt has produced a terrible array of facts to expose the workings of priestly craft. * * * * We heartily re- commend the book to our readers' at- tention, not because we agree with all the author's opinions, but because, with manly sincerity and courage, he has dragged into the lightsome of the worst enormities of intolerance and spiritual wickedness." Christian Reformer. "It is truly surprising what an amount of information on the gentle art of priestcraft is here gathered and di- gested, collated and philosophized on, from its earliest beginnings to the pre- sent time ; how striking the catalogues of suggestions for ; ecclesiastical reforms, and in what spirit these have been re- pensed. This social aggression does the author lustily combat ; and no one seems better qualified for the task." Sheffield Iris. il We are glad to see a seventh edition of this excellent and useful work, which has been the means of enlightening the minds of thousands as to the abuses at- tending a state religion, and manifold mischiefs of priestcraft from the earliest ages to the present day." Kent Herald. " It is characterized throughout by fearless discussion, and honest indepen- dence." Northern Star. " The work before us is one of the boldest and honestest ever published on this subject. It indicates a large amount of moral courage on the part of the wri- ter; and no small degree of critical acu- men and intellectual vigour. It rises often into the sublime of eloquence. It is earnest, persuasive, vehement, and powerful to convince. The man who can read this book unmoved, must h: vo ceived; how humiliating to the Christian ,.. .^..^. .*.. . ^..A,.^,^, -.-. the insidious modes by which patronage a soul of ice. Even the defender of the and persecution have been severely dis- 1 principles of State Churchism cannot Cliapman, Brothers, 121, Newgate Street. 11 but feel his blood stirred by its elo- quence. The rapid history given of Pa- ganism and idolatry in earlier times, among the Assyrians, Celts, Goths, Egyptians, Greeks, Hindoos, and the hideous priestcraft by which they were victimised, is exceedingly graphic." Leeds Times. " Howitt's History of Priestcraft has long passed the bourn of criticism. Its services to the cause of civil and re- ligious freedom cannot well be rated too highly, and we look upon it as one of the great agents in enabling the people to resist the efforts of the traitor priests Martyria : a Legend. Wherein are contained, Homilies, Conversations, and Incidents of the Reign of Edward the Sixth. By William Mountford, Clerk. 12mo. 6s. cloth. "The views given of human life and of religion are pure, benevolent, and elevating, and the work shows research, ingenuity, and imagination. We should expect it to be received with much approbation, and to afford great plea- sure." Inquirer. of the establishment. It is some years since the work first appeared." The elo- quent, earnest, style in which it is writ- ten, the fervid honesty of the author, and the great weight of common sense as well as scriptural truth which he ad- vanced, made it a formidable book for the priests. To the earlier editions there are now added several new chapters, which will be found in the volume be- fore us a great mass of new matter, and above ah, the book now appears at a greatly reduced price." Exeter Western Times. ''The author has contrived to develop his sentiments attractively, and with novel effect, by carrying back their sup- posed expression to the early days of the Reformation in England, and ascribing them to characters, real and fictitious, of that period. Lectures to Young Men, On the Cultivation of the Mind, the Formation of Character, and the Conduct of Life. By George W. Burnap. Royal 8vo. 9d. CONTENTS: portance. Genius, Talent, Decision, Speculation, &c. Lecture 4. Faults of Character. Mor- bid Sensibility. Contempt for Labour. Life of a Politician. Precociousness. Lecture 5. Relation of the Sexes. Lecture 6. Intemperance. Gaming. The Natural Desire of Society and Excitement. ipo ture. Knowledge, the source of plea- sure and power. Lecture 2. The Means and Method of Intellectual.Culture. Languages. Me- taphysics. Political Economy. Pure Literature. Lecture 3. Character defined. Its im- " This, we can foresee, is destined to become a household book, and it is a long time since we met with any work better deserving of such a distinction. We do not know of any work on the same subject of equal excellence, and those of our readers who are wise will buy and study it." The Apprentice. Parliamentary Debates on the Dissenters' ChapelsBill. With an Introduction, Notes, and Appendix. 8vo. 10s. 6d. cloth. " This is a debate that will be often referred to in succeeding times, and one which ought to form a study to young legislators, and indeed to every man of liberal knowledge and opinion." TaiVs Magazine. "These Debates and Divisions re- flected greater honour on the House of Commons than all the party strife that has since engaged it ; and if we desired to impress any intelligent foreigner with Bowen's Critical Essays, On a few Subjects connected with the History and Present Condition of Spe- culative Philosophy. 12mo. 8s. cloth. a respect for that assembly, we would ask him to read the speeches which went before the second reading. All are ex- cellently reported in this volume, with every proceeding in either House con- nected with the Bill ; and a most inte- resting appendix of facts, statistical and otherwise, bearing upon the questions at issue. It is a volume well worthy of preservation." Examiner. 12 Works published by Tracts for Manhood. No. 2. On Regeneration, Social, Moral, and Spiritual. By the Author of the Tract on " Seeming." 8vo. 6d. "There is not a page of this eloquently written treatise that will not repay the most diligent perusal. It is the product of a mind full of buoyancy, vigour, hope of a bright temporal future, and mani- festing evidences of a willingness to la- bour for the accomplishment of its bold- est theories and anticipations. The work is, like its predecessor, on 'Seeming,' of the school of Carlyle and Emerson to whom it is dedicated), breathing the same spiritual idealities, and onward- tending philosophy, while its general style is coloured with the same quaint and startling expressions which are to be found in both." Leeds limes. De Wette's Introduction to the Canonical Scriptures of the Old Testament. Translated by Theodore Parker. 2 vols. 8vo. 1. 4s. cloth. OUTLINE OF CONTENTS : Of the Bible Collection in General. . of the Old Testament. On the Versions History of the Origin of the Collection of the Old Testament. On the Criticism of Scripture; or, History of the Canon, of the Text. Particular Introduction General Introduction to the Canoni- to the Canonical Books. Theocraticai- cal Books. On the Original Language Historical Books. The Life of Jesus. By Dr. David Friedrich Strauss. 3 vols. 8vo. cloth. [In the preas. A Discourse of Matters pertaining to Religion. By Theodore Parker. Post 8vo. 7s. cloth. -In the press. CONTENTS : Book 1. Of Religion in General; or, a Discourse of the Sentiment and its Manifestation*. Book 2. The Relation of the Religious Sentiment to God ; or, a Discourse of Inspiration. Book 3. The Relation of the Reli- gious Sentiment to Jesus of Naza- reth; or, a Discourse of Chris- tianity. Book 4. The Relation of the Religious Sentiment to the Greatest of Books ; or, a Discourse of the Bible. Book 5. The Relation of the Religions Sentiments to the Greatest of Human Institutions; or, a Discourse of the Church. Critical and Miscellaneous Essays. By Theodore Parker. 12mo. 7s. 6d. cloth. An Inquiry concerning the Origin of Christianity. By Charles C. Hennell. Second Edition, 8vo. 12s. cloth. Christian Theism. By the Author of " An Inquiry concerning the Origin of Christianity." 8vo. 2s. 6d. cloth. Channing's Works. (Hedderwick's Edition). 6 vols. post 8vo. reduced to \. Is. cloth. Channing's Works. Edited by Joseph Barker. Complete in 6 vols. 12mo. 6s. sewed ; 8s. cloth. The Bible and the Child. A Discourse on Religious Education. By James Martineau. 12mo. Is. Law's Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life. (Barker's Edition.) 12mo. pp. 280, Is. sewed ; Is. 4d. cloth. A New Translation of the New Testament, From the Text of Griesbach. By Samuel Sharpe. Second Edition, 12mo 3s. 6d. boards. Chapman, Brothers, 121, Newgate Street. 13 Library of American Biography. Conducted by Jared Sparks. Vols. 4, 5, and 6, 12mo. 16s. 6d. Just received. Sermons. By the Rev F. W. P. Greenwood, D.D Minister of King's Chapel, Boston, U.S. 2 vols. post 8vo. with Memoir and Portrait, 16s. cloth. A New Translation of the Hebrew Prophets, Arranged in Chronological Order. By George R. Noyes, Professor of Sacred Literature in Harvard University. 3 vols. post 8vo. \. 4s. cloth. Lectures on the Science of Human Life. By Silvester Graham. 2 vols. post 8vo. \. 4s. cloth. The Education of Taste. A Series of Lectures. By William Maccall. 12mo. 2s. 6d. CONTENTS : 1. Introductory. 2. The Nature of Taste. 3. The Culture of Taste. 4. Taste and Religion. 5. Taste and Morality. 6. Taste and Politics. 7. Taste and Man- ners. 8. Concluding Remarks. The Agents of Civilization. A Series of Lectures. By William Maccal. 12mo. 3s. 6d. cloth. CONTENTS : 1. Introductory. 2. The Hero. 3. The Poet. 4. The Priest. 5. The Artist. 6. The Prophet. 7. The Philosopher. 8. The Apostle. 9. The Martyr. 10. Concluding Remarks. The Log Cabin ; or, the World before You. By the Author of " Three Experiments of Living," " Sketches of the Old Painters," &c. Is. 6d. paper cover ; 2s. cloth ; 2s. 6d. extra cloth, gilt edges. " We trust that ' The Log Cabin' may find its way into many an English house- hold, where both young and old may de- rive from it amusement and profit ; and distribution among those classes who, like the hero of the tale, have to make their way in the world by their own exertions"." Christian Reformer. we know of few books more suited for Historical Sketches of the Old Painters. By the Author of the " Log Cabin." 2s. 6d. paper cover ; 3s. cloth. The Complete Worksof the Rev.Orville Dewey, D.D. SifO. 9s. cloth. Discourses on Human Life. By Orville Dewey. 12mo. 6s. boards. The Autobiography and Justification of J. Ronge, Translated from the German Fifth Edition, by J. Lord, A.M. Fcp. 8vo. Is. The German Schism and the Irish Priests ; Being a Critique of Laing's Notes on the Schism in the German -Catholic Church. By R. W. Greg. 12mo. 6d. Essays on Art. By Goethe. Translated by Samuel Gray Ward. 12mo. 5s. 6d. cloth. Ware's Life of the Saviour. 32mo. 2s. cloth. Ware's Formation of Christian Character. 32mo. is. 6d. cloth. 14 Works published by Disquisitions on the Theology and Metaphysics of Scripture, with Strictures on various Current Opinions in Divinity and Philo- sophy, connected with these subjects. By Andrew Carmichael, M.R.I. A. 2 vols. 8vo. 12s. cloth. Endeavours after the Christian Life. By James Martineau. 12mo. 8s. 6d. cloth. Hymns for the Christian Church and Home. Edited by James Martineau. Fourth Edition, 12mo. 3s. 6d. cloth. The Works of Charles Follen. With a Memoir of his Life. 5 vols. 12mo. \. 4s. cloth. Life of Charles Follen. By Mrs. Follen. 12mo. 6s. 6d. cloth. A Memoir of the Life of Henry Ware, Jun. By his Brother, John Ware, M. D. With two Portraits, pp. 484, post 8vo. price 9s. cloth. Selections from the Writings of Fenelon. With a Memoir of his Life. By Mrs. Follen. 12mo. 5s. cloth. Sketches of the Lives and Characters of the Leading Reformers of the Sixteenth Century. By Edward Tagart. 8vo. 5s. cloth. The Concessions of Trinitarians ; Being a Selection of Extracts from the Writings of the most eminent Biblical Critics and Commentators. By John Wilson. 8vo. 12s. boards. Scripture Proofs and Scriptural Illustrations of Unitarianism. By John Wilson. Third edition, revised and enlarged. 8vo. 6s. cloth. Treatise on Grammatical Punctuation. By John Wilson. 12mo. 2s. 6d. cloth. Expository Lectures on the Principal Passages of the Scriptures which relate to the Doctrine of the Trinity. By George W. Burnap. I2mo. 6s. cloth. Lectures on the History of Christianity. By George W. Burnap. 12mo. 7s. 6d. cloth. Livermore's Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles. 12mo. 7s. cloth. Discourses on Various Subjects. By Orville Dewey. 12mo. 4s. boards. Six Lectures on the Philosophy of Mesmerism. By John Bovee Dods, of Boston, U.S. 12mo. Is. Thoughts on Moral and Spiritual Culture. By R. C. Waterston. I2mo. 4s. 6d. cloth. The Tests of Time. A Story of Social Life. By Sara Wood, Author of " Life's Lessons." Fcp. 8vo. 2s. 6d. cloth. The Young Maiden. By A. B. Muzzey. 12mo. 4s. 6d. cloth, gilt edges. Chapman, Brothers, 121, Newgate Street. 15 Soliloquies on the Christian Religion : Its Errors, and its Everlasting Truth. By Dr. David Friedrich Strauss. Translated from the German. 8vo. 2s. The Opinions of Professor David F. Strauss, As Embodied in his Letter to the Burgomaster Hirzel, Professor Orelli, and Professor Hitzig, at Zurich. 8vo. Is. Consolatory Views of Death. Addressed to a Friend under Bereavement. To which are added, Some Prayers in Affliction. By Henry Colman. Fcp. 8vo. Is. 6d. cloth. Luther Revived Or, A Short Account of Johannes Ronge, the Bold Reformer of the Catholic Church in Germany. By A. Andreseii. 8vo. Is. Livermore'fc: Commentary on the Four Gospels. 8vo. 4s. 6d. cloth. Ware's Inquiry into the Foundation, Evidences, and Truths of Religion. 2 vols. 12mo. 12s. cloth. The Library of American Biography. Conducted by Jared Sparkes. Second Series. 3 vols. 12rao. 16s. 6d. cloth. Matins and Vespers ; With Hymns, and Occasional Devotional Pieces. By John Bowring. Third Edition, 18mo. cloth, reduced to 2s. 6d. Scenes and Characters illustrating Christian Truth. Edited by Henry Ware, D.D. 2 vols. 18mo. 7s. cloth. Young's Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers of the Colony of Plymouth, from 1602 to 1625. 8vo. 13s. cloth. STANDARD AMERICAN LITERATURE. Todd's Student's Manual. Is. 9d. Sketches of Married Life. By Mrs. Follen. Is. 4d. Life and Times of Martin Luther. By the Author of " Three Experiments of Living." Is. Gd. Scenes in the Life of Joanna of Sicily. By Mrs. Ellet. Is. 6d. Lectures to Young Men. By George W. Burnap. 9d. The Life and Times of Cranmer. By the Author of " Three Experiments of Living." Is. 4d. Julian ; or, Scenes in Judea. By the Author of " Letters from Palmyra" and " Rome." 2s. 9d. 16 Works published by THE CATHOLIC SERIES. (Uniform, in Post Octavo.) ^" For Prospectus, explaining the principles and object of the Series, see last page of the Catalogue. The whole of the Works which have been published in the Series appear in the following list, but those which have already been the subject of criti- cism will be found again in the succeeding pages, with extracts appended. Works already Published. The Destination of Man. By Johann Gottlieb Fichte. Translated from the German, by Mrs. Percy Sinnett. 3s. 6d. cloth. " This is the most popular exposition of Fichte's philosophy which exists." Memoir of Fichte, by W. Smith. Charles Elwood ; or, the Infidel Converted. By O. A. Brownson. 3s. 6d. paper cover ; 4s. cloth. Sermons of Consolation. By F. W. P. Greenwood, D.D. 5s. cloth. This is a really delightful volume, whioh we would gladly see producing: its purifying and elevating influences in all our families." Inquirer. Ultramontanism ; or, the Roman Church and Modern Society. By E. Quinet, of the College of France. Translated from the French (Third Edition), with the Author's Approbation, by C. Cocks, B.L. 5s. cloth. The Nature of the 'Scholar and its Manifestations. By Johann Gottlieb Fichte. Translated from the German, with a Memoir of the Author, by William Smith. 6s. cloth. The Philosophical and ^Esthetic Letters and Essays of Schiller. Translated, with an Introduction, by J. Weiss. 7s. 6d. cloth. The Life of Jean Paul Fr. Richter. Compiled from various sources. Together with his Autobiography, trans- lated from the German. 2 vols. 7s. paper cover ; 8s. doth. Essays. By R. W. Emerson. (Second Series.) With a Notice by Thomas Carlyle. 3s. paper cover; 3s. 6d. cloth. The Emancipation of the Negroes in the British West Indies. An Address delivered at Concord, Massachusetts, on the 1st of August, 1844. By R. W. Emerson. 6,1. paper cover. The Rationale of Religious Inquiry ; Or, the Question stated, of Reason, the Bible, and the Church. By James Martineau. Third Edition. With a Critical Letter on Rationalism, Mira- cles, and the Authority of Scripture, by the late Rev. Joseph Blanco White. 4s. paper cover ; 4s. 6d. cloth. The Philosophy of Art. An Oration on the Relation of the Plastic Arts to Nature. Translated from the German of F. W. J. Von Schelling, by A. Johnson. Is. paper cover ; Is. 6d. cloth. Chapman, Brothers, 121, Newgate Street. IT THE CATHOLIC SERIES continued. Self-Culture. By William Ellery Charming 1 . 6d. paper cover ; Is. Cloth. Christianity, or Europe. Translated from the German of Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg), by the Rev. J. Dalton. 6d. paper cover. Charles Elwood ; or, the Infidel Converted. By O. A. Brownson. Post 8vo. 4s. cloth ; 3s. 6d. paper cover. (Catholic Series.) " Charles Elwood is an attempt to pre- sent Christianity so that it shall satisfy the philosophic element of our nature. In this consists its peculiar merit and its distinctive characteristic. Such a book was certainly very much needed. We have no doubt that it will add many a doubter to a cheerful faith, and con- firm many a feeble mind in the faith it has already professed. Mr. Brownson addresses the philosophic element, and the men in whom this element is pre- dominant ; and, of course, he presents the arguments that would be the most striking and satisfactory to this class of men. In so far as he has succeeded, he must be considered to have done a meri- torious work. We think Mr. Brownson eminently qualified for this task, and that his success is complete. The work will, doubtless, be the means of Diving- composure and serenity to the 'faith of many who are as yet weak in the faith, or halting between two opinions." Christian Examiner. " In a series of chapters Mr. Morton explains the nature of the Christian faith, and replies to the objections raised by Elwood as tlie discussion pro- ceeds, and the argument we take to be conclusive, though of course every one may differ as to details. The mig theme is handled in a most ma style, and the reasoning called "mathematical.' may fairly be There is nei- ther rant nor cant, hypotheses or dog- matism. Christianity is proved to be a " rational religious system," and the priest is exhibited in his true character. We can cordially recommend the vo- lume, after a very carefuljperusal, to the layman who desires to think for him- self, and to the clergy, as eminently calculated to enlarge their views and increase their usefulness, by showing them the difference between sectarian- ism and Christianity." Sentinel. " The purposes, in this stage of his progress, which Mr. Brownson has in view are, the vindication of the reality of the religious principle in the nature of man ; the existence of an order of senti- ments higher than the calculations of the understanding and the deductions of logic ; the foundation of morals on the absolute idea of right in opposition to the popular doctrine of expediency ; the exposition of a spiritual philosophy ; and the connexion of Christianity with the progress of society. " It is evident, from all that we have read of his writings, that he is compelled to the work of composition by the pres- sure of an inward necessity. He has studied, as is apparent from the rich and varied knowledge which he brings to the illustration of the subject he treats of, more extensively and profoundly than most persons ; but there are no traces of study for the sake of study ; no marks of a cumbersome erudition. He seems to have read what other men have written on questions which had exerci sed his mind, and to have appropriated to himself whatever was congenial ; and hence, though we may observe the in- fluence of eminent foreign writers on his cast of thought and expression, everything has the freshness and flavour of originality. " This work cannot fail to act with great power on all minds of true insight. Its profound significance will be appre- hended by many who find here the ex- pressions of their own convictions, the result of their own strivings, which they have never before seen embodied in words. " The work which we have made the occasion of the present notice, ' Charles Elwood ; or, the Infidel Converted,' is, we think, on the whole, in point of literary finish, superior to any of Mr. Brownson's former writings. It is suited to be more generally popular. It presents the most profound ideas in a simple and attractive form. The dis cussion of first principles, which, in their primitive abstraction are so repul- sive to most minds, is carried on, through the medium of a slight fiction, with con- siderable dramatic effect. We become interested in the final opinions of the subjects of the tale, as we do in the catastrophe of a romance. A slender thread of narrative is made to sustain the most weighty arguments on the philosophy of religion ; but the conduct both of the story and of the discussion is managed with so much skill, that they serve to relieve and forward each other." Dial. 18 Works published by THE CATHOLIC SERIES continued. On the Nature of the Scholar, and its Manifestations. By Johann Gottlieb Fichte. Translated from the German ; with a Memoir of the Author, by William Smith. Post 8vo. 6s. cloth. (Catholic Series.) waste of time. Fichte discriminates with sharp zeal the true literary man, what we here call the hero as man of letters, from multitudes of false un-heroic. Fichte even calls him elsewhere a nonentity,' and has in short no mercy for him, no wish that he should continue happy among us ! This is Fichte's notion of the man of letters. It means, in its own form, precisely what we here mean." Heroes and Hero-worship, by Thomas Carlyle. " From this bold and lofty principle the duties of the literary man are deduced with scientific precision, and stated, in all their sacredness and grandeur, with an austere brevity more impressive than any rhetoric. Fichte's metaphysical theory may be called in question, and readily enough misapprehended ; but the sublime stoicism of his sentiments will find some response in many a heart. " But above all, the mysticism of Fichte might astonish us. The cold, colossal, adamantine spirit, standing erect and clear, like a Cato-major among degene- rate men ; fit to have been the teacher of the Stoa, and to have discoursed of beauty and virtue in the groves of aca- deme ! Our reader has seen some words of Fichte : are these like words of a mys- tic ? We state Fichte's character as it is known and admitted by men of all parties among the Germans, when we say that so robust an intellect, a soul so calm, so lofty, massive, and immoyeable, has not mingled in philosophical discussion since the time of Luther. We figure his mo- tionless look, had he heard this charge of mysticism ! For the man rises before us, amid contradiction and debate, like a granite mountain amid clouds and wind. Ridicule, of the best that could be commanded, has been already tried against him ; but it could not avail. What was the wit of a thousand wits to him ? The cry of a thousand choughs assaulting that old cliff of granite ; seen from the summit, these, as they winged the midway air, showed scarce so gross as beetles, and their cry was seldom even audible. Fichte's opinions may be true or false ; but his character as a thinker can be slightly valued only by such as know it ill ; and as a man, approved by action and suffering, in his life and in his death, he ranks with a class of men who were common only in better ages Mr. Carlyle has described the present work and the character of Fichte with his peculiar force, insight and truth, both in his lectures on " Heroes and Hero-worship," and in his admirable essay on the " State of German Litera- ture," as follows : " Fichte, the German philosopher, de- livered, some forty years ago,atErlangen a highly remarkable course of lectures on this subject : ' Ueber das Wesen des Gelehrten (on the Nature of the Literary Man).' Fichte, in conformity with the transcendental Philosophy, of which he was a distinguished teacher, declares, first : That all things which we see or work with on this earth, especially we ourselves and all persons, are as a kind of vesture or sensuous appearance : that under all there lies, as the essence of them, what he calls the ' Divine Idea of the World ;' this is the reality which * lies at the bottom of all appearance.' To the mass of men no such divine idea is recognisable in the world ; they live, merely, says Fichte, among the super- ficialities, practicalities, and shows of the world, not dreaming that there is anything divine under them. But the man of letters is sent hither specially that he may discern for himself, and make manifest itself in a new dialect ; and he is there for the purpose of doing that. Such is Fichte's phraseology ; with which we need not quarrel It is his way of naming what I here, by other words, am striving imperfectly to name ; what there is at present no name for ; the unspeakable Divine Significance, full of splendour, of wonder and terror, that lies in the being of every man, of every thing the presence of the God who made every man and thing. " Fichte calls the man of letters, there- fore, a prophet, or, as he prefers to phrase it, a priest, continually unfolding the godlike to men. Men of letters are a perpetual priesthood, from age to age, teaching all men that a God is still pre- sent in their life ; * that all appearance,' whatsoever we see in the world, is but as a vesture of the ' Divine Idea of the World,' for ' that which lies at the bot- bom of appearance.' In the true literary man there is thus ever, acknowledged or not by the world, a sacredness : he is the light of the world ; the world's priest ; guiding it, like a sacred pillar of fire, in its dark pilgrimage through the than ours." State of German Litera- ture, by Thomas Carlyle. Chapman, Brothers, 121, Newgate Street. 19 THE CATHOLIC SERIES continued. The Philosophical and ^Esthetic Letters and Essays of Schiller. Translated, with an Introduction, by J. Weiss. Post 8vo. 7s. 6cL cloth. (Catholic Series.) " These Letters stand unequalled in the department of ^Esthetics, and are so esteemed even in Germany, which is so fruitful upon that topic. Schiller is Ger- many's best ^Esthetician, and these let- ters contain the highest moments of Schiller. Whether we desire rigorous logical investigation or noble poetic ex- pression, whether we wish to stimulate the intellect or inflame the heart, we need seek no further than these. They are trophies won from an unpopular, metaphysical form, by a lofty, inspiring, and absorbing subject." Introduction. 11 During this important (philosophi- cal) controversy, in 1795, Schiller pub- lished the present Letters, and with the large and profound estimation of things that peculiarly marked his time and country, perceived and maintained that ^Esthetics were a portion of morals, and that their foundation was co-existent with nature and the human soul. With his truly poetic spirit and grand moral feeling, poetry and the fine arts were a part of politics ; not in the petty sense of the term, as a mere exposition of any peculiar dogmas, but as a part of the directing influence of men's passions and conduct. In this view are the arts treated of in the ' Letters on the ^Esthetic Culture of Man,' and in these hitherto, to us, unknown essays will be found the true arguments of many questions now agitating our political world. The mode of really civilizing large masses of men ; the regulation of the ' play-impulse,' and the stimulation of the ' work-impulse,' and many other matters, which will employ the last half of the nineteenth century. " It is not possible, in a brief notice like the present, to do more than inti- mate the kind of excellence of a book of this nature. It is a profound and beautiful dissertation, and must be dili- gently studied to be comprehended. After all the innumerable efforts that the present age has been some time making to cut a Royal road to everything, it is beginning to find that what sometimes seems the longest way round is the shortest way home ; and if there be a desire to have truth, the only way is to work at the windlass one's self, and bring up the buckets by the labour of one's own good arm. Whoever works at the present well, will find ample reward for the labour they may bestow on it : the truths he will draw up are universal, and from that pure elementary fountain ' that maketh wise he that drinketh thereat.' "Douglas JerrolcVs Mag. " The Philosophical Letters,' which are in the form of a correspondence, were written at an earlier period than those on '^Esthetic Culture,' and present a phasis in Schiller's thought, which in some respects we believe he outgrew. They exhibit an application of the pan- theistic doctrine to various interesting and absorbing subjects, and contain views to the truth of which we should hesitate to subscribe ; nevertheless, they are exceeding valuable for what they are. The thoughts set forth in them are re- markable for their beauty, noble disinte- restedness, and clearness of expression ; as specimens of style, fraught with ease, grace, and dignity, they will bear compa- rison with the finest pieces in the book. " It is difficult, if not impossible, to give a brief, and at the same time faith- ful, summary of the ideas affirmed by Schiller in this volume. Its aim is to develop the ideal of humanity, and to define the successive steps which must b3 trodden in order to attain it. Its spirit aspires after hum an improvement, and seeks to indicate the means of its realization. Schiller insists upon the necessity of aesthetic culture as prelimi- nary to moral culture, and in order to make the latter possible. According to the doctrine here set forth, until man is aesthetically developed, he cannot be morally free, hence not responsible, since there is no sphere for the operation of the will. " The style in which the whole volume is written is particularly beautiful; there is a consciousness of music in every page we read : it is remarkable for the con- densation of thought and firm consist- ency which prevails throughout ; and so far as we are able to judge, the transla- tion is admirably, and faithfully render- ed. The twenty-seven letters upon the '^Esthetic Culture of Man' form the most prominent, and by far the most valuable, portion of the work. They are not letters to be read after a hearty din- ner, when the mental powers are impair- ed by the process of digestion ; for they will demand much clearness and insight to be full But to al comply found full of interest and the choicest riches, which will abundantly repay any amount of labour bestowed upon them." Inquirer. " This is a book which demands and deserves study. Either to translate or to appreciate it requires a somewhat peculiar turn of mind. Not that any Works published by THE CATHOLIC SERIES continued. body could read it without profit, but to gain from it all that it is capable of yield- ing, there must be some aptitude for such studies, and some training in them too To be appreciated it must be studied, and the study will be well re- paid." Christian Examiner. " Here we must close, unwillingly, this volume, so abo unding in food for thought, so fruitful of fine passages, heartily com- mending it to all of our readers who de- sire to make acquaintance with the phi- losophy of art. The extracts we have i taken will prove what a treasure is here, | for they ai'e but a fraction of the gems i that are to be gathered in every page. j We make no apology for having so long j lingered over this book ; for, albeit, phi- j losophy is somewhat out of fashion in I our age of materialism, it yet will find | its votaries, fit though few ; and even they who care not for the higher regions j of reflection cannot fail to reap infinite pleasure from the eloquent and truthful ! passages we have sought to cull for their i mingled delight and edification." Critic. The Philosophy of Art. An Oration on the Relation of the Plastic Arts to Nature. Translated from the German of F. W. J. Von Schelling, by A. Johnson. Post 8vo. Is. paper cover ; Is. 6d. cloth. " This excellent oration is an applica- tion to art of Schelling's general philo- sophic principles. It has in Germany extended to a larger public than his merely philosophical works, and, in a very German sense of the word, may be called popular. Schelling regards art from a very high point of view: one that is well known in Germany, but has rarely, if ever, been uttered with equal boldness and lucidity by English writers. For though such expressions as 'belle nature,' 'ideality,' &c. have been as current among us as shillings and six- pences, we constantly find something about ' following nature,' which leaves it in doubt whether an ideality, properly so called, be recommended, or whether a sort of affection for mpre imitation is retained. Schelling takes the bold course, and declares that what is ordi- narily called nature is not the summit of perfection, but is only the inadequate manifestation of a high idea, which it is the office of man to penetrate. The true astronomer is not he who ignorantly gapes at the stars, but he who notes down laws and causes which were never revealed to sensuous organs, and which are often opposed to the prima facie influences of sensuous observers. The true artist is not he who merely imitates an isolated object in nature, but he who can penetrate into the unseen essence that lurks behind the visible crust, and afterwards reproduce it in a visible form. In the surrounding world means and ends are clashed and jarred toge- ther ; in the work of art the heteroge- neous is excluded, and an unity is attained not to be found elsewhere. Scheiling, in his oration, chiefly, not exclusively, regards the arts of painting and sculpture; but his remarks will equally apply to others, such as poetry and music. This oration of Schelling's deserves an extensive perusal. The translation, with the exception of a few trifling inaccuracies, is admirably done by Mr. Johnson; and we know of no work in our language better suited to give a notion of the turn which German philosophy took after it abandoned the subjectivity of Kant and Fichte. The notion will, of course, be a faint one ; but it is something to know the latitude and longitude of a mental position." Examiner. The Life of Jean Paul Fr. Richter. Compiled from various sources. Together with his Autobiography. Translated from the German. 2 vols. paper cover, 7s. ; cloth, 8s. (Catholic Series.) "Richter has an intellect vehement, rugged, irresistible, crushing in pieces the hardest problems ; piercing into the most hidden combinations of things, and grasping the most distant ; an imagina- tion vague, sombre, splendid, or appall- ing, brooding over the abysses of being, wandering through infinitude, and sum- moning before us, in its dim religious light, shapes of brilliancy, solemnity, or terror; a fancy of exuberance literally unexampled, for it pours its treasures with a lavishness which knows no limit, hanging, like the sun, a jewel on every grass-blade, and sowing the earth at large with orient pearl. But deeper than all these lies humour, the ruling quality of RICHTER as it were the central fire that pervades and vivifies his whole being. He is a humorist from his in- most soul ; he thinks as a humorist, he imagines, acts, feels as a humorist : sport is the element in which his nature ives and works." THOMAS CARLYLE. " With such a writer it is no common treat to be intimately acquainted. In Chapman, Brothers, 121, Newgate Street. 21 THE CATHOLIC SERIES continued. the proximity of great and virtu minds we imbibe a portion of their virtuous na- ture feel, as mesme'rists say, a healthful contagion, are braced with the same spirit of faith, hope, and patient en- duranceare furnished with data for clearing up and working out the intri- cate problem of life, and are inspired, like them, with the prospect of immor- tality. No reader of sensibility can rise from the perusal of these volumes without becoming both wiser and better." Atlas. "We find in the present biography much that does not so much amuse and instruct, as, to adopt a phrase from the religious world, positively edify the reader. The life of Richter is indeed a moral and a religious, as much as a literary treat, to all who have a sense exercised to discern religion and mora- lity as a thing essentially different from mere orthodoxy and asceticism. The two volumes before us cannot be se- riously read without stimulating the reader, like a good sermon, to self-ame- lioration, and in this respect they are invaluable. " Richter is a thorough Christian, and a Christian with a large glowing human heart. The appearance of his biography in an English form cannot, therefore, but be regarded as a great boon to the best interests of the country." Tait's Magazine. "Apart from the interest of the work, as the life of Jean Paul, the reader learns something of German life and German thought, and is introduced to Weimar during its most distinguished period when Goethe, Schiller, Herder, and Wieland, the great fixed stars of Germany, in conjunction with Jean Paul, were there, surrounded by beau- tiful and admiring women, of the most refined and exalted natures, and of princely rank. It is full of passages so attractive and valuable that it is difficult to make a selection as examples of its character." Inquirer. " This book will be found very valu- able as an introduction to the study of one of the most eccentric and difficult writers of Germany. Jean Paul's writ- ings are so much the reflex of Jean Paul himself, that every light that shines upon the one inevitably illumines the other. The work is a useful exhibition of a great and amiable man, who, pos- sessed of the kindliest feelings, and the most brilliant fantasy, turned to a hig;h Eurpose that humour of which Rabelais i the great grandfather, and Sterne one of the line of ancestors, and contrasted it with an exaltation of feeling and a rhapsodical poetry which are entirely his own. Let us hope that it will com- plete the work begun by Mr. Carlyle's Essays, and cause Jean Paul to be really read in this country." Examiner. " Richter is exhibited in a most ami- able light in this biography- industri- ous, frugal, benevolent, with a child-like simplicity of character, and a heart overflowing with the purest love. His letters to his wife are beautiful memo- rials of true affection, and the way in which he perpetually speaks of his chil- dren shows that he was the most attach- ed and indulgent of fathers. Whoever came within the sphere of his com- panionship appears to have contracted an affection for him that death only dissolved : and while his name was re- soundingthroughGermany,heremained as meek and humble as if he had still been an unknown adventurer on Par- nassus." The Apprentice. " The life of Jean Paul is a charming piece of biography, which draws and rivets the attention. The affections of the reader are fixed on the hero with an intensity rarely bestowed on an his- torical character. It is impossible to read this biography without a convic- tion of its integrity and truth; and though Richter's style is more difficult of translation than that of any other German, yet we feel that his golden thoughts have reached us pure from the mine, to which he has given that impress of genius which makes them current in all countries." Christian Reformer. Essays. By R. W. Emerson. (Second Series.) With a Notice by Thomas Carlyle. 3s. 6d. cloth. (Catholic Series.) paper cover ; " Among the distinguishing features of Christianity we are ready to say THE distinguishing feature is its humanity, its deep sympathy with human kind, and its strong advocacy of human wants and rights. In this particular, few have a better title to be ranked among the followers of Jesus than the author of this book." American Christian Examiner. "It would be impossible perhaps injurious to attempt to show in detail the tendency of such Essays as these. All we can do, indeed we think the best thing, will be to give our readers some sample, and trust to their natural taste, to their energy, which must be aroused, and quiver like the up-gushing fire of morning, when they read the oook it- self, which will lead them on to better thought to more earnest action." "To understand and delight in Works published by THE CATHOLIC SERIES Continued. Emerson, he must be read carefully and attentively. Curious and mystical in his style, the difficulties vanish where thought-rays penetrate. He is so de- cidedly new, that we know not at first what to make of him. But we have faith, and will explore this meaning; through his peculiar style the truth will appear transparent and vivifying 1 . We in this age are fallen into such a habit of ' devouring books,' that we esteem it a benefaction in works of this class, if in no other respects, in this, that they stop us in the run-and-read system, draw out our thoughts, and cause us to get possession of theirs. Moreover, they are healthful books, and carry us into cold bracing regions of Nature, quite refreshing after the hot, perfumed atmosphere of conventional life." The Apprentice. "The difficulty we find in giving a proper notice of this volume, arises from the pervadingness of its excellence, and the compression of its matter. With more learning than Hazlitt, more perspicuity than Carlyle, more vigour and depth of thought than Addison, and with as much originality and fascination as any of them, this volume is a bril- liant addition to the Table Talk of in- tellectual men, be they who or where they may. We have no very active de- sire to see America, but if we were ever to find ourselves tossing thitherwards, our consolation would be, the hope of seeing the Falls of Niagara and Emer- son." Prospective Review. " Mr. Emerson is not a common man, and everything he writes contains sug- gestive matter of much thought and earnestness." Examiner. " That Emerson is, in a high degree, possessed of the faculty and vision of the seer, none can doubt who will ear- nestly and with a kind and reverential spirit peruse these nine Essays. He deals only with the true and the eternal. His piercing gaze at once shoots swiftly, surely through the outward and the su- perficial, to the inmost causes and work- ings. Any one can tell the time who looks on the face of the clock, but he loves to lay bare the machinery and show its moving principle. His words and his thoughts are a fresh spring, that invigorates the soul that is steeped therein. His mind is ever dealing with the eternal ; and those who only live to exercise their lower intellectual facul- ties, and desire only new facts and new images, and those who have not a feel- ing or an interest in the great question of mind and matter, eternity and na- ture, will disregard him as unintelli- gible and uninteresting, as they do Bacon and Plato, and, indeed, philoso- phy itself." Douglas JerroWs Magazine. " Beyond social science, because be- yond and outside social existence, there lies the science of self, the development of man in his individual existence, within himself and for himself. Of this latter science, which may perhaps be called the philosophy of individuality, Mr. Emerson is an able apostle and inter- preter . "League. " As regards the particular volume of EMERSON before us, we think it an im- provement upon the first series of essays. The subjects are better chosen. They come more home to the experience of the mass of mankind, and are conse- quently more interesting. Their treat- ment also indicates an artistic improve- ment in the composition." Spectator. " All lovers of literature will read Mr. Emerson's new volume, as they most of them have read his former one ; and if correct taste, and sober views of life, and such ideas on the higher subjects of thought as we have been accustomed to account as truths, are sometimes out- raged, we at least meet at every step with originality, imagination, and elo- quence." Inquirer. The Emancipation of the Negroes in the British West Indies. An Address delivered at Concord, Massachusetts, on the 1st of August, 1844. By R. W. Emerson. Post 8vo. 6d. paper cover. (Catholic Series.) " It is really purifying to be able to turn, at this moment, to anything righteous and generous from an Ameri- can on Slavery and Great Britain, so as to be relieved from the scorn and loath- ing produced by Mr. Calhoun's Letter to the American Minister at Paris. Na- tions, like individuals, generally dis- guise their crimes; America alone, if her Cabinet represents her, is not ashamed, before the civilised world, openly to discuss the greatest questions of Human Rights, on grounds purely sordid, and in a spirit, out of which everything righteous is consumed and burned by jealous hatred of England. That bad-hearted and low-minded Let- ter, at once false and mean, we venture to say, the basest State Paper that any Minister, of any time, of his own accord, ignorant of the disgrace with which it must overwhelm him, ever published to the world, we yet hope that America will disown. Meanwhile, since Chan- Chapman, Brothers, 121, Newgate Street. 23 THE CATHOLIC SERIES continued. "We need not tell any one who has the slightest acquaintance with his pre- vious writings, that Mr. Emerson is elo- quent ; and here he has a noble subject, into which he has thrown his whole soul. ning is no more, it is a satisfaction that there is one man in America of apotential voice who can utter these words of re- proof to his Country, of Justice to Great Britain." Prospective Review. What more need be said?" Inquirer. Ultramontanism ; or, the Roman Church and Modern Society. By E. Quinet, of the College of France. Translated from the French Third Edition (with the Author's approbation), by C. Cocks, B.L. Post 8vo. 5s. cloth. " We take up this enlightened volume, which aims, in the spirit of history and philosophy, to analyze, the Romanist principle, with peculiar pleasure. A glance at the headings of the chapters much interested ourselves, and we doubt not will our readers : The Superlatively Catholic Kingdom of Spain ; Political Results of Catholicism in Spain; The Roman Church and the State; The Roman Church and Science ; The Ro- man Church and History ; The Roman Church and Law ; The Roman Church and Philosophy; The Roman Church and Nations ; The Roman Church and the Universal Church." Christian Reformer. "The fourth lecture, entitled "The Roman Church and Science,' appears to us the most striking and luminous ex- position we have seen of the condition of the Roman church, and of its unavail- ing hostility to the progress of mankind. Our space precludes the possibility of quoting the whole, or we should do so with great pleasure. It delineates, in vivid colours, the history of Galileo, his character, his discoveries, his philo- sophical protest against the theology of Rome, the horrible persecutions which he suffered, and his effects upon the ec- clesiastical power changing the rela- tive positions of science and the church, unfolding a theology more profound than that of Rome, a code of laws more infallible than that of the church, a grand and comprehensive system of ideas transcending in its Catholicity Catholicism itself. " The four remaining lectures are severally entitled The Roman Church and Law (in which the Inquisition is a conspicuous subject) The Roman Church and Philosophy The Roman Church and Nations The Roman Church and the Universal Church. We cannot characterise each of these in par- ticular : suffice it to say that there is a profound and expansive philosophical spirit breathing through the whole; every subject is compelled to contribute its entire force of facts and illustration for the construction of the one great argument which is the object and com- plement of each viz. that the Roman Church is no longer adequate to the en- larged needs and aspirations of man- kind, that it has fulfilled the mission for which it was originated, that the ener- gies it once put forth in the cause of humanity are paralysed, that its decrepi- tude is manifest, and its vitality threatened, that it has shewn itself in- capable of continuing as the minister of God's will, and the interpreter of those divine laws whose incarnation in human life is the pledge of man's spiritual ad- vancement and happiness, that it heeds not the signs of the times, refuses any alliance with the spirit of progression, clings tenaciously to the errors and dead formulas of the past, recognises the accession of no new truths, and hence prostrates the intellect, proscribes the enlargement of our spiritual boun- daries, lays an interdict on human pro- gress, compels us to look perpetually backwards and blights our hopes of the future, and in the words of Quinet ' represents the earth as a condemned world formed for chastisement and eviL' " Considered as a whole, the book be- fore us is the most powerful and philo- sophically consistent protest against the Roman Church which has ever claimed our attention, and, as a strong confirmation of its stirring efficiency, we may mention that the excitement it has created in Paris has subjected the author to a reprimand from both cham- bers of the Legislature, and excom- munication by the Pope." -Inquirer. 24 Chapman, Brothers, 121, Newgate Street. PROSPECTUS.