&Rf&HHM 
 
 i . ."iMi i rtm nmcers. 
 
 ***********t**Bi*i**iitiR*uiBtmH*3citmaBa& 
 
 r..;.iii»-»».- W i B *w//'«- , -«i>!r./:;^aivmiV- - !!".'.'.':7r/.".V.V..-v. 
 
 ^JJ 
 
*:?.m 
 
 H 
 
 
 
 ■ ■ 
 
 
 
 
 H*l ESI 
 
 :/ &* ^V 
 
ESSAYS 
 
 BY THE LATE 
 
 WILLIAM GODWIN. 
 
ESSAYS 
 
 BY THE LATE 
 
 WILLIAM (jODWIN, 
 
 AUTHOR OF POLITICAL JUSTICE, ETC., ETC., ETC. 
 
 XEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED. 
 
 LONDON 
 Henry S. King & Co., 
 
 65, CORXHILL, & 12, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 1873 
 

 LONDON AND AYLESBURY : 
 PRINTED BY WATSON AND HAZELL. 
 
 [All rights reserved.] 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 V. 
 
 Editor's Preface - - - 
 
 Preliminary Essay - 3 
 
 Preface to Essay I. - - 1 r 
 
 Essay I. On a State of Future Retribution 27 
 
 „ II. On the Present Life of Man consi- 
 dered as a State of Probation for 
 a Future" World - - - - 57 
 
 „ III. On Contrition - - - - 77 
 
 „ IV. On the Death of Jesus considered 
 
 as an Atonement for Sin - 97 
 
 * 
 
 „ V. On Providence - - - - 113 
 
 Note to Essay N .—(Fragment) - - - - 124 
 Essay VI. On the Question, What shall we do 
 
 to be Saved? (Fragment) - - 129 
 
 „ VII. On Faith and Works - - - 137 
 
 ,, VIII. On the Character of Jesus - - 149 
 „ IX. On the History and Effects of the 
 
 Christian Religion - - - 175 
 
 "4605 
 
iv CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Essay X. On Liberty — (Fragment) 217 
 
 ,, XI. On the Mixed Character of Christi- 
 anity, its Horrors, and its Graces 
 — (Fragment) - - - - - 223 
 „ XII. On the Character of God as de- 
 scribed in the Scriptures - 2-33 
 „ XIII. On the Idea of an Intelligent 
 
 Creator — (Fragment) - - - 251 
 „ XIV. On Nature - - 259 
 
 „ XV. On Miracles - , - - - - 271 
 
 Conclusion - - ... 283 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE, 
 
 The Essays and Fragments contained in this volume 
 were written by Mr. Godwin in the last years of his 
 long and laborious life ; they would, he trusted, be 
 revised and arranged for immediate publication by his 
 daughter, Mrs. Shelley. In a letter addressed to her, 
 dated only a few days before his death, he say-. " I 
 leave behind me a manuscript in a considerable state 
 of forwardness for the press, entitled, ' The Genius of 
 Christianity Unveiled : in a Series of Ess: 
 the letter concludes with these earnest words : — u I am 
 most unwilling that this, the concluding work of a long 
 life, and written, as I believe, in the full maturity of my 
 understanding, should be consigned to oblivion. It has 
 been the main object of my life, since I attained to 
 years of discretion, to do my part to free the human 
 mind from slavery. I adjure you, therefore, or whom- 
 soever else into whose hands these papers may fall, 
 not to allow them to be consigned to oblivion." 
 
 It is not necessary to enter into the many reasons 
 which prevented Mrs. Shelley from personally carrying 
 out her father's wishes : enough to say that the burthen 
 of the duty lay on her, and since her death has lain on 
 her representatives, as one from which, even had they 
 
VI EDITOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 desired it, there was no escape. But the circumstances 
 under which the Essays now appear are much 
 changed from those which would have attended them 
 had Mrs. Shelley been able to prepare them for the 
 press. The kind of editing possible at the time of 
 Mr. Godwin's death is not possible after the lapse of 
 half a century. To complete and correct what is still 
 imperfect, would demand not only very great agreement 
 with the writer's opinions, but intimate acquaintance 
 with the tone of his mind. If at any time this could, 
 have been possessed by one beyond his own immediate 
 circle, it is not possessed by the men of our day. Our 
 reading of history, our estimate of the Bible, whether 
 viewed from the side of orthodoxy or of free thought, 
 our doubts and difficulties, are not those of fifty years 
 since ; nor could these Essays be adapted in any great 
 degree to the special requirements of our own time, even 
 if she still lived who had distinct authority to revise and 
 prepare them. 
 
 They cannot now be " the signal benefit to the human 
 race " which their author hoped they would be ; the 
 conclusions are not so new, or in all cases so true, as 
 they appeared to him. But they are still interesting as 
 the frankly- expressed thoughts of a remarkable man, and 
 as a contribution to the history of scepticism. Those 
 Essays only, therefore, are given, out of the MS. left in 
 Mrs. Shelley's charge, which appear fairly complete, or 
 if fragments, are yet^ so far finished. They are given 
 unaltered and entire, save that a few verbal changes 
 have been made in the quotations from the Bible. It 
 is quite evident to any one who reads the manuscript 
 that Mr. Godwin quoted from memory, accurately as 
 
EDITORS PREFACE. vil 
 
 j at often by no means accurately- as 
 ree To correct errors thus made has 
 
 an to fulfil the plain duty of an Editor; to do more 
 would be to tamper with the original. 
 
 One _mark appears necessary in reference to 
 
 the same Biblical passages with which the Essays are 
 so thic T!:e disintegrating criticism which 
 
 jd the Bible into its several books, and parts 
 of books, had scarcely begun, or at least its work - 
 sea gland, when Godwin died. 
 
 The Bible was considered as a whole, and a verse from 
 was deemed, alike by the orthodox and un- 
 orthodox, as of precisely the same value with a 
 from any other pan. It is with no conscious unfair- 
 
 :n at times made use of texts wh 
 do not to our apprehension support his position, or that 
 he assumes that doctrines held by one writer of Scripture 
 were therefore and of necessity held by the re=: 
 
 That the same arguments are repeated in more than 
 one E the same passages quoted, that a doctrine 
 
 iled again and again, may be a literary blemish 
 which the author would have removed, had he himself 
 given his book to the world. But, independently of the 
 obvious reasons for not omitting or altering, it is quite 
 possible that the repetition of sledge-hammer bio 
 really intend- .r. and that he > deliberately 
 
 sacrificed to force somewhat of lit 
 
 in these or other matters be the merits or 
 demerits of the E not fc .Jitor toe 
 
 enough to note that their writers stand-point was not, 
 and could not be precisely, that of perhaps any one 
 person of our time r. Godwin would have been 
 
VI 11 EDITOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 among the first to recognise our fuller knowledge on 
 many subjects which he has touched. But it may be 
 remarked that in scarcely any case has he failed to point 
 in the direction along which we, the children of a 
 later day, have advanced, even if he did not indicate 
 the precise path we have travelled. And as he very 
 considerably influenced the minds of many of his 
 generation, the thoughts which he conveyed to them are 
 made visible in these Essays, and we in them look on 
 the stream of our own convictions nearer its original 
 source. 
 
 So much it has been necessary to say in explanation 
 of the publication, at this time, of the present volume. 
 More would be needless; for though the memories of 
 men quickly fade, though a crowd of new books on 
 almost every subject claims our attention, sometimes 
 with undue noise, it can scarcely be that even this 
 generation, so hurried, so harassed, has altogether for- 
 gotten, or will lightly forget, the name of William 
 Godwin. 
 
 November 3, 1872. 
 
PRELIMINARY ESSAY 
 
 ON THE EXOTERIC AND ESOTERIC IN PHILOSOPHY 
 AND THEOLOGY. 
 
 B 
 
 / I 
 
PRELIMINARY ESSAY 
 
 On the Exoteric and Esoteric in Philosophy and 
 
 Theology. 
 
 T3 EFORE we enter upon the following pages, there is 
 ■*—^ a preliminary question which imperiously demands 
 our attention, as to what was called among the ancients 
 the exoteric and esoteric philosophy and theology. 
 
 I am of opinion that a great majority of profound and 
 unprejudiced readers will subscribe to the doctrines 
 pleaded for in this work. 
 
 But it is a matter worthy of some consideration ho\v r 
 far it is proper that such doctrines should be indiscrimi- 
 nately presented to the attention of mankind. 
 
 The Ancient Egyptians, the Pythagoreans, the leaders 
 of the Hindoo religion in India, the Druids, and a 
 number of speculative men in all ages, have been of 
 opinion that there is one set of doctrines that it is con- 
 venient should be recommended to and imposed upon 
 the vulgar, and another that should be communicated 
 only to such as were found unquestionably worthy of 
 that favour and distinction. 
 
4 . • QN THE EXOTERIC AND ESOTERIC 
 
 It has been supposed that a long train of previous 
 initiation and trial should precede the communication of 
 that system which is the ultimate result of the examina- 
 tion of the learned, and of those who were inclined and 
 encouraged by means of elaborate research to enquire 
 into the essence of things. 
 
 It was imagined that these men had purified themselves 
 from the grosser elements of our kind, and might safely 
 be trusted to look into the innermost sanctuary, and to 
 see nature as it really is, stripped of those false colourings 
 and that dazzling glare under which, for the most part, it 
 appears to the ignorant. 
 
 A sort of strength of mind, which can only be the 
 result of long discipline, has been supposed to be 
 necessary to keep men in the path of right conduct by 
 the force of the light of nature only, while the mass of 
 mankind are conceived no otherwise to be held under 
 sufficient restraint but by terrors and bugbears which 
 stand revealed to the eyes of the select few, but which 
 are sufficient, when nothing else would suffice, to check 
 the escapades and enormities of the ordinary race of 
 men. 
 
 It is surely, however, a miserable thought, if we are 
 obliged to confess that the herd of our species are to be 
 kept perpetually in the dark, while a small remnant only 
 are permitted to behold the truth itself, and to see things 
 as they are. 
 
 But the world of mankind is not so constituted. 
 
IN PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 5 
 
 There are not two castes of human creatures, between 
 whom there is " a great gulf fixed, so that they which 
 would pass from one to the other cannot " (Luke xvi. 26), 
 neither superior nor inferior natures being able to over- 
 step the boundary assigned. The apostle very impres- 
 sively asks, " Who hath made thee to differ?" (1 Cor. 
 iv. 7.) And elsewhere affirms, " God hath made of one 
 blood all nations of men to dwell on the face of the 
 earth." (Acts xvii. 26.) And the poet in an unanswer- 
 able way enquires, " Hath not a Jew eyes ? hath not a 
 Jew hands? — organs, dimensions, senses, affections, pas- 
 sions ? — fed with the same food, hurt with the same 
 weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the 
 same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and 
 summer that a Christian is ? If you prick us, do we 
 not bleed ? If you tickle us, do we not laugh ? If you 
 poison us, do we not die ? " 
 
 The question is the same as that of political liberty 
 and slavery. There was a time when it was held that 
 it was only a privileged few that were to be the masters 
 of their own actions, while the great majority was to be 
 held in chains, and to move this way and that merely as 
 they were ordered by their imperial lords. This is, of 
 all considerations, the most vital to the community of 
 mankind. So long as we were divided into two classes, 
 the master and the slave, both parties were corrupted — 
 the lower by the condition of their existence being pre- 
 cluded from the influence of almost every generous 
 
6 ON THE EXOTERIC AND ESOTERIC 
 
 motive, every impulse of a loftier sort, and the higher 
 impelled from the first hour of their moral existence to 
 the practice of tyranny and despotism. But that time 
 is happily gone by. All men are acknowledged to 
 partake of a common nature, to have a right to delibe- 
 rate respecting their system of action ; and, having 
 deliberated, to conduct themselves accordingly. This is 
 the most important revolution that has occurred in the 
 history of the world. The equality of human beings as 
 such, opens upon us the prospect of perpetual improve- 
 ment. It is of consequence not true that the mass of 
 our species is to be held for ever in leading-strings, 
 while a few only are to have the prerogative of thinking 
 and directing for all, but that the whole community is 
 to run the generous race for intellectual and moral 
 superiority. This thought lies at the foundation of all 
 improvement. It opens to us the prospect of indefinite 
 advancement in sound judgment, in real science, and 
 the just conduct of our social institutions. 
 
 Meanwhile it is the art of printing, that greatest of all 
 human discoveries, that has practically, once for ever, settled 
 this question for the race of mankind. This art, which 
 multiplies the copies of books without limit, and finally 
 brings them within the reach of all, has broken down the 
 wall which separated one set of men from another, and has 
 confirmed to all those privileges which the intellectual 
 nature of man rendered by right our common inheritance. 
 Hence education has been placed generally within the 
 
IN PHILOSOPHY A. YD THEOLOGY. 7 
 
 reach of our species. All can reason, can enquire, and 
 attain that knowledge which is most beneficial to every 
 individual. We arc set at large from those fetters which 
 for ages bound the inferior and more numerous portion 
 of mankind to the law of an implicit subjection, and are 
 turned loose into the great common of such inferences 
 and solutions as are the natural results of fearless 
 enquiry. It is in vain now to endeavour to re-erect the 
 wall that separated one set of men from another. We 
 might as well endeavour, by planting a hedge, to confine 
 the birds, the native inheritors of the skies, as to pre- 
 vent men making that use of their reason which reading 
 and reflection naturally supply. 
 
 No scheme can be imagined more ungenerous than 
 that which proposes that we, the favoured iew, shall 
 enjoy the privilege of letting our thoughts loose to 
 pursue fearlessly the inductions which our understand- 
 ings suggest, while we are to take care that the vulgar 
 of mankind are to be perpetually shut up within the 
 circumference of a straitened and a narrow creed, never 
 to look upon the broad face of day, nor to enlarge the 
 faculty of sight so as to take in the whole of the blue 
 firmament that over-canopies us. This, of all kinds of 
 aristocracies, is the most inexorable and despotic. Re- 
 ligion is naturally the equalizer of mankind. The small 
 and the great are together in that future state, the belief 
 of which is taught in our churches. Whatever distinc- 
 tions of rank are imposed in our political constitutions, 
 
8 ON THE EXOTERIC AND ESOTERIC, ETC. 
 
 they are all put an end to by death. The greatest 
 'monarch, we are told, shall stand shivering before the 
 throne of the Almighty, and shall be judged by the 
 same inexorable law as the meanest peasant. It is there- 
 fore too bad that this great equalizer should be used, 
 as in modern policy it is, as the main instrument to 
 keep down the illiterate in the state of subjection to 
 which we doom them. The high and the titled ranks 
 among the clergy, though they may not believe all that 
 is taught in the Liturgy, must profess it in public, that 
 the lower ranks may be kept in order. They bow the 
 knee, that the vulgar, taught by their example, may do 
 the like, and may really believe what is pretended only 
 by their superiors. 
 
 And what is worse — according to the newest fashion, 
 the man who professes infidelity among his confidential 
 associates is the very person who is the most systemati- 
 cal in enforcing orthodoxy upon his inferiors. He revels 
 in his liberty, and makes it his boast that he has freed 
 himself from all superstitious shackles ; at the same time 
 that he holds it for "very stuff of the conscience" not to 
 let in the least glimmering of light upon his servants, 
 and those who are placed in a station below him. 
 
PREFACE TO ESSAY I. 
 
PREFACE TO ESSAY I. 
 
 THE contents of the following Essay will be consi- 
 dered as startling by many, and offensive by more. 
 One of the best apologies I can urge has been brought 
 forward by Dr. Conyers Middleton in the Preface to his 
 " Free Inquiry into the Miraculous Powers which are 
 supposed to have subsisted in the Christian Church 
 through several successive centuries." I persuade my- 
 self that the life and faculties of man, at the best but 
 short and limited, cannot be employed more rationally 
 or laudably than in the search of knowledge ; and espe- 
 cially of that sort which relates to our duty and con- 
 duces to our happiness. In these enquiries, therefore, 
 whenever I perceive any glimmering of truth before 
 me, I readily pursue and endeavour to trace it to its 
 source without any reserve or caution of pursuing the 
 discovery too far, or opening too great a glare of it to 
 the public. I look upon the discovery of anything 
 which is true as a valuable acquisition to society, which 
 
12 PREFACE TO ESSAY, I. 
 
 cannot possibly hurt or obstruct the good effect of any 
 other truth whatsoever; for they all partake of one 
 common essence, and necessarily coincide with each 
 other, and, like the drops of rain which fall separately 
 into the river, mix themselves at once with the stream, 
 and strengthen the general current. 
 
 For myself, however, I must confess that, though 
 always ambitious of fame, I have desired that it should 
 be mixed with a certain degree of approbation and 
 esteem, and, if that might be, of love ; and can cordially 
 adopt the sentence which the Chseronean sage delivers 
 of himself, when he says, " I had rather it should be 
 averred of me that there never was such a man as 
 Plutarch, than it should be said that Plutarch was 
 tyrannical, malicious, and revengeful." Meanwhile, 
 whoever would endeavour to instruct mankind, must 
 bring himself to a certain pitch of resolution, and be 
 contented to incur much obloquy, opprobrium, and ill- 
 will ; too happy if the more respectable and loftier- 
 minded of mankind do justice to his motives and his 
 character. 
 
 I have always also been of opinion that a certain 
 portion of what may be called the " religious sense " 
 is necessary to the sound and healthy condition of 
 the human mind. I have been of a judgment opposite 
 to that of Horace, that u to admire " is an excellent 
 and improving habit. That we should behold the works 
 of nature with wonder and awe, that we should stand 
 
PREFACE 70 ESSAY I. 1 3 
 
 astonished at the symmetry, harmony, subtlety, and 
 beauty of the world around us, is natural and reason- 
 able ; and that we should feci how frail and insignificant 
 a part we constitute of the great whole, can alone in- 
 spire us with a proper sobriety and humility, and make 
 us sensible of our real state and condition. 
 
 But I think that religion encroaches too far on the 
 human understanding, when it proposes to deprive us 
 of our senses, or prohibits in whatever direction the use 
 of our reasoning powers. 
 
 When I sat down to write this Essay, I intended no 
 more than to establish this seemingly incontrovertible 
 truth. The doctrine of a state of future retribution has 
 been maintained for the purpose of completing our view 
 of the Divine benevolence, and removing all difficulties 
 that arise from the seemingly great proportion of natural 
 and moral evil which presents itself in our present 
 condition of existence. Hence it follows that we have 
 a plain criterion to direct us as to what views we shall 
 adopt, and what views we shall reject, in our conceptions 
 of the state in which mankind shall exist hereafter. 
 Those notions only are entitled to our adoption which 
 tend to render our ideas of the Divine benevolence more 
 uniform and complete, that shall remove any apparent 
 objections, and shall take away the inequalities that 
 seem to rest upon the happiness and unhappiness of 
 man in this world. Those notions, on the other hand, 
 we are most of all called upon to reject, if such there 
 
H PREFACE TO ESSAY I. 
 
 are, the tendency of which would be to obscure and 
 impeach the Divine benevolence, and to place in a 
 worse condition than before the unhappiness of which 
 so large a portion of mankind seems, in their present 
 state, to have reason to complain. 
 
 I thought I saw in the vulgar creed of a majority of 
 Christians a tendency of the latter sort, and that their 
 notions, instead of rendering more amiable our ideas of 
 the Divine benevolence, contributed much to increase 
 our objections against the full display of that attribute. 
 I purposed therefore to lighten the terrors of a great part 
 of mankind, and to instil into their bosoms a certain 
 serenity and confidence as to their views of a future world. 
 
 I found however, unfortunately, as I proceeded, that 
 the gloomy views of a future state were by no means 
 confined to a sect of narrow-minded Christians, but that 
 they received too much countenance from the original 
 and authentic records of the Founder of our religion. 
 We are somewhat blinded through Christendom by our 
 partialities, and the prejudices instilled into us in our 
 education. We hear of the meek and lowly Jesus so 
 much, of his patience and forbearance, as to cast into 
 shade the tremendous and unsparing denunciations with 
 which his discourses, and those of his apostles, are 
 plentifully interspersed. 
 
 Meanwhile, having found this, I could not for a 
 moment prevail on myself to adopt the dastardly plan 
 of urging my objections against certain parties of the 
 
PREFACE TO ESSAY /. I 5 
 
 followers of Christ, when it appeared that these 
 objections applied with equal force to the discourses 
 of our original Founder. Add to which, I should have 
 had to seek with considerable labour among the writings 
 of the heads of different sects, for their statements of 
 the views I designed to oppose, while one sect and 
 another would perhaps be eager to disclaim the views 
 with which I charged them, and accuse me of mis- 
 representation. But when I produced these gloomy and 
 deplorable views from the so-called sacred writings, 
 there would be little room for controversy, and at least 
 one sect of Christians and another could not, with much 
 reason, excuse themselves, and endeavour to shift the 
 burthen to the shoulders of a more obnoxious party. 
 
 I am truly astonished when I call to mind how 
 many persons have admitted the sentiment, or 
 rather, I might say, how universal is the creed of 
 hell and damnation, and that much the greater part 
 of mankind are reserved in a future state to a per- 
 petual exile from joy, and a condition of great suffering 
 and wretchedness, as the due retribution for their be- 
 haviour in this transitory world. For myself, I must 
 frankly confess that, if one human creature is reserved 
 for eternal punishment hereafter, it appears to form 
 a more serious difficulty in the way of the assertion 
 of the Divine benevolence, than the sufferings of 
 thousands and tens of thousands of our fellow-beines 
 in the present state, where we " come forth like a 
 
1 6 PREFACE TO ESSAY I. 
 
 flower, and are cut down ; we flee like a shadow and 
 continue not." (Job xiv. 2.) 
 
 And yet, in fact, the greater part of mankind through 
 the larerer division of the civilized world have made a 
 formal and public profession of this creed through 
 successive centuries. Many men, through an impatience 
 of really slight and insignificant evils, have been found 
 to invoke the instant hand of death to put an end 
 to their sufferings. But most undoubtedly, in com- 
 parison with this calamitous and frightful condition 
 of human existence, that we are, almost every one of 
 us, for aught we know, reserved for a state of eternal 
 torment hereafter, it were better for us, a million 
 times better, never to have been born. 
 
 I will suppose the individual who is at this moment 
 reading these pages to be satisfied that he is one of 
 the elect, reserved for everlasting joy, but that he is 
 nevertheless "saved, yet so as by fire." (i Cor. iii. 15.) 
 He must in that case have strange misgivings and 
 tinglings, must feel as if he were somewhat scorched 
 by the fierceness of the flames, and were in the 
 condition which I have heard that a pious noncon- 
 formist divine once petitioned might fall to the lot 
 of Louis the Fourteenth, that " God would hold him 
 over the pit of hell by the hair of his head — but, oh 
 Lord, do not let him fall in!" The Son of Man, 
 we are told (Matt. xxv. 31), at the last day, "shal. 
 send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and 
 
FRF. FACE 7 ESSAY I. 
 
 they shall gather his elect," those who have had com- 
 passion on the "least of the brethren," "from the four 
 winds." And, after all, it is but a " little flock to whom 
 it is the Father's good pleasure to give the kingdom." 
 (Luke xii. 32.) 
 
 Now I venture to affirm that, if this man of whom 
 we have spoken, " one of the elect, reserved for ever- 
 lasting joys," have a heart of true benevolence and 
 philanthropy, he will feel a very imperfect consolation 
 in his own escape, while an infinite majority of mankind 
 " shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the 
 presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the 
 Lamb." (Rev. xiv. 10.) We are told, indeed, that the 
 saints above will entertain so deep a conviction of the 
 Divine justice, as fully to reconcile them to the final 
 award, to fill them with unmingled serenity and satis- 
 faction, and to raise them vastly above the slightest 
 sentiment of compassion and sympathy for the doomed 
 and unhappy sufferers. But what an insult is this to 
 our common sense! "God's thoughts," we are told, "are 
 not our thoughts, neither our ways His ways." (Isaiah 
 lv. 8.) But we cannot talk of the Divine benevolence, 
 unless in a way accordant to our own ideas of that 
 quality. And certainly no human conceptions that we 
 can form can reconcile us to the everlasting torments of 
 an infinite majority of mankind. We must be raised 
 vastly above our present idea of active benevolence 
 before we can acquiesce in a notion so diametrically 
 
 C 
 
IS PREFACE TO ESSAY I. 
 
 at war with our conceptions of justice, not to say of 
 mercy ; which in reality, in the most enlarged figure 
 which can be given to it, is but a part of justice. 
 
 And, in the meantime, what sort of influence on the 
 human mind must such a creed necessarily exercise 
 over those by whom it is embraced ? They must live, 
 in the most emphatical sense of the word, under the 
 " reign of terror." We must divest ourselves wholly 
 of our natural and unperverted conceptions of benevo- 
 lence, and " call evil good and good evil," before we can 
 rest in this idea of final judgment, and denominate it 
 clemency. 
 
 But the Christian world has been so deeply impressed 
 with the notion of the Divine origin of our religion, as 
 to stifle every objection. We have been dragooned into 
 our faith. Our reason has been paralysed by our deep- 
 felt alarms. We have trembled before £he red right 
 hand of God stretched out against us, and turned away 
 convulsively from the " cup of His indignation." There 
 was little need in reality to say to us : " Who art thou, 
 O man, that repliest against God ? Shall the thing 
 formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made 
 me thus ?" (Rom. ix. 20.) Every one will feel into how 
 unequal a contest he will enter, who contends not with 
 "the master of twenty legions," but with the Master of 
 the universe. 
 
 Most undoubtedly the mind of him by whom this creed 
 is embraced, must be deeply imbued with the spirit 
 
PREFACE TO ESSAY I. Uj 
 
 of pusillanimity, cowering beneath the almighty hand 
 of the disposer of our fates, who, according to the Scrip- 
 tures, has so little remorse in awarding a tremendous an I 
 insufferable punishment. And the more serious and 
 reflecting is the temper of him who entertains this 
 faith, the more memorable will be the effects produced 
 on his character. We can scarcely find any assignable 
 limits for this pusillanimity, and cannot tell in how 
 many directions it insinuates itself to crush our better 
 part of man. Sir Richard Steele, in his gallant and 
 generous remarks on the use of corporal discipline in 
 our public schools, observes, It is impossible for us to 
 say in what degree this treatment affects the future 
 temper of the man, or how much more of sober assurance 
 and intrepidity would have characterised him if he had 
 never in his nonage been subjected to this degrading 
 infliction. The mind is so subtle in its constitution and 
 operations, and the character modified by such an infinite 
 variety of impressions, that the most imperceptible and 
 least observed letting in of an image will often deeply 
 affect — nay, sometimes utterly reverse — the disposition of 
 the individual. But if this trifling and almost evanescent j 
 grief produces to the sufferer and the spectator such 
 memorable effects, what may be expected to occur to 
 the mind of him with whom the doctrine of hell forms 
 one of his most leading and least controverted tenets ? 
 
 It is obvious to every one familiarly acquainted with 
 general history, of how much firmer a temper, how 
 
2 ') PREFACE TO ESSAY I. 
 
 much more spirited, frank, and devoted to objects of a 
 general interest, were the higher characters — nay, one 
 might almost say the whole community — among the 
 ancient Greeks and Romans, than are we, the men of 
 modern times. It is in vain that we search for and 
 produce instances of poverty of spirit among them, of 
 fluctuation and instability, and liableness to be influenced 
 by sordid and ignoble motives. The fact still is out of 
 all reasonable controversy, that they were of a loftier 
 stature of mind, more firm of nerve, more demonstrative 
 in the display of their principles, less irresolute and 
 effeminate than ourselves. How far, then, we are 
 unavoidably led to enquire, is this deterioration to be 
 ascribed to the slavishness of our creed ? The idea that 
 the moment we die, or if with an interval, yet an interval 
 imperceptible to ourselves, we are to stand naked and 
 shivering before the throne of God, to have all our acts 
 investigated, and every idle word brought to light by an 
 inexorable Judge, is somewhat too terrible for the firmest 
 spirit, and may well, even in anticipation, shrink into 
 nothing the ordinary and vulgar soul. 
 
 In reality, if wc- had always this conception present 
 to our thoughts, it would perhaps be impossible 
 for us to endure the load of life. I remember well 
 how this creed weighed on my spirits almost in my 
 infant days — to think that I was born for an eternity 
 either of weal or woe, and much the more probably of 
 the latter. 
 
PREFACE TO ESSAY I. 2 1 
 
 But it fortunately happens that the mind of man is 
 so constituted as to render belief one of its most un- 
 certain and precarious habits. We entirely credit only 
 what we see, or that is entirely analogous to what we 
 see, or that we are actually assured of by some com- 
 prehensive testimony, unquestionably familiar to our 
 thoughts and our experience. The idea of a future 
 state, and a general judgment, of heaven and hell, the 
 notion of either of which we are wholly unable to grasp 
 and define, is so remote from everything we know and 
 have experienced, that the belief may be said to rest on 
 the surface of the mind, without ever having penetrated 
 and being mixed up with its substances. Rousseau says 
 that if you offer a child a sweetmeat, which he is to 
 receive upon condition that he shall leap out of a two- 
 pair-of-stairs window the next morning, he will infallibly 
 accept it. It is in some such way that men think of the 
 promises and denunciations of a- future world. A sharp 
 fit of the toothache will have a much more powerful 
 effect than the prospects of eternity. A man at the 
 point of death has his mind almost wholly engrossed , 
 with present painful sensations, attends to his family and 
 the persons about him, and feels a lively curiosity upon 
 some fugitive event or some impending political occur- 
 rence, nearly to the exclusion of the things he is told 
 will befall him after death. Were it not for this feature 
 of the mind, it would be impossible for a serious Christian 
 to attend to his worldly affairs, or to enter, as we all of 
 
22 Preface to essay i. 
 
 us in some degree do, into the avocations, the amuse- 
 ments, and frivolities of ordinary life. We should be 
 so engrossed by the anticipation of things unseen, as 
 to regard whatever is truly around us with apathy and 
 indifference, and, in a sense beyond that of the apostle, 
 " confess that we were strangers and pilgrims on earth, 
 and that we seek another and a better country." (Heb. 
 xi. 13.) 
 
 It will appear in the following Essay, that the punish- 
 ments of a future world can answer none of the proper 
 ends of punishment, which are that it may serve as an 
 example to others, inasmuch as the doom of all mankind 
 at the last day will be final and irreversible. The most 
 intelligible purpose of these punishments will be that the 
 denunciation of them now will deter men from sin in the 
 present world, and so God will inflict them hereafter, 
 because He who is the God of truth has pronounced 
 that so it shall be. 
 
 But if we accurately examine the question, it will be 
 found that there is scarcely the man in existence who 
 truly believes in a future state. The professed devotee 
 strains every nerve, and puts forth his utmost effort, 
 that he may see " in his mind's eye " the alleged im- 
 pending condition of the blessed and the cursed ; but in 
 vain. The great body of professing Christians acknow- 
 ledge with their mouths the creed which has been dinned 
 into them ; they repeat what has been taught them for 
 truth ; but it has scarcely any influence on their actions 
 
PRE FACE TO ESSAY I. 2$ 
 
 and lives. It is a thought laid by on all ordinary 
 occasions, and only brought out at church on Sundays, 
 and fasts and festivals. It is so carefully kept as to be 
 in no danger of becoming familiar. 
 
 But if it does not operate upon us for the reformation 
 of our lives and the purifying our thoughts, it does 
 not follow that- it will be wholly unproductive of 
 important consequences. Man in his proper and most 
 vigorous state, must possess a certain energy, must have 
 his thoughts principally employed on those matters 
 which his judgment has selected as most worthy of 
 attention, and, undiverted and undistracted, devote his 
 efforts to some great and constant end. He that is 
 "unstable as water" may depend upon it that he "shall 
 never excel." (Gen. xlix. 4.) He must put aside all 
 impediments and hindrances, disengage himself from 
 every shackle, however trivial it may appear, and 
 forget what is impertinent and foreign, or he will never 
 do justice either to the purpose he has chosen, or to 
 the faculties he might otherwise bring into action for its 
 
 tainment. 
 
 The sort of belief and no belief which is nearly 
 inseparable from the profession of the Christian faith, 
 renders every man in some degree a hypocrite. Truth 
 i 3 no longer sacred and inviolable to our thoughts. We 
 juggle with the powers of pur understanding, and 
 "'palter in a double sense." Each of us becomes, in 
 some sort, a double man, and is encumbered with limbs 
 
24 PREFACE 70 ESSAY I. 
 
 and articulations which make no proper part of ourselves. 
 Truth is the proper element of the human soul, and 
 frankness its becoming habit. We can never be what 
 under advantageous circumstances we might be expected 
 to become, till our word shall be as sacred as our oath, 
 till ingenuousness is our daily habit, till by self-exami- 
 nation we come to know what we think and what we 
 are, and till we are ready to render to every man an 
 undisguised account of the results of our judgment 
 upon every momentous subject, and the reasons on 
 which our judgment rests for its support. 
 
 We profess things \v r hich we hardly believe, and most 
 of us, in sacred edifices, and in the face of mankind, lend 
 our countenances and our voice to what obtains with us 
 at best a very doubtful credit. 
 
ESSAY I. 
 
 ON A STATE OF FUTURE RETRIBUTION. 
 
ESSAY I. 
 
 On a State of Future Retribution. 
 
 CHRISTIAN divines inculcate the doctrine of a 
 future state as a state of retribution. " It is a 
 strong argument," says Addison, "for a state of retri- 
 bution hereafter, that in this world virtuous persons are 
 very often unfortunate, and vicious persons prosperous." 
 
 Now let us analyse this species of inference. All our 
 reasonings respecting the cause of all things, and the 
 Author of the universe, come to us a posteriori. We 
 observe the evidences (as we apprehend) of design and 
 contrivance in the world around us, and hence infer 
 intelligence in the principle to which the whole is 
 indebted for its origin. We observe much of good, of 
 happiness, and benevolent tendency, and hence infer the 
 benevolence of the contriver. 
 
 But if we reason only from what we know, and what 
 we see, we have no right to draw conclusions except 
 such as are warranted by our premisses. If, amidst all 
 that is excellent and admirable in the external universe, 
 
28 ON A STATE OF FUTURE RETRIBUTION. 
 
 we see some manifest blemishes and deformities and 
 evil tendencies, then the evidences of an all-wise con- 
 triver cease to be unmingled. If we find a great 
 portion of calamity and acute anguish and vice in the 
 world, if, as Addison says, "virtuous persons are very) 
 often unfortunate, and vicious persons prosperous, j then 
 so far the evidence of benevolent intention in the Author 
 of the universe is diminished. 
 
 Let us, however, put aside this defect in the argu- 
 ment, and assume, with the advocates for a future 
 state of retribution, that the admission of this state 
 is necessary to the vindication of the moral attributes 
 of the Deity. We see things in the present condition 
 of man often going wrong, and for the sake of con- 
 sistency we are obliged to assert a future state in which 
 compensation will be made for present imperfections. 
 We find the moral character of the Deity less complete 
 and free from impeachment than we could have wished, 
 and we institute the doctrine of a future state as an 
 answer to the objections that otherwise might be made. 
 
 Here, then, we are at once supplied with a rule by 
 which to measure what we shall judge and what we shall 
 aver respecting a future state. All that which, being 
 assumed, would place the moral attributes of God in a 
 fairer point of view, and would show the Governor of the 
 universe more benevolent and more just, is that which 
 we are bound, by x the principles of our hypothesis, to lay 
 down and receive. That the well-intentioned and the 
 
ON .1 STATE OF FUTURE RETRIBUTION. 2Q 
 
 virtuous, who too often spend their days in this world 
 in a state of unmerited suffering, who find their efforts to 
 do good frustrated, and themselves made the objects of 
 contempt and persecution, should obtain a compensation 
 in a future world, is a doctrine highly gratifying to a 
 well-principled mind to embrace. We have often oc- 
 casion to deplore that the most honest and meritorious 
 among the sons of men pass their lives in hopeless 
 poverty, from which they in vain struggle to extricate 
 themselves, perhaps are a prey to lingering disease, 
 perhaps to sharp and long-enduring torments. Even 
 what they suffer from the perverseness of their fellow- 
 men we can scarcely avoid believing that an almighty 
 Providence could have prevented. Men have had 
 " trials and cruel mockings and scourgings, have been 
 stoned and slain with the sword, have wandered about 
 in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, 
 tormented, of whom the world was not worthy." (Heb. 
 
 ii. 36-38.) 
 
 When we admire the beauty and harmony of the 
 universe, the wonderful adaptation of means to ends, 
 the subtle and exquisite structure of the specimens of 
 vegetable nature, the proportions and fitness of parts in 
 animals, and the admirable composition of the human 
 frame, we can scarcely do less than worship and adore 
 the Being who has given birth to these wonders. We 
 praise Him with our whole hearts, and congratulate 
 ourselves, inasmuch as we make a part of so beautiful a 
 
30 ON a STATE OF FUTURE RETRIBUTION. 
 
 system. From all of this kind that we see, we infer the 
 exuberant benevolence of the Author, and we feel the 
 profoundest regret when we are compelled to observe 
 certain phenomena which appear to contradict this 
 inference. 
 
 The path, then, in which we should proceed in our 
 delineation of a future state seems to be plain. We 
 take all that is best and most admirable in the world 
 around us, and shape our idea of things to come in 
 correspondence with it. We desire to indicate the 
 goodness of God, and render His moral character com- 
 plete, and therefore frame our conceptions of the future 
 world so as that " every valley shall be exalted, and 
 every mountain shall be brought low, and the crooked 
 shall be made straight, and the rough places plain." 
 (Isaiah xl. 4.) There is no need for the theory of a future 
 state, except for the purpose of taking away every 
 objection to the Divine benevolence, and rendering His 
 attributes consistent and superior to impeachment. 
 
 It happens however, unfortunately, that many sys- 
 tems of religion, having first adapted the theory of a 
 future state, place the character of the Deity in such a 
 light as, instead of rendering it more amiable, and 
 adapted to excite our most ardent affection, expose 
 it to new difficulties, and render the whole system of 
 governing the world of mankind less consistent with our 
 ideas of perfect benevolence than they were as long as 
 our views were confined to this sublunary condition of 
 
ON A STATE OF FUTURE RETRIBUTION. »' 
 
 existence. From the dictates of mere human reason, 
 what we should have expected would have been that 
 those who had suffered much here below, especially if 
 their dispositions and their acts were conceived to be 
 meritorious, would be recompensed by their being raised 
 to a state of unmingled felicity beyond the grave. 
 Whether the demerits of the wicked would be so atro- 
 cious, in some cases, as to impose on Divine benevo- 
 lence the necessity of raising them from the dead that 
 they might be punished for the " deeds done in the 
 flesh," may be somewhat more doubtful. 
 
 But the Scriptures teach us a different doctrine. 
 They affirm that mankind shall ultimately be divided 
 into two classes, figuratively called " the sheep and the 
 goats," and that in the day of judgment the wicked 
 " shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the 
 righteous into life eternal." (Matt. xxv. 46.) And the 
 distribution of the two classes is not less distinctly 
 marked than their final destination. For we are told 
 that "wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that 
 leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in 
 thereat ;" while, on the other hand, "strait is the gate, 
 and narrow is the way, that leadeth unto life, and few 
 there be that find it." (Matt. vii. 13, 14.) The Apostle 
 Paul concludes " both Jews and Gentiles, that they 
 are all under sin;" and he goes on to say that " they 
 are all gone out of the way ; they are together 
 become unprofitable ; there is none that doeth good. 
 
32 ON A STATE OF FUTURE RETRIBUTION 
 
 no, not one : . . . that every mouth may be stopped, and 
 all the world may become guilty before God" (Rom. 
 iii. 9, ff.) And St. Peter proposes the appalling ques- 
 tion, " If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall 
 the ungodly and the sinner appear ? " (i Peter iv. 18.) 
 Jesus Christ says, " Whosoever shall say to his brother, 
 Thou fool ! shall be in danger of hell fire " (Matt. v. 
 22); and elsewhere, "For every idle word that men shall 
 speak, they shall give an account thereof in the day of 
 judgment." (Matt. xii. $6.) And all prospect of a re- 
 version of this judgment is expressly taken off. Part 
 of the sentence is, " Let him that is filthy be filthy still, 
 and let him that is holy be holy still." (Rev. xxii. II.) 
 And .Christ speaks of hell as the "fire that never shall 
 be quenched ; where their worm dieth not, and the fire 
 is not quenched " (Mark ix. 43, 44) ; and one of his 
 apostles affirms that the "smoke of their torment 
 ascendeth up for ever and ever." (Rev. xiv. 1 1.) 
 
 Now, whatever we ought to think of these awful 
 denunciations in other respects, certain it is they have 
 little tendency to clear up any objections which, from 
 what we see of things in this world, we might think 
 ourselves entitled to urge against the unquestionable- 
 ness of the Divine benevolence. Man is subject on this 
 earth to many calamities, to which, on the hypothesis of 
 a beneficent Creator, we find it difficult to reconcile 
 ourselves. We looked for a God that should "wipe 
 away tears from off all faces" (Isaiah xxv. 8), and a 
 
OX A STATE OF FUTURE RETRIBUTION. 33 
 
 state where there should "be no more death, neither 
 sorrow, nor crying : neither" should " there be any more 
 pain" (Rev. xxi. 4) ; and, instead of this, we are pre- 
 sented with a master, strict to mark, and severe to 
 punish, our most trifling deviations : so that " in His 
 sight shall no man living be justified." (Psalm cxliii. 2.) 
 We hear indeed perpetually of a God, "gracious and 
 long-suffering, .... keeping mercy for thousands, for- 
 giving iniquity and transgression and sin." (Exodus 
 xxxiv. 6, 7.) We read that God " loved us, and He 
 sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." (1 John 
 iv. 10.) But this does not much mend the matter; 
 since no man can come to Christ to partake of his salva- 
 tion unless he is purified from his sins. Unless we be 
 " converted and become as little children, we shall not 
 enter the kingdom of heaven." (Matt, xviii. 3.) We 
 must " be of God, and have overcome the world." 
 "Except we be born again, born of the water and the 
 spirit, we cannot enter the kingdom of God." (John iii. 5.) 
 The true Christian, who alone shall receive the crift of 
 everlasting life, is " not of the world, but Christ has 
 chosen him out of the world." (John xv. 19.) Jesus 
 therefore expressly addresses his chosen as a " little 
 flock," to whom it is his " Father's good pleasure to give 
 the kingdom." (Luke xii. 32.) " The unrighteous shall 
 not inherit the kingdom of God." (r Cor. vi. 9.) The 
 mass of mankind are " those that are without," of whom 
 it is significantly pronounced that " God judgeth." 
 
 D 
 
34 ON A STATE OF FUTURE RETRIBUTION. 
 
 (i Cor. v. 13.) It is therefore sufficiently plain that, 
 in the final division of the "sheep and the goats" at 
 the last day — the latter, which "shall go away into ever- 
 lasting punishment" (Matt. xxv. 46), embraces an infi- 
 nite majority of mankind. 
 
 Now certainly this view of things has but little 
 tendency to clear up the difficulties of the Divine 
 administration, to explain the evils that occur to us in 
 our survey of the world, and to balance the striking 
 inequalities that we find in the fortunes of mankind. 
 
 One of the grossest that present themselves to our 
 observation, is the unequal distribution of the good 
 things of this life, where, particularly in civilized com- 
 munities, a few are born to the inheritance of every 
 accommodation and luxury, while the great majority 
 spend their lives amidst perpetual privations. They are 
 denied the cultivation of the mind, and consigned to 
 unceasing brutality and ignorance. Unremitting labour 
 is their constant lot, and with it they can scarcely 
 purchase the common necessaries of life. Nature, with- 
 out our being able to accuse them of the smallest 
 depravity, prompts them to the propagation of their 
 species ; and too often to them and their offspring 
 existence is a burthen grievous to be borne. While 
 they are in health and strength, it cannot be expected 
 that they can do more than scantily provide for the 
 wants of themselves and their families ; and when sick- 
 ness or any grievous calamity overtakes them, they are 
 
ON A STATE OF FUTURE RETRIBUTION. 35 
 
 no longer capable of this. They can gratify none of 
 those choicer appetites with which nature has furnished 
 the poor no less than the rich. They have nothing that 
 is worth the name of relaxation and holiday. The 
 heavens perpetually frown on them ; while for the rich 
 the sky is gay, and the world is clothed in flowers. 
 God makes indeed " His sun to rise and His rairi to 
 descend " (Matt. v. 45) equally on all ; but men must 
 have leisure, be free from the perpetual demands of 
 labour, and arrive at a period of serenity and calm, 
 before they can truly savour and relish the beauties of 
 nature. To the poor and the wretched the landscape of 
 the earth will always be deprived of its more brilliant 
 colours. They care no more for the scenes that would 
 ravish with delight the eye of a Rubens or a Claude, 
 than the hawk does for the plumage of the bird that is 
 his destined prey. And in like manner the faculties of 
 the mind which are imparted indiscriminately to all 
 classes, and in greater abundance than the supercilious 
 and disdainful are willing to allow, are imparted in a 
 great majority of instances in vain. The capabilities of 
 a subtle understanding, of a profound logic, of a com- 
 prehensive view of all that we see, and all that we are 
 qualified to conceive — the brilliant hues of the imagi- 
 nation, the prismatic power by which we are enabled to 
 dissect its rays, and the faculty by which we can again 
 combine them in endless variety — are destined for ever 
 to remain uncultivated and unexplored. The life of the 
 
36 ON A STATE OF FUTURE RETRIBUTION. 
 
 poor man is little else than one scene of dulness and 
 ignorance, scarcely varied, except when he arrives at 
 epochs of calamity, when the uniformity is temporarily 
 suspended by griefs almost beyond the strength of 
 human nature to endure. 
 
 Jesus Christ, indeed, relates a soothing tale of " a 
 certain rich man, who was clothed in purple and fine 
 linen, and fared sumptuously every day, and a certain 
 beggar named Lazarus, who was laid at his gate and 
 desired to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the 
 rich man's table," and informs us that " it came to pass 
 that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into 
 Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died, and was 
 buried, and in hell lifted up his eyes, being in torments, 
 and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom." 
 (Luke xvi. 19, fT.) 
 
 But it unfortunately happens that it is not every poor 
 man that by his virtues can lay a certain claim to a 
 distinguished place in the world to come. On the 
 contrary, poverty is an unfavourable soil for high moral 
 qualities to spring up and spread their branches to the 
 air. Necessity is too often the parent of crime. Severe 
 want and destitution are apt to relax the bonds which 
 the laws of civil communities, and even the moral prin- 
 ciples of our social existence, imperiously prescribe to a 
 member of the commonweal. The poor man is dis- 
 posed, like the wretch in Shakspeare, when "sharp 
 misery has worn him to the bones," when 
 
ON A STATE OF FUTURE RETRIBUTION. 37 
 
 " The world is not his friend, nor the world's law ; 
 The world affords no law to make him rich ; " 
 
 to determine not to be poor, but to break through the 
 limits by which it is attempted to restrain him. 
 
 And, what is worst, it is the mighty power of circum- 
 stances that compels him to this moral degradation, and 
 renders him deaf to the calls of honesty and benevolence. 
 Many a man, if he had been sheltered from childhood 
 from the bleak winds of adversity, and mild and enliven- 
 ing gales had played on his brow, would have afforded an 
 example of truth and generosity and honour, who now 
 from the stress of temptation has sunk into meanness 
 and lying and robbery and outrage. 
 
 Would it not, therefore, rather have been expected 
 from a system of retribution, and that proposed to itself 
 to repair the irregularities of this transitory state, that 
 he who was placed in an after-condition of existence 
 would by gentle and emollient methods arrive at the 
 healing of those wounds which the hardness of his lot 
 here had inflicted on him ? It is plain that he had not 
 been allowed a fair chance in the scenes of mortal life. 
 No philosopher, no careful observer of the qualities of 
 the human mind, will deny that every man has the seeds 
 of some good in him which favourable circumstances 
 might have ripened into a crop of no contemptible vir- 
 tues. It is the province of an enlightened and humane 
 tutor to watch everything that promises well in his pupil, 
 to check by quiet and unperceived methods the first 
 
3° ON A STATE OF FUTURE RETRIBUTION. 
 
 appearances of ill tendency, and to encourage by every 
 generous attention the tokens of rectitude and honour. 
 This world certainly affords no such school to the majo- 
 rity of its inhabitants. But the life of man " is but a 
 span';'' we "come forth like a flower;" we are " like grass 
 which groweth up : in the morning it flourisheth, and 
 groweth up ; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth." 
 (Psalm xc. 5, 6.) There is surely, therefore, time in the 
 countless ages of eternity to rectify every obliquity. The 
 faults of our nonage may be obliterated, and be as 
 though they had never been. We may well apply in this 
 case the similitude of the prophet Isaiah : " Can a woman 
 forget her sucking child, that she should not have com- 
 passion on the son of her womb ? Yea, they may forget ; 
 yet will not" (Isaiah xlix. 15) the Creator forget the 
 creature He has made. 
 
 And, beside the general evils of poverty and its in- 
 separable attendants, things will often occur to aggravate 
 the mischief, and even to involve in durable misery 
 those whom poverty has spared. Such are oppression, 
 and tyranny, and unjust judgment, and its consequences, 
 torture and an ignominious death. Let us plunge into 
 the depth of dungeons, and observe youth, and patriotism, 
 and talents, and virtue, pining for years in hopeless 
 oblivion. Such are the " thousand natural shocks that 
 flesh is heir to." Such are 
 
 " All maladies 
 
 Of ghastly spasm, or racking torture, qualms 
 
ON A STATE OF FUTURE RETRIBUTION. 39 
 
 Of heart-sick agony, all feverous kinds, 
 Convulsions, epilepsies, fierce catarrhs, 
 Intestine stone and ulcer, colic pangs, 
 Demoniac frenzy, moping melancholy 
 And moonstruck madness, pining atrophy, 
 Marasmus, and wide-wasting pestilence, 
 Dropsies, and asthmas, and joint-racking rheums." 
 
 Many are the persons who through their whole lives 
 have been the victims of these infirmities. Let us 
 recollect the calamities of fire and tempest, of wide- 
 wasting pestilence, and earthquakes that have swallowed 
 up whole cities with their inhabitants. Let us recollect 
 the horrors of war, that last invention of deliberate 
 profligacy for the misery of man. Let us think of the 
 variety of wounds, the multiplication of anguish, the 
 desolation of countries, towns destroyed, harvests flaming, 
 inhabitants by thousands perishing of hunger and cold. 
 
 In reality, the majority of mankind spend the principal 
 portion of their lives in a state, if not of suffering, at least 
 of grievous privations ; and if the expectation of a state 
 of future retribution is justified upon the conception of 
 vindicating and asserting the entire benevolence of the 
 Deity, we ought to believe that all who have suffered 
 considerably in this mortal life shall have their sufferings 
 compensated in the life to come. Nor is it necessary to 
 this end that they should have been eminently virtuous, 
 and in ordinary language " worthy of the kingdom of 
 heaven." On that supposition the persons would be 
 comparatively few that would be benefited by the 
 future retribution. But we must consider that men are 
 
40 ON A STATE OF FUTURE RETRIBUTION. 
 
 for the most part what the circumstances under which 
 they were placed have made them. How many are the 
 persons who could safely aver, " If my lot had cast me 
 in the situation of this frail, erring, or guilty man, I 
 should have come out from the fierce trials he sustained 
 more whole and undamaged than he ?" It would seem, 
 therefore, by no means equitable and right, that he whose 
 lot was unfortunate and severe, should not only suffer the 
 sharp miseries to which his lot exposed him, and sustain 
 the scars and maims that followed upon his character 
 and habits, but beside this should be subjected in a 
 future world to punishment for those errors which, 
 under all the circumstances, it was impossible for him 
 to avoid. 
 
 To judge justly of mankind, and the merits and 
 demerits of the individuals of the human race, we 
 cannot do better than look through the ranks of society 
 as it is at present constituted. And here I will take 
 leave to borrow a page or two from what I wrote and 
 have published for a different purpose.* 
 
 " One of the most obvious views which are presented 
 to us by man in society, is the inofifensiveness and 
 innocence which ordinarily characterize him. 
 
 " Society for the greater part carries on its own 
 organization. Each man pursues his proper occupation ; 
 and there are few individuals that feel the propensity to 
 
 * " Thoughts on Man," Essay vi. London, 1831. 
 
ON A STATE OF FUTURE RETRIBUTION 4 1 
 
 interrupt the pursuits of their neighbours by personal 
 violence. When we observe the quiet manner in which 
 the inhabitants of a great city, and, in the country, the 
 frequenters of the fields, the highroads, and the heaths, 
 pass along, each engrossed by his private contemplations, 
 feeling no disposition to molest the strangers he 
 encounters, but, on the contrary, prepared to afford them 
 every courteous assistance, we cannot in equity do less 
 than admire the innocence of our species, and fancy that, 
 like the patriarchs of old, we have fallen in with ' angels 
 unawares.' 
 
 "There are a few men in every community that are 
 sons of riot and plunder, and for the sake of these the 
 satirical and censorious throw a general slur and aspersion 
 upon the whole species. 
 
 "When we look at human society with kind and 
 complacent survey, we are more than half tempted to 
 imagine that men might subsist very well in clusters and 
 congregated bodies without the coercion of law, and in 
 truth criminal laws were only made to prevent the ill- 
 disposed few from interrupting the regular and inoffensive 
 proceedings of the vast majority." 
 
 Let us divide this spacious earth into equal compart- 
 ments, and see in which violence and in which 
 tranquillity prevails. Let us look through the various 
 ranks and occupations of human society, and endeavour 
 to arrive at a conclusion of a similar sort. The soldier 
 by occupation, and the officer who commands him, 
 
42 ON A STATE OF FUTURE RETRIBUTION. 
 
 would seem when they are employed in their express 
 functions to be men of strife. Kings and ministers of 
 state have in a multitude of instances fallen under this 
 description. 
 
 But these are but a small part of the tenantry of the 
 many-peopled globe. Man lives by the sweat of his 
 brow. The teeming earth is given him, that by his 
 labour he may raise from it the means of his subsistence. 
 Agriculture is, among civilized nations, the first, and 
 certainly the most indispensable of professions. The 
 profession itself is the emblem of peace. All its occu- 
 pations, from seedtime to harvest, are tranquil, and there 
 is nothing which belongs to it that can obviously be 
 applied to rouse the angry passions, and place men in a 
 frame of hostility to each other. Next to the cultivator 
 come the manufacturer, the artificer, the carpenter, the 
 mason, the joiner, the cabinet-maker, — all those numerous 
 classes of persons who are employed in forming garments 
 for us to wear, houses to live in, and movables and 
 instruments for the accommodation of the species. All 
 these persons are of necessity of a peaceable demeanour. 
 So are those who are not employed in producing the 
 conveniences of life, but in conducting the affairs of 
 barter and exchange. Add to these such as are engaged 
 in literature, either in the study of what has already been 
 produced, or in adding to the stock, in science or the 
 liberal arts, in the instructing mankind in religion, and 
 their duties, or in the education of youth. " Civility," 
 
ON A STATE OF FUTURE RETRIBUTION. 43 
 
 ' civil," are indeed terms which express a state of 
 peaceable occupation, in opposition to what is military, 
 and imply a tranquil frame of mind, and the absence of 
 contention, uproar, and violence. It is therefore clear 
 that the majority of mankind are civil, devoted to the 
 arts of peace, and, so far as relates to acts of violence, 
 innocent, and that the sons of rapine constitute the 
 exception to the general character. 
 
 It is through the effect of the necessity of labour that 
 civilized communities become what they are. We all 
 fall into our ranks. Each one is the member of a 
 certain company or squadron. We know our respective 
 places, and are marshalled and disciplined with an 
 exactness scarcely less than that of the individuals of 
 a mighty army. We are therefore little disposed to 
 interrupt the occupations of each other. We are intent 
 upon the peculiar employment to which we have 
 become devoted. We rise up early, and lie down late, 
 and have no leisure to trouble ourselves with the pursuits 
 of others. Hence of necessity it happens in a civilized 
 community that a vast majority of the species are 
 innocent, and have no inclination to molest or interrupt 
 each other's avocations. 
 
 It is, in reality, sufficiently clear, that if the existence 
 of mankind in a future state has relation to their merits 
 and demerits only, it is but a very small part of the 
 human race that can be found worthy of being raised 
 from the dead, either to receive the reward of their good 
 
44 ON A STATE OF FUTURE RETRIBUTION. 
 
 deeds, or to be punished for such as are evil, especially 
 if the retribution, agreeably to, the Christian doctrine, 
 is to consist in being made partakers of the joys of 
 heaven, and admitted to the beatific vision of God, or 
 being cast down into hell. And it would exceedingly 
 lessen the difficulties of the subject, especially as to the 
 future state of the wicked, if we were to suppose a very 
 small number of persons, and those only of enormous 
 offenders, such as Caligula and Nero, and men guilty of 
 atrocious murders and cruelty, to be brought up for 
 judgment. But the Scripture doctrine is especially in 
 contradiction to this. It is said that Christ is "he 
 which was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and 
 dead." (Acts x. 42.) And again, " The hour is coming 
 
 in the which all that are in the graves shall 
 
 hear his voice and come forth ; they that have done 
 good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have 
 done evil unto the resurrection of damnation." (John 
 v. 29.) 
 
 And, as if the writers of the New Testament were 
 sensible that this was a hard saying, they undertake to 
 quiet all murmurs and repining by exclaiming, " Nay 
 but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God ? 
 Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why 
 hast thou made me thus ? Hath not the potter power 
 over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel 
 unto honour, and another unto dishonour ?" (Romans ix. 
 20, 21.) 
 
OX A STATE OF FUTURE RETRIBUTIOX. 45 
 
 And, in a similar manner, Pope, in his Essay on Man, 
 after having spoken of the passive docility of the 
 untutored Indian, proceeds — 
 
 " Go, wiser thou ! and, in thy scale of sense, 
 Weigh thy opinion against Providence ; 
 Call imperfection what thou fancy*st such ; 
 
 Say, here he gives too little, there too much. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod, 
 Re-judge his justice, be the God of God." 
 
 But in this there lurks the well-known logical fallacy 
 of arguing against the use of a thing from the abuse 
 of it. Undoubtedly we ought to be diffident of our 
 judgments. If I stood in the presence of a Bacon, a 
 Solon, or a Socrates, I ought, no doubt, to feel a deep 
 deference for their superior attainments, but not such as 
 altogether to supersede the exercise of my own under- 
 standing. And infinitely more, when I undertake to 
 scan the ways of Providence, and to judge of the 
 dispensations of a Being to whom we ascribe infinite 
 wisdom, I ought to be deeply sensible of the narrowness 
 of my views, the little that I can see, — I ought to 
 recollect how different my judgment would perhaps be if 
 
 " Of this frame the bearing of the ties, 
 The strong connections, nice dependencies, 
 Gradations just," 
 
 my mind was capable of comprehending the whole. 
 But, such as my faculties may happen to be, I have 
 
46 ON A STATE OF FUTURE RETRIBUTION. 
 
 devolved upon me as a rational being the duty and the 
 right of exercising my own understanding upon questions 
 that involve my own interest, and the feelings, the plea- 
 sure or pain, of the other dwellers upon the earth that 
 we inhabit. With infinite deference, with a firm and 
 manly humility, I am entitled to judge of the happiness 
 or misery that falls upon or awaits me. It would be 
 too much to require of the unhappy wretch who is com- 
 pelled to perpetual exile from the realms of bliss, that 
 he should not venture to form an opinion of the sentence 
 he has received. 
 
 In reality, the very terms of justice and equity imply 
 a reference to the powers of the human understanding 
 to decide upon the soundness of their application. We 
 may determine, if we please, that the counsels of the 
 Creator of the world cannot be apprehended by the 
 understanding of man. But then it will follow that it is 
 a mere abuse of terms to ascribe moral qualities to God. 
 We deprive Him at once of the ascription of either 
 benevolence or iniquity in the sense in which we are 
 able to apprehend them. If we cannot impute blame, 
 neither can we attribute praise to what He does. What 
 we hold to be benevolence may for what we know be 
 the very contrary ; or rather the thing is altogether out 
 of our jurisdiction, and we cannot do better than pass 
 no judgment, either of good or ill, upon what we see, or 
 what is imparted to us. 
 
 We will now proceed to the last particular in the 
 
ON A STATE OF FUTURE RETRIBUTION. 47 
 
 doctrine of final retribution, which is the infliction of 
 future punishment. 
 
 Punishment is unquestionably awarded against him 
 who offends, either for his own advantage, or the advan- 
 tage of others. I can conceive no other just reason for 
 its being called into act. 
 
 Punishment, if awarded for the advantage of the 
 offender, is intended either to enlighten his understand- 
 ing, or to impress more emphatically upon his recollection 
 the important truths which his passions have impelled 
 him to overlook. But punishment, the infliction of pain, 
 is not the legitimate and fitting mode of enlightening 
 the understanding. It is in reality the refuge and the 
 confession of the weakness and incompetence of the 
 teacher. If he were capable of clearly instructing the 
 person against whom it is exercised, he would not have 
 recourse to lashes and blows. The schoolmaster becomes 
 impatient, is dissatisfied with himself, and finding he 
 does not make the progress he desired by the most 
 proper and rational modes, proceeds to the application 
 of force. 
 
 But the advantage of the offender is totally out of the 
 question according to the received ideas of a future 
 world. By the doctrine of Christianity, the award 
 pronounced at the day of judgment is final and com- 
 plete, the delinquent is declared incorrigible, and his 
 doom is fixed for ever. 
 
 The next purpose of punishment, according to the 
 
48 ON A STATE OF FUTURE RETRIBUTION. 
 
 deductions of the human understanding, is the advantage 
 of others, or, in the received language of jurisprudence, 
 it is called into action for the sake of example. 
 
 And here, in the first place, the same objection applies 
 as under the former head, — it is the resort of impotence. 
 An almighty and omniscient instructor can surely 
 enlighten the understandings of its subjects by means 
 more appropriate and congenial than the application of 
 what we may call brute force. The exhibition of intel- 
 lectual evidence is the more fitting and noble way of 
 correcting our misconceptions, and not the exhibition of 
 a scene. 
 
 But further we may ask, who is to be benefited by 
 the example of the punishments of a future world ? Not 
 those against whom the award of future judgment has 
 already been pronounced ; for their doom is final, and 
 they are declared incapable of amendment. Not cer- 
 tainly the saints in heaven ; for they are advanced far 
 beyond the applicableness of such gross instruction, and 
 must not be supposed capable of such falling off as 
 has been already exemplified in the damned in hell. 
 And other spectators than these two, are excluded by 
 the very idea of a general resurrection and a future 
 state. 
 
 A sentiment, therefore, has been adopted of ven- 
 geance, and the inexpiable displeasure of God against 
 sin. God is a being of such infinite purity, that He 
 feels the deformity of guilt in a way of which it is 
 
ON A STATE OF FUTURE RETRIBUTION. 49 
 
 impossible for us to form a conception. He has placed 
 us here, it is said, in a state of probation ; and we, 
 having failed of what was justly required of us, are 
 fully exposed to the " wrath to come." It is surely, 
 however, a most repulsive way of demonstrating the 
 purity of God, to make it the source of infinite and 
 endless misery to His creatures. Not to add that many 
 things might be recollected, from the early part of this 
 Essay, which should lead us to doubt whether the state 
 of man on earth is exactly entitled to the name of a 
 state of probation for a future world. 
 
 It is further to be considered that there are two 
 parties concerned in this question of a future judgment 
 — the offended and the offender. And, if God be a 
 being of immaculate purity, yet, as the Psalmist says, 
 " He knoweth our frame ; He remembereth that we are 
 dust ; the wind passeth over it, and we are gone ; and 
 the place thereof shall know it no more." (Psalm ciii. 
 14 — 16.) The great Roman satirist has undertaken 
 to prove that "all men are mad." And, certainly, if 
 we are not mad, we are for the most part fools and 
 imbecile. Let us turn our attention to the dull, the 
 thoughtless, and the ignorant — men whose lives pass 
 away like a dream. It is surely too much to say, that 
 these are worthy of everlasting torments ; or, according 
 to the reading of those who are shocked with the 
 enormity of this doctrine, of a punishment to endure for 
 ages of ages, and then to be succeeded by final annihila- 
 
 E 
 
50 ON A STATE OF FUTURE RETRIBUTION. 
 
 tion. We are worms — creatures that float for a brief 
 period in the element, and then perish ; and can by no 
 possibility appear otherwise in the eye of Him who 
 looks through all things ; who " sees worlds on worlds 
 compose one universe, and observes how system into 
 system runs." It is vanity, and the folly of enormous 
 self-conceit alone, however perverse in its application, that 
 could ever have led us to conclude that our follies and 
 perverseness, putting out of the question the very few 
 that have defiled themselves with vast and inconceivable- 
 guilt, could have merited dreadful and lasting punish- 
 ments in a future world. 
 
 The mind of man is unavoidably led to anticipate the 
 particulars of the Great Day, the outline of which is in a 
 great degree given in the Scriptures. It is styled the 
 *' great and dreadful day of the Lord." (Malachi iv. 5.) 
 We " shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of 
 heaven with power and great glory ; and he shall send his 
 angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall 
 gather together his elect from the four winds, from one 
 end of heaven to the other. . . Of that day and that 
 hour knoweth no rtian, no, not the angels of heaven, 
 but the Father only." (Matt. xxiv. 30, ff.) " Behold he 
 cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him . . . 
 and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him." 
 (Rev. i. 7.) Meanwhile, it is reasonable to consider 
 these matters, as in a certain degree thus expressed, 
 
ON A STATE OF FUTURE RETRIBUTION. 5 I 
 
 in accommodation to our grosser and more imperfect 
 apprehensions. 
 
 It is however more necessary to attend with exactness 
 to what we are told of the essential transactions of that 
 day. St. Paul speaks of it as the " day, when God shall 
 judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ." And again, 
 "Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, 
 who both will bring to light the hidden things of dark- 
 ness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts ; 
 and then shall every man have praise of God."' (i Cor.iv. 5.) 
 And Christ himself says, " that every idle word that men 
 shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day 
 of judgment " (Matt. xii. 36.) Now, if we were to 
 understand this literally, and represent it after the 
 manner of men, the great day would be a day to which 
 it would be scarcely possible to conceive an end. 
 
 We may however bear in mind that " the judge of all 
 the earth " is considered as being endowed with infalli- 
 bility, and that he sees the truth of things in a light 
 clearer than that of the day, and without the possibility 
 of a just ground of exception or appeal. But if we 
 were to carry this notion into its most rigorous conse- 
 quences, we should take away the representation of a 
 day of judgment altogether. " The general assembly 
 and church of the first-born" (Heb. xii. 23), is supposed 
 to be brought together, that all might know, and " con- 
 fess" the justice of the final award. In pursuance of 
 this idea, it will be requisite that the demerits of every 
 
52 ON A STATE OF FUTURE RETRIBUTION. 
 
 man should be made public. And a part of the awful- 
 ness of the day, according to our conceptions, consists 
 in this, that the secrets of all hearts shall be laid open, 
 that "every mouth shall be stopped" (Rom. iii. 19), and 
 that the guilt of all be manifest. It is true that many 
 of the forms of a human court of justice may be dis- 
 pensed with, and that all obscurity and apprehension of 
 error may be supposed to be out of the question. At 
 first, indeed, we might be somewhat revolted at the 
 absoluteness, the omnipotence, and perhaps we may add 
 the summariness of the decree ; but all this is greatly 
 mitigated by the heartfelt conviction of him against 
 whom the sentence is awarded, and the entire con- 
 sciousness of the whole assembly, that due consideration 
 has been had and proclaimed of all the circumstances 
 upon which the decision depended. And yet, on the 
 other hand, this scarcely seems compatible with the 
 grand division of " the sheep and the goats," and the 
 canon that " all that are in their graves shall hear his 
 voice and come forth, they that have done good unto 
 the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil 
 unto the resurrection of damnation." (John vi. 29.) 
 In reality, the practicability of such a judgment must 
 appear to our conceptions to be utterly impossible, full 
 of confusion, and the most palpable incompatibilities. 
 Meanwhile, there is certainly very little need of a nice 
 discrimination, if, as we are told, there are but two 
 fates reserved for all mankind. Cases have been 
 
OW A STATE OF FUTURE RETRIBUTION. 53 
 
 recorded, where a great number of persons accused 
 have been given in charge to one jury, to be disposed 
 of by one sweeping verdict. But what is this compared 
 with what is announced to us of the judgment of the 
 last day! It was thus in the creed of the ancient 
 heathen. And the same is continued with still greater 
 emphasis in the code of the Christian faith. When the 
 joys of heaven and the pains of hell come to be de- 
 scribed, it is plain that " there is a great gulf fixed 
 between " them. (Luke xvi. 26.) And it is thus that 
 Jesus Christ says, " It is profitable for thee that one of 
 thy members should perish, and not that thy whole 
 body should be cast into hell." (Matt. v. 29.) And 
 finally he sums up his account of the last judgment, 
 " When the Son of Man shall come in his glory, and 
 all nations shall be gathered before him," by saying 
 that all men "shall be set on his right hand and on 
 his left, and that he shall say to them on his right 
 hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the 
 kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the 
 world ; but to them on the left, Depart from me, ye 
 cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and 
 his angels." (Matt. xxv. 31, ff.) 
 
 To render the state of the condemned still more 
 horrible, brimstone is added to fire, it being supposed 
 to enhance the sufferings of those already consigned 
 to devouring flames. Thus in the book of the Revela- 
 tion it is written, " The fearful, and unbelieving, and 
 
54 ON A STATE OF FUTURE RETRIBUTION. 
 
 abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and 
 sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars shall have their 
 part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone." 
 (Rev. xxi. 8.) And again : " If any man worship the 
 beast and his image, and receive his mark in his fore- 
 head, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine 
 of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mix- 
 ture into the cup of His indignation ; and he shall be 
 tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the 
 holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb ; and the 
 smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever." 
 (Rev. xiv. 9, io.) And farther on : " And the devil that 
 deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brim- 
 stone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and 
 shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever." 
 (Rev. xx. io.) 
 
ESSAY II. 
 
 ON THE PRESENT LIFE OF MAN CONSIDERED AS A 
 STATE OF PROBATION FOR A FUTURE WORLD. 
 
ESSAY II. 
 
 On the Present Life of Man Considered as a State 
 of Probation for a Future World. 
 
 THE idea of our present existence being a state of 
 probation, is an inevitable corollary from the notion 
 of a future world being a state of retribution. If man 
 is to be raised from the dead, that " every one may 
 receive the things done in his body, according to that 
 he hath done, whether it be good or bad " (2 Cor. v. 10), 
 it follows that God placed us in this world, in the way 
 of trial, to ascertain by our deeds here what sort of 
 censure or reward we might be entitled to hereafter. 
 
 A further notion inseparable from that of this world 
 being a state of probation, is that the lot of every man 
 will after death be made final, and that, pursuant to his 
 demeanour in this sublunary state, his condition for 
 happiness or otherwise, will be fixed to all eternity. 
 The life of man is of various dimensions: some live one 
 hundred, some ninety, down to twenty, ten, and five 
 years- I do not know that any one has pretended to 
 
5 8 ON THE PRESENT LIFE OF MAN 
 
 ascertain at how early an age a human being must be 
 cut off by death in order to exempt him from being 
 made amenable to the judgment of the last day. 
 
 Now at first sight it would appear unequal, and in so 
 far unjust, to subject a trial of such very different degrees 
 of length to the same result. In human affairs, when a 
 man is put to the test for the purpose of determining 
 in what manner he shall be remunerated, promoted, or 
 the contrary, it is most usual to appoint a specific period 
 of probation, according to his behaviour, in which his 
 subsequent treatment shall be determined. 
 
 In reality, the longest life would seem an insufficient 
 period in which to decide the condition of a sensitive 
 and reasoning creature for all the ages of eternity. 
 The old poet sings, "The longest life is a summer's 
 day." Narrow as is our insight into the truth of 
 things as they must be seen by the eye of God, it is 
 most usual to pronounce that man upon earth " fleeth 
 as a shadow, and continueth not." (Job xiv. 2.) To a 
 schoolboy, the days of his pupilage appear as if they 
 would last for ever, and that by themselves they con- 
 stituted a life. But as he advances to forty, fifty, and 
 fourscore years, they seem perpetually to vanish in the 
 distance ; and it is but now and then, as accident presents 
 itself, that they are recollected. What must it be, then, 
 to him that lives centuries upon centuries ? They must 
 be felt like a dream, which was never substantial and 
 solid. It would be a most flimsy and inadequate com- 
 
CONSIDERED AS A STATE OE PR OB A T/O.Y. $9 
 
 parison if \vc were to suppose a youth introduced into 
 the walls of a college, or place of restraint, and accord- 
 ingly as he acquitted himself the first day, to be treated 
 and disposed of from that time to the period of de- 
 crepitude. 
 
 God, who undoubtedly " calleth those things which be 
 not, as though they were " (Rom. iv. 17), and must be 
 supposed to be endowed with the power attributed by 
 Shakspeare to his witches, of "looking into the seeds 
 of time, and saying which grain will grow and which will 
 not," cannot be conceived to stand in need of a period of 
 probation to enable him to ascertain among human beings 
 which is fitted to partake of the enjoyments of the 
 heavenly state, and which is disqualified and worthy 
 of perpetual exile. I know not therefore precisely for 
 what end a state of probation is assigned us, whether 
 for the sake of the spectators that shall be present at 
 the last day, or for the conviction of the mind of the 
 individual who is brought to his trial, that every mouth 
 may be stopped, and each be fully impressed with a 
 sense of the justice of the sentence that is passed upon 
 him. 
 
 This idea of a state of probation implies the passing 
 in review the actions by which the history of a man has 
 been characterised during his course through this mortal 
 stage of existence. But here we are bound to consider 
 the various fortunes to which we are indebted for the 
 good or the evil which has marked our progress through 
 
60 ON THE PRESENT LIFE OF MAN 
 
 life. Many a man has passed his days creditably and 
 in honour, merely because he was never brought to the 
 fiery ordeal of temptation. His life has been unspotted, 
 for it has proceeded for ever in shelter from the wither- 
 ing beams of an all-penetrating heat. He has held an 
 even tenor of existence, blessed for ever with moderate 
 warmth and refreshing breezes. Life is in reality like a 
 voyage at sea : the weather may be perpetually calm 
 and serene, or it may be marked with tempests and hur- 
 ricanes which scarcely any power is competent to resist. 
 Let the same man, with the very same original 
 qualities, be exposed to all the force of temptation, and 
 what will be the result ? Let the temptation be of all 
 the delicacies that can pamper the appetite, of the most 
 delicious wines, of all under the name of love and 
 beauty that can most intoxicate the sense, or touch 
 the most susceptible feelings of the heart. Let luxury 
 invite with all its splendours, or that most captivates 
 our admiration and our taste ; or let power and sway 
 present themselves with whatever can fascinate our 
 ambition. How rarely is the man to be met with 
 who will not find his integrity and singleness of heart 
 grievously shaken, or utterly giving way under one or 
 other of these ? 
 
 Marmontel has entitled one of his moral Tales, 
 Heureusement (in the English translation, " By Good 
 Luck "), in which he undertakes to exhibit a lady, who 
 is again and again upon the point of forfeiting her 
 
COXSIDERED AS A STATE OE PKOBATIOX. 6 1 
 
 character for chastity, but by the merest accident in 
 the world preserving it in the most imminent crisis of 
 her danger. And the same thing may occur in the 
 case of every temptation incident to a human creature 
 of either sex. And yet how is the man that has 
 fortuitously been saved from a condition of great moral 
 peril more worthy than he who, as we phrase it, has 
 been "deserted of his better angel," entrapped in the 
 snare that was prepared for him ? 
 
 God, it may be said, knows the thoughts of a man, 
 and will judge him accordingly. "Whosoever looketh 
 on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery 
 with her already in his heart." (Matt v. 28.) But this 
 is not all. It is the first step in the career of vice that 
 often determines a man's character for ever. He that 
 is yet a stranger to the smallest degree of turpitude, 
 stands on the brink, and hesitates and blushes. But 
 when he has plunged in, too often he is lost for ever. 
 He goes on from bad to worse ; he becomes familiar 
 with profligacy, perhaps with blood. He grows hard- 
 ened and laughs at his former self, that he should have 
 boggled at what now appears to him so neutral and so 
 trifling. Shakespeare has exhibited this in the most 
 masterly way in his tragedy of Macbeth. Macbeth is 
 "full of the milk of human kindness." He is " not with- 
 out ambition, but without the illness should attend it." 
 He had " bought golden opinions from all sorts of 
 people, which would be worn now in their newest gloss." 
 
62 ON THE PRESENT LIFE OF MAN 
 
 But presently he becomes a murderer under circum- 
 stances of the greatest aggravation. He finds himself 
 "in blood stepped in so far ... . returning were as 
 tedious as go o'er ; " and decides, 
 
 " But let the frame of things disjoint, both the worlds suffer, 
 Ere we will eat our meal in fear, and sleep 
 In the affliction of these terrible dreams, 
 That shake us nightly." 
 
 Now let us suppose a man tempted even as Macbeth 
 was tempted ; but he resists the first suggestion of 
 evil : or, it may be, fortuitous circumstances, entirely 
 independent of himself, call away his thoughts from the 
 pernicious train that had at first whispered him. He 
 has the same good and honourable dispositions that 
 Macbeth originally had ; the series of his fortunes aids 
 these dispositions ; and he passes a life as exemplary 
 and illustrious, as that of Macbeth was branded for 
 suspicion, remorselessness, and cruelty. It is impossible 
 to conceive these two persons falling under the same 
 sentence in a future world. It is therefore not true 
 that we can be judged by an equitable judge hereafter 
 by our thoughts only. 
 
 No maxim can be more common, at the same time 
 that no maxim can be more irrefragable, than that man 
 is to a great degree the creature of the circumstances in 
 which he is placed. It ought, therefore, in a certain 
 sense, to be the circumstances, and not the man, that 
 should be called up into judgment. 
 
CONSIDERED AS A STATE OF PROBATION. <\3 
 
 A question that is entitled to mature consideration 
 under this head, arises out of the opposite theories 
 respecting human action, either of free will, or of moral 
 necessity. If the doctrine of necessity be true, so that 
 no man under the same circumstances can act otherwise 
 than he does act, this would seem to free us from all 
 accountableness or absolute demerit, whatever may be 
 the history of our lives or the progress of our actions. 
 It is thus that the necessarian reasons in his closet. No 
 sooner, however, does he come into active life, and the 
 intercourse of his fellow-men, than all these fine-drawn 
 speculations vanish from his recollection. He regards 
 himself and other men as beings endowed with liberty 
 of action, as possessed of a proper initiative power, and 
 free to do a thing or not to do it, without being subject 
 to the absolute and irresistible constraint of motives. 
 It is from this internal and indefeasible sense of liberty 
 that we draw all our moral energies and enthusiasm, 
 that we persevere heroically, in defiance of obstacles and 
 discouragements, that we praise and blame the actions 
 of others, and admire the elevated virtues of the best of 
 our contemporaries, and of those whose achievements 
 adorn the page of history. 
 
 Let us then omit these abstruser speculations, and 
 regard only those views of the state of man which are 
 free from all manner of dispute. 
 
 In the first place, it cannot be denied that we come 
 into the world with tempers and dispositions exceedingly 
 
64 ON THE PRESENT LIFE OF MAN 
 
 different from each other. Some men seem born to love, 
 and others to hate. Some men are of a gay and com- 
 placent nature, viewing all things under the most agree- 
 able aspect ; and others see everything in black, and 
 seem to have a curtain or film before their eyes, by 
 means of which they view everything distorted, turning 
 all the persons around them into so many demons, 
 odious to the eye, and noxious and baleful in their 
 propensities. Some are of an equable and kindly 
 temper, whom scarcely anything can deprive of their 
 self-command ; and others are of a violent and furious 
 constitution, whom hardly anything can preserve from 
 frightful excesses. It must surely be unjust to dispose 
 of the fates of these men to all eternity for happiness 
 or misery, in consequence of dispositions they inherited 
 before they first drew vital air on the surface of the 
 earth. 
 
 From the force of natural disposition let us proceed 
 to consider the power of circumstances to render a man 
 such as he is, and no otherwise. 
 
 The temptations which this world holds forth, in a 
 great degree consist of riches and poverty — of luxury 
 and indulgence on the one hand, and of severe priva- 
 tions and want on the other. It has been disputed 
 whether prosperity or adversity administer the sharpest 
 ordeal to human virtue. It is certain that the middle 
 course is safest, where a man shall have a moderate 
 supply of the good things of this life, without greatly 
 
CONSIDERED AS A STATE OE PROBATION. 65 
 
 taxing his industry to procure them. Meanwhile, ease 
 itself is not without its disadvantages. We require a 
 strong stimulus either of circumstances or ambition, or 
 else we shall never have awakened in us half the energies 
 and half the virtue of which we are capable. Man is 
 for the most part of an indolent disposition. The seeds 
 of good require to be tended and manured, and to have 
 often a fresh supply of soil and water, or we shall have 
 at last a starved and sterile crop. 
 
 The prayer of Agur in the Bible is dictated ,by a 
 sound knowledge of the human mind : " Give me neither 
 poverty nor riches, feed me with food convenient for me, 
 lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the Lord ? 
 or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my 
 God in vain." (Prov. xxx. 8, 9.) 
 
 In the torrid zone of luxury and temptation, where is 
 the man that shall remain unscathed ? The assaults of 
 luxury emasculate the mind, unstring the nerves, and 
 render us incapable of a strenuous resistance. Where 
 they present themselves in force, not one man in ten 
 thousand will come off unshorn of his purity and honour. 
 Who is there that is proof against the allurements of 
 power and flattery, and the tide of a perpetual pros- 
 perity ? Shall he not forget himself, and be hurried 
 along with the torrent ? It scarcely matters how inno- 
 cent, how honest, how firm of soul the man originally 
 was : the soil shall be loosened under him, and he shall 
 be carried away as with a crush of the elements. 
 
 F 
 
 fi 
 
66 ON THE PRESENT LIFE OF MAN 
 
 On the other hand, the temptations of poverty are 
 perhaps still more hardly to be overcome. The mind 
 shall be originally stored with good resolutions, and the 
 education of the child may have been decidedly virtuous. 
 But the unavoidable demands of our nature will scarcely 
 be baffled. Hunger and nakedness, when they come in 
 their most terrific form, will in a manner compel a man 
 to steal, and, however piously trained, to murmur against 
 the dispensations of Providence. When a man has once 
 thoroughly felt the sharp bitings of want, and has looked 
 out upon despair, will he be always proof against the 
 impulse to lie, to fawn, to play the hypocrite, to wander 
 into forbidden paths, and, like Esau, to sell his heavenly 
 birthright for a morsel of meat ? He has, it may be, 
 persisted long in a good course, but has reaped no fruit 
 from his abstinence. The world still frowns upon him, 
 and no perseverance in what is right in any degree 
 diminishes the rigour of his fate. At length in despera- 
 tion he gives up the struggle, and becomes convinced 
 that virtue is no longer the care of Providence, and that 
 justice is banished from the earth. In bitterness of soul 
 he deserts the standard of integrity, and. resolves to 
 provide for himself, by whatever means, a less rigorous 
 fate. 
 
 Thus it is that in a vast majority of cases circumstances 
 make the man good or ill, as they shall decide. Is it 
 just, then, that men should be punished hereafter because 
 their lot in life was unfavourable to their moral character, 
 
CONSIDERED AS A STATE OF PROBATION. fy 
 
 while others, purely inasmuch as their fortune was pro- 
 pitious here, shall be crowned with the favour of God 
 and the joys of heaven to all eternity ? The lot of a 
 great proportion of human creatures is miserable here, 
 and, purely because of the fierce pressure of their misery, 
 they become vicious. What equity can we discern in 
 their being made for ever miserable hereafter, because it 
 was their fate to be miserable in this transitory state ? 
 
 Jn the courts of human policy here below, let us grant 
 that it may be necessary to punish men, without nicely 
 adverting to the irresistibleness of their temptations, 
 or the unfavourableness of the circumstances that in a 
 manner necessitated their fall. In many of the punish- 
 ments awarded in this sublunary state, reformation of 
 the offender may be one of the objects taken into view, 
 and the presumed necessity in some cases to punish him 
 for the sake of example to others, may seem to justify 
 the harsh treatment he receives. But, as appeared in 
 the preceding Essay, neither of these considerations 
 applies to the end of the world and the day of judgment. 
 There can be no reformation, for the sentence is final ; 
 and there can be no use in example, for the saints in 
 heaven are infinitely above its influence, and the damned 
 in hell can reap no benefit from it. It seems, therefore, 
 to rest on no basis but the idea of vengeance. 
 
 One of the soundest principles of human law on the 
 subject of crimes and punishments, is that law should in 
 as rare instances as possible interfere with the discretion 
 
68 ON THE PRESENT LIFE OF MAN 
 
 of individuals. Laws should be as few as they can 
 practicably be made, forbidding nothing, the indulgence 
 of which would not, beyond question, be injurious to the 
 common weal. The right of private judgment in every- 
 thing beyond this should be sacred. The independence 
 of every man in all things, except where prohibition is 
 required for the general safety, is indispensably necessary 
 for the improvement of a rational nature. We are bound 
 by our duty as citizens to conform to all good laws ; and 
 having taken care of this, it is the pride and the con- 
 fidence of an honest nature that bids us say, All else is 
 intrusted to my discretion, to be decided on in the full 
 liberty of the reflections and deductions of my own 
 mind. 
 
 Now let us see how all this stands upon the received 
 doctrine of a state of probation. Here a man is made 
 the veriest slave that can possibly be imagined. The law 
 is about our paths and about our beds. By day or by 
 night, in light or in darkness, an all-seeing eye pursues 
 us. " Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit ? or whither 
 shall I flee from Thy presence ? If I ascend up into 
 heaven, Thou art there : if I make my bed in hell, behold 
 Thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, 
 and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there 
 shall Thy hand lead me. If I say, Surely the dark- 
 ness shall cover me, the night shineth as the day ; the 
 darkness and the light are both alike to Thee." 
 (Ps. cxxxix. 7, ff.) And what is the result ? " For 
 
CONSIDERED AS A STATE OF PROBATION. 69 
 
 every idle word " we shall be called to account. If 
 thoughtlessly I " say to my brother, Thou fool, I shall 
 be in danger." And my very "looks " shall be scanned. 
 " All this," we might think, " might be in a merciful 
 spirit:" God would not be strict to mark, or severe to 
 punish. But how says the Scripture ? All mankind 
 will be divided that day into two bodies ; and all shall 
 hear the sentence, " Come, ye blessed," or " Depart, ye 
 cursed." (Matt. xxv. 30, ft.) 
 
 Man, then, by this doctrine, is in the completest state 
 of slavery that can be imagined ; and all the ills that 
 grow out of slavery are copiously entailed upon us. It 
 would so break our spirit, that it would be next to 
 impossible that we should exist under it ; but that, 
 fortunately, amidst the busy scenes and the various 
 excitements of this world, amidst the intoxication of 
 luxury to the rich, and the perpetual calls for labour 
 and industry to the bulk of mankind, the recollection of 
 the rod of iron under whose sway we conceive ourselves 
 to be placed, fades from our thoughts, and that, as was 
 said before, we do not truly believe the creed which with jj 
 our lips we profess. But, in spite of this facility, which 
 could alone render life endurable, the effect of these 
 dogmas upon our conduct and system of existence is 
 truly surprising. We are taught to think that we live 
 beneath the perpetual vigilance of an inexorable Judge. 
 Under mortal tyrants mankind have passed their days 
 in a constant terror of spies and informers. They dared 
 
70 ON THE PRESENT LIFE OF MAN 
 
 not utter their thoughts before a stranger, lest they should 
 be reported, and so made subject to the most fatal con- 
 sequences. Nay, to so great a height has the alarm 
 sometimes attained, that they dared not speak their 
 sentiments to their most seemingly confidential friend, 
 lest that friend might prove false, and betray them. 
 
 It is reported by the ancients of Dionysius, the tyrant, 
 that he caused a cavern in a rock to be so constructed 
 as to have an exact resemblance to the form of the 
 human ear. The words uttered by any one at the 
 bottom of this dungeon were distinctly conveyed to an 
 aperture in the roof, and the tyrant sat in a secret 
 chamber, where he could hear all that was said by the 
 unfortunate prisoners below. To this dungeon he caused 
 to be committed all those of whom he entertained a 
 suspicion. He then betook himself to his solitary re- 
 treat, and listened ; and, according to the tenor of the 
 conversation he overheard, he acquitted or condemned 
 the persons whom he had previously apprehended. This 
 contrivance obtained the appellation of "Dionysius's 
 ear." 
 
 Solomon has expressed this idea in a manner pecu- 
 liarly impressive : " Curse not the king, no, not in thy 
 thought ; and curse not the rich in thy bed-chamber : 
 for a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which 
 
 hath wings shall tell the matter." (Eccles. x. 20.) 
 
 ■ 
 
 But, according to the Christian doctrine, we are sub- 
 ject to an inspection still more fearful than this. When 
 
CONSIDERED AS A STA TE OF PROBA T/OAT. 7 1 
 
 Solomon said, " Curse not the king ; no, not in thy 
 thought," he was conscious that he was guilty of exag- 
 geration. As long as a man offends in thought only, he 
 is safe from all the spies and surveillance that human 
 ingenuity can invent. But it is not so with omniscience. 
 "God knoweth the secrets of the heart." (Ps. xliv. 21.) 
 u He that planted the ear, shall he not hear ? He that 
 formed the eye, shall he not see ?" (Ps. xciv. 9.) 
 
 In reality, the declaration of this unlimited inspection 
 compensates in a great degree in its effects for the 
 doubtful credence, nay, almost for the unbelief, with 
 which- the declaration is received. Few are the unbe- 
 lievers so staunch that will not say, " After all, may not 
 this be true ? And then, Am I not playing a dangerous 
 game, if I act as if I were secure of impunity ?" " The 
 Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name 
 in vain." (Exodus xx. 7.) We dare not trust ourselves 
 with our own thoughts. u The devils also," we are told, 
 "believe and tremble." (James ii. 19.) Pitiable as is 
 their state, they dread lest it should be made worse. 
 " Who art thou, O man, that repliest against God ? " 
 (Rom. ix. 20.) " Man is but a worm, and the son of 
 man is a worm." (Job xxv. 6.) u It is a fearful thing to 
 fall into the hands of the living God." (Heb. x. 31.) 
 "Who shall dwell with everlasting burnings?" (Isaiah 
 xxxiii. 14.) 
 
 In consequence of this state of things, the majority 
 of men in a Christian country dare not trust themselves 
 
7 2 ON THE PRESENT LIFE OF MAN 
 
 with their own understandings. They do not exactly 
 believe. But seeing the professed creed of their ances- 
 tors for many generations, remembering the lessons and 
 the prayers they were taught to repeat before their lips 
 could clearly articulate the sounds, seeing the thousands 
 of churches that have been built, the vast establishments 
 that have been settled, the numerous train of clergy that 
 have been spread over the earth, they think it a safer 
 course to submit themselves in silence to the religion of 
 their birth. 
 
 It has sufficiently appeared that, in the plain and 
 unequivocal language of the Christian Scriptures, all 
 men are born to be eternally happy or miserable ; that if 
 the happiness of the righteous will be unspeakably great, 
 so also will be the misery of the rest of the species, and 
 that the partakers of heavenly joys will be a little flock, 
 while the exiles, those who are destined to be everlasting 
 monuments of the Divine wrath, will be, with compara- 
 tively very few exceptions, the whole race of mankind. 
 Let us add to this, that " for every idle word that men 
 shall speak, they must give an account," that even their 
 " looks M shall be brought forward as witnesses against 
 them, and that the " secrets of all hearts shall be laid 
 open at the last day," while, except the especial favour- 
 ites of the Judge, there is but one sentence against all 
 that remain. To say all, then, in a word, since it must 
 finally be told, The God of the Christians is a 
 tyrant. 
 
CONSIDERED AS A STATE OF PROBATION. 72, 
 
 And yet this creed has been delivered from age to 
 age, and outwardly embraced by the bulk of mankind 
 in this western world. In the dark ages, when the art 
 of reading and writing were scarcely known, and so 
 many nations were the victims of popery, priestcraft, and 
 superstition, it reigned unquestioned and uncontrolled. 
 But Science has been gradually advancing upon Europe 
 almost from the days of Charlemagne. Writing and 
 reading are become in a manner universal. Logic has 
 acquired an astonishing subtlety and exactness. Natu- 
 ral knowledge has made a perpetual progress. Arts of 
 every kind have been eternally improving. The philo- 
 sophy of the human mind has been profoundly studied. 
 Political liberty and freedom of enquiry have been con- 
 tinually spreading. The genius of man has displayed 
 itself in the most extraordinary flights. And yet 
 Christianity has stood its ground. Sir Thomas More, 
 and Bacon, and Locke, and Newton were Christians; 
 and, as Hume has well observed, the two latter proved 
 their sincerity by avowing their adherence to a small 
 and unpopular sect of Christians. In other countries 
 we find the fact the same. The most extraordinary 
 powers of intellect appear to have done little to eman- 
 cipate their possessors from the yoke. 
 
 To the catalogue of believers we must unquestionably 
 add Milton. With the most transcendent powers of 
 intellect, and with a courage no human force could 
 subdue, he devoted his mind in its highest vigour, and 
 
74 ON THE PRESENT LIFE OF MAN, ETC. 
 
 made it his principal and proudest work to construct an 
 epic, the express purpose of which is to 
 
 " justify the ways of God to men ;" 
 
 and in this epic he has embodied all the most obnoxious 
 propositions above enumerated, together with the ex- 
 travagant tale of the first man and woman eating an 
 apple, and by that means forfeiting the Divine favour 
 for all their posterity. 
 
 The consequence of these representations respecting 
 the decrees of God and the final destination of mankind, 
 has been to paralyse the human understanding, and to 
 restrain u< even in thought, from enquiring into the 
 principles of justice in the most important questions to 
 which they can by possibility be applied. We therefore 
 blindly and passively applaud that from which our 
 intellectural nature shrinks with horror ; and the more 
 tremendous are the threatenings denounced, the more 
 we join in, and repeat for ever, the most lavish praises 
 of this^ God, whose " tender mercies," it is said, " are 
 over all His works." (Psalm cxlv. 9.) 
 
ESSAY III. 
 
 ON CONTRITION. 
 
ESSAY III. 
 On Contrition. 
 
 'T^HE main preparation of the seed-plot of virtue 
 -*- consists in self-respect. 
 
 It becomes us to be conscious of what we are, and 
 what we are capable of being made. 
 
 Jesus Christ has admirably illustrated this, when he 
 said, " Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to 
 come unto me ; for of such is the kingdom of heaven." 
 (Matthew xix. 14.) Oh, if all the discourses of Christ 
 and his apostles had been like this, how little should we 
 find to reprove in the Christian religion ! 
 
 No one, in an honest and pure frame of mind, can 
 look upon a little child without a certain degree of 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 Here, in the first place, we have presented to us 
 innocence, unsuspecting, confiding innocence. How 
 great is the capacity for good existing in a little child ! 
 Here are no tendencies to evil. He wants only to be 
 led by the hand, to be placed under a sage and right- 
 
78 ON CONTRITION. 
 
 minded preceptor, who should watch over the first un- 
 foldings of mind, the first intimations of attention, and 
 action, and enquiry, and to be led into the good way, 
 that he may walk therein, and find rest for his soul. 
 He needs only this, that he may become emphatically 
 the ornament of the universe of God. " Of such is " 
 indeed, or ought to be, " the kingdom of heaven." 
 
 But how different is this from the orthodox doctrine, 
 the doctrine which receives too much countenance from 
 the Scriptures respecting the nature of man ! " Behold, 
 I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother 
 conceive me." (Psalm v. 5.) "As by one man sin entered 
 into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed 
 upon all men, for that all have sinned." (Romans v. 
 12.) Adam, according to this doctrine, was placed in 
 Paradise ; but he ate of the forbidden fruit, and forfeited 
 the favour of heaven for all his posterity. I have, 
 accordingly, seen parents, who sought in their children 
 for the indications of original sin, and from their earliest 
 infancy found in them marks of perverseness, betokening 
 that they were individuals of the fallen race, the 
 " children of wrath." What a man looks for, if he is 
 already furnished with a preconceived hypothesis, he is 
 very likely to discover. He observes tokens of wilful- 
 ness, and obstinacy, and impatience, and from these 
 concludes that his child, if not austerely checked and 
 corrected, is the predestined inheritor of hell. He 
 believes that, when he grows up to manhood and age, 
 
ON CQNTRITION. 79 
 
 he will become the fit subject of everlasting torments. 
 He does not consider that his child, while an infant, has 
 noway of indicating what grieves him but by turbulence 
 and cries. He does not reflect that all this may easily 
 be set right by mildness, by method, by a rational and 
 sober system of proceeding and kindness, without an 
 atom of violence, or even of reproof. He believes that 
 these phenomena are the fruits of the fall of Adam. He 
 infers with the apostle, " They are all gone out of the 
 way ; they are together become unprofitable. . . . 
 There is none that doeth good, no, not one. That 
 every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may 
 become guilty before God." (Romans iii. 12, ff.) Christ 
 had indeed forgotten his lesson, when he " called a 
 little child, and set him in the midst, and said to his 
 disciples, Except ye become as little children, ye shall 
 not enter into the kingdom of heaven." 
 
 How wretchedly in the meantime is this perverted, 
 when we are told by John, the last of the evangelists, 
 " Except a man be born again, he cannot see the king- 
 dom of God ! Except a man be born of water and the 
 Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." 
 (John iii. 2, 5.) And again by the apostle, "The first 
 man Adam was made a living soul ; the last Adam was 
 made a quickening spirit. As is the earthy, such are 
 they also that are earthy ; and as is the heavenly, such 
 are they also that are heavenly." (1 Cor. xv. 48.) "Ye 
 have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put 
 
8o ON CONTRITION. 
 
 on the new man." (Col. iii. 9.) "The natural man 
 receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God." (1 Cor. 
 ii. 14.) By all this plainly implying, that man, as he is 
 born into the world, is a degenerate and fallen creature, 
 and that he must be renewed, and formed afresh after 
 another model, before he can be found worthy of the 
 approbation of his Creator. 
 
 One of the first precepts of the Golden Verses of 
 Pythagoras is ata^vveo aavrbv, " Reverence thyself." 
 One of the most memorable sayings of Juvenal, the 
 Roman satirist, is Maxima debetur pueris reverentia. If 
 thou art intrusted with forming the mind and manners of 
 a child, consider what a sacred charge is reposed in thy 
 hands. Approach to the task with awe, and with a deep 
 sense of the deposit that is committed to thee. Accord- 
 ing to some, he is an heir of immortality ; and as thou 
 dischargest thy trust, he will be happy, the elect of the 
 Creator of heaven and earth, for ever. But laying apart 
 that notion, we may do well to recollect the various and 
 astonishing powers of intellect that may be displayed in 
 this child, the repository which his bosom may contain 
 of high and generous sentiments, and the important part 
 he may be called on to play on the theatre of the 
 world. He will probably have devolved upon him as 
 he grows up the various "charities of father, son, and 
 brother," all the duties that result from the domestic ties 
 of husband and master. His engagements will go 
 further than this : he will be a neighbour and a friend. 
 
ON CONTRITION. 8 I 
 
 He will be a member of some community, and will be 
 called upon in a greater or less degree to discharge his 
 duties, and promote the welfare of the society to which 
 he belongs. He will be called on in his turn to form the \ ^ 
 minds of others, perhaps to act the part of a citizen 
 and a patriot, perhaps to meditate, and contribute an 
 important share to the general improvement, perhaps to 
 enlighten the understandings, to advance the knowledge, 
 and to animate the social feelings and virtues of his 
 contemporaries, and through them, of succeeding gene- 
 rations. No task can be more sacred than that of 
 education. 
 
 He is innocent. Oh, protect him from all conta- 
 mination, and the approach of impurity! Instil into 
 him the noblest sentiments. Teach him to " love his 
 neighbour as himself." Be careful that all his occupa- 
 tions and his studies may be such as shall be best fitting 
 to be a blessing to his fellow-creatures. Teach him to 
 think highly of the powers that are confided to him, 
 and the part he will be called on to perform. 
 
 If reverence, as the poet emphatically expresses it, is 
 due to a child, how much more is it due to a man ! 
 Self-respect is one of the first duties of a human creature, I 
 and the fit habit of him who would honourably discharge 
 the offices of life. A man should fully impress upon 
 himself the importance of the place he is called upon 
 to fill in society. The first thing required of him is 
 sincerity, that he should have an open front and an 
 
 G 
 
82 ON CONTRITION. 
 
 undaunted heart, and that benevolence and philanthropy 
 should mould every lineament of his face, that he should 
 carry his heart in his hand and upon his lips, that we 
 should fearlessly speak the truth each man to his neigh- 
 bour, and be vigilant in well-doing. He must be like 
 the ermine, of which it is fabled that, if it contracts a 
 stain, it pines away and dies. He must be pure, blame- 
 less in thought, disdaining, and, in a manner, incapable 
 )_ of, and inaccessible to, moral pollution. He must be 
 of an upright and a lofty spirit. In this manner, the 
 apostle in one place exhorts us to " possess our vessel 
 in sanctification and honour" (i Thess. iv. 4); though of 
 how different a character is the general strain of the 
 Scriptures ! 
 
 This is well expressed by Addison, when, speaking of 
 Marcia, in the tragedy of Cato, he says, 
 
 "But still the lovely maid improves her charms, 
 With inward greatness, unaffected wisdom, 
 And sanctity of manners." 
 
 " Inward greatness" is repose, no tumult, a conscious 
 serenity ; and, as we find it expressed in the book of 
 Proverbs, " a good man shall be satisfied from himself." 
 
 " Unaffected wisdom " happily conveys to us the idea 
 of sound moral excellence, where there is no presump- 
 tion, nothing inflated, but all is pure and deep, nothing 
 given with vehement and undue emphasis, but everything 
 clear, in a certain sense unimpassioned, and yet with 
 
av COXTRITION. 83 
 
 full articulation, and a tone that marks entire conviction 
 and invariable resolution. 
 
 " Sanctity of manners." This I find admirably dilated 
 by an able writer, but in a fugitive publication. " Serious, 
 from deep thought, but untouched with the slightest 
 severity ; majestic, from a constant communion with high 
 thoughts and majestic images, but altogether removed 
 from the mock majesty of station and state." 
 
 How different are the sanctity of a stoic, and that of a 
 modern saint! The latter is well described by Clarendon 
 in his account of the siege of Gloucester in 1643, when 
 he says, " Within less than the two hours prescribed by 
 the King for the answer of the townsmen, returned, with 
 the trumpeter, two citizens, with lean, pale, sharp and 
 bad visages ; indeed, faces so strange and unusual, and 
 such in garb and demeanour, that at once made the most 
 severe countenances merry, and the most cheerful hearts 
 sad. The men, without any circumstances of duty and 
 good manners, in a pert, shrill, undismayed accent, said 
 as follows." 
 
 All meanness of soul is especially discordant with the 
 frame of spirit that is most in alliance with virtue. There 
 should be a certain elevation in a good man that might 
 lead him to shake off, as the dust, all that would soil the 
 unquestionableness of his purity. He should appear 
 " in shining garments," as the angels are represented by 
 the evangelist. He should maintain the spotless clean- 
 ness of his soul, even as he received it at the moment of 
 
84 ON CONTRITION. 
 
 his birth. | He should indulge a decent pride, such as 
 
 ' may best preserve him from the contagion of folly and 
 
 f vice. Above all, he should avoid everything that is 
 
 allied to grossness and sensuality, everything that tends 
 
 L to coarseness, brutality, and profligacy. He should have 
 
 a springiness of nature, pointing him to the skies. 
 
 "Descent to him is adverse;" and he feels that it is 
 
 only by " compulsion and laborious flight" that he can 
 
 be immerged in dishonour. 
 
 At the same time, his temper is no less remote from 
 effrontery and arrogance than it is from what is^abject, 
 grovelling, and base. He is characterised with a certain 
 simplicity of spirit, to which it seems as if, in doing all, 
 he did nothing. He acts as if he could not refrain from 
 being virtuous, and is astonished when he finds what it 
 was merely natural for him to do loudly extolled. He 
 assumes no air of greatness, but holds the even tenor 
 of his way almost without effort. Everything that is 
 good is congenial to his habits of thinking and acting. 
 He loves his fellow-creatures, and is ever ready to serve 
 and assist them. His heart beats with benevolent affec- 
 tion. He " vaunts not, and is not puffed up." " He 
 thinks of himself no more highly than he ought to think, 
 but thinks soberly." He does not wear his virtue like a 
 strange garment, but finds it fitting him easily ; he wears 
 it unconsciously and with grace. 
 
 The good man is a man of clear apprehension, and 
 calculates exactly what he ought to think, and what he 
 
OX CONTRITION. 85 
 
 ought to do. He is self-balanced, and scarcely anything 
 can break in upon the serenity of his soul, and the clear- 
 ness of his mental vision. He is full of courage and 
 hope, and goes on his way rejoicing. He is characterised 
 for the most part by self-complacency and self-appro- 
 bation. As virtue is the polestar of his voyage through 
 life, so he in a great measure reaps the reward of virtue, 
 while he is practising it, and improving himself in the 
 habits that lead towards its perfection. 
 
 Yet, with all this, he is impressed with reverence and 
 awe when he contemplates the universe of nature. He 
 feels how little and how weak is man compared with 
 the wonders that everywhere surround him. He is con- 
 scious that there is a mysterious power at work on all 
 sides of him, in the contemplation of which he is pene- 
 trated with a chastened humility. Whether he looks up 
 to the heavens, or abroad on the surface of the earth, its 
 mountains and its valleys, or observes the boundless 
 varieties of its vegetation and its fruits, or traces the 
 wonderful structure of the bodies of men and animals, 
 he rejoices that he is the inhabitant of such a world, the 
 member of such a congregation of variegated health and 
 beauty. He reposes a certain confidence in the unseen 
 hand that sustains the whole. He is glad that there is 
 something greater than himself, in the presence of which 
 he feels his soul penetrated with a sacred awe. At the 
 same time, he knows that the ''judgments" of this mys- 
 terious power are "unsearchable," and his ways past 
 
86 ON CONTRITION. 
 
 finding out" (Rom. xi. 33), and therefore he does not 
 presume to penetrate into the secrets of what is some- 
 times called its Providence, or imagine that it will interest 
 itself in his favour, or in any degree supersede the neces- 
 sity of his vigilant and strenuous efforts. 
 
 But very different from what is here recited is the 
 morality of the Scriptures. The first lesson of a sound 
 philosophy is self-reverence. The first lesson of the 
 Scriptures is self-abasement. "What is man that he 
 should be clean ? and he which is born of a woman, that 
 he should be righteous ? Behold, he putteth no trust in 
 his saints ; yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight. 
 How much more abominable and filthy is man, which 
 drinketh iniquity like water?" (Job xv. 14—16.) "The 
 Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart, and 
 saveth such as be of a contrite spirit." (Psalm xxxiv. 18.) 
 "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and 
 a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." (Psalm 
 li. 17.) "For thus saith the high and lofty One that 
 inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy : I dwell in the 
 high and holy place ; with him also that is of a contrite 
 and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, 
 and to revive the heart of the contrite ones." (Isaiah lvii. 
 15.) "Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the 
 kingdom of heaven." (Matt. v. 3.) " Have mercy upon 
 me, O God, according to thy loving-kindness : according 
 unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my 
 transgressions. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, 
 
ON CONTRITION. 87 
 
 and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my trans- 
 gressions ; and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, 
 thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight : 
 that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and 
 be clear when thou judgest. Behold I was shapen in 
 iniquity." (Psalm li. 1 — 5.) 
 
 Now all this proceeds upon a false position. Sup- 
 posing the mysterious power, the plastic nature, to which 
 the universe is indebted for all that is admirable that we 
 see around us, to have any affinity to the nature of man, 
 to have the properties of judgment and will, which, to 
 say the least of it, is very improbable, then it will readily 
 be admitted that it has all moral qualities and attributes 
 in an inconceivably higher degree than man can ever 
 attain to, and that we are but as the dust in his sight : 
 and it may be well for us, upon certain occasions of 
 sacred contemplation, that we should recollect this. But 
 this is not the proper business of man. We are con- 
 cerned only with the properties and faculties of our 
 nature. If we discharge well the offices which the 
 system of the world has devolved upon us, we have 
 reason to be contented. It will not be of advantage to 
 us, that we should judge contemptuously of the sphere 
 in which we are placed ; but, on the contrary, we ought 
 to consider our functions as of weight, and, however they 
 might appear as insignificant in the eyes of an intellec- 
 tual being infinitely exalted above us, that their fitting 
 discharge is our sacred duty, and that, so far as we act 
 
88 ON CONTRITION. 
 
 well our part, we ought to be satisfied, and feel self- 
 approved and self-acquitted. 
 
 The Bible tells us, " Against thee, thee only, have we 
 sinned." (Ps. li. 4.) But this is not true. God, on tfie suppo- 
 sition that He sees us, cannot be benefited by our virtues, 
 nor in any degree be made worse by our delinquency. 
 Our proper concern is with our fellow-creatures and 
 ourselves. The measure both of our good and our ill 
 deeds depends upon the consideration of how much 
 good they do, and how much evil they inflict upon 
 beings within the sphere of their influence. It is not the 
 unlimited perfection of God, but the limited range of 
 our own capacity, that should decide upon the merits 
 or demerits of what we do. 
 
 An irrational opinion has been entertained that God 
 is to be gratified by the humiliation of His creatures. 
 But this is in entire opposition to what we find in the 
 best specimens of human intercourse, and in the con- 
 ception we have most reason to entertain of the com- 
 munication (so far as we can apprehend any propriety 
 in that term) of man with his Creator. A generous and 
 exalted being would be best pleased that his dependant 
 should commune with him as a man communes with his 
 friend. It is thus we are told that the " Lord spake 
 unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his 
 friend." (Exodus xxxiii. II.) It is thus that God is 
 described as " walking " with man " in the garden " of 
 Eden " in the cool of the day." (Genesis iii. 8.) It is 
 
ON CONTRITION. 
 
 8 9 
 
 thus that we read of Enoch, that he " walked with God, 
 and he was not, for God took him." (Genesis v. 24.) 
 
 A human protector, as we have just said, if he is of a 
 generous nature, will be far from being gratified by a 
 servile and fawning demeanour in his inferior, by abject 
 flattery, and an attitude as of one that licked the dust. 
 Our addresses to our Creator, if we must imagine some- 
 thing so incomprehensible and remote from all reference 
 and relation, should still retain the characteristics of a 
 being vested with rights as well as duties. He who 
 made us what we are, by so doing contracted an 
 engagement with us, and, though it may be presump- 
 tuous in us to attempt to draw the line, and define in 
 what manner it may be discharged, yet certainly he 
 owes his creature justice ; and if the merits of the 
 creature be humble, they will not, to him to whom they 
 belong, be without their importance. 
 
 But to resume for a moment the diversified phrase- 
 ology in which the Scripture delights to paint the 
 vileness of our human nature. We are bid to "hide 
 ourselves in the dust for fear of the Lord, and for the 
 glory of His majesty." (Isaiah ii. 10.) The most offen- 
 sive similitudes are not spared, the better to enforce 
 this. We are told that " we are all as an unclean thing, 
 and that our righteousnesses are as filthy rags" (Isaiah 
 lxiv. 6) ; that " from the sole of the foot even unto the 
 head there is no soundness " in us, " but wounds and 
 bruises and putrifying sores, they have not been closed, 
 
9° ON CONTRITION. 
 
 neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment." 
 (Isaiah i. 6.) We should "put our mouths in the dust, 
 if so be there may be hope, and give our cheeks to him 
 that smiteth them." (Lam. iii. 29, 30.) 
 
 All this, as has already been said, is built on the 
 doctrine of the fall of man. Adam broke the first 
 command, and forfeited the Divine favour for himself 
 and his posterity. Sentence of death was passed 
 upon all. "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat 
 bread, till thou return unto the ground." (Genesis iii. 
 19.) "And God saw that the wickedness of man was 
 great in the earth, and that every imagination of the 
 thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." 
 (Genesis vi. 5.) "As by one man sin entered into the, 
 world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all 
 mien, for that all have sinned." (Rom. v. 12.) " There 
 is none that doeth good, no, not one." (Psalm xiv. 3.) 
 The doctrine of regeneration expressly goes to this. 
 We must "put off the old man, with his deeds, and put 
 on the new man." (Col. iii. 9, 10.) It is thus that Christ 
 says to his apostles, "Ye which have followed me, in 
 the regeneration, when the Son of Man shall sit on the 
 throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, 
 judging the twelve tribes of Israel." (Matt. xix. 28.) 
 
 It is therefore in strict conformity with the Scripture 
 that the Liturgy of the Church of England puts this 
 prayer indiscriminately into the mouths of all worship- 
 pers, — "Almighty and most merciful Father, we have 
 
ON CONTRITION 9* 
 
 erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep : we 
 have followed too much the devices and desires of our 
 own hearts : we have offended against thy holy law.- : 
 we have left undone those things which we ought to 
 have done, and wc have done those things which we 
 ought not to have done ; and there is no health [purity, 
 goodness, principle of salvation — Johnson] in us. But 
 thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders. 
 Spare thou them, O God, which confess their faults; 
 restore thou them that are penitent." 
 
 And it is well known that the Liturgy of the Church 
 of England is framed with comparatively few alterations 
 upon the offices of the Roman Catholic Church, which 
 are understood to have received their present form under 
 Pope Gregory the Great in the sixth century. 
 
 In both I find expressly the exclamations, "Lord, have 
 mercy upon us ; Christ, have mercy upon us; Lord, have 
 mercy upon us : " which have more the air of petitions 
 addressed to an inexorable tyrant, extorted by the last 
 agonies of despair, and seemingly intended by clamour 
 to overpower the obduracy of the being addressed, than 
 the sober and heartfelt emotion of a man who knows 
 that he has recourse to a being of reason and benignity, 
 who, though of an unspeakably exalted sphere, is 
 yet invoked by one who has also his rights, and who 
 is, it may be, of exemplary integrity and unspotted 
 conscience. 
 
 And what, after all, is the true meaning of this term, 
 
9 2 ON CONTRITION. 
 
 mercy ? The governor of the universe, if he calls all his 
 creatures into judgment, will find in the real merits of 
 the individual who comes before him a reason pointing 
 out the precise treatment to which he is in equity 
 entitled. In courts of human administration the rule 
 is plain ; that decision on each individual case is most 
 fit, which shall conduce to the greatest utility of the 
 whole mass of beings that may be influenced by the 
 decision and the treatment of each case which occurs. 
 
 In the spirit of exaggeration with which the Scriptures 
 are written, some have been scandalised by St. Paul's 
 adding, where he says, " Christ Jesus came into the 
 world to save sinners, — of whom I am the chief." 
 (i Tim. i. 15.) Elsewhere he justly remarks, "Last of 
 all, Christ was seen of me also, as of one born out of 
 due time ; for I am the least of the apostles ; . . . . but 
 by the grace of God I am what I am ; and his grace 
 which was bestowed upon me was not in vain, but I 
 laboured more abundantly than they all." (1 Cor. xv. 
 8 — 10.) Some have supposed that he adopted this 
 humility in compunction, as recollecting that, previously 
 to his conversion, he had persecuted the followers of 
 Christ even to the death. But it is more likely that 
 he did it in obedience to the precept of his master, 
 who said, " Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be 
 abased ; and he that shall humble himself shall be 
 exalted" (Matt, xxiii. 12); and "many that are first shall 
 be last, and the last shall be first." (Matt. xix. 30.) 
 
ON CONTRITION. 93 
 
 David in his Psalms delights in the extravagance of 
 his abasement. " I am weary with my groaning ; all 
 the night make I my bed to swim ; I water my couch 
 with my tears." (Psalm vi. 6.) And again, " When I 
 kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring 
 all the day long." (Psalm xxxii. 3.) How far this may 
 be supposed gratifying, and to purchase the favour of 
 the Almighty and all-perfect Creator of the universe, 
 every one of course must judge according to his pre- 
 conceived ideas of infinite wisdom and justice. 
 
 The prayers of those who separate themselves from 
 the Church of England are framed upon the same 
 model. As the Scriptures teach us to humble ourselves 
 in the dust, to clothe ourselves in sackcloth, and to 
 scatter ashes on our heads, so those whose practice it 
 is to pour forth unpremeditated prayers are ambitious 
 in the employment of images of the like disparaging 
 nature. I have heard of a divine who in his public 
 devotions indulged in the following tirade : " O Lord, 
 do thou bless thy dust," meaning himself, "and thy 
 dust's dust," his wife, "and the dust of thy dust's dust," 
 their children, "and all thy dust now before thee," the 
 whole congregation. I well remember in early life 
 hearing again and again pronounced on the like occasion, 
 " Lord, we put our hands on our mouths, and our 
 mouths in the dust, and cry out, Guilty, guilty, Unclean, 
 unclean." 
 
ESSAY IV. 
 
 ON 7 HE DEATH OF JESUS CONSIDERED AS AN 
 A TONEMENT FOR SIN. 
 
ESSAY IV. 
 
 On the Death of Jesus considered as an Atone?nent 
 
 for Sin. 
 
 TTROM the doctrines of Christianity in relation to 
 -*■ a future state, and to the feelings we ought to 
 entertain as to our moral condition, we will proceed to 
 consider what may in a certain sense be regarded as the 
 great mystery of our religion, the atonement offered for 
 the sins of man to his Creator and final judge. 
 
 We have already seen that, according to the Scriptures, 
 man was originally placed in Paradise, in a sinless 
 state, and destined, as it should seem, to a condition of 
 immortal happiness on earth. But the first man, by the 
 breach of the great command of his Creator, forfeited 
 these advantages for himself and his posterity. He 
 was immediately driven out of Eden, and the whole 
 human race were condemned to earn their bread by the 
 sweat of their brow, in a greatly deteriorated condition 
 of the earth, and, after a joyless state of existence here, 
 in no great length of time, finally to be extinguished, 
 
 H 
 
9 8 ON THE DEATH OF JESUS 
 
 every one that was born into the world, by the stroke of 
 death. In all this, so far as relates to our present 
 existence, we have the whole to a great degree confirmed 
 to us by actual experience, and therefore have the less 
 anxiety as to the solution offered us, how it came to be 
 thus. 
 
 But man, the species, according to the Scriptures, 
 inherited not misfortune only, but depravity also, from 
 his first progenitor. " As by one man sin entered into 
 the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon 
 all men, for that all have sinned." (Rom. v. 12.) The 
 consequence of this is expressed by the Psalmist, 
 " Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my 
 mother conceive me." (Psalm li. 5.) "What is man," 
 says Eliphaz in the book of Job, "that he should be 
 clean, and he which is born of a woman, that he should be 
 righteous ? Behold he putteth no trust in his saints ; 
 yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight. How much 
 more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh 
 iniquity like water?" (Job xv. 14 — 16.) And again the 
 Psalmist, "The Lord looked down from heaven upon 
 the children of men, to see if there were any that did 
 understand and seek God. They are all gone aside ; 
 they are all together become filthy ; there is none that 
 doeth good, no, not one." (Psalm xiv. 2, 3.) 
 
 The doctrine of regeneration, as taught by Christ, 
 is strictly in conformity to this. " Except a man be 
 born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." (John 
 
CONSIDERED AS AN A TOXEMIC. XT FOR S/.V. 99 
 
 iii. 3.) "Ye which have followed me in the regeneration, 
 when the Son of Man shall sit in the throne of his 
 glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the 
 twelve tribes of Israel." (Matt. xix. 28.) 
 
 The apostle, therefore, speaking of the whole heathen 
 world, says, " God gave them over to a reprobate mind, 
 . . . being filled with all unrighteousness." (Rom. i. 
 28, 29.) Till at length, "when the fulness of the time 
 was come, God sent forth His son." (Gal. iv. 4.) And 
 Jesus, speaking by parables, says, "There was a certain 
 householder, which planted a vineyard ; . . . and when 
 the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants 
 to the husbandmen that they might receive the fruits 
 of it. And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat 
 one, and killed another, and stoned another. But, last 
 of all, he sent unto them his son, saying, They will 
 reverence my son." (Matt. xxi. 33, ff.) 
 
 And accordingly we read that when Jesus was now 
 about thirty years of age, "came John the Baptist, 
 preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and saying, Repent 
 ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." (Matt. iii. 
 1, 2.) And, in the process of his discourse, he said, 
 " I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance ; but 
 he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes 
 I am not worthy to bear." . . . Then cometh Jesus 
 from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of 
 him ; . . . and when he went up . . . out of the water, 
 lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the 
 
1 00 ON THE DEA TH OF JES US 
 
 Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon 
 him. And, lo, a voice from heaven, saying, This is 
 my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased." (Matt, 
 iii. ii, ff.) 
 
 What it was precisely that Jesus intended when he 
 came forward in his ministry, we can best collect from 
 the language he held, and the conduct he observed. 
 He says of himself, " I and my Father are one." (John 
 x. 30.) And shortly after, " My Father is greater than 
 I." (John xiv. 28.) Prophesying, it would seem, of the 
 day of judgment, one of the evangelists makes him 
 say, " Of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, 
 not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but 
 the Father." (Mark xiii. 32.) He is repeatedly called 
 Son of God ; and when he cast out devils, they cried 
 out to him, "What have we to do with thee, Jesus, 
 thou Son of God ? Art thou come hither to torment us 
 before the time ?" (Matt. ix. 29.) He is also styled by 
 the evangelist John emphatically, "the only-begotten 
 of the Father." (John i. 14.) An appellation besides 
 that he affected, was " Son of Man," particularly when 
 he is speaking of the day of judgment. Thus he says, 
 " The tribes of the earth shall mourn ; and they shall 
 see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with 
 power and great glory; and he shall send his angels 
 with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather 
 together his elect from the four winds, from one end of 
 heaven to the other." (Matt. xxiv. 30, 31.) This he 
 
CONSIDERED AS AN A TONE ME XI EOR SIN. 'lOJ 
 
 affirms repeatedly. And, when he is arraigned before 
 the high priest, he says, " Hereafter shall ye see the 
 Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and 
 coming in the clouds of heaven." (Matt. xxvi. 64.) 
 
 It docs not, however, appear that he aimed at any- 
 thing more than preaching repentance, and warning his 
 countrymen of a day of great affliction, which was 
 nearly approaching. The Jews had prophecies, as they 
 thought, of a Messiah, a great King, of the race of 
 David, who was to arise among them, to enable them 
 to shake off the yoke of imperial Rome, and to lead 
 them in a glorious series of continual conquests, so that 
 the lustre and prosperity of their second temple should 
 infinitely exceed that of the temple built by Solomon. 
 Jesus so far conformed to this prophecy, as to seem 
 to be particularly anxious to establish his lineage as 
 directly descended from the stock of David. 
 
 What was the nature of Jesus's miracles it is difficult 
 to pronounce, except that we know that the age and 
 country in which he lived was in a great degree favour- 
 able to such exhibitions. He says to the Pharisees, 
 " If I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your 
 children cast them out?" (Luke xi. 19.) And Simon 
 Magus, shortly after the death of Christ, performed, 
 according to the most ancient fathers, more wonderful 
 feats than any that are related of the Saviour. Jesus, 
 however, appears to have been placed in this respect 
 in a situation of considerable difficulty. If he had 
 
I 02 ON THE BE A TH OF JESUS 
 
 pretended to no miracles, it may be doubted, under 
 the circumstances in which he stood, whether he 
 would have excited any general attention and attach- 
 ment ; and, exhibiting them, there was danger, under 
 the expectation that then existed of the Messiah, that, 
 as the evangelist expresses it, the multitude " would 
 come and take him by force to make him a great 
 king." (John vi. 15.) It is not easy to say with pre- 
 cision what were Jesus's views on the subject. But, 
 if he were ambitious, he must nevertheless have seen 
 with the smallest forecast, that nothing could be more 
 unpropitious to such purposes than to have had them 
 precipitated by the sudden explosion of an inconsiderate 
 multitude. He therefore, as the evangelist goes on to 
 say, immediately " departed into a mountain himself 
 alone." (John vi. 15.) And in another instance, having 
 by a touch healed a person " full of leprosy," he 
 " charged him to tell no man," but to go and shew 
 himself to the high priest, and make an offering as 
 Moses commanded ; and then again " withdrew into the 
 wilderness." (Luke v. 14.) 
 
 In the whole of his ministry, he appears to have 
 exhibited the utmost simplicity of living ; and we are 
 told that when " a certain scribe came, and said to him, 
 Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest," 
 Jesus, to bring him to the test, or by way of fair 
 warning, replied to him, "The foxes have holes, 
 and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son 
 
CONSIDERED AS AN ATONEMENT EOR SIN. IOJ 
 
 of Alan has not where to lay his head." (Matt. viii. 
 19, 20.) 
 
 Once, indeed, towards the end of his career, and when 
 he appears to have foreseen that he was arrived at the 
 crisis of his fate, he departed from his ordinary cautious- 
 ness, and, in a kind of exaltation of spirit, allowed him- 
 self to make a sort of triumphal entry into the metropolis 
 of his country. He " sent two disciples, saying unto 
 them, Go into the village over against you, and straight- 
 way ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her ; loose 
 
 them and bring them unto me And the disciples 
 
 went and did as Jesus commanded them, and brought 
 the ass and the colt, and put on them their clothes, and 
 they set him thereon. And a very great multitude 
 spread their garments in the way ; others cut down 
 branches from the trees, and strawed them in the way. 
 And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, 
 cried, saying, Hosanna to the son of David ; Blessed 
 is he that cometh in the name of the Lord ; Hosanna 
 in the highest." (Matt. xxi. 1, fl.) It is not indeed 
 unnatural to suppose that Jesus had some fluctuation 
 in his mind, and that there were times when his thoughts 
 inclined to the sentiments entertained by great numbers 
 of his countrymen, to wit, that, being the Messiah, as no 
 doubt he believed himself to be, he should probably 
 prove a great and prosperous prince upon earth. 
 
 His mind, however, seemed for the most part to have 
 inclined in another direction. He uttered various pro- 
 
104 ON THE DEA TH OF JESUS 
 
 phecies of the destruction of Jerusalem, and of the end 
 of the world — events which he appears to have regarded 
 as coincident. Then he says, "They shall see the Son 
 of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and 
 great glory, and he shall send his angels with a great 
 sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his 
 elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to 
 the other." To which declaration he invariably adds, 
 " This generation shall not pass, till all these things be 
 fulfilled." (Matt. xxiv. 30, ff.) And elsewhere he says, 
 " There be some standing here which shall not taste of 
 death, till they see the Son of Man coming in his king- 
 dom." (Matt. xvi. 28.) He, however, lays down rules to 
 his disciples, how they should behave themselves amidst 
 the awful events which were to precede the closing scene, 
 in a manner which implies that he would not then be 
 present among them. His idea probably was that, like 
 Enoch and Elijah, he would be taken up to heaven 
 without dying, and would then, after a short interval, 
 return to "judge the quick and the dead." He was so 
 fully impressed with this notion, that we are told, even 
 when he was arraigned before the high priest, a day or 
 two prior to his crucifixion, that he answered in the 
 affirmative to the question of this magistrate, whether 
 he was the Christ the Son of God, and added, " Here- 
 after shall ye see the Son of Man, sitting on the right 
 hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven." 
 Upon which " the high priest rent his clothes, saying, He 
 
CONSIDERED AS AN ATONEMENT FOR SIN. 105 
 
 hath spoken blasphemy ; what further need have \vc of 
 witnesses ?" (Matt. xxvi. 64, 65.) If Jesus then expected 
 in so short a time, before the generation he addressed 
 had passed away, to see the final consummation of this 
 sublunary scene, it is not to be supposed that his 
 thoughts turned with any earnestness to the splendours 
 of temporal grandeur. 
 
 But when the event, probably little anticipated by 
 him, took place, of his dying on the Cross, his apostles 
 began to look back upon his career in a very different 
 temper of mind. They were led to consider his death 
 as a part of the original plan of the Father for the Son, 
 and of consequence to regard it as the grand completion 
 of his mission on earth. 
 
 This reflection led them, by an obvious association of 
 ideas, to think of the sacrifices which, both according to 
 the religion of the Jews, and that of perhaps eveiy deno- 
 mination of Pagans, constituted an essential branch of 
 divine worship. In ruder and more uncivilised times, 
 the worship of superior beings, to whose bounty we were 
 supposed to be indebted for the fruits of the earth and 
 for all our blessings, seemed to require a more substantial 
 sort of acknowledgment than the merely reciting certain 
 words of praise and prayer. In thanking the Gods for 
 the bounties bestowed on us, what could be more na- 
 tural than to offer them as an oblation the first-fruits of 
 our harvests and of our flocks ? This idea of sacrifice 
 as an acknowledgment for the blessings we receive 
 
106 ON THE DEATH OF JESUS 
 
 inevitably in a manner brought along with it another 
 species of sacrifice, intended as an expiation for any 
 offences or crimes of which we might be guilty, either 
 against the laws of morality, or the presumed will of the 
 Gods. In this latter species of sacrifice there was implied 
 a sort of substitution of the thing sacrificed for the real 
 offender. Thus, if the offender deserved death for his 
 breach of the laws of God, the animal sacrificed was put 
 to death, and thus expiated to the divine being for the 
 offence committed, and was accepted in his stead. 
 
 " Christ crucified," as the apostle says, was " to the 
 Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness." 
 (i Cor. i. 23.) It is scarcely possible to conceive a more 
 unpromising beginning to a religion which was to subdue 
 the nations of the earth, than that its author, after a very 
 short career, should suffer, by the sentence of the magis- 
 trate, the capital punishment of a malefactor, and the 
 ignominious death of the Cross. But the authors of the 
 New Testament found out the way to make of him, 
 " Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God." 
 (Heb. v. 24.) He had, during his lifetime, represented 
 himself as the "only-begotten Son of God " (John iii. 16), 
 affirmed, in a mysterious way, "the Father is greater 
 than I " (John xiv. 28), and predicted his own second 
 coming on earth. What could be more natural than from 
 these premises to infer that his death was the proper 
 consummation of his divine mission ? They recollected 
 the sacrifices for sin under the old law; and having 
 
< < kvsidered as an a tonement for sin. 107 
 
 previously concluded that we partook of a fallen nature, 
 and had need to be regenerated and born again before 
 we could see the kingdom of God, they pronounced this 
 mysterious being, the " Son " of the Creator of heaven 
 and earth, to be the great sacrifice for the sins of the 
 world. " God so loved the world that He gave his only- 
 begotten Son" for us. (John iii. 16.) He " bare our sins 
 in his own body on the tree" (1 Peter ii. 24) ; and "by 
 his stripes we are healed." (lb.) He is the " propitiation 
 for our sins" (1 John ii. 2) ; and "we have redemption 
 through his blood." (Eph. i. 17.) The mysteriousness of 
 this doctrine was, in fact, its great recommendation. 
 Ignorant man requires mystery, something irreconcil- 
 able to simple understanding, and that confounds our 
 reasoning faculties, to accord with his ideas of religion. 
 
 And certainly, as the apostle says, "Great is the 
 mystery of godliness." (i Tim. iii. 16.) If something 
 which confounds the human understanding is necessary 
 to a perfect religion, here undoubtedly we have enough 
 to satisfy the most inordinate appetite. Sin is a thing of 
 so tremendous a nature as to have merited for the whole 
 human race the pains of hell for everlasting. Not, indeed, 
 if we consider the nature of man, who is frail and insig- 
 nificant ; but as we consider the nature of God, who 
 "chargeth His angels with folly" (Job iv. 18), and "the 
 heavens are not clean in His sight." (Job xv. 15.) He is 
 "of purer eyes than to behold evil" (Hab. i. 13), and 
 sin is therefore to be considered, not as the comparatively 
 
108 ON THE DEATH OF JESUS 
 
 trivial offence of an insignificant creature, but as com- 
 mitted against a being endowed with infinite perfection. 
 God is therefore so just that He cannot pardon our faults, 
 and at the same time so merciful and beneficent, that He 
 is in the highest degree disposed to forgive them. "He 
 who might the advantage best have took, found out the 
 remedy." He substituted this mysterious being, His 
 " only-begotten son," for sinful mankind. He " laid upon 
 him the iniquity of us all." (Isaiah liii. 6.) He could not 
 remit the transgressions of the world, without at the same 
 time setting forth a memorable record of the demerits of 
 sin. He took a most immaculate and meritorious person, 
 and heaped upon him the greatest ignominy, and the 
 most unspeakable sufferings, that He might testify how 
 irreconcilable to His nature were our manifold offences. 
 By an inconceivable sort of arithmetic, the transitory 
 sufferings of this mighty being were deemed an equiva- 
 lent for the everlasting damnation of all that should be 
 saved by him. And yet, if he were God, equal with the 
 Father, a notion most in agreement with the idea of his 
 death constituting a satisfaction for the sins of as many 
 as believed on him, yet as he was God, he could not 
 suffer, and as he was man, it can scarcely be imagined 
 that his sufferings could have this great and inexhaustible 
 virtue. 
 
 And, after all, how great a juggle is this doctrine of 
 atonement, and how unworthy a scene does it exhibit 
 " in the presence of men and angels ! " God could not 
 
CONSIDER I'D AS AN ATONEMENT FOR SIX. IO9 
 
 rationally, by emptying "the vials of His wrath " upon a 
 most innocent person, manifest His displeasure towards 
 the guilty. This change of the parties — directing His 
 vengeance against the being most worthy of His favour, 
 and becoming reconciled to the genuine offenders, is the 
 farthest in the world from indicating His purity and His 
 justice. 
 
ESSAY V. 
 
 ON PROVIDENCE. 
 
ESSAY V. 
 On Providence. 
 
 THE Christian religion is especially based upon the 
 idea of a God, who, having first created the visible 
 universe out of nothing, and then having determined 
 to conduct its revolutions and phenomena^ according 
 to fixed laws, occasionally interrupts the operation of 
 these laws, first, by miracles designed to confirm the 
 revelation of His will to mankind, and secondly, by 
 particular providences, the purpose of which is in some 
 cases to confound and punish the notoriously guilty* 
 and in others to demonstrate His protection and care 
 to those who are specially the objects of His approbation. 
 Thus He is said to have caused the sun to "stand still 
 upon Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Ajalon " 
 (Joshua x. 12), for the space of a whole day, that Joshua 
 might take ample vengeance upon the Amorites, who 
 had marched in hostile array against the children of 
 Israel. Thus He sent Moses with seven miraculous 
 plagues to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, that He might be 
 
 I 
 
114 ON PRO VIDENCE. 
 
 induced to let the Jews go and settle in the promised 
 land. Thus he drowned Pharaoh and His host in the 
 Red Sea. Thus He gave to Moses in person the two 
 tables of the Law, " written with the finger of God " 
 (Exodus xxxi. 1 8), upon Mount Sinai. And thus He 
 caused the deaf to hear, the dumb to speak, the maimed 
 to be whole, the lame to walk, and the blind to see; 
 He cast out devils, He raised the dead, and finally raised 
 the Saviour himself from the tomb, in confirmation of 
 the divine mission of Jesus. 
 
 And, as to a particular Providence, Jesus expressly 
 said to his disciples, when he sent them out to preach 
 the gospel, " Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing, 
 and one of them shall not fall on the ground without 
 your Father ? But the very hairs of your head are all 
 numbered. Fear ye not, therefore, ye are of more value 
 than many sparrows." (Matt. x. 29 — 31.) And, in the 
 Sermon on the Mount, he says, " Take no thought for 
 your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink. . . . 
 Behold the fowls of the air : for they sow not, neither 
 do they reap, nor gather into barns ; yet your heavenly 
 Father feedeth them. . . . And why take ye thought 
 for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field how they 
 grow. They toil not, neither do they spin. And yet 
 I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory 
 was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God 
 so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and 
 to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more 
 
ON PROVIDENCE. I I 5 
 
 clothe you, ye of little faith ?" (Matt. vi. 25, ff.) And 
 St. Peter writes, " Cast all your care upon Him ; for He 
 careth for you." (1 Peter v. 7.) 
 
 Indeed, the whole system of prayer turns on the 
 belief of a particular Providence. We have a prayer 
 for fine weather, and a prayer for rain : in other words, 
 we conceive that, by addressing the Almighty Creator 
 of the universe with our petitions for that particular 
 state of the atmosphere of which we apprehend ourselves 
 to be in want, we shall move Him to interpose in our 
 favour, and to change that order of the seasons which 
 would otherwise have taken place. Thus we read in 
 the first Book of Kings, and still more expressly in 
 the general Epistle of James, that for three years and 
 six months there was no rain on the earth during the 
 reign of Ahab ; but, upon the prayer of Elijah in the 
 fourth year, God sent abundance of rain, so that the 
 wants of man and beast were plentifully satisfied. And 
 indeed the whole of the Old and New Testament 
 presents us with continual instances of the interposition 
 of the Most High in answer to the prayers of the 
 faithful. The apostle expressly says, "The prayer of a 
 righteous man availeth much," and gives this instance 
 of Elijah in illustration of his position. (James v. 16, 17.) 
 
 I well know how pleasing it is to the pious soul to 
 believe that God perpetually watches over us for our 
 good; that, whether we wake or sleep, we are still under 
 the protection of Providence, and that, as the apostle 
 
Il6 ON PROVIDENCE. 
 
 expresses it, " all things work together for good to them 
 that love God." (Rom. viii. 28.) We are sensible o( 
 our own weakness, how little a way we can see before 
 us, how ignorant we are of what is best for us, and are 
 glad to refer everything to a being infinitely wiser than 
 ourselves, and of infinite benevolence. We are willing 
 to believe that everything is good, and that the " righ- 
 teous man is taken away from the evil to come." 
 (Isaiah lvii. I.) We are taught to understand, like the 
 Hermit, in Parnell, that the ways of heaven are 
 mysterious, and that often the things that most shock 
 our feeble apprehensions conduce to the wisest and 
 most beneficent purposes. We read in the Apostle 
 James, " Is any among you afflicted ? Let him pray." 
 (James v. 13.) We pray in the midst of adversity ; and 
 our hearts are lightened. When we are overtaken with 
 grievous calamities, we refer all to the disposal of a 
 being infinitely wiser than ourselves, and are contented. 
 When our children, our parents, or the wife of our 
 bosom is taken from us, we say, " The Lord gave, and 
 the Lord hath taken away ; blessed be the name of 
 the Lord." (Job i. 21.) We cultivate a sentiment of 
 resignation, and find ourselves inexpressibly soothed 
 with the idea that we are in the hands of God, who is 
 better to us "than our iniquities deserve." (Ezra ix. 13.) 
 There is something irresistibly pleasing to frail and 
 imperfect beings, such as we are, in these ideas. u As 
 for man," says the Psalmist, "his days are as grass; 
 
ON PROVIDENCE. ll 7 
 
 as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind 
 passeth over it, and it is gone ; and the place thereof 
 shall know it no more. But the mercy of the Lord is 
 from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him, 
 and His righteousness unto children's children, to such 
 as keep His covenant, and to those that remember His 
 commandments to do them." (Psalm ciii. 15 — 18.) 
 
 But it is time that we should be acquainted with our 
 real position. It cannot but be beneficial to us to know 
 what we have to depend on. Though we are undoubtedly 
 weak and frail, yet that can be no good reason why we 
 should render ourselves still weaker, but rather that we 
 should "gird up the loins of our mind," and lean upon a 
 rock that cannot deceive us. 
 
 The ideas of a particular Providence are in fact refer- 
 able to times of ignorance, when all nature was new to 
 us, or, if not new, when men had so little methodised 
 their ideas that they were not able to reduce the phe- 
 nomena around them into a system. Experience, if 
 properly consulted, is that alone which can guide us 
 through the secrets of the universe. 
 
 Our savage ancestors (and the same observation may 
 be applied to periods of comparative civilization) in every 
 unusual event recognised the interference of some in- 
 visible being interrupting the course of nature. Storms 
 and tempests, inundations, and famine, and earthquakes, 
 they referred to the anger of a God. Eclipses, and 
 uncommon phenomena of nature, and pestilences, and 
 
1 1 8 ON PRO VIDENCE. 
 
 contagious diseases filled them with terror, but at the 
 same time with reverence. Even accidents befalling our 
 corporeal frame, and everything disastrous and unfore- 
 seen, they ascribed to the interposition of a God. Portents 
 and prodigies were observed by all, and served to fill the 
 human species with awe. 
 
 From the same cause arose the belief in ghosts and 
 miracles. The ideas of sorcery, of supernatural powers 
 possessed by a few gifted persons among the sons of 
 men, of commerce with demons, and compacts, by which 
 the devil on one side engaged to favour the unhallowed 
 designs of certain misanthropical and malignant indi- 
 viduals, and they in return gave him their bodies and 
 souls to all eternity, everywhere prevailed ; and hundreds 
 and thousands of poor victims have, on this score, been 
 sacrificed, in different ages of the world, at the altar of 
 human credulity and folly. 
 
 In the meantime, the improvements that have been 
 effected in natural philosophy have by degrees convinced 
 the enlightened part of mankind that the material uni- 
 verse is everywhere subject to laws, fixed in their measure, 
 weight, and duration, capable of the most exact calcula- 
 tion, and which in no case admit of variation and exception. 
 Whatever is not thus to be accounted for is of mind, and 
 springs from the volition of some being, of which the 
 material form is subjected to our senses, and the action 
 of which is in like manner regulated by the laws of 
 matter. Beside this, mind as well as matter is subject to 
 
ON rx 1 'IDEXCE. 1 1 9 
 
 fixed laws, and thus every phenomenon and occurrence 
 around us is rendered a topic for the speculations of 
 sagacity and foresight. Such is the creed which science 
 has universally prescribed to the judicious and reflecting 
 among us. 
 
 How these laws originate, and by what power they are 
 carried into execution, we are in reality ignorant. The 
 more usual creed is that both are to be referred to an 
 infinite and all-perfect mind, who created at first, and 
 since continually superintends, the whole machine. But 
 we know nothing of mind but what we observe in our- 
 selves ; and the properties of a mind competent to all 
 this, bear so little analogy to what we find in ourselves, 
 that no sober person can imagine he comprehends, or 
 can truly be said to believe in the existence of such a 
 mind. 
 
 But, granting this hypothesis to be just, we are not a 
 whit the nearer to our object in the point of view now 
 under consideration. Proceeding on the assumption of 
 such a mind, we appear thoroughly to know that this 
 all-perfect being restricts himself to the execution of the 
 general laws he has in the first place laid down, and that 
 he " sees with equal eye," as the poet sings, 
 
 "A hero perish, or a sparrow fall." 
 
 There is an entire end, therefore, to the idea of a 
 special Providence ; or that, 
 
 " When the loose mountain trembles from on high," 
 
120 ON PROVIDENCE. 
 
 the law of gravitation shall be suspended in its opera- 
 tions, lest some person of illustrious virtue should be 
 crushed by its fall ; and, on the other hand, some ruin 
 noddine to its overthrow should reserve its crash to 
 destroy the life of an individual whose propensities are 
 singularly hostile to the well-being of others. The 
 superintending mind, if such should be the true solution 
 of the enigma of the universe, at least certainly turns us 
 out into the world he has made, leaving us to encounter 
 the good or the ill that may result from the general laws 
 of nature, and committing it to our own observation and 
 sagacity to improve the tides and mechanical powers of 
 matter, so as to further our desires, or to avoid the evils 
 which, but for the exercise of our own vigilance and 
 faculties of prevention, might overtake us. 
 
 And especially the efficacy of prayer is by this view 
 of things put entirely out of the question. Indeed it is, 
 on the face of the matter, inexpressibly absurd to sup- 
 pose either that we can instruct the great mover of the 
 machine, or that by our humiliation or importunities we 
 can induce him to alter his purposes. The conduct of 
 the whole must be governed by momentous considera- 
 tions, each wheel, as_in a vast piece of mechanism, must 
 govern and be governed by its connection with others, 
 and to believe that the wishes and desires of any indi- 
 vidual or congregation of individuals should suspend and 
 vary the direction of the universal scheme, or should 
 even for a moment be attended to and not be swallowed 
 
OX PRO VIDENCE. I - l 
 
 up in its insignificance, must display a superlative inca- 
 pacity in the person by whom the mistake is made, 
 together with a degree of egotism and narrowness of 
 soul, which would be altogether incredible, were it not 
 that in so many instances we find it unequivocally 
 realised. 
 
 A few pages back we observed that it was irresistibly 
 pleasing to frail and imperfect creatures, such as we are, 
 to believe that God perpetually watches over us for our 
 good, and that, whether He gives or takes away, all is 
 ordered for the best, and in such a manner as, if we 
 saw further into the revolution of events, we should, each 
 of us for ourselves, perceive to give us true cause for 
 congratulation. 
 
 But let us enquire whether, upon any tenable hypo- 
 thesis, this idea can be reconciled with the truth of 
 things. It is idle, and disgraceful to the faculties of 
 man, perpetually to pamper himself with thoughts that 
 have no solid foundation, and never to dare to look 
 through the veil, and to penetrate into the realities of 
 the universe in which we live. 
 
 The system of things, then, if we would impartially 
 survey it, is not altogether so satisfactory as some 
 dreamers would have us believe. There is much of 
 beauty and much of good in the world. The admirable 
 structure of men and animals, of the vegetable creation 
 that feeds us, and the scenery which delights the eye and 
 our other senses, and is adapted to nourish in us com- 
 
122 ON PROVIDENCE. 
 
 placency, are too obvious to be liable to controversy. 
 But there is also much of evil and much of suffering 
 on the earth, insomuch as in the infancy of philosophy 
 to have inspired the idea that there is in it an eternal 
 contention of two principles, the one friendly, the other 
 hostile to the well-being of mankind. It is impossible 
 for us to remark to what a vast extent suffering and 
 calamity reign in the world, without our being impressed 
 with serious doubts as to the infinite power and benevo- 
 lence which is said to rule the machine. Even as to the 
 crimes and perversities which prevail among the sons of 
 men, we can scarcely avoid thinking that perfect and 
 almighty wisdom might have conducted things better 
 than we behold them. All these considerations might 
 tend to moderate our complacent and entire reliance on 
 that Providence which we are told orders all things for 
 the best. 
 
 And it is still worse if we impartially take into our 
 view that God that the Christian revelation sets before 
 us. He is a being who selects a small portion of man- 
 kind for His special favour, and reserves the vast majority 
 of our species for everlasting torments in hell. This is 
 surely a character, on whose Providence it is not reason- 
 able for us to place our unreserved and confident reliance. 
 We praise him in reality principally because we fear him ; 
 and the language we hold when we approach what we 
 call the throne of his grace, is vehemently opposed to the 
 secret thoughts of our hearts, and our unbiassed esti- 
 
ON PRO VIDENCE. 1 2 3 
 
 mate of his administration, which is such as wc scarcely 
 dare to whisper to ourselves in the deepest seclusion. 
 
 If there are any that can with satisfaction place their 
 trust in the dispensations of that Providence, which, as 
 the apostle says, " careth for us," it must be only those 
 who consider themselves as among the few who are 
 selected from the vast mass of mankind as the special 
 favourites of heaven. And even these must "work out 
 their salvation with fear and trembling." (Phil. ii. 12.) 
 They must, as the more orthodox express themselves, 
 be " struck with astonishment at their narrow and un- 
 merited escape." They must regard their Creator as an 
 austere master, " taking up that he laid not down, and 
 reaping that which he did not sow." (Luke xix. 22.) The 
 disciple, whom, as we are told, " Jesus loved," has de- 
 livered to the world as a maxim, that " perfect love 
 casteth out fear." (1 John iv. 18.) But among Christians, 
 speaking rationally, it can never be so. The same 
 apostle teaches us, " We know that we are of God, and 
 that the whole world lieth in wickedness." (1 John v. 19.) 
 He therefore must be a man of a peculiar constitution, 
 that, however secure he may be of his own salvation, 
 docs not feel a sacred horror and a nameless fear of that 
 God who has thus miraculously rescued him. Even the 
 fanatic himself, who in his own thoughts is elevated to the 
 highest heavens, must sometimes recollect how unlike these 
 heavens are to the pit from which he has so narrowly 
 escaped. Do we not, in the daily prayer of our Liturgy, 
 
124 ON PROVIDENCE. 
 
 confess that " there is no health in us ? " Such clauses, I 
 grant, are too often repeated as vague phrases of humili- 
 ation. But, combined with the terrible denunciations of 
 the gospel for a future state, they may well inspire us 
 with alarm. Which of us shall " stand in the sight " of 
 that God, before whom the " heavens are not clean, and 
 who chargeth His angels with folly ? " He must be a 
 daring man who relies with his confidence that he is a 
 chosen favourite of this being. And, if he is not sure 
 that he shall " escape the damnation of hell," how can he 
 with consistency take to himself the consolation that 
 God will be forbearing and merciful towards him in the 
 things of this life ? 
 
 N,OTE TO ESSAY V. {Fragment) 
 
 Since writing the Essay on Providence, I have had 
 occasion to look into the " History of the Discovery of 
 America." 
 
 Jesus says, " But the very hairs of your head are all 
 numbered." (Matt. x. 30.) 
 
 Sterne has turned this idea in the finest vein of poetry, 
 when he calls God " the great sensorium of the world, 
 which vibrates, if but a hair fall from our head in the 
 remotest desert of His creation." 
 
 But how is this borne out by the fact ? 
 
 Dugald Stewart affirms, that the "conquest of the 
 
OX PROVIDENCE. T 25 
 
 New World was effected, on a low estimate, by the 
 murdering often millions of the species."* 
 
 The inhabitants of South America "gazed in silent 
 admiration" upon the Spaniards that visited them. 
 They respected them as a superior order of beings, and 
 concluded that they were " children of the sun, who had 
 descended to visit the earth." They "kissed their feet, 
 and honoured them as sacred beings allied to Heaven."f 
 
 The island of Hispaniola, when first discovered by 
 Columbus, is said to have contained three millions of 
 people. But let us reject the three millions asserted by 
 the Spanish historians, and with Robertson reduce them 
 to one million. These in fifteen years were diminished 
 to sixty thousand, in a few years more to fourteen 
 thousand, and were shortly after entirely exterminated. { 
 Montezuma, the sovereign of Mexico, was by his barba- 
 rous invaders thrown into chains, and in a very short 
 time slain in a skirmish by his own subjects ; and 
 Atatiba, the monarch of Peru, was seized upon by the 
 faithless Pizarro, to whom he had come on a friendly- 
 visit, who pretended to ransom him ; but, having received 
 the stipulated amount, still detained him a prisoner, and 
 speedily brought him to trial, and condemned him to be 
 publicly executed. 
 
 * Life of Robertson. 
 
 t Robertson, " History of America,'' Book II. 
 
 + Robertson, Book III. 
 
126 ON PROVIDENCE. 
 
 Is it possible to conceive atrocities more horrible than 
 those, or that more irresistibly called for the divine 
 vengeance on the authors ? 
 
 With a view to varnish over and extenuate the ways 
 of Heaven in such 'cases, God has been said to be 
 "long-suffering," waiting till the iniquities of man be 
 full, and then pouring out the fierceness of His wrath in a 
 way as overwhelming as was His " strange apparent" 
 clemency. But almost two centuries and a half have 
 passed over, and we are yet to learn how the unexampled 
 sufferings of these innocent people have been repaid. 
 
ESSAY VI. 
 
 ON THE QUESTION, WHAT SHALL WE DO TO BE SAVED? 
 
ESSAY VI. 
 On the Question, What shall we do to be Saved? 
 
 (Fragment.) 
 
 CHRISTIANITY, like all the sallies of mortal 
 enthusiasm, is a mass of contradictions. 
 Jesus was in his heart a fervent reformer. He aimed 
 at the highest things. He instructed his followers, " Be 
 ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in 
 heaven is perfect." (Matt. v. 48.) He taught, as "the 
 first and great commandment, Thou shalt love the Lord, 
 thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and 
 with all thy mind ; and the second is like unto it, 
 Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself : on these two 
 commandments hang all the law and the prophets." 
 (Matt. xxii. 37—40.) In following these two precepts, 
 man shall undoubtedly become all that is most excellent 
 of which his nature is capable. He shall be generous, 
 and high-minded, and enthusiastic. He shall put every- 
 thing in its proper place and degree. He shall see 
 everything as an eye that sees the whole universe would 
 see it. He shall estimate all things at their genuine 
 
 K 
 
13° ON THE QUESTION, 
 
 and unalterable value, without a perpetual recurrence 
 to the miserable standard of self, and treating them, 
 not as they are, but as they bear upon his own interests. 
 This standard would represent the best action that ever 
 was performed, as the action in the whole world, of the 
 most exquisite and deliberate injustice, since it was the 
 action in which the greatest good was most directly 
 postponed to personal gratification. 
 
 But, after all, this is not the great characteristic of the 
 Christian system. " The fear of the Lord is the begin- 
 ning of wisdom." (Psalm cxi. 10.) "Work out your 
 own salvation with fear and trembling." (Phil. ii. 12.) 
 All is referred to a future state of punishments and 
 rewards. We shall be " saved, yet so as by fire." 
 (1 Cor. iii. 13.) "We must through much tribulation 
 enter into the kingdom of God." (Acts xiv. 22.) "If 
 the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly 
 and the sinner appear ? " (1 Peter iv. 18.) 
 
 We are to come " trembling," like the " keeper of the 
 prison before Paul and Silas, and fall down at the feet 
 of the apostles, and cry, Sirs, what shall we do to be 
 saved ? " (Acts xvi. 25, ff.) 
 
 There are two principles from which, hypothetically 
 considered, the form of a blameless life may spring. 
 The one is disinterested, according to which the agent 
 treats everything agreeably to its genuine value, and 
 has his heart so duly poised, that he is led out irresistibly 
 to the excellence of the object, and the good to be done, 
 
WHAT SHALL WE DO TO BE SAVED.' 131 
 
 without turning aside to the miserable calculations of 
 the benefit to accrue to himself, and regulating his 
 actions accordingly. This latter I should describe in 
 the language of the apostle, as "having a form of 
 godliness, but denying the power thereof." (2 Tim 
 
 fit 5.) 
 
 It is true that two men acting upon these two prin- 
 ciples, may externally perform the same acts, and thus 
 far resemble each other. But how immeasurable is the 
 difference between them in the eye of omniscience ! 
 The one is, as Seneca says, a " spectacle, in the con- 
 templation of which God, when surveying the works of 
 His hands, may be conceived to repose with complacency 
 and delight." The other, though measuring his actions 
 by the square and the line, and doing in appearance 
 the same things as the former, is " like unto whited 
 sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but 
 are within full of dead men's bones, and of all unclean- 
 ness." (Matt, xxiii. 2J.) 
 
 The latter of these persons, though seemingly enga 
 in the acts of thanksgiving and praise to his maker, yet 
 is in reality hollow, and is "as sounding brass, or a 
 tinkling cymbal." (1 Cor. xiii. I.) He does good to 
 his neighbours, bestows his alms upon them, and relieves 
 their distresses. He pours the voice of consolation into 
 their ears, warns them against the danger of doing 
 amiss, and exhorts them to acts of rectitude and virtue. 
 But his heart is not in all these things. He is only 
 
I3 2 ON THE QUESTION, 
 
 thinking how he shall lay up " treasure for himself in 
 heaven." 
 
 The whole of his proceeding is founded upon a 
 principle of bargain and sale. So many acts of piety 
 towards God, and charity towards man, will purchase 
 me heaven, and so many will exempt me from ever- 
 lasting punishment. His heart is unaltered ; his eye is 
 fixed on one point, as the needle ever holds its direction 
 to the pole ; and he therefore takes care to perform no 
 works of supererogation. Like Shylock, he is con- 
 demned to the necessity of cutting " no less, nor more, 
 than just a pound of flesh ;" if he cut more, 
 
 " be it but so much 
 
 As makes it light or heavy in the substance, 
 On the division of the twentieth part 
 Of one poor scruple ; nay, if the scale do turn 
 But in the estimation of a hair," 
 
 l > 
 
 he departs from his principle. He is like a good 
 Catholic, when he counts his beads. He knows 
 mechanically when he finishes his tale, and there stops. 
 His heart is unaltered, and he discharges his functions 
 with the punctuality of a machine. He is cold and 
 unfeeling, as to the effect of what he does upon the 
 object respecting which he operates, as a block of 
 marble. 
 
 The greater part of mankind are prone, more than 
 enough, to considerations of self-interest and self- 
 gratification. It is only those who are framed of a 
 
WHAT SHALL WE DO TO BE SAVED? l 33 
 
 happier mould that arc continually actuated by more 
 generous considerations. Their pulses beat with a 
 warmer sentiment, and their hearts are ready to fly out 
 of their bosoms, and rise, as it were, to the very throat, 
 and choke their utterance at the moment when they 
 would pour out with exuberance the whole of what 
 they feel. 
 
 But the human soul is of a very ductile composure, 
 easily yielding to the impressions that are sought to be 
 made upon it. We may be hardened into so many 
 arithmetical machines, calculating with readiness, What 
 shall I get by it ? It is in this sense that it has been 
 <aid by men of a grosser mettle, that every man has his 
 price. Or we may be trained to a certain heroism, 
 a spurning the low dunghill where our fate had thrown 
 us, and towering up to " the skies, from which the soul 
 of man seems originally to have descended. It is the 
 business of the purest codes of morality to encourage 
 this propensity as much as possible, and gradually to 
 extinguish in us every thing of a baser and more in- 
 glorious temperament. 
 
 Nov/, how does the Christian system operate in this 
 respect ? It turns, as its grand pivot, upon the doctrine of 
 future rewards and punishments. " The hour is coming 
 in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his 
 voice and shall come forth ; they that have done good 
 unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done- 
 evil unto the resurrection of damnation'' (John v. 28, 
 
134 WHAT SHALL WE DO TO BE SAVED? 
 
 29.) Eternal rewards and everlasting punishments are 
 set before us. If we were only to receive a crown, if we 
 were simply to be hailed with the salutation, "Well 
 done, thou good and faithful servant" (Matt. xxv. 21), 
 it were well. We might subside, in the fruition, or the 
 expectation, after a time, into temperance and sobriety. 
 But, when the rewards proposed are such as " eye hath 
 not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the 
 heart of man " (1 Cor. ii. 9) to conceive, and the punish- 
 ments are, to be "cast into a furnace of fire, there shall 
 be wailing and gnashing of teeth " for ever and ever, — 
 all must reasonably be concentred in the most intense 
 selfishness. Where the question is of. thousands of 
 millions of ages of bliss or of misery to myself, there 
 can be no room for a thought of what may happen to 
 others. All subtlety and refinement, all overflowing of 
 a generous sentiment, must be at an end ; and the 
 mighty thought of what is at stake for myself must 
 necessarily swallow up all incidental considerations. 
 
ESSAY VII. 
 
 ON FAITH AND WORKS. 
 
ESSAY VII. 
 
 On Faith mid Works. 
 
 THE Christian religion is nowhere more palpably 
 exposed to the charge of self-contradiction than 
 in the trite and never-exhausted controversy of faith 
 and works. 
 
 Jesus, in his last instructions to his apostles, imme- 
 diately before his alleged ascension into heaven, says, 
 " Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to 
 every creature. He that believeth and is baptised shall 
 be saved ; but he that believeth not shall be damned." 
 (Mark xvi. 15, 16.) 
 
 Yet elsewhere he says, "The hour is coming, in the 
 which all that are in their graves shall hear his voice, 
 and shall come forth ; they that have done good unto 
 the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil 
 unto the resurrection of damnation." (John v. 2S, 29.) 
 And again, " For the Son of Man shall come in the 
 glory of his Father with his angels ; and then he shall 
 reward every man according to his works." (Matt. xvi. 
 
I3§ ON FAITH AND WORKS. 
 
 St. Paul is most express in the doctrine of salvation 
 by faith alone, and enforces it by every variety of phrase 
 that his ingenious and subtle logic could supply. " By 
 grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of your- 
 selves : it is the gift of God ; not of works." (Eph. ii. 8, 
 9.) " That we might be justified by the faith of Christ, 
 and not by the works of the law ; for by the works of 
 the law shall no flesh be justified." (Gal. ii. 16.) " By 
 the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in 
 
 his sight Therefore we conclude that a man is 
 
 justified by faith without the deeds of the law." (Rom. 
 iii. 20, 28.) 
 
 St. James, on the other hand, as if he wrote in express 
 opposition to the apostle of the Gentiles,. affirms, " Even 
 
 so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone 
 
 Was not Abraham, our father, justified by works when he 
 had offered Isaac, his son, upon the altar ? ... Ye see, 
 then, how that by works a man is justified, and not by 
 
 faith only For as the body without the spirit is 
 
 dead, so faith without works is dead also." (James ii. 
 
 17, ff) 
 
 Why does St. Paul insist so vehemently upon salva- 
 tion by faith alone ? That he may shew that God does 
 the whole by His free grace. " By grace are ye saved, 
 through faith, and that not of yourselves ; it is the 
 gift of God ; not of works, lest any man should boast." 
 (Eph. ii. 8, 9.) "Being justified freely by His grace 
 through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus 
 
ON FAITH AND WORKS. r 39 
 
 Where is boasting, then ? It is excluded. By what 
 law ? of works ? Nay, but by the law of faith." (Rom. 
 iii. 24, ff.) " Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by 
 grace." (Rom. iv. 16.) "And if by grace, then is it no 
 more of works." (Rom. xi. 6.) " Christ is become of no 
 effect to you, whosoever of you are justified by the law ; 
 ye are fallen from grace." (Gal. v. 4.) 
 
 The doctrine of St. Paul turns upon an imaginary 
 contention, not a little ludicrous, between the Creator 
 and the creature. When we consider the Creator, such 
 as theism and Christianity combine to represent him to 
 us, as a being of infinite wisdom and infinite power, for 
 ever the same, " with whom is no variableness, neither 
 shadow of turning" (James i. 17), on the one hand, and 
 man on the other, the creature of an hour, the sport of 
 every wind, of no more worth and estimation in the eyes 
 of him, who " through vast immensity can pierce," than 
 a gnat or a butterfly, it is impossible to imagine anything 
 so absurd as that God should be jealous of such a being. 
 St. Paul represents God as for ever watchful lest 
 man should claim anything as of himself, and should 
 not confess that he is at all times at the disposal of 
 that wonderful power who called him out of nothing 
 at first, and prescribes concerning him aftenvards at plea- 
 sure. God, upon the supposition of a future state of 
 rewards and punishments, will, doubtless, distinguish 
 every man according to his merits, and his fitness or 
 unfitness to partake of the glorious state which is 
 
140 ON FAITH AND WORKS.' 
 
 described as the portion of the deserving. All that 
 confidence and erectness of spirit which proceeds from 
 conscious virtue must be acceptance in His sight ; and it 
 must arise only from a low and poor conception of His 
 perfections to suppose that He demands humiliation from 
 man as requisite to a proper view of his subordination. 
 It would be more becoming, as Seneca says, to believe 
 that the object that God beholds with the highest delight 
 is a man who, however oppressed with a concourse of 
 ills, still preserves an unabated serenity and courage: 
 
 In reality, there was something exceedingly perplexing 
 in the Christian system, which required a great degree of 
 ingenuity to unravel. If in the day of judgment every 
 man was to be rewarded according to his works, then 
 what need was there of the great sacrifice of atonement, 
 that the Saviour of the world should take upon him our 
 transgressions, and that by his stripes we should be 
 healed ? It is no matter that man should be exceedingly 
 frail, and his best performances imperfect : " God know- 
 eth our frame ; He remembereth that we are dust " 
 (Psalm ciii. 14), and does not require of us more than 
 our faculties enable us to perform. He accepts our 
 righteousness, such as it is, and does not demand any 
 atonement, because we cannot do more than the nature 
 of man admits. 
 
 It having once been laid down by the apostle, that 
 the true Christian is saved by faith alone, and that for 
 the purpose of precluding boasting, and that man might 
 
ON FAITH AND WORK'S. H 1 
 
 not attribute to himself the smallest merit in the affair, 
 it became the business of divines to ascertain the precise 
 nature of faith, the more effectually to support this 
 hypothesis. Merit, according to most systems of morality 
 is ascribed to acts of the will ; but faith or belief, in its 
 strictest sense, is the act of the understanding only. 
 Evidence is set before the mind ; and we frequently 
 cannot help believing what is presented to us with irre- 
 sistible evidence, however unwilling we may be to yield 
 credit to it. From hence it has been inferred that there 
 cannot be the smallest claim of merit in the man that 
 believes ; the evidence is presented to his mind, and his 
 assent follows, as surely as day succeeds upon the rising 
 
 of the sun. 
 
 In the meantime, these divines were decidedly of the 
 opinion that a certain degree of purity of sentiment and 
 harmony of soul were necessary to qualify a man for 
 entering into what they call the kingdom of heaven. 
 "The pure in heart," and they only, "shall see God." 
 But they maintained that there was an indissoluble 
 connection between men's opinions and their voluntary 
 actions. This fact is only rendered obscure to us by the 
 circumstance, that opinion in ordinary cases is per- 
 petually fluctuating, and that the herd of spectators, not 
 adverting to this, attribute that to a man as his opinion, 
 which is seldom or never present to his mind. Lord 
 Shaftesbury acutely observes, " There are few who think 
 always consistently, or according to one certain hypo- 
 
142 ON FAITH AND WORKS. 
 
 thesis," upon any question of theory and speculation 
 merely. " It is evident in the case of the most devout 
 people, even by their own confession, that there are 
 times when their faith hardly can support them in the 
 belief of a supreme wisdom ; and that they are often 
 tempted to judge disadvantageously of a Providence, and 
 just administration in the whole. That alone therefore 
 is to be called a man's opinion, which is of any other 
 the most habitual to him, and occurs upon most occa- 
 
 sions. * 
 
 But this does not go far enough. There is such a 
 thing as a theoretical opinion which never advances to 
 practice. It is of the head merely, and not of the heart. 
 It is like water in a canal, which exists indeed, but never 
 rises high enough to be conveyed into the basin which 
 is its proper receptacle. The apostle distinguishes these 
 two by the denominations of the "letter" and the 
 "spirit," where he says, "The letter killeth, but the 
 spirit giveth life." (2 Cor. iii. 6.) Not that there is neces- 
 sarily any essential difference between these, except in 
 degree. Certain mystical divines have interpreted this 
 as of a literal meaning and an allegorical. But this 
 distinction is not founded in the New Testament. A 
 true theological faith differs from that which is ordinary, 
 merely in vividness. It is animating, and overflows into 
 those conduits which change the character, and modify 
 
 * " Characteristics/' Treatise iv., B. I., Part i., sec. 2. 
 
ON FA IT If AND WORKS. 1 43 
 
 the conduct. It is a faith that is ever present, or at 
 least upon all grave and cardinal occasions. It changes 
 our nature, and by its energy regulates our sentiments 
 and our actions. It is therefore, like an ordinary and 
 barren faith, purely the result of evidence bright as the 
 meridian sun, and irresistible in its effects. It is alto- 
 gether distinct from any idea of merit in him with whom 
 it dwells. 
 
 Faith, however, is not so strictly and simply an act 
 of the understanding as these persons would have us 
 believe. And accordingly, Jesus upon all occasions 
 treats an unbelief in his solemn communications, and 
 the virtue by which his miracles are performed, as a 
 crime. There is indeed an evidence which is irresistible, 
 and which enforces conviction upon the most stubborn 
 and unwilling. But this does not hold in the majority 
 of cases. Men, in the ordinary course of events, are apt 
 to believe only what they wish to be true. " Eyes have 
 they, but they see not ; ears but they hear not, neither 
 do they understand with their hearts." It is in this 
 sense that the writer of the Acts of the Apostles com- 
 pliments the people of Berea, saying, that "they were 
 more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they 
 received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched 
 the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so." 
 (Acts xvii. II.) The term "more noble" is certainly 
 here used as denoting a moral quality, and is therefore 
 allied to the nature of merit. And accordingly the 
 
144 ON FAITH AND WORKS. 
 
 Church recommends a suitable preparation for reading 
 the Scriptures, and advises that the exercises in this 
 duty should be preceded by prayer. Indeed, it is past 
 question that the effect of what we read and what we 
 hear depends as much upon the previous frame of mind 
 of the reader or hearer, as upon the absolute contents of 
 what is presented to his senses. 
 
 There is a sect of Christians, who, feeling themselves 
 dissatisfied with this definition of faith as an act of the 
 understanding only, make saving faith consist in what 
 they call the " act of appropriation." This is thus ex- 
 plained. It is profane, they say, to suppose that Christ 
 died for any but such as will finally receive the benefit 
 of his atonement. Therefore they affirm the doctrine of 
 Particular Redemption, or that Christ died only for the 
 elect. Accordingly, they make saving faith to consist in 
 the intimate persuasion, that " Christ died for me in 
 particular," and that I shall beyond doubt finally receive 
 the benefit of his redemption. This doctrine is to be 
 found in Hervey's "Theron and Aspasio," and is perhaps 
 implied in the creed of all those who believe in the 
 Christian article of predestination. 
 
 It is impossible to conceive anything more absurd 
 and sacrilegious than this theory. It makes the salva- 
 tion of mankind a question merely depending on temper, 
 sanguine on the one side, or gloomy and diffident on 
 the other. The man of a confident and presumptuous 
 disposition easily persuades himself that he is a favourite 
 
ON FAITH AND WORKS. 145 
 
 with his maker. He sees visions, and believes that he is 
 in intimate communion with the author of nature, and 
 with the son who sits on his right hand. He walks in 
 air, nourishes a full opinion that he is one of God's 
 chosen people, and looks down with contempt on the 
 rest of mankind. On the other hand, a man of modest 
 and scrupulous habits of mind, but of merit a thousand 
 times greater than the former, feels that he wants the 
 grace of assurance, and dares not presume that he is in 
 the light of God's countenance. Having been taught 
 that the grace of assurance is indispensable to his being 
 numbered among the elect, he "walketh in darkness," 
 and gropes like a blind man for the pillar on which he 
 may repose his hopes. He believes that he is excluded 
 from the favour of heaven, looks forward to a future 
 state with emotions of indescribable horror, and not 
 seldom has the faculties of his mind utterly subverted 
 with the anticipation of the dreadful sentence that awaits 
 him in another world. 
 
ESSAY VIII. 
 
 ON THE CHARACTER OF JESUS. 
 
ESSAY VIII. 
 On the Character of Jesus. 
 
 GIBBON, in his " History of the Decline and Fall 
 of the Roman Empire," has dedicated one portion 
 of his work to the enquiry, what human causes mainly 
 contributed to the progress and first establishment of 
 the Christian religion over so large a portion of the 
 Roman world. I propose in like manner in this essay 
 to enquire as to what personal qualities in the author of 
 that religion especially conduced to the causing this 
 system of faith to experience the prosperous and won- 
 derful fortune it has found among the inhabitants of the 
 
 globe. 
 
 I approach with reverence and awe to the character of 
 a man who has produced an infinitely greater effect on 
 the history of mankind than any other individual that 
 was ever born into the world. And what renders all 
 this the more extraordinary is, that he lived in an ob- 
 scure corner of the globe, and was descended from a 
 people universally contemned and hated among the 
 
150 ON THE CHARACTER OF JESUS. 
 
 more refined and civilized nations of the globe. He was 
 the son of a carpenter, and spent his whole life among 
 the most rigorous privations. His first followers were 
 illiterate fishermen and disgracious tax-gatherers. His 
 ordinary companions were among the humblest of man- 
 kind. It is doubtful whether his public career endured 
 three years, or only one. At the age of thirty-three 
 years or thirty-one, he was accused as a seditious person 
 and a disturber of the public peace, and, having first 
 been bandied backward and forward from the tribunal of 
 the high-priest to that of the Roman governor of Judea, 
 was condemned to suffer death as a malefactor, was nailed 
 to the cross, and expired in the face of the world. He 
 left nothing behind him in writing. And yet this man, 
 thus unfavourably circumstanced in every external con- 
 sideration, has bequeathed to mankind a system of faith 
 and religious observances, which has endured for nearly 
 two thousand years, and, for a considerable part of the 
 time, among nations the most enlightened and refined 
 that the world ever saw. We do not yet perceive any 
 definite indications of the extinction of this system. 
 
 The system itself is founded in falsehood. Jesus 
 Christ pretended to come with an immediate commis- 
 sion from the Creator of the universe to reform mankind, 
 to abolish idolatry, and to propagate a new and purer 
 system of theology and benevolence. It is presumed 
 that no person of a sound understanding and an im- 
 partial mind can have read the preceding essays, and 
 
ON THE CHARACTER OF JESUS. I5 1 
 
 then entertain the slightest idea of the divine and 
 supernatural origin of the Christian religion. It derived 
 its commencement solely from the ruminations and 
 meditations of its human author. 
 
 This author, then, must have been a person of great 
 genius, of profound contemplation, of exemplary purity, 
 and the most exalted tone of feeling and thinking. He 
 lived in a nation sunk in the grossest ignorance and 
 superstition. They had long lost their rank as an 
 independent people, and were now in subjection to the 
 Roman empire, there existing on both sides, in the 
 governor and the governed, the most determined 
 estrangement and aversion, the Romans despising the 
 Jews as the most bigoted and self-opinionated people on 
 the face of the earth, with habits and ceremonies the 
 most irreconcilable to all that was generous and liberal, 
 and the Jews hating the Romans as idolaters — a weak- 
 ness from which they had long been free, and submitting 
 with indescribable horror and impatience to a yoke, 
 from which they felt it impossible to unshackle them- 
 selves. Their religion was nothing but a series of petty 
 observances ; and accordingly the Pharisees, the most 
 popular sect among them, were puffed up with spiritual 
 pride, imagining that they comprised everything that 
 was excellent among them, and looking down with 
 ineffable disdain upon ail others, whether foreigners, or 
 of their own country. 
 
 The only considerable circumstance that seemed to 
 
152 ON THE CHARACTER OF JESUS. 
 
 favour the purposes of Jesus, was the expectation, 
 generally at that time entertained among the Jews, of 
 the coming of the Messiah, who was at least then 
 understood to mean a temporal prince, that by dint of 
 military exploits should free their nation from a foreign 
 yoke, raise them to great splendour, and go forth 
 beyond the limits of Judea in a triumphant career, 
 "conquering and to conquer." (Rev. vi. 2.) Before 
 these days rose up Theudas, boasting himself to be 
 somebody, to whom a number of men, about four 
 hundred, joined themselves ; who was slain, and all, as 
 many as obeyed him, were scattered and brought to 
 nought. After this man rose up Judas of Galilee, in the 
 days of the taxing, and drew away much people after him ; 
 he also perished, and all, even as many as obeyed him, 
 were dispersed." (Acts v. 36, 37.) And Jesus himself 
 says, that many shall arise in his name, saying, " Lo, 
 here is Christ, or there," and shall deceive many. (Matt, 
 xxiv. 23.) 
 
 Jesus, however, does not appear to have been animated 
 with the ambition to become a temporal prince. His 
 meditations were all of a moral nature, and rising above 
 the narrow prejudices of his countrymen, he aspired to 
 propagate, with a few exceptions which shall be here- 
 after specified, the purest principles of conduct that had 
 ever been disseminated. The admirable precept, "Thou 
 shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," had scarcely been 
 heard of when he assumed it as one of the corner-stones 
 
ON THE CHARACTER OF JESUS. 153 
 
 of his system. And his illustration of this principle is 
 scarcely less sublime than the principle itself. There 
 was a certain race of men bordering upon Judea who 
 were called Samaritans, to whom the Jews bore a 
 particular antipathy on account of some distinctions as 
 to their religious rites and ceremonies. Jesus, therefore, 
 being questioned by a lawyer, by way of bringing his 
 principle to the test, "Who is my neighbour ?" answered 
 thus: "A certain man went down from Jerusalem to 
 Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of 
 his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving 
 him half dead. And by chance there came down a 
 certain priest that way; and when he saw him, he passed 
 by on the other side. And likewise a Levite, when he 
 was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed 
 by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he 
 journeyed, came where he was, and, when he saw him, 
 he had compassion on him, and went to him, and bound 
 up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on 
 his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care 
 of him. And on the morrow, when he departed, he 
 took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said 
 unto him, Take care of him, and whatsoever thou 
 spendest more, when I come again I will repay thee. 
 Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour 
 unto him that fell among thieves ? " (Luke x. 30— 36.) 
 It is too common among the narrow and the selfish, 
 who adhere to a religious creed and believe in a future 
 
154 ON THE CHARACTER OF JESUS. 
 
 state, to enquire what moral practices will be indispen- 
 sably required of them, and at how cheap a rate they 
 may escape the condemnation of a future world. Jesus 
 sets himself expressly in opposition to this sort of com- 
 pounding, and recommends to his disciples, "Be ye 
 therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven 
 is perfect " (Matt. v. 48) ; well aware that he who aims 
 at anything less than the highest will certainly fall into 
 an inglorious and fitful mediocrity. 
 
 In aiming, however, at the utmost possible perfection, 
 Jesus may in some instances be suspected of overstep- 
 ping the golden mean. Thus, to one asking him, " Good 
 master, what good thing shall I do that I may have 
 eternal life ?" he having answered, "Keep the command- 
 ments," and the other rejoining, " All these things have 
 I kept from my youth up, what lack I yet?" Jesus 
 proceeded, " If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou 
 hast, and give to the poor." (Matt. xix. 16, ff.) It may 
 well be doubted whether a well-disposed person having 
 '* great possessions " ought not rather to regard himself 
 as the steward and superintendent of these posses- 
 sions, administering gradually to the occasions of 
 those who might stand in need of his assistance, than 
 to part with them at once, and so put an end to his 
 usefulness. 
 
 In the same spirit, Jesus in another place delivers 
 himself thus : " If any man come to me, and hate 
 not his father and mother, and wife and children, and 
 
ON THE CHARACTER OE JESUS. 155 
 
 brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he 
 cannot be my disciple." (Luke xiv. 26.) 
 
 And on another occasion he said to one that attended 
 him, " Follow me ;" to which the person addressed re- 
 joined, " Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father." 
 And Jesus replied in a harsh and severe style, " Let 
 the dead bury their dead, but go thou and preach." 
 (Luke ix. 60.) 
 
 In the celebrated Sermon on the Mount he says, 
 " Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or 
 what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye 
 shall put on. . . . Behold the fowls of the air ; for they 
 sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns ; yet 
 your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much 
 better than they ?" (Matt. v. 25, 26.) 
 
 In another part of the same sermon he says, less 
 perniciously, but in an equally exaggerated spirit of self- 
 denial, " Resist not evil ; but whosoever shall smite thee 
 on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if 
 any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy 
 coat, let him have thy cloke also." (Matt. v. 39, 40.) 
 
 It must be confessed that in all these exaggerations 
 there is a noble and a gallant spirit, which leads us in 
 some degree to admire the speaker. But when we con- 
 sider him as endeavouring to lay down an everlasting 
 code of morals, what he says under these heads is worthy 
 of distinct and unhesitating censure. And we shall 
 see by-and-by that the same spring and impulse of error, 
 
156 ON THE CHARACTER OF JESUS. 
 
 allowed in another direction, leads to mistakes of the 
 most supreme and fatal consequence. 
 
 But here it is proper that we should pause a little to 
 consider how this exemplary impulse of the author of 
 our religion operated upon him in his personal inter- 
 course and temper, so as most essentially to aid his 
 great purpose of planting a religion that should, as he 
 figuratively expresses it, be as " a grain of mustard-seed, 
 .... which is indeed the least of all seeds ; but when 
 it is grown it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh 
 a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the 
 branches thereof" (Luke xiii. 31, 32.) 
 
 There is a striking resemblance between the history of 
 Jesus and that of Socrates. Neither the one nor the 
 other left anything behind him in writing. They both 
 of them distinguished themselves by being perpetually 
 engaged in oral communications, and in the delivery of 
 moral counsels. Socrates, as well as Jesus, applied his 
 instructions to the subjects of individual discipline and 
 social intercourse, and set a comparatively small value 
 on the researches of science. They appear both to have 
 adopted for their guidance a system of the utmost plain- 
 ness, simplicity, and self-denial. They both ended their 
 lives by a sentence of death, pronounced against them 
 by the tribunal of their respective countries. The 
 memoirs of Socrates were composed by Xenophon and 
 Plato, two of the most eminent literary geniuses of their 
 age and country. The memoirs of Jesus were written 
 
ON THE CHARACTER OF JESUS. 157 
 
 by tax-gatherers and fishermen, but with a plainness 
 and apparent sincerity which cannot be too much ad- 
 mired. For their qualifications for this undertaking 
 they must have been indebted to the instructions and 
 example of their master. There are said to have been 
 forty histories of Jesus composed in the apostolic age, 
 out of which the four contained in our canon were deli- 
 berately selected by an early council of the primitive 
 church. What comparison, however, can be instituted 
 between the effects of the never-dying preachings of 
 Jesus, read in all churches and among diversified, nations, 
 and the discourses of the. Grecian sage, which have long 
 been almost forgotten, except by a few men who have 
 devoted their leisure to explore the curious remains of 
 antiquity ? 
 
 But to return to a view of the demeanour and temper 
 of the author of our religion. We are told that, when 
 he was twelve years old, he went up to Jerusalem with 
 his father and mother to keep the feast of the Passover, 
 as was the custom among the Jews. And, when the 
 feast was over, his parents set out on their return ; but 
 Jesus, without their being aware of it, was left behind. 
 The next day they went back to Jerusalem, seeking 
 him. And, " after three days they found him in the 
 Temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing 
 them, and asking them questions. And all that heard 
 him were astonished at his understanding and answers. 
 And, when they saw him, they were amazed ; and his 
 
15^ ON THE CHARACTER OF JESUS. 
 
 mother said to him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with 
 us ? " To which he replied, " How is it that ye sought 
 me ? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's 
 business ? " And they understood not the saying which 
 he spake unto them. And he went down with them, 
 and dwelt at Nazareth, and was subject unto them. . . . 
 And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in 
 favour with God and man." (Luke iii. 46, ff.) After 
 this we hear no more of him, till he was about thirty 
 years of age. 
 
 If there is no mistake in all this, it shews at how 
 early a period his mind conceived the idea of that 
 destination, which made him in the sequel the most 
 extraordinary among the sons of men. 
 
 Everywhere we find him conducting himself with the 
 utmost meekness and patience, except in instances 
 where his holy zeal was inflamed against such persons 
 as he conceived stubbornly to oppose themselves to 
 his apprehended divine mission, or who polluted their 
 character with hollow mummery, hypocrisy, and deceit. 
 There was one of the twelve apostles in particular, 
 St. John the Evangelist, whom* "Jesus loved," and who 
 is described, on one memorable occasion, as " leaning 
 on Jesus' bosom." (John i. 3 — 23.) Yet this distinction 
 produced no ill blood among the rest. They steadily 
 adhered to Jesus amidst a thousand hardships and 
 privations. They were men, however ; and, when a great 
 multitude with swords and staves came to apprehend 
 
ON THE CHARACTER OF JESUS. 159 
 
 him, and to take him before the chief priests and elders, 
 they fled. One only, Peter, followed him afar off, and 
 sat among the servants in the high priest's palace, to 
 see the end. Even he, overcome with the general panic, 
 denied his master. But presently after he repented, 
 and went out and wept bitterly. Judas alone, who was 
 a thief and bore the bag, and was a wretch of sordid 
 soul, betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. And 
 even his conscience upbraided him, so that presently 
 after the deed, he went and hanged himself. 
 
 There is a most pleasing story of mutual friendship 
 between him and a family, consisting of a brother and 
 two sisters, at Bethany, a village near Jerusalem. Mary, 
 one of the sisters, had made herself remarkable by 
 anointing Jesus with a "box of very precious ointment of 
 spikenard, and wiping his feet with her hair." Lazarus, 
 the brother, fell dangerously sick ; and the sisters sent 
 to Jesus, saying, " Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest 
 is sick." Jesus, however, did not arrive at the village 
 till Lazarus was already dead and buried. The sisters 
 met him as he approached, and led him by his desire 
 to the grave ; and when- he saw the sisters, and the 
 Jews who furnished the cavalcade, weeping, Jesus also 
 groaned in spirit, and gave vent to his grief in a passion 
 of tears. (John xi. 12, fif.) 
 
 These things occurred when Jesus himself was in a 
 most perilous state from his enemies, and he was shortly 
 after brought a prisoner to the high-priest, and from the 
 
l6o ON THE CHARACTER OF JESUS. 
 
 high-priest to Pilate. He was scourged and crowned 
 with thorns, and cruelly mocked, and crucified ; and, 
 agreeably to a passage in one of the Jewish prophets, 
 which was afterwards considered as fulfilled in him, " as 
 a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not 
 his mouth." (Isaiah liii. 7.) 
 
 But what is most remarkable is what followed on his 
 death. He spent one year, or three, in forming his 
 school, and training his disciples. It might naturally 
 have been expected, that when, after so short a career, 
 he was brought to trial, condemned to death, and 
 ignominiously executed, the memory of his acts would 
 speedily have passed away, and his followers have 
 dispersed. But the very contrary happened. His 
 religion rose like the phoenix from his ashes. His dis- 
 ciples during his lifetime manifested a very imperfect 
 docility, and shewed that they entered but in a partial 
 degree into the spirit of his teachings. When he was 
 taken into custody, they all of them forsook him. And 
 yet, as soon as he was no longer seen by them, they 
 became heroes. They appeared to call to mind all 
 his precepts. They regarded his actions and lessons with 
 unalloyed admiration. He seemed as a God to them. 
 This is what reflects the greatest lustre upon him. 
 What must that man have been, whose instructions 
 made so indelible an impression, and who, though for 
 a time his seed seemed to have fallen in stony places, 
 and among thorns, yet appeared in the sequel to have 
 
ON THE CHARACTER OF JESUS. r 6l 
 
 changed the very nature of his followers, and to have 
 penetrated them with a spirit which never after aban- 
 doned them ? 
 
 The miracles of Jesus, like those of other men who 
 have claimed for themselves the exercise of supernatural 
 power, cannot without much difficulty be explained by 
 men, "sitting below in a cooler element," and free from 
 the fumes of credulity which obscured the senses of 
 human beings through so many ages of the world. We 
 only know that they saw things through any other 
 medium rather than that of their sober senses, that they 
 were juggled by tricks and legerdemain, and that for the 
 most part they believed anything which with a certain 
 solemnity they were required to believe. Personation 
 and a certain carriage on the part of the actors were 
 everything. When we take into account the pretended 
 possession of the bodies of men by devils, their answer- 
 ing to their names, and their quitting the possessed at 
 the command of him who assumed authority over them, 
 we can have but little difficulty with the rest. With 
 respect to the miracles of Jesus in particular, it is to be 
 remembered that he required faith as an indispensable 
 condition to the performance of a cure, that in Galilee 
 he " did not many mighty works there, because of their 
 unbelief" (Matt. xiii. 58), and that he explained to his 
 disciples that the reason why in some cases they could 
 not cast out devils, was "because of their unbelief." 
 (Matt. xvii. 20.) 
 
 M 
 
1 62 ON THE CHARACTER OF JESUS. 
 
 The celebrated Woolston has satisfactorily exposed 
 one by one the miracles of Jesus, and particularly the 
 crowning miracle of his own resurrection. Woolston has 
 mixed his argument, indeed, with a certain degree of 
 banter and burlesque, without which it was perhaps im- 
 possible to do justice to his subject. And, as it is the 
 principle of this volume to treat everything with decorum 
 and sobriety, I willingly leave this question in his hands. 
 
 After all, the greatest difficulty would seem to be, to 
 account for the behaviour of Jesus himself, and to ex- 
 plain the state of his mind with respect to the miracles 
 he is said to have achieved. It is plain that his judg- 
 ment and apprehension in this particular did not outrun 
 those of the period in which he lived. We must surely 
 do him the credit to persuade ourselves that he himself 
 believed in the miracles, a faith in which he required 
 from others. Man is a gregarious animal ; and there are 
 very few who can succeed in separating themselves from 
 the prejudices and persuasion of the whole herd of man- 
 kind about them. Sir Thomas Brown and Sir Matthew 
 Hale, in comparatively enlightened times, and so lately 
 as the year 1664, entertained such a belief in witchcraft, 
 as to have consented to the conviction and execution of 
 two poor women accused of that imaginary crime.* 
 What must have been the case, therefore, when no man 
 
 * " Lives of the Necromancers." 
 
ON THE CHARACTER OF JE& 
 
 doubted or questioned the truth of these wretched tales ? 
 Unmingled hypocrisy is a very rare phenomenon in this 
 sublunary state. The mind of the performer is no longer 
 in its sober sense, but grows intoxicated in the midst of 
 it operations. Jesus first persuaded himself of his divine 
 mission, and his familiar intercourse with his heavenly 
 Father. He apprehended that he was of some exalted 
 and superhuman nature, without exactly defining what 
 that nature was; and, having convinced himself of this, 
 nothing subsequently became hard to him. 
 
 It is a gross mistake, which is commonly made, to 
 regard impostors in matters of this sort, as profligate and 
 unprincipled men. Valentine Greatrakes in England, in 
 the reign of Charles the Second, accompanied his won- 
 derful cures with devout and fervent prayer ; and the 
 celebrated Boyle gives him a very high character for 
 virtue and piety. The same may be said of Prince Hohen- 
 lohe in our own times. These persons are frequently 
 exemplary in their lives, and uncommonly serious, and 
 in earnest in their dispositions and temper. They believe 
 themselves the peculiar favourites of Heaven, and are 
 singularly humble in their acknowledgments of the be- 
 nevolence of the Most High vouchsafed to them, un- 
 worthy to have been selected for so distinguished an 
 honour. 
 
 I come now, in the last place, to consider the dark 
 side in the character of Jesus. Very early he appears 
 to have thought of his present existence as marked for 
 
1 64 ON THE CHARACTER OF JESUS. 
 
 adversity, and even seems to have had some glimpses of 
 his fate, to be cut off from the earth by an iniquitous 
 sentence. When he went up for the last time to Jeru- 
 salem, we are told that he intimated that he should 
 w suffer many things of the elders, and chief priests, and 
 scribes, and be killed." (Matt. xvi. 21.) This anticipa- 
 tion naturally gave a very grave cast to his feelings and 
 discourse. Add to which he had an intimate persuasion 
 of his mission, and that it was for great and mighty 
 purposes that it was conferred on him. 
 
 Yet he was not altogether an ascetic. He says of 
 himself, " Whereunto shall I liken this generation ? It 
 is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling 
 unto their fellows, and saying, We have piped unto you, 
 and ye have not danced ; we have mourned unto you, 
 and ye have not lamented. For John came neither 
 eating nor drinking ; and they say, He hath a devil. 
 The Son of Man came eating and drinking ; and they 
 say, Behold, a man gluttonous and a wine-bibber, a 
 friend of publicans and sinners." (Matt. xi. 16 — 19.) 
 
 But, whatever were the habits of Jesus in the convivial 
 scene, where he perhaps relaxed somewhat of his aus- 
 terity, his general demeanour was fervent and severe. 
 Agreeably to a passage in the Psalms, which the 
 evangelist has applied to him, it might be said, " The 
 zeal of thine house hath eaten me up." (Psalm lxix. 9 ; 
 John ii. 17.) One extraordinary instance of this, which 
 appears properly to fall under the chapter of fanaticism, 
 
ON THE CHARACTER OF JESUS. 1 65 
 
 is where he "went up to Jerusalem, and found in the 
 temple those that sold oxen, and sheep, and doves, and 
 the changers of money, sitting ; and when he had made 
 a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the 
 temple, and the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the 
 changers' money, and overthrew the tables." (John ii. 
 
 13— 1 50 
 
 In the same manner his zeal was inflamed when he 
 
 addressed the scribes and Pharisees, saying, " Wo unto 
 
 you, hypocrites ! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, 
 
 which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within 
 
 full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. . . . 
 
 Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape 
 
 the damnation of hell ?" (Matt xxiii. 27, ff.) 
 
 The indignation of Jesus was especially excited 
 
 against those who were slow of heart to believe. He 
 
 enquires of those who came to him for miraculous cures, 
 
 "Believe ye that I am able to do this?" (Matt. ix. 28.) 
 
 And on another occasion he says, " If ye have faith as a 
 
 grain of mustard-seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, 
 
 Remove hence to yonder place, and it shall remove, and 
 
 nothing shall be impossible unto you." (Matt. xvii. 20.) 
 
 And to Thomas, called Didymus, one of the apostles, he 
 
 is reported to have said, " Because thou hast seen me, 
 
 thou hast believed ; blessed are they that have not seen, 
 
 and yet have believed." (John xx. 29.) All this is 
 
 exceedingly suspicious. It is true that there have been 
 
 instances of persons who have hardened themselves in 
 
1 66 ON THE CHARACTER OF JESUS. 
 
 unbelief, or, more accurately speaking, who have shut 
 their eyes against evidence ; but it is a more pitiable 
 spectacle where men are blinded by credulity, and make 
 a merit to themselves of believing with very imperfect 
 evidence or none. The true nobility and independence 
 of spirit is where we weigh evidence with a scrupulous 
 nicety, and believe neither more nor less than we can 
 clearly prove. There is therefore something strange 
 and repulsive to such a spirit in the idea of ascribing 
 merit to a hasty faith, that consists more in a subjection 
 of the will than in any sound reasoning, or the 
 enlightening of the understanding. 
 
 With such dispositions, and an impatience of every- 
 thing that contravened his supposed divine mission, 
 Jesus plentifully poured out his curses, or, in the 
 Scripture language, his woes, upon the cities which 
 shewed themselves refractory to his preaching. He 
 compared them to all that is recorded as most profligate 
 and abandoned in the Old Testament, and pronounced 
 these his contemporaries to be sunk in a still deeper 
 reprobation. " Wo unto thee, Chorazin ! wo unto thee, 
 Bethsaida ! for if the mighty works which were done in 
 you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have 
 repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say 
 unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon 
 at the day of judgment than for you. And thou, 
 Capernaum, which art exalted to heaven, shalt be 
 brought down to hell ; for if the mighty works which 
 
ON THE CHARACTER OF JESUS. 1 67 
 
 have been done in thee had been done in Sodom, it 
 would have remained until this day. But I say unto 
 you, that it shall be more tolerable for the land of 
 Sodom in the day of judgment than for thee." (Matt, 
 xi. 20 — 24.) " The men of Nineveh shall rise in 
 judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it ; 
 because they repented at the preaching of Jonas ; and, 
 behold ! a greater than Jonas is here." (Matt. xii. 41.) 
 
 And, if these inferior places excited the indignation of 
 Jesus, much more was it awakened against Jerusalem, 
 the metropolis of his native country. To the men of his 
 own city he cried, " That upon you may come all the 
 righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood 
 of righteous Abel to the blood of Zacharias, son of 
 Barachias. . . . Verily I say unto you, All these 
 things shall come on this generation." (Matt, xxiii. 35, 
 36.) But as in his prediction he plainly confounds 
 the anticipated destruction of Jerusalem with his own 
 second coming and the end of the world, it is not easy 
 to say which of the calamities that he dwells upon with 
 so gratified a minuteness belong to the one, and which 
 to the other. 
 
 Meanwhile, what should we think in any other case 
 of a preacher, who delighted to predict the calamity here 
 and hereafter of towns and cities, with their inhabitants, 
 merely because they did not listen with so tractable a 
 docility as he desired to the promulgation of his gospel ? 
 
 The good feelings and impulses of the character of 
 
1 68 ON THE CHARACTER OE JESUS. 
 
 Jesus occasionally shew themselves, in spite of the fieri- 
 ness and intolerance of his zeal. Thus we find him 
 breaking out into the pathetic exclamation: "O Jeru- 
 salem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and 
 stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would 
 I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen 
 gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would 
 not!" (Matt, xxiii. 37.) 
 
 But, to sum up the whole question as to the views of 
 Jesus Christ respecting the final fates of mankind, 
 nothing can be more certain than that they were of the 
 gloomiest description. One of his disciples having 
 asked him, " Lord, are there few that be saved ? " his 
 reply is, " Strive to enter in at the strait gate, for many, 
 I say unto you, shall seek to enter in, and shall not be 
 able." (Luke viii. 23, 24.) It is his Father's " little flock " 
 to whom it is his good pleasure to give the kingdom 
 (Luke xii. 32), while the mass of mankind are for ever 
 excluded. These being figuratively divided into the 
 sheep and the goats, the former go away into life eternal, 
 and the latter into everlasting fire. Meanwhile, can any- 
 thing so mark the ferocity of zeal in the Lord, the judge, 
 as the terms in which the sentence is couched ? Any 
 one, it might be thought, who contemplated the punish- 
 ment of everlasting burnings, and had personally before 
 his eyes the miserable wretches upon whom this sen- 
 tence was to be pronounced, would have felt his heart 
 awed into a deep solemnity, and have been penetrated 
 
ON THE CHARACTER OF JESUS. 1 69 
 
 with the dire necessity under which he laboured of giving 
 it. He would have been struck with the unfitness of 
 adding insult to unspeakable calamity. He could not 
 have brought himself to aggravate the doom, as it stands 
 in the text, with the fearful address, " Depart, ye cursed." 
 
 Another of the evangelists introduces Jesus three 
 times in the course of six verses, as denouncing against 
 the guilty, that they should be " cast into hell, where 
 their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched " 
 (Mark ix. 44, ff.) ; hereby plainly manifesting the com- 
 placency with which he dwelt on the idea. Some sects 
 of Christians have endeavoured, in opposition to the 
 plain meaning of the expression, to mollify this sentence 
 by saying, that its aiotvas atcovwv, which we translate, 
 " for ever and ever," might more literally be rendered, 
 " for ages of ages," and therefore does not necessarily 
 signify a strict eternity. But Jesus in this passage puts 
 it out of all doubt. "The fire that is not quenched," 
 might mean a flame still burning, an awful monument of 
 the punishment of those who had already been con- 
 sumed in it. But " the worm that dieth not," will not 
 admit of being thus explained away. Of what use is 
 the " worm that dieth not," if his gnawings are not 
 perpetually felt ? 
 
 The doctrine of Jesus, therefore, respecting future 
 punishments, represents God, the most perfect and the 
 most merciful, infinitely removed from infirmity and 
 passion, as taking eternal vengeance on the sins of man. 
 
I/O ON THE CHARACTER OF JESUS. 
 
 And what is man that he should be reserved for ever- 
 lasting fire ? " Man that is a worm, and the son of man 
 which is a worm." (Job xxv. 6.) What can we perpe- 
 trate that can awaken the wrath of the Almighty ? For 
 it is not a few astonishing criminals that are in question; 
 but, with few exceptions, the whole race of mankind. 
 Alas ! alas ! what have we done ? — frail creatures, of no 
 more worth and estimation in the eyes of him, who 
 " through vast immensity can pierce," than so many 
 gnats and butterflies. In our little plans, or rather in 
 our fantastic amusements, what commensurableness is 
 there between the slight errors and the saucy petu- 
 lancies of which we are guilty, and the dreadful ex- 
 piation of everlasting fire ? This is indeed to " break a 
 butterfly upon a wheel," to light a conflagration power- 
 ful enough to consume a planetary system, for the pur- 
 pose of annihilating a web of gossamer, the sport of 
 every breathing of an idle wind. In fact, the greater 
 part of our species pass their lives between compulsory 
 labour and an unmeaning interchange of purposeless 
 frivolities. Much of their time is in reality spent in acts 
 of trivial kindness to each other, or in the small ex- 
 ertions necessary to their self-preservation ; fatigued 
 with which they lie down to sleep, that they may enter 
 again refreshed upon the nothings of the succeeding 
 day. And is it to be believed that such frail and 
 feeble creatures should be destined to writhe in ever- 
 lasting torments? that the forces of hell-fire should be 
 
ON THE CHARACTER (>/■ JESUS. l 7 { 
 
 wasted on these ? that thousands of millions of ages are 
 to elapse, and their unspeakable miseries to be for ever 
 new ? For such is the doctrine of Jesus. 
 
 God is represented to us as for ever serene, en- 
 joying an existence of uninterrupted complacency and 
 happiness. " The Lord is full of compassion, and 
 gracious, long-suffering, and plenteous in mercy • and 
 truth." (Psalm lxxxvi. 15.) "Not a sparrow falleth to 
 the ground without our Father." (Matt. x. 29.) And 
 this God shall be everlastingly the spectator of the inef- 
 fable miseries of the creatures he has made. They 
 " shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the pre- 
 sence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the 
 Lamb." (Rev. xiv. 10.) 
 
 Tertullian, bishop of Carthage, one of the most emi- 
 nent of the Fathers of the Church, who flourished about 
 the close of the second century, had fully imbibed the 
 spirit of the Christian faith. He writes thus in his 
 book De Spectaculis, addressing the Pagans of his own 
 time : " You are fond of spectacles ; expect the greatest 
 of all spectacles, the last and eternal judgment of the 
 universe ! How shall I admire, how laugh, how rejoice, 
 how exult, when I behold so many and so great kings, 
 whose entrance into heaven was confidently affirmed, 
 together with Jupiter himself and his whole conclave of 
 gods, groaning in the lowest abyss of darkness ! like- 
 wise magistrates, who persecuted the name of the Lord, 
 liquefying in fiercer fires than they ever kindled for the 
 
I7 2 ON THE CHARACTER OE JESUS. 
 
 Christians. How many sage philosophers, who per- 
 suaded themselves that they had no concern with God, 
 that their souls would never transmigrate into other 
 bodies, now blushing in red-hot flames with their deluded 
 scholars. How many celebrated poets trembling before 
 the judgment-seat, not of Minos, or of Rhadamanthus, 
 but of Christ. How many tragedians, more tuneful 
 now in the expression of their own sufferings. How 
 many dancers, in a greater variety of attitudes in flames 
 than they ever exhibited on earth for the amusement of 
 a crowded audience. How many wrestlers, not displaying 
 their proficiency before the spectators in a theatre, but 
 tossed upon a tempestuous sea of liquid fire. And last, 
 as first, those who blasphemed and raged against the 
 name of the Lord, now overtaken with the requital of 
 their iniquities." 
 
ESSAY IX. 
 
 av THE HISTORY AND EFFECTS OF THE CHRISTIAN 
 
 RELIGION 
 
ESSAY IX. 
 
 On the History and Effects of the Christian 
 Religion. 
 
 [^HERE is an old and a homely proverb which 
 *- says, " Man proposes; but God disposes." This 
 is a quaint way of conveying an important truth, which 
 is, that man sees a very little way into the events of 
 things, and that, with whatever wisdom and whatever 
 benevolence he forms his plans and conceives to himself 
 certain consequences, the event will not unfrequently fall 
 out very different from, sometimes diametrically oppo- 
 site to, what the projector designed. God being here 
 understood to mean the total result of a vast combina- 
 tion of causes, of which the human agent often appre- 
 hends but a very small portion. 
 
 This was perhaps never more strikingly illustrated 
 than in the case of the Christian religion. 
 
 Jesus appears to have contemplated a most benevo- 
 lent project for the benefit of mankind. He saw in a 
 great degree how widely the species was wandering 
 
176 ON THE HISTORY AND EFFECTS 
 
 from the path of the high degree of excellence of which 
 they are capable. He was born at a time when the 
 world was sunk in a general gulf of degeneracy. The 
 Jews, his countrymen, were enslaved under the rule of 
 the Roman empire, a yoke which they regarded with the 
 utmost abhorrence, but from which they had no power 
 of emancipating themselves. Shut out therefore as they 
 were from the path of a generous ambition, they wasted 
 their activity in frivolous and dishonourable pursuits. 
 The most considerable men among them were divided 
 into two sects, the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The 
 Pharisees distinguished themselves by lofty pretences to 
 a superior purity. But all their ambition was exhausted 
 in ostentation and formality. They "did their alms, 
 that they might be seen of men." They " for a pre- 
 tence made long prayers, and devoured widows' houses." 
 They " made broad their phylacteries," that they might 
 be admired by their countrymen for their superior sanc- 
 tity. They " loved the uppermost rooms at feasts, and 
 the chief seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the 
 markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi." (Matt. vi. 
 xxiii.) The Sadducees, on the contrary, were a sort of 
 heretics. They "said that there was no resurrection, 
 neither angel, nor spirit." (Acts xxiii. 8.) They af- 
 fected a gay and liberal character, and set themselves 
 vehemently against the formality and ostentation of the 
 Pharisees. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Romans from the republic had fallen 
 
OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 177 
 
 under the empire. They had subdued almost the whole 
 known world by force of arms. They afford a singular 
 instance of a race of men degenerated from the purest 
 and loftiest character into what was singularly profligate. 
 In their best days they manifested the most independent 
 spirit anywhere upon record. They were simple and 
 direct. They gloried in poverty, and were unassailable 
 to corruption. They loved their country and the prin- 
 ciples of liberty above all things, and sought for no 
 personal indulgence beyond the consciousness of their 
 patriotism and their integrity. But, after persisting long 
 in this honourable career, one unhappy infirmity over- 
 turned all. They aspired to evince their superiority to 
 the rest of the world by dint of arms. They conquered 
 one nation and country after another, and acquired the 
 wealth of the people they conquered. They became 
 emasculate, and changed a character of illustrious 
 poverty for that of enormous opulence. They sunk into 
 the most disgraceful excesses of luxury and profusion. 
 Of consequence, they became accessible to corruption in 
 every form. And, as they never were a refined people, 
 they had little to restrain them in proceeding from one 
 extreme to the other. 
 
 Jesus, having first presented to his youthful observa- 
 tion a scene so foreign from the purity of his nature, 
 began to meditate in his thoughts how all this might 
 best be reversed, and how the energies of the human 
 soul might be renovated, and applied to the best pur- 
 
178 ON THE HISTORY AND EFFECTS 
 
 poses. Surrounded as he was with examples of the 
 most loathsome corruption among the Romans, and 
 with the hollow semblance of virtue on the one hand, 
 and the most heartless scepticism on the other, among 
 his countrymen, he formed in his mind a theory of moral 
 perfection such as the world never saw, and felt con- 
 fident that by its beauty alone it might be assured of 
 becoming the object of universal adoration. 
 
 Jesus, however, did not stop at the love of virtue. 
 The character of his mind was to a considerable degree 
 atrabilarious and saturnine. He was penetrated with a 
 fervent passion against everything that he considered as 
 vice. " The zeal " of the cause of God " had eaten 
 him up.". Hence he was unmeasured in his vituperation 
 of the hypocrisies of the Pharisees ; hence he lost the 
 equanimity of his spirit whenever he called to mind the 
 hardness of heart (such he denominated it) of the cities 
 and towns which listened not to his exhortations, and 
 turned a deaf ear to his warnings. This was the temper 
 best suited to one who apprehended himself to have 
 received a mission from on High. " He that despiseth 
 me, rejecteth him that sent me." (Luke x. 16.) If 
 Jesus had not been somewhat of an ascetic, if he had 
 not regarded with a holy horror those who were deaf to 
 his admonitions, he could not have been so powerful a 
 preacher as he proved himself. He that claims to be an 
 apostle, (and Jesus was more than an apostle) must have 
 nothing hesitating and indifferent about him. He must 
 
OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, 179 
 
 have the spirit of a martyr. He must be ready to face 
 all suffering, all ignominy, even death itself, for the sake 
 v of the cause in which he is engaged. J 
 
 Jesus, therefore, was of the same mind as the royal 
 monitor of the Jews, who says, " The fear of the Lord 
 is the beginning of knowledge." (Prov. i. 7.) He was 
 copious and exuberant in his threats of the divine anger. 
 No one before him was ever so emphatical in asserting 
 the doctrine of everlasting torments in a future world. 
 He dwells upon this position ambitiously and eagerly, 
 and is never weary of repeating it. He tells his hearers 
 again and again, as we have seen, that there are few that 
 shall be saved, and that the rest of mankind are doomed 
 to everlasting burnings. 
 
 When Jesus, and John the Baptist before him, cried 
 out to the Pharisees and Sadducees, " O generation 
 of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath 
 to come ? " they beat an alarm adapted to penetrate 
 the souls of the most callous. When men were con- 
 vinced of the certainty of these threatenings, they might 
 well come in trembling, as the keeper of the prison at 
 Philippi did to Paul and Silas, and exclaim, "Sirs, 
 what must I do to be saved ? " 
 
 It is difficult for us to frame an idea of the tone of 
 mind which prevailed among the first followers of Jesus. 
 He, as the apostle says, " brought life and immortality 
 to light through the gospel." (2 Tim. i. 10.) He set 
 before his hearers a blessing and a curse. They who 
 
180 ON THE HISTORY AND EFFECTS 
 
 came to him with a teachable spirit, saw the strait gate 
 and the narrow way which leadeth unto life, and the 
 wide and the broad entrance which leadeth to destruc- 
 tion. They were like Stephen, the proto-martyr, who, 
 we are told, at the moment of his destruction, " looked 
 up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, 
 and Jesus standing on the right hand of God." (Acts 
 vii. 55.) Everything with them was serious. They were 
 brought into a preternatural frame of spirit, and found 
 themselves perpetually environed with the four last 
 things, — death, judgment, heaven, and hell. 
 
 It was one of the mightiest revolutions recorded in 
 the history of the globe, when a small number of men 
 from a despised race, came in the name of one who 
 was " hanged on a tree," and went forth into the world 
 to preach a new religion to all nations of the earth. 
 When they discoursed of " righteousness, and temper- 
 ance, and judgment to come," their hearers "trembled." 
 (Acts xxiv. 25.) Religion had hitherto sat comparatively 
 loose on the thoughts of mankind. The polytheism of 
 the nations of the earth had distracted their minds, and 
 had in a certain degree turned what might otherwise 
 have created astonishment and awe, into an amusement. 
 The Jews, as taught by Moses, had looked only to tem- 
 poral rewards and punishments, and had no thought of 
 a future state. When Jesus, therefore, came inculcating 
 the blessedness of the world to come, such as eye had 
 not seen, nor ear heard, nor had it entered into the 
 
OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 
 
 IM 
 
 heart of man to conceive, on the one hand, and ever- 
 lasting burnings on the other, he excited all the strongest 
 emotions of which our nature is susceptible, and made 
 men feel the things of this world, which are but for a 
 moment, as unworthy of regard, in comparison with the 
 eternity of bliss or of woe which is to follow. 
 
 We regard these things with a certain degree of 
 indifference. The good sense of the human mind 
 teaches us the preposterousness of the idea, that the 
 great Father of us all, who dispassionately surveys the 
 creatures He has made, should doom any — and much 
 less the greater part of mankind — to live for ever the 
 victims of unmitigated torment. We find our appre- 
 hension incommensurate to such a view of things. In 
 the cool review that we take of these doctrines, our 
 mind refuses to admit them as descriptive of realities. 
 The majority of the inhabitants of Christian countries 
 confess them with their mouths, but deny them in their 
 hearts. 
 
 But it was otherwise in the dawn of the gospel. 
 When these views of a future state were first declared to 
 mankind ; when these denunciations were thundered in 
 the ears of men by Jesus and his apostles ; when, as it 
 appeared to the bystanders, the truth of the doctrine 
 was confirmed by many and stupendous miracles, all 
 persons, except such as retained their sobriety in the 
 midst of a contagious delusion, or who contented them- 
 selves with deriding what their neighbours considered as 
 
I 82 ON THE HISTORY AND EFFECTS 
 
 most serious, received the doctrine into their inmost 
 hearts. They exclaimed with consternation to "Peter 
 and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what 
 shall we do?" (Acts ii. 37.) 
 
 To the proper apostolic age succeeded a period, when 
 literature and the due cultivation of the mind were 
 banished from the world. There was scarcely such a 
 thing as reason and sound logic anywhere to be found. 
 Men were blinded by superstition, and victims of the 
 grossest credulity. The ghosts of the departed per- 
 petually walked the earth ; and there was scarcely a 
 man that had not seen them. Omens and prognostica- 
 tions governed the world. Sorcery and the black art 
 were trades that thrived beyond all others. When judg- 
 ment and good sense were banished from among man- 
 kind, the doctrine of eternal torments found good accept- 
 ance. The mind of man did not revolt from the idea 
 that our " almighty and most merciful Father " should 
 inflict them without remorse and mitigation. Whatever 
 men heard from their spiritual instructors, they admitted 
 without examination and scruple. These were the days 
 when the mass of the people, and indeed all without 
 distinction, were prepared, according to the Scripture 
 phrase, to " swallow a camel." 
 
 Every threatening, therefore, denounced in the Bible, 
 and that was duly repeated to them from the sacerdotal 
 chair, was understood literally. They did not listen to 
 them, like Gallio in the Acts of the Apostles, who cared 
 
OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 1 83 
 
 for none of these things ; but meditated on them daily, 
 and they became the subject of their nightly visions. The 
 thought poisoned to them all that was naturally refreshing 
 and agreeable in life. They used this world as though 
 they used it not ; they felt themselves as " pilgrims 
 and strangers on earth" (Heb. xi. 13), and confessed 
 that they had here " no continuing city." (Heb. 
 xiii. 14.) 
 
 Jesus, therefore, by straining his system in one point 
 beyond all just proportion, in a great degree contributed 
 to reverse the effect which he most zealously designed. 
 He taught the most perfect disinterestedness and self- 
 denial. " The Son of Man had not where to lay his 
 head." (Matt. viii. 20.) When he sent out his disciples 
 to preach, he commanded them to " provide neither 
 gold, nor silver, nor brass in their purses, nor scrip for 
 their journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet 
 staves." (Matt. x. 9, 10.) And, after the death of Jesus, 
 his apostles made a short experiment of the principle, 
 that no one should say, (: that ought of the things which 
 he possessed was his own, but they had all things 
 common." (Acts iv. 32.) And yet, after the lapse of a 
 few centuries, the Christian Church grew up into an 
 enormous system, such as the heart of man had never 
 before conceived — a vast hierarchy, which trod on the 
 necks of princes, which made and unmade kings at their 
 pleasure, which centred a great part of the wealth of the 
 world in their persons, which overspread all Christian 
 
1 84 ON THE HISTORY AND EFFECTS 
 
 countries with churches, and cathedrals, and episcopal 
 palaces, and mitred abbeys, and monasteries and friaries, 
 " eremites and friars, white, black, and grey, with all their 
 trumpery." Whence came this unparalleled revolution ? 
 
 Principally from the doctrine of "everlasting burn- 
 ings." The believers of the sacred volume of the New 
 Testament in the first ages did not, as now, "wear their 
 rue with a difference," and put on the uniform of Christi- 
 anity to be worn " as easy as a glove," fitting it to an 
 infinite variety of glosses and interpretations at their 
 pleasure. Heaven with them was heaven, and hell was 
 hell, in the obvious meaning of the words. They under- 
 stood the punishments of the future world as plain, 
 material fire, to be suffered through thousands of 
 millions of ages by the great mass of mankind, while a 
 " remnant only should be saved." Of consequence, the 
 vision of these terrific menaces haunted their nightly 
 slumbers, and poisoned all their enjoyments. 
 
 There is a passage in the Gospels respecting which 
 one wonders how it got there, and what was intended 
 by it. One would suspect that it was an interpolation 
 of after ages ; but that, I believe, no ancient manuscript 
 of the New Testament is to be found without. Jesus 
 says to one of his apostles, by the aid of a wretched 
 pun, " Thou art Peter, and upon this rock [eVt Tavrvj ry 
 irzTpq] I will build my church, and the gates of hell 
 shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee 
 the keys of the kingdom of heaven ; and whatsoever 
 
OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. I< s 5 
 
 thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven ; and 
 whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in 
 heaven." (Matt. xvi. 18, 19.) What Jesus intended by 
 this speech it is difficult to say, but the Church of Rome 
 has found in it an invaluable legacy. They make Peter 
 the first Christian bishop of Rome, and the gift of the 
 keys to be the portion of all his successors. 
 
 The believers, as I have said, in the first ages of the 
 Christian Church, understood the denunciations of the 
 New Testament literally, and scarcely entertained a 
 question that all mankind, with the exception only of a 
 small remnant, are reserved for everlasting burnings. 
 There were many, no doubt, that fully persuaded them- 
 selves that they were among the exceptions, that God 
 in Christ was fully reconciled to them, that they were 
 heirs of glory, " heirs of God, and joint heirs with 
 Christ" (Rom. viii. 17) ; as the majority perhaps of 
 executed murderers and felons persuade themselves at 
 this day. But all men are not thus gifted with the 
 "grace of assurance." The modest and diffident are 
 haunted with the "affliction of these terrible dreams, 
 which shake them nightly," and will even intrude in the 
 midst of their choicest recreations. They bitterly feel 
 that it is of no use to lull themselves in fancied security, 
 which will only make their resurrection in a future 
 world, when they shall for ever find they were deceived, 
 the more fearful. They assuredly believe that " there 
 is no work nor device in the grave." (Ecclcs. ix. 10.) 
 
1 86 ON THE HISTORY AND EFFECTS 
 
 Here, then, we are furnished with an ample basis for 
 the enormous superstructure of priestcraft. All those 
 who felt deeply what a vast issue they had at stake, 
 were earnestly desirous to find some tangible authority 
 to which they could appeal, an infallible judge of con- 
 troversies ; some one that should be to them in the 
 place of God, who could assure them of safety, and 
 confirm to them their title to the rest that remaineth to 
 the blessed hereafter. The more they distrusted the 
 frailty of their own judgment, the more they were struck 
 with the necessity of having some visible judge to whose 
 decision they could resort. And the first appeal that of- 
 fered itself was to the clergy generally — men set apart 
 to the service of God, and from whom they were 
 accustomed to learn the expounding of the divine 
 oracles. 
 
 "Confess your faults one to another," says the apostle, 
 "and pray for one another, that ye may be healed." 
 (James v. 16.) How much more satisfactory to have 
 some supposed holy man at hand, whose calling it was 
 to hear the confessions of all secular persons ! This was 
 in no length of time digested according to the rules of 
 art. The confessor sat in a box apart, where he could 
 neither see nor be seen by his penitent. The penitent 
 fell on his knees and disburthened his soul of those 
 offences which sat most heavily on his heart. The 
 confessor exhorted him as he went on, and propounded 
 to him questions. To render the confession unreserved, 
 
OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. ^7 
 
 it became necessary that the confessor should be bound 
 to the most inviolable secrecy. If the penitent charged 
 himself with murder or incest, he felt secure that his 
 confession should never be brought in evidence against 
 him. He spoke with the same security as if the com- 
 munication had only been between himself and his own 
 soul. The seal of secrecy was in some cases removed ; 
 but this was only in some very extraordinary emergency, 
 and it was so rare as not to infringe upon the general 
 confidence that the penitent felt in disclosing what 
 oppressed him most. 
 
 To render this institution complete, most satisfactory 
 to the penitent, and beneficial to the Church, it was soon 
 found necessary to add certain other provisions, such 
 as penance and absolution. The confessor prescribed 
 to the penitent certain rigorous observances, — fasting, 
 abstinence from savoury food, the repetition of prayers 
 and humiliation, the wearing of sackcloth, and occasion- 
 ally flagellation. 
 
 After a due course of penance, the priest pronounced 
 ex cathedra the form of absolution, and assured the 
 penitent, in the name of his Creator and Redeemer, 
 that his sins were forgiven him. This, as we have seen, 
 was confirmed by Jesus to Peter, where he says, " I will 
 give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven ; and 
 whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shalt be bound in 
 heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall 
 be loosed in heaven." (Matt. xvi. 18, 19.) This is very 
 
1 88 ON THE HISTORY AND EFFECTS 
 
 strong and precise language ; and whether we under- 
 stand it of the bishops of Rome and those to whom 
 they delegated their authority, or of the clergy gene- 
 rally, it became afterwards of exceeding weight and 
 importance. 
 
 It was the authoritative pronouncing of the sentence 
 of absolution that filled up the measure of this func- 
 tion. The priest-ridden penitent, having been officially 
 reconciled by one of God's consecrated ministers and 
 mediators, felt his heart lightened, and went on his way 
 rejoicing. The flames of the infernal pit could no 
 longer singe him. " Upon their bodies the fire had no 
 power, neither were their coats changed, nor had the 
 smell of fire passed upon them." How infinite the 
 difference between the poor penitent, who had " shut the 
 door of his closet, and prayed to his Father which is in 
 secret," and hoped that his sin was forgiven him, but 
 had received no sign, on the one hand, and him, on the 
 other, who heard the voice of the man of God absolving 
 him, and perhaps had felt his holy hand pouring the 
 oil of salvation on his head ! Sometimes, in addition, 
 the dying man was attired in monastic vestments, ren- 
 dering it impossible that in that habit the devil should 
 approach him to lay hands on his shivering soul. 
 
 The poor man, thus rescued from hell, felt his gratitude 
 to the Church unbounded for so inestimable a benefit. 
 What was wife or children when brought into competition 
 with the salvation of his soul ? He would, therefore, often 
 
OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 1 89 
 
 strip his surviving relatives of every farthing that was to 
 have descended to them, that he might enrich the Church, 
 and be a founder of chapels and monasteries, and sacred 
 edifices of every possible species. 
 
 But the most memorable and productive invention 
 of these times was purgatory. The Scriptures plainly 
 divided the fates of mankind in a future state into two, 
 everlasting and inexpressible blessedness in heaven, or 
 eternal damnation in hell. This alternative, in a period 
 when everything was implicitly believed that issued from 
 a high authority, was found too intolerable. Irreversible 
 damnation for trivial sins was too dreadful to be antici- 
 pated with calmness. According to this doctrine, every 
 individual must at once either be admitted to the bea- 
 tific vision of his Maker, or be consigned to a state of 
 eternal torments. There were but few that could think 
 themselves entitled to everlasting joys, and the rest were 
 to expect irretrievable perdition and misery hereafter. 
 
 The priesthood, however, found out an interval be- 
 tween death and the general resurrection upon which 
 to erect a scheme. Upon the general resurrection of 
 mankind ensued the day of final judgment. The Scrip- 
 tures seem to have filled up the period between death 
 and the resurrection with what theologians have called 
 the " sleep of the soul." " The hour is coming, in the 
 which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice and 
 shall come forth." (John v. 28, 29.) The priesthood 
 fixed on this period as convenient for penal and puri- 
 
190 ON THE HISTORY AND EFFECTS 
 
 fying fires. They said that there were very few souls so 
 perfect at the period of death as to be worthy of imme- 
 diate admission to the joys of heaven. They divided 
 the sins of men into two classes, venial and mortal. For 
 the latter there was no hope, " but a certain fearful 
 looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which 
 shall devour the adversaries." (Heb. x. 27.) But for the 
 former they held it to be unreasonable that for every 
 idle word which, we are told, shall be brought into judg- 
 ment, men should be damned for ever, and without 
 remedy. For souls, then, which lay chargeable with 
 smaller offences, they held that a smaller penalty might 
 be sufficient ; and they decided that the purification of 
 such souls was to be by fire. 
 
 In these days of terror the imaginations of the super- 
 stitious fixed upon ^Etna, Vesuvius, and other volcanic 
 scenes as the probable places of punishment. Terrified 
 men, in the midst of the roarings of these mountains, 
 conceived that they heard the shrieks and wailings of 
 souls in torture. Nothing could be more fearful than 
 the idea of such things being actually brought home 
 to the senses of the living. Shakespear has given an 
 impressive picture of souls in purgatory, such as only 
 Shakespear was capable of giving :— 
 
 _ " But that I am forbid 
 
 To tell the secrets of my prison-house, 
 
 I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word 
 
 Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood, 
 
 Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres, 
 
OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 1QI 
 
 Thy knotted and combined locks to part, 
 And each particular hair to stand on end, 
 Like quills upon the fretful porcupine. 
 But this eternal blazon must not be 
 To ears of flesh and blood." 
 
 Nothing could have been more advantageous to the 
 clergy than this doctrine of purgatory. The human 
 soul is most peculiarly susceptible at the hour that our 
 friends are taken from us by death. Time is the healer 
 of all griefs, and the minister of oblivion. But at first 
 our hearts are melted towards those we have lost. The 
 purgation, we are told, is by fire. There are compara- 
 tively very few persons who quit this terrestrial abode so 
 spotless as not to stand in need of some purification. The 
 direct mode, we are told, of shortening this disastrous 
 period, is by prayer, and particularly the prayers of the 
 Church. These prayers were usually accompanied by 
 the mass, the sacrifice of the body of Jesus afresh, by 
 way of expiation for the sins of the departed. 
 
 It is not certain at what time the doctrine of purga- 
 tory was first introduced into the Christian Church. St. 
 Austin and St. Jerome prayed for the souls of the de- 
 parted, the one for his mother, the other for his wife, 
 whom at the same time, with an amiable inconsistency, 
 they already represented as participating of the joys of 
 heaven. They were not certain, however, whether some 
 soil of human infirmity might not still adhere to these 
 excellent women ; and, for fear of the worst, they prayed 
 that God would remit to them the penalty of these minor 
 
192 ON THE HISTORY AND EFFECTS 
 
 sins. Pope Gregory the Great, in the close of the sixth 
 century, first made the doctrine of purgatory a regular 
 part of the code of Christianity, and established the 
 practice of masses for the dead upon an extensive 
 
 scale. 
 
 This doctrine produced a memorable revolution in the 
 system of the Christian faith. Instead of leaving the 
 article of a future state as Jesus had left it, with the tre- 
 mendous and terrific announcement, "All that are in the 
 graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they 
 that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and 
 they that have done evil unto the resurrection of dam- 
 nation " (John v. 28, 29) ; in conformity to which the 
 infinitely larger portion of mankind were reserved for 
 everlasting fire, — the believer in purgatory left only those 
 who were under mortal sin, murderers, incestuous 
 persons, and such like, to the punishment of hell, for 
 whom little pity was felt, and whose care concerned but 
 few, while the generality of the human race whose sins 
 were venial, were doomed only to purifying fires, and 
 might hope, after a certain time, that their sins would be 
 forgiven them, and their souls be admitted to the society 
 of the spirits of just men made perfect. 
 
 Enough, however, of the terrible was left, even by this 
 scheme, to satisfy any reasonable appetite for horror. 
 The purification, it was universally admitted, was to be 
 by fire, and that the friends we loved and had lost should, 
 after the checkered, and often the painful scenes of this 
 
OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 1 93 
 
 mortal life, be consigned, for a term of years, to torture, 
 was no consolatory thought, even if after this period they 
 should be admitted to the joys of the blessed. Accord- 
 ing to Dante, the infirmities of this life were to be visited 
 with appropriate sufferings ; the miser, the intemperate 
 man, and the sensualist were to abide a penalty that 
 should most acutely remind of their offences on earth. 
 Very few persons were so faultless as not to be sub- 
 jected to some expiation, till the frailties, " done in their 
 days of nature, were burned and purged away." 
 
 It is difficult to think of an institution more conso- 
 nant to the genuine sentiments of human nature than 
 that of masses for the dead, When I have lost a dear 
 friend and beloved associate, my friend is not dead to 
 me. The course of nature may be abrupt ; but true 
 affection admits of no sudden breaks. I still see my 
 friend ; I still talk to him. I consult him in every 
 arduous question ; I study in every difficult proceeding 
 to mould my conduct to his inclination and pleasure. 
 Whatever assists this beautiful propensity of the mind, 
 will be dear to every feeling heart. In saying masses 
 for the dead, I sympathise with my friend. I believe 
 that he is anxious for his salvation ; I utter the lan- 
 guage of my anxiety. I believe that he is passing through 
 a period of trial and purification ; I also am sad. It 
 appears as if he were placed beyond the reach of my 
 kind offices ; this solemnity once again restores to me 
 the opportunity of aiding him. The world is busy and 
 
 O 
 
194 ON THE HISTORY AND EFFECTS 
 
 elaborate to tear him from my recollection ; the hour of 
 this mass revives the thought of him in its tenderest and 
 most awful form. My senses are mortified that they can 
 no longer behold the object of their cherished gratifica- 
 tion ; but this disadvantage is mitigated, by a scene of 
 which my friend is the principle and essence, presented 
 to my senses. 
 
 It being decided that the purification is by fire, renders 
 it most urgent upon me that I should suffer no delay, 
 and permit no contrary avocation to thwart my resolu- 
 tion, when the question is of withdrawing a person I love 
 from " this place of torment." 
 
 The price of masses for the dead was fixed by a 
 certain tariff. Five hundred or a thousand masses were 
 to be purchased at a given sum. Masses were some- 
 times directed to be said to the end of time. And it 
 was an ignoble and a sordid spirit that would stay and 
 count the cost in a question of such paramount urgency. 
 And this was specially the case when the person who 
 directed the cost was the dying man himself. Well, 
 therefore, might Leo X. exclaim, as he is said to have 
 done, "What a profitable fable has this of Jesus Christ 
 proved to us ! " 
 
 Hence we see how the doctrines of Christianity, in a 
 manner so totally opposite to the intentions of its 
 founder, produced, in their unavoidable operation, so 
 gigantic a tree, spreading its mighty branches on every 
 side, "so that the birds of the air came to lod^e" under 
 
OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 195 
 
 its protection. These doctrines, together with the 
 celibacy oi the clergy, another profound reach of policy, 
 reducing this vast body of men under one spiritual head, 
 constituted a scheme most difficult to be uprooted ; so 
 that, when the Reformation came and diminished the 
 power and glory of the Catholic Church in so many 
 important points, yet Christianity, under different forms, 
 still survived the shock. 
 
 Many of the predictions of Jesus have proved marvel- 
 lously true. He was no doubt endowed with a surprising 
 degree of sagacity. Thus he prophesied that his 
 Church, in his language, "the kingdom of heaven," 
 should overspread many countries ; and it has been 
 even so. Thus he said, " Think not that I am come to 
 send peace on earth : I came not to send peace, but a 
 sword." (Matt. x. 34.) One would have thought that, so 
 meek and quaker-like as were the habits of Jesus and 
 his first followers, they could by no possibility have 
 produced such a result. And yet nothing can be more 
 strikingly true than this prediction has proved. 
 
 In the first place, the Christian religion is wholly 
 opposite in spirit to all the religions of the heathen 
 world. They easily accommodated themselves to each 
 other. The Romans ever found, in the countries they 
 conquered, gods who, under different names, had the 
 same provinces and attributes with their own. As most 
 of their gods had only a limited and local power, there 
 was nothing in their theology incompatible with the 
 
I96 ON THE HISTORY AND EFFECTS 
 
 admitting other gods into participation and society with 
 their own. But the religion of the Jews and Christians 
 was essentially intolerant. They taught the worship of 
 one God, and that there was no other God beside him. 
 They placed idolatry as the most enormous of sins ; and 
 the first Christians manifested a delight in profaning 
 the temples and throwing down the altars of the heathen 
 deities. They therefore courted the crown of martyrdom. 
 Beside the general abhorrence of polytheism, they were 
 persuaded that the heathen gods were devils in disguise, 
 escaped from the infernal pit. 
 
 The religions of the heathen world consisted princi- 
 pally in the practice of certain observances and ceremo- 
 nies, and made them appeal to the senses. They do not 
 obviously lead to debates and hostility of one religion 
 to another. But the Christian religion is a religion of 
 faith and dogmas. The opposite opinions of predestina- 
 tion and free-will, of faith and works, of a particular and 
 a general providence, not to mention the disputes about 
 the dignity, person, and offices of the Saviour, have 
 their seeds in the New Testament itself ; and as faith 
 is represented in it of so paramount importance, this 
 unavoidably led to the engendering much pertinacious- 
 ness and bitterness of controversy. Heresies of course 
 multiplied without number ; and infinite industry was 
 employed in the condemnation of error, and the main- 
 taining the purity of the general creed. All this 
 produced some good effects, in sharpening the intellectual 
 
OF Til!-. CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 1 97 
 
 powers, and rendering the professors exceedingly acute 
 in the pursuit and application of logical distinctions. 
 But it did also much harm. Men, who were bitter and 
 earnest in disputation, would not always content them- 
 selves with using the weapons of reason, but would some- 
 times employ those of a less ambiguous character. 
 
 u Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, 
 or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or 
 that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water 
 under the earth : thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, 
 nor serve them." (Exodus xx. 4, 5.) This is the second 
 commandment of the Decalogue. Nothing could be 
 more obvious than this among the Jews, who worshipped 
 one supreme God, the omnipresent Spirit that pervades 
 the universe ; and this served especially to distinguish 
 the Jewish people from the idolatrous nations of the 
 rest of the world. The simplicity of the primitive 
 Christians taught them also to adhere rigidly in this 
 respect to the precept of Moses. The religions of the 
 rest of mankind had the outward symbols of idolatry, 
 and the Fathers of the Christian Church were copious 
 in their indignation against such worship. 
 
 But in proportion as the heathen religions disappeared 
 from the civilized world, the temper of the followers of 
 Jesus altered. The Jews worshipped an omnipresent 
 God, and him only. But, among Christians, the son of 
 God, the " express image of his person " (Heb. i. 3), had 
 appeared in human form ; and the saints and martyrs 
 
I98 ON THE HISTORY AND EFFECTS 
 
 1 
 
 the legitimate successors of the inferior gods of the 
 Greeks and Romans, were honoured at their tombs, and 
 miracles were wrought by their relics. It was, therefore, 
 almost unavoidable that images of Jesus and his saints 
 should be set up in Christian churches, and that divine 
 honours should be paid to them. 
 
 Here, then, we are presented with a memorable occa- 
 sion of divisions in the Christian Church, between those 
 who adhered to the Mosaic dispensation and the first 
 followers of Jesus on the one hand, and the partisans of 
 a more ornamented Christianity, which shewed itself in 
 the midst of worldly opulence and power, on the other. 
 We know not exactly by what degrees the use of images 
 in Christian worship first crept in, but it was, perhaps, 
 to be expected that the more pure and rigorous of the 
 followers of Jesus should take exceptions at so palpable 
 an innovation. And it unfortunately happened that the 
 most direct way in which these men could manifest their 
 disapprobation, was one in the highest degree offensive 
 and shocking to those they opposed. Accordingly, we 
 find among the first examples of this spirit the demo- 
 lition of an image of Jesus which had been' placed over 
 one of the gates of the city of Constantinople. These 
 sects became afterwards distinguished by the names of 
 Iconolatrians and Iconoclasts, the worshippers and the 
 breakers of images. 
 
 Several successive emperors of Constantinople are 
 numbered among the latter. Leo Isauricus, the first of 
 
OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 1 99 
 
 them, in the beginning of the eighth century promul- 
 gated an edict forbidding the use of images in public 
 worship, and engaged in a cruel persecution against 
 those who disobeyed it. In one instance he is said to 
 have by night burned twelve eminent ecclesiastics in 
 their houses for this offence. Constantine Copronymus, 
 his son, we are told, put to death two bishops, and many 
 clergy and monks, after having exposed them to every 
 sort of ignominy, for the like cause- 
 But the ultimate results of this division amon^ 
 Christians were still more memorable. No sooner was 
 the edict of Leo Isauricus -published in Italy, than it 
 seemed to serve as a signal for the revolt of that part of 
 the world against the sovereignty of the Emperor of 
 Constantinople. Leo sent his fleets and armies to 
 subdue the revolters, but in vain. The Italians were 
 fired with an inextinguishable zeal in behalf of the holy 
 images of the crucified Jesus, of his virgin mother, and 
 of the saints. The cause was everywhere victorious. 
 And the temporal powers of the popes was founded 
 upon the expulsion of the representatives of the Emperor 
 of the East. After some vicissitudes, and the successful 
 interposition of Pepin and Charlemagne in behalf of the 
 liberty of Italy, the latter of these princes was finally in 
 the year 800 crowned in Rome Emperor of the West ; 
 and all these revolutions were in the first instance pro- 
 duced by the ecclesiastical dispute of the worshippers and 
 the breakers of images. The triumph, however, of the 
 
200 OX THE HISTORY AND EFFECTS 
 
 image-breakers in the East was short ; and, after some 
 struggle, the cause of orthodoxy was as completely suc- 
 cessful at Constantinople as it had been at Rome. 
 
 While Charlemagne was thus engaged in a pious 
 enterprise in behalf of the Romish Church, he was, at 
 the same time, or a little before, employed in a war 
 against the Saxons, and his campaign was terminated 
 with a bloody battle, in which the Saxons were defeated, 
 and the war was closed by their general and his followers 
 being led to the sacred font, and publicly professing 
 themselves converts to the Christian faith. 
 
 The eleventh century was marked with the establish- 
 ment of those two cardinal dogmas, transubstantiation 
 and the celibacy of the clergy, — the one subduing all 
 human sense and reason at the foot of mystery and 
 implicit faith, and the other creating to the sovereign 
 pontiff an immense army of resolute adherents, dispersed 
 through every region of Christendom, yet detached from 
 all the ties of country, domestic affection, and nature. 
 This was the period in which the Bishop of Rome 
 openly assumed to himself the power of creating and 
 deposing kings, of setting subjects free from the bond 
 of allegiance, and of subjecting the most exalted per- 
 sonages to the basest and most abject penance. 
 
 The close of this century witnessed the most extra- 
 ordinary scene of human enthusiasm and extravagance 
 that is upon record in the history of mankind. Every- 
 thing connected with the Saviour of the world, the 
 
OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 201 
 
 co-ctcrnal son of the co-ctcrnal Father, was at this time 
 regarded with the most prostrate adoration. The soil 
 which Jesus had trod, God and man mystically united 
 in one person ; the city in which he resided, Calvary, the 
 hill which had witnessed his last agonies and his death, 
 were the spots towards which all pious hearts were 
 drawn with a magnetic power. Penance was in special 
 acceptance at this time, and pilgrimages were particularly 
 in vogue. But of all pilgrimages, that which commanded 
 the highest preference was that to the tomb where the 
 body of Jesus had once been reposited. 
 
 These scenes and this tomb were now under the rule 
 of the detested followers of Mahomet. Pilgrims still 
 turned their steps that way, and for a time were allowed 
 to practise their devotions unmolested. The Mahomet- 
 ans, however, looked on this concourse with an evil eye, 
 and at last went so far as to prohibit it, or to accompany 
 its celebration with every kind of molestation and 
 vexation. 
 
 At length, the indignation of the Christian world was 
 wrought up to its height, and they thought how foul 
 was the disgrace that these hallowed scenes should be 
 under the sceptre of the infidels. They resolved on one 
 united effort to free the sacred spot from dishonour. 
 Thousands and tens of thousands marched from many 
 kingdoms on this project. The many lands and seas 
 that were to be traversed -did but the more inflame their 
 zeal. The greatness of their devotion did but the more 
 
202 ON THE HISTORY AND EFFECTS 
 
 excite them to make light of all obstacles, and to omit 
 every precaution and preparation that might be required 
 to insure their success. They blackened like locusts 
 every region that lay in their way. The Greek emperors 
 were alarmed at the inundation, and devised every means 
 in their power to arrest its progress. The waste of 
 human life amidst the obstacles that occurred was enor- 
 mous. They perished by ambuscades, by treacherous 
 information, by inhospitable climates, and by famine. 
 
 From the commencement of Christianity there started 
 up a variety of sects, who mutually condemned and 
 often persecuted each other. Opposing creeds and 
 articles of religion were perpetually at war. The faculty 
 of disputation was sharpened ; but the charity and 
 good-will of professing Christians towards each other 
 were greatly diminished. St. Epiphanius in the fourth 
 century wrote an account of four-score heresies. Moreri 
 reckons up two hundred and seventy-five. 
 
 One of the most memorable of these heresies was that 
 of the Paulicians, so called because they adhered to the 
 writings of the Apostle Paul, to the rejection of the Old 
 Testament, and the exclusion of the other writers of the 
 New. They are said to have held the doctrine of two 
 principles, the one the author of all good, the other of 
 evil, in this assimilating themselves to the creed of Zoro- 
 aster. They rejected images and relics, and in many 
 distinguishing points inclined more to the dictates of 
 reason than to the suggestions of mystery. They denied 
 
OF THE CHRIST I AM RELIGION. 20$ 
 
 transubstantiation, and in their practices leaned to the 
 side of simplicity and self-denial. Their modes were 
 little in accord with the growing opulence and magnifi- 
 cence of the Church. They were on several occasions 
 confounded with the Iconoclasts. They were persecuted 
 by successive Greek emperors, and the panegyrists of 
 the Empress Theodora have boasted, that about the year 
 845 she caused one hundred thousand Faulicians to 
 perish by the sword, the gibbet, or the flames. 
 
 Under the severity of these persecutions the Paulicians 
 disappeared from the Eastern world ; but, after a lapse of 
 more than three centuries, the same principles, with 
 little variation, discovered themselves in the fruitful 
 plains of Languedoc. Their followers were termed 
 Albigenses, from the town of Albi, in that province, 
 round which they principally dwelt. They held, as 
 their predecessors had done, the hostility of matter and 
 spirit, that the good principle was the author of the 
 latter, and. the evil principle of the former. They 
 taught, therefore, that Christ was only in appearance 
 made flesh, and only seemed to be crucified. They 
 enjoined the maceration of the body, and propagated 
 sentiments so simple and self-denying as made them a 
 living satire upon the corruption and luxury of the 
 Court of Rome. They stripped Christianity of the 
 magnificence of practice, and the mystery of doctrines, 
 with which it had long been invested. They were 
 therefore visited with the fierce animosity of the visible 
 
204 ON THE HISTORY AND EFFECTS 
 
 head of the Church. Pope Innocent the Third even 
 exceeded in his cruelties the Empress Theodora. He 
 organised a crusade against the Albigenses under Simon 
 Montfort, who pursued them with fire and sword. The 
 tribunal of the Inquisition, guided by Dominic de 
 Gusman, was first instituted against the unhappy 
 adherents of this sect. Thus proceeded against, they 
 speedily disappeared from Languedoc, and took refuge 
 in the mountains of Savoy and Piedmont. 
 
 At length the Protestant Reformation burst but upon 
 the Christian world. Its adherents saw the corruptions 
 of the Church of Rome in all their native deformity. 
 They freed themselves from the worship of images, 
 transubstantiation, purgatory, and auricular confession. 
 They affirmed that the Pope was antichrist, and that the 
 Church of Rome was the scarlet whore whose name was 
 " Mystery, Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots 
 and abominations of the earth" (Rev. xvii. 5) ; but they 
 were too deeply imbued with the creed of Christianity 
 to be able altogether to cast off its yoke. They retained 
 the humiliation and abjectness of the system, and, most 
 of all, the belief of everlasting torments for the greater 
 part of mankind in a future state. 
 
 At first, one-half of the kingdoms of Europe appeared 
 prepared to cast off the yoke of the Roman Catholic faith. 
 No wonder that the Pope and general hierarchy of Chris- 
 tendom became alarmed. The popish persecutions form 
 a sanguinary page in this period of history. For some 
 
OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 205 
 
 time before, the punishment of burning alive was judged 
 peculiarly fitted for heretics. There was a striking 
 analogy between the punishment in the present world 
 and the flames of hell, which, without doubt, were the 
 doom of heretics in the world to come, rendering the 
 one the fitting prelude to the other. Under Queen 
 Mary of England, five bishops, twenty-one clergymen, 
 and two hundred and fifty private individuals, including 
 women and children, underwent this penalty in three 
 years. In the Netherlands, it is computed by the most 
 unquestionable authority, that fifty thousand persons were 
 hanged, beheaded, buried alive, and burned, on the 
 score of religion alone. The Huguenots of France were 
 the subjects of unrelenting persecution ; and by these 
 means the spread of Protestantism was reduced within 
 narrower limits than had at first been apprehended. 
 
 Luther had observed a certain degree of moderation 
 and policy in his proceedings ; but so violent a shock 
 could not be given to the deep-rooted prejudices of 
 mankind without producing consequences the most un- 
 reasonable and extravagant. Among others, Thomas 
 Muncer, an Anabaptist, a native of Thuringia in Germany, 
 assembled a multitude of followers, alleging that the 
 disciples of Jesus ought to have no magistracy, no 
 inequalities of rank, and no private property ; and 
 having endeavoured to reduce these principles to practice, 
 Moreri says that his insurrection was not subdued but at 
 the expense of more than one hundred thousand lives. 
 
206 ON THE HISTORY AND EFFECT* 
 
 Muncer was put to death in 1525. Some time after 
 this, John Boccold, commonly known by the appellation 
 of Jack of Leyden, a tailor, advancing similar principles, 
 contrived to make himself master of the town of Munster, 
 and having married fourteen wives, and committed a 
 thousand extravagances, was defeated by a league of the 
 princes of Germany, and put to death with the most 
 exquisite tortures, all of which he bore with astonishing 
 fortitude, at the age of twenty-six. This happened in 
 the year 1535. 
 
 The contention between the Catholics and Protestants 
 of France gave occasion to repeated assassination and 
 much bloodshed. The first assassination was that of 
 Francis, Duke of Guise, under the walls of Orleans, 
 which were defended against him by the Protestants. 
 The perpetrator was Poltrot, a Protestant ; and the 
 assassination was effected in 1563. This was followed 
 by the assassinations of Henry III. and Henry IV. of 
 France, perpetrated by Clement and Ravaillac, popish 
 fanatics. 
 
 But the most lamentable scene was executed in 1572, 
 known by the appellation of the Massacre of St. Bar- 
 tholomew. This was effected under cover of a marriage 
 between the King of Navarre, afterwards Henry IV., 
 and Margaret, daughter of Henry II. Charles, the 
 ninth brother to the princess, took an open part in 
 • the massacre. It was perpetrated in the middle of 
 the night, the Protestants being taken unprepared, and 
 
OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 207 
 
 many of them slain in their beds. Ten thousand Pro- 
 testants were thus put to death in Paris alone ; and of 
 these, five hundred noblemen and gentlemen. 
 
 But a scene surpassing this in atrocity, and which the 
 human imagination can scarcely conceive, was that of the 
 Gunpowder Treason in England in the year 1605. The 
 immediate agent in the business was Guy Fawkes, an 
 individual actuated by a frantic zeal for the religion in 
 which he had been educated. He concealed thirty-six 
 barrels of gunpowder in a cellar under the House of 
 Lords, and it was intended that, when James the First 
 with the Lords and Commons were assembled for opening- 
 the Parliament, the whole should explode, and blow all 
 these persons up in the air. It was prevented by a 
 search that was made on the night preceding the 
 assembly. 
 
 Many, however, of the most important effects of Chris- 
 tianity cannot be reduced to the heads of an historical 
 enumeration. They operate silently, and can only be 
 brought to account by a review upon a large scale. The 
 question is, what the human race would have been with- 
 out Christianity. It has probably been of some service 
 to mankind, as having in a certain degree sharpened 
 our intellectual faculties by the appetite for disputation, 
 and the lust for creeds and articles, which it has propa- 
 gated upon earth. This is, perhaps, the whole of what 
 can justly be conceded. 
 
 It has imposed a tissue of falsehood upon the human 
 
r 
 
 208 ON THE HISTORY AND EFFECTS 
 
 mind for eighteen hundred years ; nor do we yet see 
 when the imposture will be at an end. Error cannot 
 take a lasting hold upon man with impunity. Oh, when 
 shall the mind of man again be free, shake off the chains 
 that fasten it to its dungeon, and soar unrestrained in 
 its native element ? Who can tell, in the revolution of 
 eighteen hundred years, what wonders it might not have 
 effected ? 
 
 But Christianity is the nightmare that has pressed 
 down all its exertions, and paralysed its articulations. 
 
 In the first and foremost place, we have always to 
 consider its denunciations of everlasting punishment. 
 What a spring of inestimable price there must be in the 
 mind, that has enabled it, in spite of this infernal 
 pressure, to effect all the admirable things that in the 
 revolutions of these centuries have been realised ! The 
 threat has gone forth into all the world. The unequi- 
 vocal language of the Christian Scriptures is, that the 
 whole of mankind, except a select few, shall be punished 
 after death with inexpressible torments, which shall know 
 neither mitigation nor end. It is fortunate for us that 
 there is so much incredulity in the world. 
 
 The atrocious nature of the menace in some degree 
 operates its own cure. The faculties of man cannot be 
 reduced to believe in so monstrous an absurdity. But 
 though the wounds inflicted upon our spirit are for this 
 reason not mortal, yet with what frightful scars must it 
 not be trenched ? The idea, once truly impressed, can 
 
OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 2CX) 
 
 scarcely by any means be obliterated. Death is the 
 " bourne from which no traveller returns." u Between 
 us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that they 
 which would pass from hence to you cannot." (Luke xvi. 
 26.) All is silence in the grave. The moment that the 
 spirit has passed from this mortal frame, all communica- 
 tion is cut off. With whatever arguments we may fortify 
 ourselves against the terrors of hereafter, we can never" 
 arrive at a sensible demonstration. 
 
 There are doubtless all degrees of faith among nomi- 
 nal Christians, from that so terrible that it drives our 
 reason from its genuine seat in the brain, to that which 
 in its gayer moods laughs at these imaginary dreams 
 But the arrow still sticks in the wounded ribs. The 
 sound still rings in our ears. Who shall say that the 
 man who has once been visited with these terrors, will 
 ever be in all respects the same man as he would have 
 been, if his soul had never been laid prostrate by them ? 
 
 They operate in different degrees upon different men. 
 With the majority they do not prevent us from taking a 
 deep interest in the affairs of this transitory life. With 
 an inconsistency, perhaps, inseparable from the nature of 
 the human mind, we occupy ourselves earnestly with a 
 thousand frivolities, while for aught we know the furnace 
 is heating seven times hotter than arfything ever known 
 upon earth, which is, not to consume us, but to torment 
 us to all eternity. 
 
 Many men laugh these things off amidst the busy 
 
 P 
 
210 ON THE HISTORY AND EFFECTS 
 
 turmoil of the world, who are terribly visited by the 
 recollection of them in solitude and in the hours of 
 darkness. They press upon such persons with terrible 
 energy in a period of calamity, when exposed to the 
 clouds of adversity, in sickness and the near approach of 
 death. It is true that, when we draw towards the close 
 of our mortal life, men are much less frequently exposed 
 to these visitations of remorse, and " a certain fearful 
 looking for of judgment," than might have been ex- 
 pected. But we anticipate this crisis frequently with 
 terrible alarms ; and no man knows how it will fare with 
 him, when his time shall come. Death is at any rate an 
 awful change, and there is no need that its evils should 
 be aggravated with the additional mischiefs of super- 
 stition. 
 
 The threats of everlasting punishment in hell are no 
 doubt the cardinal mischief, the crying and irreparable 
 evil, of the Christian religion. The next seems to be the 
 humility, carried to so extravagant a degree— the " poor- 
 ness of spirit," as Jesus has thought proper to designate 
 it, which it inculcates. Nothing can certainly be more 
 absurd, than the man who " opposeth and exalteth him- 
 self above all that is called God and is worshipped, who 
 as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself 
 that he is God." Man is but a "worm." "Dust he is, 
 " and unto dust he shall return." Presumption and arro- 
 gance, therefore, in so frail a being, are to the utmost 
 degree contemptible. Yet a well-considered conscious- 
 
OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 211 
 
 ness of that, whether in understanding or virtue, of which 
 we are capable, is inseparable from true excellence. We J 
 should, as the apostle says, though in express contradic- 
 tion to the precepts of his Master, " not think of our- 
 selves more highly than we ought to think, but soberly." 
 (Romans xii. 3.) This is the truest worship and grati- 
 tude towards that mysterious, inexplicable power which 
 has made us what we are. 
 
 Moses, when he concludes his account of the creation 
 of the earth, its productions and inhabitants, says, " God 
 saw everything He had made, and behold it was very 
 good." (Gen. i. 31.) Nothing can be more obvious now 
 than that there is much evil mixed with the good. The 
 oldest solution of this phenomenon probably is the doc- 
 trine that there are a good and an evil principle perpetu- 
 ally at work in the world, and incessantly striving for the 
 mastery. Moses's own solution is perhaps beyond all 
 others the most incongruous and unsatisfactory. He 
 teaches that everything was faultless and pure, till God 
 communicated to the first man an arbitrary command, 
 which he almost immediately disobeyed. The conse- 
 quence was a severe sentence pronounced upon Adam, 
 which was plainly designed to extend to all his race. 
 " Cursed is the ground for thy sake ; in sorrow shalt 
 thou eat of it all the days of thy life. ... In the sweat 
 of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return to the 
 ground ; for out of it wast thou taken : for dust thou 
 art, and unto dust shalt thou return." (Gen. iii. 17, ff.) 
 
212 ON THE HISTORY AND EFFECTS 
 
 The doctrine of Moses on this head is exceedingly 
 expanded by the subsequent writers of the Old Testa- 
 ment, and still more by the writers of the New. They 
 represent man, in consequence of the fall of Adam, not 
 only condemned to misfortune and labour, but also as 
 incapable of proceeding in the paths of virtue, and con- 
 tinually prone to disobey the laws of morality and God. 
 Hence we are all of us offenders in the sight of the 
 Almighty. Of consequence, that God, who is of purer 
 eyes than to behold iniquity, regards us with displeasure, 
 and pronounces upon us a sentence of condemnation. 
 Conformably to this state of things, the Church of 
 England daily calls on all its disciples to confess their 
 sins in the strongest terms. 
 
 Be it observed, that this confession is put into the 
 mouths indiscriminately of all who join in the forms of 
 Christian worship. " No flesh shall be justified in the 
 sight of God." "That every mouth may be stopped, 
 and all the world may become guilty before Him." 
 (Rom. iii. 19, 20.) 
 
 It might, perhaps, be supposed that this was a mere 
 mode of expression, intended only to convey an idea of 
 the littleness of man, in comparison with the perfections 
 of the Creator of the universe; just as before Eastern 
 monarchs every subject is expected to prostrate himself, 
 and employ the language of the most abject humility. 
 But it is no such thing. Every one of us is bound to 
 acknowledge that he has done that which deserves the 
 
OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 2 I 3 
 
 wrath of God for evermore, and that it is merely of His 
 sovereign grace that He remits to us our manifold trans- 
 gressions. This is indeed a levelling principle which de- 
 stroys all distinction between right and wrong, between 
 conduct the most flagitious and the most exemplary. 
 
 Let us take by way of illustration the instance of our 
 illustrious Alfred, the almost incredible ornament of the 
 dark pages of our annals. He found, in the beginning of 
 his reign, his country overrun by the barbarous Danes, 
 and was driven to hide himself in an obscure retreat in 
 the Isle of Athelney. With infinite skill and inex- 
 haustible courage he drove them out, and reduced his 
 whole kingdom under one rule. He found his subjects 
 full of rapine and disorder, and, by judicious regulations, 
 brought them into a state of unexampled peace and 
 security. He instituted or revived trial by jury, and the 
 system of a representative legislature. He united the 
 highest capacity for science with the most shining talents 
 for action. He divided each day into three parts, allow- 
 ing himself eight hours for sleep and the refection of his 
 body, eight for the despatch of business, and eight for 
 study and devotion. In short, he was the model of 
 what philosophers have been fond of delineating under 
 the idea of a perfect prince. 
 
 Alfred was a Christian, and one of his modes of 
 civilizing the Danes, was by inducing them to adopt the 
 ceremony of baptism and the profession of Christianity. 
 Alfred, therefore, we must suppose, was in the daily 
 
214 HISTORY, ETC., OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 
 
 practice of the Christian mode of confession, and pray- 
 ing for himself that God would have mercy upon him. 
 In like manner, all the most illustrious patriots and 
 exemplary characters that are to be found in the page 
 of history, — John Hampden, Milton, Sir Thomas More, 
 William Penn, Howard, Allen of Prior Park, and Pope's 
 " Man of Ross," we are bound to consider as having 
 merited God's everlasting wrath, and only to be saved 
 by free grace through the intercession of Jesus. Nothing 
 can be more absurd than this, unless it be what also 
 occurs in our Liturgy, that of every vagabond, whose 
 remains we inter in consecrated ground, we aver that we 
 commit him to the earth " in sure and Certain hope of a 
 joyful resurrection." 
 
 An erect and independent spirit is of the essence of 
 true virtue. We are bound to consider man as but a 
 "little lower than angels, and crowned" by the system 
 of the universe "with glory and honour." One of the 
 first principles of an enlightened morality is self-rever- 
 once. We must recollect the great things of which our 
 nature is capable, and endeavour to act up to our high 
 vocation. Those men whose lives have reflected the 
 ;reatest honour on their species, have been marked by 
 a generous and well-considered confidence in themselves, 
 and, so stimulated, have "gone on in the way" of recti- 
 i tude with self-complacency and joy. 
 
ESSAY X. 
 
 0A T LIB ER7 Y. 
 
ESSAY X. 
 
 On Liberty. {Fragment.) 
 
 " 1 r* VERY idle word that men shall speak, they shall 
 -*— •* give account thereof in the day of judgment." 
 This is the most intolerable sentence in the whole cycle 
 of religious morality. 
 
 In the heart of every man is indelibly imprinted the 
 love of liberty. The more generous his temper, and 
 the more noble his nature, the more securely does 
 this love exist within it ; and till the last breath of his 
 life expires he will hug it to his bosom, and not part 
 with it, as long as he has any force in a tendon or a 
 muscle by means of which it may be grasped. 
 
 We know in a manner intuitively the condition of our 
 human life. We are members of a community. \\ e 
 are indissolubly connected with the society of our fellow- 
 men. We have duties. We can perform actions that 
 are worthy of applause ; and we can commit crimes and 
 offences against others. We easily reconcile ourselves 
 
21 8 ON LIBERTY. 
 
 to this inevitable condition of our existence, and believe 
 that, if we neglect our duties, we must expect in some 
 way or other to be made accountable for it. 
 
 But we look for limits to our task. We are contented 
 to be restrained ; but we are not contented for our 
 whole lives to dance in fetters. We expect that there is 
 a time when we may lay down our load, stretch out 
 limbs in the shade, and say, " Now I am all my own." 
 
 For the greater and more serious actions of our lives 
 we are accountable. We are contented to be amenable 
 to the laws of society for our delinquencies, and to God, 
 if there be a God that knows and concerns himself with 
 our proceedings, for having neglected to make the best 
 use of our faculties, and on the supposition that we have 
 " hid our talent in a napkin." 
 
 But we claim as our own peculiar province our 
 innocence — innocence, in the strict and etymological 
 sense of the word, that by which by no construction we 
 can do any harm, when already every duty has been 
 discharged, every debt paid to the uttermost penny. It 
 is not much that we claim ; but that little is not on that 
 account the less precious to us. 
 
 We love, as Jesus says, to " enter into our closet, and 
 shut the door, and " be " in secret." (Matt. vi. 6.) In 
 other words, we love to shake off all restraint, save that 
 of our innocence, and so to let our thoughts be free to 
 roam wherever they please, and to say, " Now, within 
 rational limits, I am accountable to no one ; I may 
 
/ r. 
 
 indulge my genius, I may enact my pleasure without 
 fear that I shall ever be arraigned for what I do, or that 
 any one shall say, Wherefore dost thou thus or thus ? 
 Let there be a general resurrection, let there be a day 
 of judgment ; I am at least secure of my secret hoard. 
 It consists only of pebbles, and broken bits of some- 
 earthen utensil ; but their very worthlessness prott 
 them, and renders them sacred and secure." 
 
 I know not that much is to be made of this, except 
 as it tends to shew in one instance the extraordinary 
 ignorance of Jesus as to the nature of man, and affords 
 me an opportunity of unfolding a peculiarity of the 
 human mind which is surely not unworthy of our 
 attention. 
 
 Man is especially characterised by two propensities — 
 the love of society, and the love of solitude. The former 
 is perhaps the most essential to us, since the great bulk 
 of ordinary men live almost perpetually in society ; and 
 I do not know that they are apt to be unhappy for want 
 of ever being alone. Society is our proper sphere. All 
 our great lessons from youth to age are learned in 
 society; in society all our sweetest affections are called 
 into play, and our main virtues are exercised. But the 
 man of refinement, at least, can scarcely live without 
 occasional intervals of solitude. " Commune with your 
 own heart upon your bed," says the Psalmist, " and be 
 still." (Psalm iv. 4.) Lord Shaftesbury has laid it down 
 as a maxim, that soliloquy is a habit indispensable to an 
 
220 ON LIBERTY. 
 
 author. We love to be alone ; to be surrounded with no 
 objects but the fields and the trees, the mountains and 
 the waters, to hear nothing but the rustling of the 
 foliage and the songs of the birds, and to feel the fresh 
 breeze of heaven playing upon our cheeks. And, when 
 we are thus alone, how do we revel in the unbounded 
 freedom of thought, conscious that we are under no 
 restraint either of man, or (with reverence be it spoken) 
 of God Himself; that, within the limits of honour and 
 innocence, we shall be called to no account, neither by 
 any human tribunal, nor by a tribunal, which many of 
 us look for, beyond the grave. 
 
 It would be too poor a slavery that we should not be 
 permitted to draw a breath, or to lift a finger, but at the 
 nod of our task-master. We surely may be allowed to 
 throw a few summersets. Even boys, when they are out 
 of school, are permitted to frisk, and to try the strength 
 of their voices. The claims of the boy in his play- 
 ground are in equity altogether as complete as those of 
 the master in the school-room. 
 
 Taken in this point of view, it has something the air 
 of bitter irony, when the apostle exhorts his fellow- 
 Christians to " stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ 
 had made them free." (Gal. v. I.) 
 
ESSAY XL 
 
 THE MIXED CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY, ITS 
 HORRORS, AND ITS GRACES. 
 
ESSAY XL 
 
 On the Mixed Character of Christianity, its 
 Horrors, and its Graces. 
 
 JESUS was certainly a most extraordinary character, 
 though that alone will by no means adequately 
 account for the marvellous fortune of his religion. 
 
 The first feature of his character which we will on the 
 present occasion take into consideration, is that gloomy 
 trait in his disposition, which led him to inculcate, or 
 even induced him to believe in, the doctrine of everlasting 
 torments. There is something atrocious in this part of 
 his story. It forcibly brings to the mind the character 
 of St. Dominic, the original conductor of the tribunal of 
 the Holy Inquisition. We cannot but believe that there 
 was something ferocious and inhuman in the disposition 
 of the man (St. Dominic) who could contemplate the in- 
 flicting indescribable tortures on the unhappy individuals 
 that differed from him in a point of faith, and who 
 perhaps watched with a serene sharpness of observation 
 the moment of human infirmity, when the resoluteness of 
 
224 ON THE MIXED CHARACTER 
 
 the martyr should give way to the frailty of the flesh. 
 It is true that in the case of Jesus the scene of torment 
 was not actually exhibited before his senses, and that 
 by the constitution of our nature the prediction or the 
 menace of exquisite sufferings is borne with less mental 
 disturbance, when their real presence would 
 " Unfix our hair, 
 
 And make our seated heart knock at our ribs, 
 Against the use of nature." 
 
 But there must be something uncommonly stern in the 
 temper of him who could make this article a characteristic 
 feature in the creed he promulgated, and, as I have else- 
 where said, have plainly manifested the complacency 
 with which he dwelt on the idea, by repeating the 
 denunciation in its most terrific form three times in the 
 course of six verses. What a fearful depth of bigotry 
 must have steeled the heart of the man, who without 
 hesitation propagated this doctrine ! It is strange that 
 it did not once enter his mind, that by so ferocious an 
 assurance he ran an imminent danger of oversetting the 
 whole system which he was so much in earnest to build. 
 And it shall yet overset the religion of Jesus, though for 
 so many centuries it has failed to produce that effect. 
 
 And it appears how deeply the mind of Jesus was 
 imbued with this sentiment, since, not contented with 
 throwing out the denunciation in general terms, he even 
 specifically applies it to the men among whom he moved 
 and lived. In a particular instance we are told that 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY^ ETC, 225 
 
 when his disciples, James and John, said, " Lord, wilt 
 thou that \vc command fire to come down from heaven 
 and consume them ? ... he turned, and rebuked 
 them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye 
 are : for the Son of Man is not come to destroy men's 
 lives, but to save them." (Luke ix. 54 — 56.) Yet, when 
 he found the cities of Judea turning a deaf car to his 
 preachings, he did not scruple plentifully to pour out his 
 curses upon them. " Wo unto thee, Chorazin ! wo unto 
 thee, Bethsaida ! for if the mighty works which were 
 done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they 
 would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. 
 But I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Tyre 
 and Sidon at the day of judgment than for you. And 
 thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt 
 be brought down to hell : for if the mighty works which 
 have been done in thee had been done in Sodom, it 
 would have remained until this day. But I say unto 
 you, that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom 
 in the day of judgment than for thee." (Matt. xi. 2 r — 24.) 
 Here he must have had actually before his eves the 
 figures and visages of the men against whom he was 
 denouncing everlasting torments. And, by referring to 
 the "day of judgment," it would appear that Jesus 
 plainly had in his mind sufferings without end. 
 
 I will not on this occasion enlarge upon the minor 
 faults of Christianity. I will consider it as no longer a 
 living principle, but as that which, having passed away 
 
 Q 
 
226 ON THE MIXED CHARACTER 
 
 is a subject only of historical recollection. Its indirect 
 and incidental accompaniments I will consider, each in 
 its turn, as entitled to notice, but not to be " remem- 
 bered in its epitaph." I will not take into my account 
 those evils which in a manner have illegitimately sprung 
 out of it, but do not seem expressly to make a part of 
 its substance. I spoke of its gloomy and impatient 
 character, because it appertains justly to the qualities of 
 its author. 
 
 The subject of this Essay is the Mixed Character of 
 Christianity, its Horrors, and its Graces. I have spoken 
 of the former ; I now come to speak of the latter. 
 
 That which is, perhaps, entitled to the first place 
 among its Graces, is the ennobling, I had almost said 
 the divine, nature of its leading principle, namely, love. 
 " God," says the favourite disciple of Jesus, " God is 
 love." (i John iv. 8.) And he himself has laid it down 
 as the corner-stone of his system, " Thou shalt love the 
 Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, 
 and with all thy mind. This is the first and great com- 
 mandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt 
 love thy neighbour as thyself." (Matt. xxii. 37, 39.) 
 
 It is no matter whether the idea of an intelligent 
 Creator, whose essence is love, and who is therefore to 
 be perfectly and entirely loved, is the dictate of the 
 purest and the soundest philosophy. The merit of the 
 principle will remain unaltered. Its characteristic is 
 disinterestedness. It stands in direct opposition to the 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY, ETC. ^7 
 
 grovelling principle, born in Fnince, and which is the 
 curse of modern times, that all human motives are ulti- 
 mately resolvable into self-love. It makes virtue to be 
 really virtue, and not a semblance only. It bases the 
 actions of the good man upon a just and irrefragable 
 estimate of the value of things ; not upon a consideration 
 in which the best action that ever was performed is 
 made the action in the whole world of the most exqui- 
 site and deliberate injustice, and where the greatest 
 good is most directly postponed to private and personal 
 gratification.* 
 
 Nothing can be conceived of more exquisite sublimity 
 than Jesus's answer to the young lawyer who, pursuing 
 the enquiry, said to him, " And who is my neighbour?" 
 It comes with an infinitely higher grace by being 
 couched in an apologue: "A certain man (a Jew) fell 
 amone thieves;" and the individual that "took com- 
 passion on him" was a Samaritan. (Luke x.) Now, as 
 another evangelist says, "the Jews have no dealings 
 with the Samaritans." (John iv. 9.) 
 
 Nothing can be more beautiful than the apologues, 
 the parables, as they are called, in which Jesus conveys 
 his instructions. They have a simplicity, an unarTected- 
 ness, which goes directly to the heart. 
 
 How full are all his discourses of aphorisms, convey- 
 ing the deepest thoughts in the most unpretending style! 
 
 * "Thoughts on Man," p. 210. 
 
223 ON THE MIXED CHARACTER 
 
 What was once said of Shakespear, though not perhaps 
 with perfect correctness, may well be affirmed of Jesus. 
 There is not a question of duty in human life that will 
 not be found resolved in one or other of the discourses 
 of this wonderful man. He seems to have considered 
 everything, and is never for a moment at a loss in any 
 question that is propounded to him. 
 
 And where did he get this morality, which is, on the 
 whole, of such unparalleled purity, or, if it is ever liable 
 to censure, is yet stamped with a true nobility of cha- 
 racter, worthy of our highest admiration ? 
 
 Socrates has repeatedly been compared to Jesus, as 
 teacher of the highest morality. But Socrates had the 
 advantage of being born in the most enlightened age of 
 Greece, where there had already gone before him cha- 
 racters of illustrious virtue, and where the inhabitants 
 had caught the sparks of a true independence of soul 
 from the most glorious example of the victory of a well- 
 tempered spirit over the mere power of numbers that 
 the world ever saw, in the defeat and disgrace of the 
 innumerable armies of Xerxes in the Persian invasion. 
 
 But Jesus was born among a people who had already 
 sustained every species of degradation. If the Jews had 
 once produced sublime poets and accomplished moralists, 
 they had since experienced a seventy years' exile and 
 captivity under the Kings of Babylon. Restored, 
 however imperfectly, from this, they sank in succession 
 into a province, first under Alexander's successors, and 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY, ETC. 22Q 
 
 then under the Romans, with the additional aggravation 
 that they were treated with the most galling contempt 
 and hate by all in their turn. The Jews accordingly 
 became base, servile, and double-tongued in their habits. 
 Their more eminent personages were divided into sects, 
 one of them the most formal, and at the same time 
 the most arrogant upon record, who made broad their 
 phylacteries, gave their alms that they might be seen 
 of men, and used long prayers in the corners of the 
 streets. The other sect believed in no resurrection, 
 neither angel, nor spirit, and seemed to have derided 
 everything that their opponents regarded as most sacred. 
 And yet Jesus, in the midst of all this depravity, purely 
 by the enlargement of his views, and the erectness of his 
 soul, attained to the pitch of a moral system, which up 
 to that time the world had never seen. 
 
 Socrates led the men to whom he addressed himself 
 to the conclusions he sought by a series of ensnaring 
 questions, by which they were at unawares driven to 
 yield to the sentiments he required. He made long 
 orations, in which he divided his subjects with a certain 
 degree of pedantry and parade, and pressed his con- 
 clusions with scientific and artfully-contrived arrange- 
 ment. By these habits he became in some degree 
 allied to the sophists of his country. But the tone of 
 Jesus's discourses was of too lofty a character to submit 
 to the shackles of ingenuity. He uttered his lessons 
 with a depth of sincerity and a truth of nature, that 
 
230 MIXED CHARACTER 0E CHRISTIANITY, ETC. 
 
 surprised his auditors, and compelled them to exclaim, 
 u Truly this is the Son of God." It is no doubt in part 
 owing to this, that. his religion has had so triumphant a 
 career, and that those who have once been thoroughly 
 imbued with its principles, have found it so difficult to 
 disengage themselves from its imposing character, and 
 escape into the liberty in which a truly independent 
 understanding mosf delights to expatiate. 
 
ESSAY XII. 
 
 ON THE CHARACTER OF GOD AS DESCRIBED IN THE 
 
 SCRIPTURES. 
 
ESSAY XII. 
 
 On the Character of God as described in the 
 
 Scriptures, 
 
 IT is difficult to conceive any proposition more irre- 
 sistible than that, if the world has an intelligent 
 Creator, He must be all goodness. He can have no 
 motive or impulse to inflict evil on anything that lives. 
 He must be without passions, for ever serene and 
 benevolent. We, the creatures of His power, are in- 
 finitely too much beneath His greatness for it to be 
 possible for us to excite His anger. We " dwell in houses 
 of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, and they are 
 crushed before the moth." (Job iv. 19.) He can dispose 
 of us as He pleases, and has power over us, as the 
 " potter over the clay, of the same lump to make one 
 vessel, one to honour, and another unto dishonour." 
 (Rom. ix. 2,1.) By His sovereign power, He can mould 
 us as He pleases, and in a moment change the most 
 depraved and refractory character into the most innocent 
 and virtuous. Yet in how diametrical opposition to 
 
234 ON THE CHARACTER OF GOD 
 
 this is the character of God, as exhibited in the Scrip- 
 tures. 
 
 Of Jesus it has been said, that all his miracles were 
 benevolent. " The blind received their sight, and the 
 lame walked, the lepers were cleansed, the deaf heard, 
 and the dead was raised up." (Matt. ix. 5.) But it is 
 not so with all the miracles recorded in the New 
 Testament. Elymas, the sorcerer, being cursed by the 
 Apostle Paul, was immediately struck with blindness. 
 And Ananias and Sapphira, two of the early converts 
 to Christianity, having sold a possession, for the alleged 
 purpose of throwing the produce into a common stock, 
 and keeping back part of the price, and being taxed 
 with this, having denied it, fell down instantly in the 
 presence of the apostles, and expired. (Acts xiii. and 
 Acts v.) 
 
 But the thing most especially deserving of notice is the 
 character of the Almighty creator of the universe, as 
 recorded in the Scriptures. And we cannot sufficiently 
 wonder, that with this character given to the all-perfect 
 being, the Scriptures should, nevertheless, for so many 
 revolving centuries, have constituted the creed of so 
 large a portion of the most enlightened nations of the 
 
 world. 
 
 God, having determined to give to the chosen de- 
 scendants of Abraham and the patriarchs the land of 
 Canaan, a land flowing with milk and honey, for their 
 possession, proceeds in His own good time, through a 
 
AS DESCRIBED TN THE SCRIPTURES. 235 
 
 series of stupendous miracles, to carry His everlasting 
 decree into effect. lie sends Moses to Pharaoh, king of 
 Egypt, to whom the Israelites were then in a state of 
 bondage, to command that monarch in the name of 
 Jehovah to " let them go for three days into the wilder- 
 ness to sacrifice to the Lord." At the same time, God 
 " hardened Pharaoh's heart " (Exod. vii., ff.), that he 
 should not let them go. At length, through a series of 
 terrors and calamities, he is induced to drive them out. 
 He had, however, no sooner given them leave to depart, 
 than, through a judgment of God upon him, he repented, 
 and made ready his host to intercept their flight. God, 
 in the meanwhile, divided the Red Sea, that the Israelites 
 might pass through dryshod ; and no sooner was that 
 effected, than the waves returned in their strength, and 
 drowned the " chariots and the horsemen and all the host 
 of Pharaoh in the sea," so that not one of them escaped. 
 
 By a perpetual miracle, the Jews wandered " forty 
 years in the wilderness," which they might have crossed 
 in less than as many days ; " their clothes did not wax 
 old upon their bodies, nor their shoes upon their feet," 
 during this period. 
 
 At length God brought them into the land of the Amo- 
 rites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaan- 
 itcs, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, having determined 
 to cut off these nations, that there might be no mixture of 
 idolatry among His chosen people, but that they might 
 possess the territory entire to themselves. He therefore 
 
236 ON THE CHARACTER OF GOD 
 
 commanded them to "burn all the cities" wherein they 
 dwelt, and their goodly castles with fire. And they " slew 
 all the males." But God did not find this enough ; and 
 further directed that they should kill the male infants, 
 and " every woman that had known man, and keep the 
 rest alive for themselves." (Numbers xxxi. 17, 18.) 
 
 Previous to this, and while the Israelites were yet in 
 the wilderness, a rebellion broke out against Moses 
 among the tribe of Levi, at the head of which were 
 Koran, Dathan, and Abiram. And Moses said to the 
 congregation, " Get you up from about the tabernacle 
 of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, . . . lest ye be con- 
 sumed in all their sins." And these men " came out and' 
 stood in the door of their tents, and their wives, and their 
 sons, and their little children. And Moses said, . . . 
 If these men die the common death of all men, or if they 
 be visited after the visitation of all men, then the Lord 
 hath not sent me. But if the Lord make a new thing, 
 and the earth open her mouth, and swallow them up, 
 with all that appertain unto them, and they go down 
 quick into the pit, then ye shall understand that these 
 men have provoked the Lord. And it came to pass, as 
 he had made an end of speaking all these words, that 
 the ground clave asunder that was under them ; and the 
 earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and 
 their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, 
 and all their goods. They, and all that appertained to 
 them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed 
 
AS DESCRIBED IN THE SCRIPTURES. 237 
 
 upon them." Nor was God satisfied with this vengeance. 
 He also sent a plague among the congregation ; and 
 there ■" died of the plague fourteen thousand and seven 
 hundred, beside them that died in the matter of Korah." 
 (Numbers xvi.) 
 
 God found the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah full of 
 unnatural lusts, and He rained upon them brimstone and 
 fire out of heaven, and overthrew those cities, and all 
 the plain, and all the inhabitants of those cities, and 
 that which grew upon the ground, and set them " forth 
 for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal 
 fire." (Jude 7.) 
 
 A memorable instance of the Divine severity is re 
 corded in the second Book of Chronicles. It is a maxim 
 not seldom repeated in the Old Testament, that we 
 ought to rely on the omnipotence of God, and not offend 
 Him by having recourse to human aid for our own de- 
 liverance. Accordingly, we read of Asa, king of Israel, 
 though otherwise a pious sovereign, that he offended 
 God, because " in his disease he sought not to the Lord, 
 but to the physicians" (2 Chron. xvi. 12) ; and he died 
 accordingly. In the same spirit it is written, " Some 
 trust in chariots, and some in horses ; but we will 
 remember the name of the Lord our God." (Psalm 
 xx. 7.) 
 
 Now, at a certain time, David, forgetful of his own 
 maxims, issued a commission to the captains of his 
 host to take a census of his subjects. With this act 
 
238 ON THE CHARACTER OF GOD 
 
 God was grievously offended, as tending to shew the 
 king's distrust of the power of the Almighty, and gave 
 David, by his prophet, the alternative of three things 
 from which to choose as His punishment : seven years 
 of famine, three months of defeat by his enemies, or 
 three days of pestilence. David, it seems, preferred 
 " falling into the hand of the Lord," and chose the last ; 
 and, in consequence of his election, seventy thousand 
 of his subjects died of the plague. (2 Sam. xxiv.) 
 
 A striking example of the punishment of a lie is 
 recorded of Gehazi, the servant of Elisha, the prophet. 
 This man, seeing that his master would accept no 
 recompense from Naaman, the Syrian, for a memorable 
 cure that had been performed on him, pursued Naaman, 
 and trumped up a story of an unexpected call that had 
 been made on his master's liberality, in consequence of 
 the arrival of "two young men of the sons of the 
 prophets." Elisha, through the gift he possessed of 
 seeing what was done when he himself was not present, 
 taxed Gehazi with the fraud, who stoutly denied it. 
 The prophet immediately pronounced upon him the 
 awful denunciation, "The leprosy of Naaman shall 
 cleave unto thee and unto thy seed for ever. And 
 he went out from his presence a leper, as white as 
 snow." (2 Kings v. 27.) 
 
 But perhaps the most revolting instance of the Divine 
 vengeance is recorded of the same Elisha, when he 
 returned from seeing Elijah taken up into heaven in 
 
AS DESCRIBED IN THE SCRIPTURES. 239 
 
 a chariot of fire. " And he went up thence into Bethel ; 
 and, as he was going up by the way, there came forth 
 little children out of the city, and mocked him, and 
 said unto him, Go up, thou bald-head : go up, thou 
 bald-head. And he turned back and looked on them, 
 and cursed them in the name of the Lord. And there 
 came forth two she-bears out of the wood, and tare 
 forty-two children of them." (2 Kings ii. 23, 24.) 
 
 A story, not altogether so tragical, but no less 
 repugnant to our ideas of the Divine character, is 
 related of Ahab, king of Israel. A prophet was 
 brought before him, of whom to enquire, "Shall I go 
 against Ramoth-Gilead to battle, or shall I forbear?" 
 a question on which he had consulted four hundred 
 false prophets before. And the prophet said, " I saw 
 the Lord sitting on His throne, and all the host of 
 heaven standing by Him on His right hand and on His 
 left. And the Lord said, Who shall persuade Ahab 
 that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-Gilead ? . . . And 
 there came forth a spirit and stood before the Lord, 
 and said, I will persuade him. And the Lord said unto 
 him, Wherewith ? And he said, I will go forth, and I 
 will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. 
 And he said, Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail 
 also. Go forth, and do so." (1 Kings xxii. 19 — 22.) 
 
 But the most extraordinary illustration of the charac- 
 ter of the God of the Scriptures is to be found in the 
 history of the universal deluge. God employed six days 
 
240 ON THE CHARACTER OF GOD 
 
 in the creation of heaven and earth ; and, at the close of 
 this mighty operation, " God saw everything that He 
 had made, and behold it Was very good." (Gen. i. 3.) But 
 the earth was no sooner fully peopled, than " God saw 
 that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and 
 that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was 
 only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that 
 He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at 
 His heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom 
 I have created from the face of the earth ; both man 
 and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the 
 air; for it repenteth me that I have made them." (Gen. vi. 
 5, 6.) God accordingly " broke up the fountains of the 
 great deep, and opened the windows of heaven ; " " and 
 all flesh died that moved upon the earth ; both of fowl, 
 and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing 
 that creepeth upon the earth, and every man ; . . . . 
 and every living substance was destroyed which 
 was upon the face of the ground." (Gen. vii. 21, 22.) 
 God only reserved eight human creatures, and of 
 beasts and birds two and two, the male and the 
 female, "to keep seed alive upon the face of all the 
 earth." 
 
 What a picture does this present to us of an omniscient 
 God ; who sees events in their remotest consequences, 
 and who, therefore, cannot produce anything the results 
 of which He does not exactly design, who " calleth those 
 things which be not as though they were " (Rom. iv. 17), 
 
AS DESCRIBED IN THE SCRIPTURES. 24! 
 
 and "with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow 
 of turning- !" (James i. 17.) 
 
 But the character of the God of the Scriptures is the 
 same throughout. His purpose in selecting His chosen 
 people apparently was, that He might preserve one race 
 of men exempt from the errors of idolatry and polythe- 
 ism. But in this object He eminently failed. The Jews, 
 up to the period of the Babylonish captivity, scarcely 
 missed any opportunity of falling into the grossness of 
 idolatry. 
 
 The first instance which occurs in the Scripture history 
 of this nation is, when Moses was forty days absent 
 with God upon Mount Sinai, that the people said to 
 Aaron, " Up, make us gods, which shall go before us ; 
 for, as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of 
 the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him." 
 And Aaron made them a golden calf, and they wor- 
 shipped it. " And the Lord said""unto Moses, Now let 
 me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, 
 and that I may consume them : and I will make of 
 thee a great nation. And Moses besought the Lord his 
 God, and said, Lord, why doth thy wrath wax hot 
 against thy people ? . . . . Turn from thy fierce wrath, 
 
 and repent of this evil against this people And 
 
 the Lord repented of the evil which He had thought to 
 do unto His people." (Exodus xxxii. 1, 10.) 
 
 After the lapse of one or two generations, the Jews, 
 however, " forsook the Lord, and served Baalim and the 
 
 R 
 
242 ON THE CHARACTER OF GOD 
 
 groves. Therefore the anger of the Lord was hot against 
 Israel, and he sold them into the hand of the king of 
 Mesopotamia." (Judges iii. 7, 8.) 
 
 The Jews having for a series of years been governed 
 by judges, they at length desired to have a king to go 
 before them like the other nations. And Saul was 
 made their king accordingly. And God commissioned 
 Saul to destroy the Amalekites. And the Lord said, 
 " Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all 
 that they have, and spare them not ; but slay both man 
 and woman, infant and suckling." . . . But Saul saved 
 Agag, the king of the Amalekites ; in other respects he 
 obeyed the command he had received. " Then came 
 the word of the Lord unto Samuel, saying, It repenteth 
 me that I have set up Saul to be king." .... And 
 Samuel said, " Bring ye hither to me Agag, the king of 
 the Amalekites. And Agag came unto him delicately; 
 and Agag said, Surely the bitterness of death is past. 
 .... And Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the 
 Lord in Gilgal. And the Lord repented that He had 
 made Saul king over Israel." (1 Sam. xv.) 
 
 The " anger of the Lord " is often spoken of in the 
 Scriptures. And the Psalmist says, " Turn us, O God 
 of our salvation, and cause thy anger toward us to cease. 
 Wilt thou be angry with us for ever ; wilt thou draw 
 out thy anger to all generations ? . . . Shew us thy 
 mercy, O Lord ; and grant us thy salvation." (Psalm 
 lxxxv. 4 — 7.) 
 
AS DESCRIBED IN THE SCRIPTURES. 243 
 
 Nor is this character peculiar to the Old Testament. 
 •The Apostle Paul speaks of " when the Lord Jesus shall 
 be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in 
 flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not 
 God." (2 Thess. i. 7, 8.) And elsewhere also he exhorts 
 us, " Avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto 
 wrath ; for it is written, Vengeance is mine : I will 
 repay, saith the Lord." (Rom. xii. 19.) By this ex- 
 pression clearly implying, that it is an attribute of 
 which God is jealous, and will not allow it to be usurped 
 by a meaner nature. It is the peculiar province of the 
 Creator ; that in which his soul delighteth. 
 
 I have heard of an instance in which Coleridge, my 
 contemporary, a great mystic, but a man of most 
 extraordinary talents, was expatiating in company, in 
 extremely glowing and captivating colours, upon the 
 qualities of the^ devil. At length a lady, who had been 
 listening very attentively to his discourse, in the sim- 
 plicity of her heart exclaimed, " Mr. Coleridge, according 
 to your account, one would almost mistake the devil 
 for God." To which the philosopher rejoined in a tone 
 of peculiar significance, " Madam, the devil is God."— 
 Now, certainly, if we are to take the expressions above 
 cited for a literal description of the character of the 
 Creator of the universe, we might with sufficient propriety 
 adopt the inference, God is the devil. 
 
 But in reality we must not interpret these things with 
 too strict and universal an application. Systems which 
 
244 ON THE CHARACTER OF GOD 
 
 represent the cause of all things as an intellectual being, 
 are only so many shades of anthropomorphism. We 
 take the converse of Moses's position, "Let us make 
 man in our own image," and make God in the image of 
 man. Now, as the first ideas of a theistical system were 
 necessarily framed in ages comparatively barbarous, it 
 inevitably follows that the notions delivered of the 
 Creator of the universe should smack of the character 
 of the period in which the notions were framed. And 
 it unfortunately happens, where these theories are com- 
 mitted to writing, and handed down from age to age 
 as the offspring of divine inspiration, that they will still 
 be marked with the character of dispositions that have 
 long since ceased to exist, and will not take the mould 
 which is greatly to be desired, of a period of greater 
 refinement and civilization. 
 
 It is true that the conquest of Canaan, as described by 
 the Jewish historians, was conducted in a very merciless 
 manner. But it would be unfair to judge of the proceed- 
 ings of these remote times by a reference to the compara- 
 tively mitigated and humane maxims of our own. After 
 every deduction they will appear sufficiently revolting and 
 terrible. But they were by no means so fraught with detes- 
 tation and horror then as they are found by us now. 
 
 To exemplify the truth of this statement, let us refer 
 by way of illustration to the well-known exploits of 
 Alexander the Great, who has often been held up as the 
 model of a liberal and generous conqueror. 
 
AS DESCRIBED EV THE SCR I PTC RES. 245 
 
 While Alexander, in the commencement of his reign, 
 was meditating the conquest of Persia, many cities of 
 Greece, which had been previously subjugated by his 
 father Philip, revolted against him. The principal, and 
 the most hostile of these, was Thebes. Alexander at 
 first only demanded of the citizens, as a token of 
 their submission, that they should deliver up to 
 him Phoenix and Prothutes, the ringleaders of their 
 revolt. But the Thebans, confident in their strength, 
 contemptuously answered the demand, by requiring that 
 Alexander should deliver to them Philotas and Anti- 
 pater, two of his chief generals. Alexander, irritated by 
 this insult, when he took their city, though they made 
 no further resistance, gave orders that all who were found 
 in the place should be slaughtered. Neither private 
 houses nor temples were regarded, neither sex nor age 
 were spared in the general destruction. When at length 
 the rage of massacre was satiated, thirty thousand 
 citizens, men and women, who were found to have 
 survived the general destruction, were sold for slaves. 
 All the houses in the town were razed to the ground ; 
 that of Pindar only was left standing, to manifest the 
 reverence of the conqueror for so sublime a genius. 
 
 Tyre, in the further progress of Alexander's victories, 
 was taken by storm. The citizens, for the purpose of 
 repelling the invader, cast down stones, and whatever 
 other missile came to their hand, upon the advancing 
 enemy. On the other part, the conqueror gave orders 
 
246 ON THE CHAR A CTER OF GOD 
 
 to kill the inhabitants, and to set fire to the town in 
 every part. Thirty thousand strangers, as well as 
 citizens, were sold into slavery, for the profit of the 
 conquering army. 
 
 Alexander, still unsatisfied with the progress of his 
 victorious arms, marched into India. The people of this 
 country, famous from the remotest times for their mild 
 demeanour and inoffensive manners, religiously abstained 
 from animal food. But this consideration was of no 
 avail with the conqueror. In a conflict before their first 
 fortified town, Alexander chanced to receive a wound. 
 * The town was taken ; and the Macedonians, exasperated 
 with the injury that was sustained by their chief, gave no 
 quarter. Alexander himself sanctioned this severity by 
 ordering the town to be razed to its foundations. 
 
 We see enough in these transactions, though occurring 
 in an age and a country much more civilised than that of 
 Moses, to shew us that the style in which the conquest of 
 Canaan was prosecuted, appeared much less atrocious to 
 its contemporaries than it does to us now. The Creator 
 of the universe is said to have sanctioned these severities. 
 But there is little wonder in this. Man, as we have 
 already said, fashions his God principally upon the model 
 of his own manners and ideas. Hence it follows that, 
 where men were brutal and sanguinary in their pro- 
 ceedings, they represented God as acting in a similar 
 manner, and saw nothing reprehensible in it. 
 
 How much superior to these crude and barbarous 
 
AS DESCRIBED IX THE SCRIPTURES 247 
 
 notions is the creed of the Orientals, who represented 
 the system of the universe as under the conduct of two 
 opposite and contending principles, the one the author of 
 all good, the other of all evil ! By means of this hypo- 
 thesis they kept their superior God, the good principle 
 free from all contamination of the evil passions, and the 
 series of calamities with which the system of sublunary 
 things is deformed. Oromasdes they represented as 
 utterly removed from anger and vengeance, for ever 
 happy and serene, always designing good for his creatures, 
 though unfortunately, in a multitude of instances, con- 
 trolled and frustrated by the malevolence of the evil 
 principle, who was in all cases disposed to contrive 
 mischief against us. 
 
 Anaxagoras and Socrates were the first among the 
 Greeks who taught that an intelligent mind was the 
 great cause of the system of the universe such as we 
 behold it. They were, however, too much occupied with 
 the ideas of infinite power, and a wise and discerning 
 arrangement of all things, to have afforded sufficient 
 scope for a pure and active benevolence, and all those 
 finer and more subtle qualities of mind which modern 
 times have accustomed us to include in the idea of a God. 
 
 In strictness, the schoolmen of the middle ages were 
 the first who conceived the idea of pure theism, such as 
 we now understand it. Impregnated as the)- were with 
 all the subtleties of metaphysics, they applied them first 
 and chiefly to the subject of the divinity. They taught 
 
248 GOD, AS DESCRIBED IN THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 that God was all in all, and all in every part. They 
 represented Him as existing in all time, and pervading 
 every part of space. They held that, though He existed 
 for ever, yet that His existence was without succession. 
 They believed that He filled all space, yet was without 
 division, and that a multitude of worlds existed in space 
 without in the slightest degree interfering with His 
 omnipresence. 
 
 Having digested all these subtleties, it cost them 
 nothing to ascribe to Him moral attributes of a similar 
 character. In reality, it followed from these premisses, 
 that His dispositions must at all times and on all occa- 
 sions be the same. For ever abounding in benevolence, 
 without the smallest alloy of anger and ill-will. For 
 ever serene, without the slightest cloud of perturbation 
 or passion. For ever active, and seeking at all times 
 and in every direction for opportunities of doing good, 
 and multiplying happiness through every possible species 
 of being, and through all the varieties in which happiness 
 is capable of being diffused. 
 
ESSAY XIII. 
 
 ON THE IDEA OF AN INTELLIGENT CREATOR. 
 
ESSAY XIII. 
 On the Idea of an Intelligent Creator. 
 
 IT may not be without its use to interpose one Essay 
 on the hypothesis of an intelligent being, infinitely 
 powerful and wise, who made the visible universe such 
 as we behold it. Infinite benevolence is of course, and 
 always has been, included in this supposition. 
 
 To lay down the results of this hypothesis, it is 
 necessary that we should put aside in our disquisition 
 the contrary appearances of misery and calamity 
 actually existing, and which must for ever puzzle and 
 confound the understandings of men who embrace this 
 theory. We will merely follow out the natural and 
 unforced consequences which unavoidably result from 
 the original proposition. 
 
 In this case, then, the species of mankind would be 
 placed in a truly enviable condition. God, the intelli- 
 gent Being who framed the world, could have no 
 impulse to direct His proceedings but the purest 
 benevolence. He could have no motive to injure us 
 
2 5 2 ON THE IDEA OF 
 
 and give us pain. He could have no vengeance, no 
 resentment, no anger. He would look upon us as too 
 impotent and insignificant to offend Him. In the 
 unboundedness of His benignity, He would not despise 
 any of the creatures He had made. He that formed us 
 from the womb, that moulded this fine and complicated 
 machine, that wrote our members in His book, which in 
 continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none 
 of them, and that finally bestowed on us all the countless 
 treasures of human understanding, will He mar the work 
 of His hands ? Will He send agony along the fibres 
 which, with such matchless skill, and humanly speaking, 
 with such patient and unremitting attention, He has 
 formed ? Let us consider the infinite fineness of the 
 feelings that are imparted to us, where one circumstance 
 that crosses and annoys us, is able to change our 
 paradise into purgatory, and then think of hell and for 
 ever ! "He that formed the eye," shall He not appre- 
 hend the extremity of torture of which that little organ 
 is susceptible ? He that unfolded all the vast com- 
 plexities of our mortal , machine, shall He employ their 
 boundless capabilities for the purpose of inflicting upon 
 us inexpressible agonies ? Shall He first have made us 
 what we are, and then take advantage of our structure 
 to render us miserable ? And all this, according to the 
 New Testament, to be a fate reserved for the great 
 mass of mankind, for the frivolous, for all varieties and 
 shades of character, for many highly gifted, highly 
 
AN INTELLIGENT CREATOR. 253 
 
 disinterested, endowed with a thousand sublime virtues. 
 And why ? Because they have not faith, an involuntary 
 act, an act of the understanding only. For the absence 
 of a seal, a mark in the forehead, an arbitrary selection. 
 For "whom He will" He chooses, and "whom He will" 
 He rejects. (Rom. ix. 18.) Is it possible to imagine 
 greater blasphemy than this ? And said not Plutarch 
 well when he observed that the atheist was to be pre- 
 ferred to the superstitious man ? " For I had rather it 
 should be said of me," he adds, " that there never was 
 such a man as Plutarch, than that it should be said that 
 Plutarch was ill-natured, arbitrary, capricious, cruel, and 
 inexorable." 
 
 Beside the infinite horror which the impartial man 
 would conceive for the God of the New Testament, let 
 us also ponder a little on the nature of punishment. 
 Forcible chastisement, in the intercourse of man and 
 society, unquestionably amounts to a confession of 
 impotence in the chastiser. If He knew what was 
 right, could He not communicate that knowledge to the 
 delinquent ? Could He not enlighten his understanding, 
 and thus correct his errors ? He has probably tried the 
 experiment (take the case between master and servant, 
 superior and inferior, tutor and pupil,) and has failed. 
 And, to supply His deficiency in logic and demonstra- 
 tion, He has resort to brute force. Brute force is in no^ 
 way adapted to enlighten the understanding ; the best 
 thing it can effect is to produce servility, a fawning and 
 
254 ON THE IDEA OF 
 
 cowardly prostration of soul before Him that is mightier 
 than we are. " An appeal to force must appear to both 
 parties, in proportion to the soundness of their under- 
 standing, to be a confession of imbecility. He that has 
 recourse to it would have no occasion for this expe- 
 dient, if he were sufficiently acquainted with the powers 
 of that truth it is his office to communicate."* 
 
 And shall a schoolmaster and a magistrate stand in 
 need of this apology for their summary proceeding ; 
 and shall we suppose Almighty God to require a similar 
 excuse for infirmity ? 
 
 It is commonly said that Divine Providence proceeds 
 with us for the most part according to the laws of 
 nature, and that God himself is voluntarily restricted by 
 the principles of the system He has established. He 
 acts only by general laws, and never oversteps the 
 settled order of the universe. He works no miracles, 
 but leaves His rational creatures to the protection of their 
 own foresight and their own discretion. 
 
 But this consideration, whatever force there may be 
 in it in ordinary cases, does not apply to the question 
 before us. God, we are told, " hath appointed a day in 
 the which He will judge the world in righteousness." 
 (Acts xvii. 31.) Upon this awful occasion all the ordi- 
 nary laws of the universe are suspended. It is a period 
 in which the Author of all things will appear, to set right 
 
 * " Political Justice," book ii., chap. vi. 
 
AN INTELLIGENT CREATOR. 255 
 
 by His immediate interference all that has hitherto been 
 defective, when " the crooked shall be made straight, 
 and the rough places plain." He is no longer shackled 
 by the system He had instituted, and which appeared 
 necessary on ordinary occasions to give scope for the 
 foresight of man and whatever intelligent natures may 
 be concerned in these questions. Can we suppose that 
 it will then be necessary to employ the express inter- 
 position of force and power to correct what is wrong, 01 
 to take vengeance on the perverseness of the creatures 
 He has made ? What can be more frightful and more 
 discordant with the most obvious reason of things, than 
 that the supreme Ruler of the universe should then have 
 recourse to despotic punishments, and condemn those 
 who have displeased Him to the retribution of everlasting 
 torments ? 
 
 No. He whose omnipotence no power can control 
 will be aware that He has only to present before the 
 erroneous the evidence of everlasting reason. All ambi- 
 guities, all the tangled skein of sophistries will imme- 
 diately disappear. Truth will shew itself, and be 
 welcomed with sincere delight by those who before most 
 resolutely closed their eyes against it. In the language 
 of the prophet, the supreme Being, agreeably to the 
 benevolence of His nature, will be employed in u putting 
 a new spirit into" those who before most strayed from 
 His laws, in u taking away the stony heart from them, 
 and giving them a heart of flesh." (Ezek. xi. 19.) 
 
 ^ 
 
ESSAY XIV. 
 
 ON NATURE. 
 
ESSAY XIV. 
 
 On Nature. 
 
 NATURE is a term that has been so licentiously 
 used, and with such a perplexity of senses, that on 
 the present occasion I will endeavour so to define and 
 limit my meaning, as shall best tend to make the idea I 
 would convey fully understood. 
 
 There is much system and order in what we see, 
 whether of the visible and, as it is usually styled, the 
 material universe, or the universe of mind. This order 
 it is customary, at least in modern times, to attribute to 
 a Creator, an intelligent, invisible being, possessed of 
 such extraordinary attributes, that he has caused the 
 unbounded multitude of the substances we behold to 
 rise out of nothing, and since conducts the vast machine 
 without perplexity, being everywhere at once, and 
 guiding the endless operations that are perpetually 
 going on above, below, and around us, 
 
 " As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart."' 
 I can only say that in all this there is so little analogy 
 
260 ON NATURE. 
 
 to mind, such as I have occasion clearly to remark, that 
 I am not satisfied to reason from one to the other. I 
 cannot understand the producing of something out of 
 nothing. It is most essentially characteristic of mind, 
 such as I behold it, to attend to only one thing at a 
 time. I have no conception of a mind that at the same 
 moment acts everywhere, and performs operations multi- 
 plied and diversified beyond the limits of any human 
 arithmetic to enumerate. 
 
 I therefore do not consider my faculties adequate to 
 the pronouncing upon the cause of all things. I am 
 contented to take the phenomena as I behold them, 
 without pretending to erect an hypothesis under the 
 idea of making all things easy. I do not rest my globe 
 of earth upon an elephant, and the elephant upon a 
 tortoise. I am contented to take my globe of earth 
 simply, in other words, to observe the objects which 
 present themselves to my senses, without undertaking to 
 find out a cause why they are as they are. 
 
 This, however, does not prevent me from acknowledg- 
 ing something inexpressibly admirable in the system of 
 the universe, or from regarding with the lowliest rever- 
 ence and awe that principle, whatever it is, which acts 
 everywhere around me, and which in a multitude of cases 
 produces such adorable effects. It is the fashion of 
 modern times to call this wisdom. Wisdom I believe 
 may be described to be the result of ideas, reflection, 
 the comparison of different impressions and conceptions, 
 
ON NATURE. 26 1 
 
 the designed adaptation of means to ends, and the selec- 
 tion among various methods which offer themselves to 
 our acceptance that which seems to be the best. To 
 apply the term wisdom therefore to the formation of the 
 earth and the things that are therein, I should regard as 
 a species of anthropomorphism, the shaping the incom- 
 prehensible cause of all things after the model of the 
 human mind. I do not pretend to understand so much 
 of the universe and its contents as this hypothesis implies. 
 I should cite this mode of proceeding as an example, to 
 speak in unceremonious language, of the way in which 
 sometimes, in the sublimest enquiries, 
 
 " Fools rush in, where angels fear to tread." 
 
 But, without presuming to explain the ineffable cause 
 of all things, I do not the less acknowledge the worth 
 and excellence of that principle, whatever it is, which, 
 while its operations are infinitely beyond my compre- 
 hension, is almost everywhere producing such admirable 
 effects. 
 
 Without wandering among the starry heavens, where, 
 it may be, " other planets circle other suns," I see enough 
 in the various objects that surround me in this globe of 
 which I am an inhabitant, to fill me with rapture in con- 
 templating the beneficent effects that are operating on 
 every side. I find a plentiful harmony and adaptation 
 of one thing to another throughout. Vegetables are 
 fitted for the sustentation and nourishment of animals. 
 
262 ON NATURE. 
 
 Air is adapted to respiration and the maintenance of life. 
 The earth is clothed with shrubs and trees, with foliage, 
 flowers, and fruits. Life is a mystery which we can 
 neither define nor explain, but which we unequivocally 
 recognise. The vegetable springs up from a seed, petty 
 and insignificant in its appearance, but which in due 
 time " grows up and becomes a tree, so that the birds of 
 the air come and lodge in its branches." It has a root, 
 and a trunk, and boughs, which send out foliage. It has 
 life and health. It has sap, which circulates through its 
 members. If you wound it, it bleeds. Man may at 
 pleasure cut it down, and so put an end to the living 
 principle which till then animated it. It has youth and 
 age — youth characterised with vigour, in which it daily 
 enlarges and expands itself, and age, when its vigour 
 diminishes, and it comes by degrees to decay and die. 
 
 There is further something wonderful, and to the 
 organisation of the human mind delicious, in the life, so 
 to speak, of inanimate nature, in the perpetual flowing of 
 a river, in the alternate advance and retreat of the tide, 
 in the action of light and heat, and in the motion of the 
 winds and the clouds. These do not stand in need of a 
 spectator. They go on for ever in their salutary and 
 vivifying operations. In solitudes into which man nor 
 beast ever penetrated, they still display their exuberant 
 wealth, without needing the tribute of admiration, or 
 expecting thankfulness in any of its forms. 
 
 The efficacy of the seasons is not less deserving of our 
 
ON NATURE. 2 ^3 
 
 attention. Spring never fails with every revolving 
 year to produce foliage and flowers. The plant no 
 sooner finds itself subject to the genial beams of the sun, 
 than it owns the power, and becomes informed with new 
 life. Thus is there a youth in vegetable nature which is 
 perpetually renewing, or, if from the silent influence of 
 years it disappears in individuals, is reproduced in an- 
 other quarter. 
 
 The animal creation is more admirable than the vege- 
 table. The symmetry of limbs in animals is adapted to 
 all the purposes which their mode of subsistence requires. 
 The joints and articulations of their bodies are well 
 suited to their various pursuits. Their parts are exceed- 
 ingly complicated, yet all harmonious. They have all 
 blood which circulates through their frame, and main- 
 tains them in life and health. Their mouths are adapted 
 to seize on their food, and their teeth to masticate it. 
 Then presents itself to our observation the wonderful 
 process of digestion. More than all these we may be 
 reasonably astonished with the five senses, which for the 
 greater part are the inheritance of each, and the organs 
 of which are so curiously adapted to effect their pur- 
 poses, the sight, the hearing, the feeling, which is dis- 
 persed through every part, the smell, and the taste. 
 There is a principle within each animal, the site of which 
 seems to be in the brain, that collects the reports of the 
 senses, and makes use of them in a way best adapted to 
 Ihe well-being of the animal to which they belong. This 
 
264 ON NATURE. 
 
 principle, which I should call the mind or understanding 
 of the animal, selects or rejects among the different 
 objects which offer themselves to his choice, the thing 
 most suited to his purposes. Thus the dog by his sense 
 of smelling discovers the track of his master, and of 
 those animals which constitute his prey. Every animal 
 has within him a faculty of comparison, and the prin- 
 ciple which we denominate election, or will. Almost 
 all animals can be trained to a certain process of action, 
 in which by assignable degrees they advance, and pro- 
 ceed onward to a higher or lower point of facility or 
 improvement. 
 
 Lastly, we come to man, the masterpiece of the earth 
 in which we dwell. His form is in many respects 
 similar to that of the nobler animals, but with immense 
 advantages over them all. His erect figure speaks him 
 at once the lord of the earth. His hands are most 
 admirably calculated as instruments to produce the 
 stupendous effects which form the history of man. His 
 very nakedness essentially contributes to the rendering 
 him the being that we find him. He requires clothing 
 and shelter ; and these wants imperiously stimulate his 
 ingenuity to supply them. The countenance of man is 
 a magazine for the expression of thoughts ; and through 
 it we awaken in each other sympathy and deference. 
 But more than all the other characteristics which dis- 
 tinguish him is the faculty of speech, by which we impart 
 to each other the knowledge of a thousand phenomena, 
 
ON NATURE. 2 &5 
 
 together with infinite shades of sentiment and observa- 
 tion, and all the various subtleties of thought. It is this 
 which brings us into society and communities, and gives 
 occasion to the co-operation we exhibit, whether of body 
 or mind. By this we build houses and cities. By this 
 we are induced to cultivate the arts of design and 
 painting, of sculpture and architecture. Lastly, by this 
 we are prompted to engage ourselves in the pursuit of 
 science and literature, enabling one man to improve 
 on the advances of another, to erect libraries, and to 
 arrive at the mighty refinements which human nature 
 has exhibited in the various ages of the world. Nor is 
 it among the least of the advantages we possess, that 
 human beings are from infancy to maturity so long in 
 a state of dependence, and by such slow degrees arrive 
 at the entire possession of their bodily faculties, thus 
 giving a field upon which to unfold all the resources of 
 education. 
 
 Thus, without pretending to explain the way in which 
 the great principle of all things perpetually operates, we 
 do not the less acknowledge its bountiful and beneficent 
 effects. The principle is not intellectual ; its " ways are 
 not our ways;" but for that it only the more steadily 
 seems to hold steadily on its course, and to be the 
 better adapted to be calculated upon for its consequent 
 results. 
 
 This, then, is the state of things as they are first 
 presented to our senses. Such we should find them, if, 
 
266 ON NATURE. 
 
 with our present powers of observation, we were intro- 
 duced at once to this terrestrial scene, such as it is in 
 its full arrangement, and the complete organisation of 
 the machine. Such they were to our progenitors, whose 
 reports by tradition or otherwise have been handed 
 down to us. 
 
 Having first observed this vast machine of the earth 
 and its inhabitants as at a given moment they stand 
 before us, we next come to behold the revolutions that 
 occur in the machine, and the various changes that take 
 place around us. This I should call nature. How the 
 universe came to be as it is, it is in vain for man to 
 endeavour to discover ; but we can follow its operations, 
 and to a certain extent minute down its processes as we 
 see them succeed to each other. It is in this way that 
 we ascertain the Laws of Nature, and perceive that 
 regular succession of antecedents and consequents that 
 enables us in many cases to predict what is about to 
 happen, and to model our judgments and our actions 
 accordingly. 
 
 Now, as in the universe, such as we suppose it first 
 presented to our observation, we find a wonderful 
 adaptation of means to ends similar to what, from the 
 imperfect analogies we are acquainted with, we should 
 be apt to denominate wisdom ; so, in the processes and 
 changes which take place before our eyes, we in like 
 manner remark a beneficent tendency, by means of 
 which things are continued, are maintained in their state 
 
ON NATURE. 267 
 
 and condition, and even, as it often happens, restored 
 and set right again after the unfortunate casualties that 
 may occur. 
 
 As the system of the universe presents us with a 
 wonderful spectacle of harmony, where a thousand com- 
 plicated movements all lead to one beneficial result, so 
 in the progress and succession of events we perpetually 
 observe the same salutary and beneficent tendency. 
 The circulation of the blood, by means of which this 
 life-giving fluid is distributed from the heart to all the 
 members and articulations of the body, is a memorable 
 example of this. Thus every part of our frame for a 
 long series of years is kept in perpetual youth and vigour. 
 The form of man, from its first invisible existence in the 
 pancreatic juice to the appearance of the head of the 
 foetus, and thence to the gradual shooting forth and 
 unfolding of the members, to the infant, the boy, and 
 the man, full formed and mature,— all seems under the 
 guidance of a power for ever vigilant and for ever active. 
 The various juices and secretions of the body tend in 
 their operation to the maintaining the life and vigour of 
 the whole. When any part is out of order there is an 
 invariable tendency, through the healing hand of time, 
 to the restoration of its pristine and healthful state. The 
 bone that is broken knits together again and becomes 
 useful. The flesh that is wounded, on the majority of 
 occasions, heals, cicatrises, and grows sound as before. 
 This is particularly remarkable in what is called "healing 
 
268 ON NATURE. 
 
 in the first intention." Bind up a wound in its blood, 
 and this admirable fluid is observed to find its way, and 
 in a short time to circulate as if nothing adverse had 
 occurred. It seems as if there were a balsam in the 
 animal body, which, beyond all the succours of artificial 
 skill, exhibits itself as sanative and restoring. 
 
 All this is instead of what is commonly understood by 
 Providence. If we have not an omniscient friend, who 
 perpetually beholds the things he has made, who "careth 
 for us, and whose tender mercies are over all his works," 
 there is nevertheless a principle in nature which in a vast 
 sum of instances works for good and operates beneficially 
 for us. It is active in our behalf while we sleep. We 
 repose upon it with confidence, and are satisfied. In 
 these instances it is to us like a Providence. As Addison 
 says, in the parallel of honour and virtue, it "imitates 
 her actions where she is not." We have here a secure 
 alliance, a friend that, sO far as the system of things 
 extends, will never desert us, unhearing, inaccessible to 
 importunity, uncapricious, without passions, without 
 favour, affection, or partiality, that " maketh its sun to 
 rise on the evil and the good, and its rain to descend on 
 the just and the unjust," that nourishes from its un- 
 exhausted bosom everything that lives — "beasts, and all 
 cattle, and creeping things." 
 
ESSAY XV. 
 
 ON MIR A C LE S. 
 
ESSAY XV. 
 On Miracles, 
 
 THE question of miracles has perhaps never been 
 placed exactly on its right footing ; and therefore 
 a few pages may not inappropriately be spent on the 
 subject in this volume. 
 
 Hume and others have employed a very subtle reason- 
 ing to demonstrate their general incredibility. It is not 
 impossible that a plainer species of reasoning may carry 
 more conviction to the majority of mankind. 
 
 The first thing that occurs to an impartial and 
 unprejudiced mind, is that miracles, like witchcraft and 
 the belief in ghosts, have their day, and belong to 
 certain periods in the progress of human illumination. 
 While ignorance prevails and the laws of nature have 
 been very imperfectly explained, these things gain 
 admission into the creed of mankind with little or no 
 resistance. We are then prone to the wonderful; and 
 that which we delight in easily obtains our assent. The 
 rules of evidence have not yet been laid down, nor the 
 criticism of history unfolded. 
 
272 ON MIRACLES. 
 
 By degrees the enlightened portion of our species 
 becomes more scrupulous and sceptical. We look with 
 a more scrutinising eye into what is presented to our 
 senses ; and there are persons who will devote their 
 faculties to the detecting imposition, and overwhelming 
 the impostor with confusion and disgrace. 
 
 Till that time comes it is surprising how men yield in 
 crowds to the first impulse of credulity. The disease is 
 found to be contagious ; and we follow, like a flock of 
 sheep, through the first breach that is made in the pro- 
 tecting hedge of truth. The human mind, in its original, 
 unprimed state, does not brook the being curbed with 
 laws, inflexible and severe, and, where it finds a passage, 
 the whole herd runs riot at once in defiance of conse- 
 quences. Thus, in the case of witchcraft in particular, 
 we are presented with the most humiliating spectacle of 
 mortal folly and blindness, in certain ages and countries, 
 while hundreds and thousands have fallen victims to 
 credulity, perverseness, and bigotry. 
 
 We are now arrived at a period in the history of man 
 where it would be wholly in vain to expect, in regions in 
 which science has fairly expanded its beams, that any 
 pretences to supernatural endowments, and a partial sus- 
 pension of the known laws of nature, would be listened 
 to. It would at first be regarded with sovereign con- 
 tempt ; and, if that alone were found insufficient to stop 
 its career, a few of the most hard-hearted and pene- 
 trating of mankind would apply to it the prismatic 
 
oy MIRACLES, 2 73 
 
 glass of truth, would analyse the elements of which it 
 was composed, and would suddenly compel it to hide its 
 head in irrecoverable confusion. 
 
 It has ordinarily been said, " It is in vain for you to 
 endeavour to palm things upon me by the power of 
 testimony, to tell me of the leap you achieved in Rhodes ; 
 shew me the things you pretend to relate ; subject the 
 scene to the evidence of my senses ; and I may perhaps 
 be induced to believe." 
 
 But here the very reverse is seen to take place. We see 
 at once that, if a man in all respects similar to Jesus were 
 to appear in England in the nineteenth century, he would 
 have no chance with us. The event would be altogether 
 different. He might make some converts among the 
 illiterate and the ignorant. For, in every country, consti- 
 tuted as civil society at present is, there will be credulous 
 persons, untinctured with the first elements of reasoning, 
 that will give in to the grossest impositions. But we see, 
 even in the apostles' time, " not many wise, not many 
 mighty, not many noble were called ; " and, as St. Paul 
 phrases it, " God chose the foolish things of the world to 
 confound the wise, and the weak things of the world to 
 confound the mighty." (i Cor. i. 26, 27.) And much 
 more would that be the case now. Except that the 
 foolish and the weak might indeed be converted ; but 
 the learned, and those who were familiar with the ele- 
 ments of genuine instruction, would remain unmoved, 
 clear in their judgment, and sound and constant in all 
 
 T 
 
274 ON MIRACLES. 
 
 their principles of reasoning. It is not indeed to be 
 wondered at, in such a country as Judea, so penetrated 
 with all the miseries of slavery, so immersed in ignorance 
 and superstition, that the " learned pate should duck " to 
 the imbecile, the unapprehensive to the dull. 
 
 But among us what our senses would reject we receive 
 upon testimony. Because eighteen hundred years have 
 passed, because time has rendered things confused and 
 obscure, and taken away the sharpness of butline, that 
 would make them at once luminous and clear to us, we 
 take in the whole crudely and without discrimination, 
 and believe merely because our fathers believed before 
 us. It is surely time that we should lay aside our 
 leading-strings. We are sufficiently matured in powers 
 of understanding, and in the knowledge of nature. We 
 should shake off our fetters and all that cramped and 
 confined our faculties, and submit the whole to the 
 severest examination. Even as we have discarded witch- 
 craft and the belief in ghosts, so should we discard a 
 faith that is founded in miracles. Most of all when 
 these miracles are not subjected to the test of our senses, 
 but we are required to receive them merely because a 
 set of credulous Jews imagined that they witnessed them 
 eighteen hundred years ago. 
 
 It is proper, also, that we should consider how many 
 things must be assumed before the alleged miracles of 
 Christianity can be made available as a foundation for 
 our faith in its doctrines. 
 
OX MIRACLES. VS 
 
 First, we must assume certain attributes and disposi- 
 tions in «i God, the supposed intelligent Creator and 
 Governor of the universe. Till this is done, a miracle is 
 merely an unforeseen and extraordinary event, that 
 baffles the powers of human foresight. It leads to 
 nothing, and authorises no inference, especially of so 
 alien and altogether unconnected a character, as, because 
 I have witnessed a supernatural event, I am therefore 
 to believe the truth of a certain theoretical dogma. 
 
 We must therefore assume that God has a friendly 
 and auspicious intention in thus suspending the estab- 
 lished constitution and course of nature. Humanly 
 speaking, He is somewhat dissatisfied with the ordinary 
 train of antecedents and consequents, and is desirous so 
 far, and for a special purpose, of superseding them. He 
 is desirous of speaking to His creatures, and commu- 
 nicating to them something that shall be for their 
 advantage. Without assuming all this, a miracle is 
 nothing, is merely an unforeseen and extraordinary event 
 that baffles the powers of 'human foresight. 
 
 A miracle, therefore, needs no interpreter. We will 
 suppose some man stands forward in that character. 
 He says, "This interruption of the laws of nature is 
 produced in my behalf." But how shall we ascertain 
 the authenticity of his mission? Thus we are told that 
 Columbus, when in the island of Cuba, having by his 
 astronomical skill foreseen an eclipse of the moon, told 
 to the savages what was to happen, and persuaded them 
 
2/ T 6 ON MIRACLES. 
 
 that his God would cause the moon to withhold her 
 light, and appear of a bloody hue, as an emblem of the 
 vengeance ready to fall on them. Any man, by presence 
 of mind only, may turn to his advantage an event with 
 which in reality he has not the remotest connection. 
 Thus it is that Jesus himself predicted that " there 
 shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and should 
 shew great signs and wonders : insomuch that, if it were 
 possible, they should deceive the very elect." (Matt. 
 xxiv. 24.) 
 
 That a man, therefore, should affirm, upon occasion of 
 some real or supposed supernatural event, " This is 
 produced, that you may believe in the proposition I 
 announce to you," proves nothing. The coincidence 
 between the event and the speaker who appeals to it as 
 his authority may be purely accidental. There ought 
 to be, as is affirmed by the evangelist to have happened 
 at the baptism of Jesus, " a voice from heaven, saying, 
 This is my beloved son, in him I am well pleased." 
 (Matt. iii. 17.) And then what is a voice from heaven ? 
 In sound natural philosophy there is neither upwards 
 nor downwards. Shall we believe, as is related in the 
 close of the history of Jesus, that, while his disciples 
 " beheld, he was taken up, and a cloud received him out 
 of their sight " (Acts i. 9) ; and thenceforth he sitteth at 
 the right hand of God ? The imagination that God 
 dwells in the heavens above us, and that every com- 
 munication from Him must descend from the empyrean, 
 
ON MIRACLES. 277 
 
 is purely a prejudice begotten by ignorance upon 
 superstition. 
 
 In reality, there are but three ways in which a rational 
 mind can become satisfied of the truth of a proposition. 
 The first is when the proposition is self-evident. And 
 this perhaps, when strictly examined, occurs only in 
 cases where the proposition is identical, and the terms 
 in which it is stated, both subject and predicate, are 
 found to mean the same thing, varied in the form of 
 expression only. The second is experimental. It is 
 thus we become acquainted with the system of the uni- 
 verse, that is, by seeing, as often as the case occurs, that 
 like antecedents are attended with like consequents. 
 The third is by deduction. In this way, that is, by 
 propositions, the later flowing unquestionably from the 
 former, that we proceed in a strict chain of reason- 
 ing. It is thus that Euclid built up his Elements of 
 Geometry. 
 
 Everything that does not come to us in one of these 
 three ways rests upon authority only, and is to be 
 regarded with an eye of scepticism and jealousy. Whe- 
 ther an invisible being speaks to us in the voice of 
 thunder, or a blind man is restored to sight, this is 
 wholly unconnected with the truth or falsehood of a 
 proposition. I am called upon to believe ; and, in pro- 
 portion as I am a reasonable being, I am called upon to 
 be doubly on my guard before I yield to evidence of 
 this sort. The proposition was true before, or it was not 
 
2/S ON MIRACLES. 
 
 true : the supernatural event produces not the smallest 
 alteration in that respect. 
 
 In addition to these considerations on miracles in 
 general, it is but reasonable that we should attend to 
 the particular character of the miracles exhibited by 
 Jesus. His favourite miracle appears to have been the 
 casting out of devils. That is, as he explained it, one 
 of the infernal host, which of old were driven out of 
 heaven for engaging in rebellion against the Most High, 
 was permitted by God, for purposes best known to Him- 
 self, to take possession of the body of a living man, and 
 thus to make him appear frantic and blasphemous. 
 This (or these) unhappy men are described as having 
 their dwelling among "the tombs, and no man could 
 bind him, no, not with chains, ... for the chains had 
 been plucked asunder, and the fetters broken in pieces ; 
 and always, night and day, he was in the mountains and 
 in the tombs, crying and cutting himself with stones. 
 But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped 
 him, . . . saying, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, 
 thou son of the Most High God ? I adjure thee by 
 God, that thou torment me not." "For he said unto him, 
 Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit ! . . . And 
 the spirit besought him much, that he would not send 
 them away out of the country. Now there was there 
 nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding. 
 And all the devils besought him, saying, Send us into 
 the swine." And Jesus deferred to their request. "And, 
 
ON MIRACLES. 279 
 
 when they were come out of the man, they went into 
 the swine. And the swine ran violently down a steep 
 place into the sea (they were about two thousand), and 
 perished in the waters." (Matt. viii. ; Mark v. ; Luke viii.) 
 This is one only of a multitude of examples of Jesus 
 casting out devils ; but it is told with the greatest 
 number of particulars. 
 
 One question that presents itself on this occasion is, 
 Were these possessions permitted by God, purposely 
 that Jesus by this means might manifest his power ? 
 How comes it that there is not perhaps one well-authen- 
 ticated story of such possessions since the time of the 
 apostles ? 
 
 There is a certain degree of good sense in the remark 
 of Rousseau, addressed to the professing Christians of 
 his day, " You believe in the New Testament, in consi- 
 deration of the miracles therein recorded. Now I 
 manifest a superior degree of docility ; for I believe, 
 though I acknowledge that the miracles interpose an 
 additional difficulty in the way of my belief." 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 THE conclusion and moral of the whole of these Dis- 
 courses may be expressed in the homely proverb, 
 Hoc age. Or, more poetically, in the language of the 
 Hebrew sage, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it 
 with all thy might ; for there is no work, nor device, nor 
 knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave, whither thou 
 goest." (Eccles. ix. 10.) 
 
 It is the wisdom of man to put forth his strength and 
 apply his energies to that which he strenuously purposes. 
 Let him suffer no distraction. Let him not relax, either 
 in spirit or intentness, of that at which he aims. 
 
 We know what we are ; but we know not what we 
 shall be. What is there behind the curtain, beyond the 
 extremest verge of our sublunary life ? Probably nothing : 
 neither " work, nor device, nor knowledge." But he who 
 gives the reins to his mind, to consider " in the sleep of 
 death what dreams may come," can never be fully aware 
 to what an extent he unnerves his " better part of man." 
 Let us then resolutely shut the door against "thick- 
 
284 CONCLUSION. 
 
 coming fancies." Let us shut out the figure of such 
 beings as " lawless and uncertain thought imagines 
 howling." These conceptions with some men will " unfix 
 the hair, and make the seated heart knock at the ribs." 
 With others they perhaps will appear to have little effect, 
 more to be trifled with than deeply pondered upon. But 
 we can never be sure. Those things which were in- 
 culcated into us when children, and which afterwards we 
 regard but as " a woman's story at a winter's fire, 
 authorised by her grandam," will often not be obliterated, 
 but leave their marks and scars, to last as long as thought 
 or reflection shall continue. It is of ill effect to the erect- 
 ness and independence of a man, for him for one day to 
 have been a slave. He will remember, it may be, how he 
 trembled and cowered, and will perhaps never be the man 
 he might have been. But this will be more strikingly 
 the case when the master to whom we submitted was 
 originally invisible, and of consequence some image, 
 some shadowy and evanescent representation of him, 
 may still pursue us, as a thing that demonstration itself 
 cannot utterly exclude. 
 
 We know what we are ; but know not what we might 
 have been. We are imperceptibly weakened ; our ener- 
 gies are not full and entire ; we cannot concentre our 
 whole strength, as we might have concentred it. We 
 may say, as in Macbeth, " All the perfumes of Arabia 
 will not sweeten this little hand — Great Neptune's ocean 
 will not wash " away the stain. To be independent and j 
 
C0NCLUS10X. 28 5 
 
 erect is essential to the perfect man. To stand in awe of 
 neither matter nor spirit. To fear (for fear we must) 
 those things which in the world of realities we may 
 encounter, and which may subdue us. But to fear 
 nothing unnecessarily, and with superstition. And, si 
 fractus illabatur orbis, to witness the ruin with a calm 
 and composed frame of spirit. 
 
 We know not what we might have been. But surely 
 we should have been greater than we are, but for this 
 disadvantage. It is as if we took some minute poison 
 with everything that was intended to nourish us. It is, 
 we will suppose, of so mitigated a quality as never to 
 have had the power to kill. But it may nevertheless 
 stunt our growth, infuse a palsy into every one of our 
 articulations, and insensibly change us, from giants of 
 mind, which we might have been, into a people of 
 dwarfs. 
 
 It has been strangely supposed however that, however 
 revolting is this creed to the genuine dictates of human 
 understanding, its propagation is nevertheless necessary 
 to control the flood of profligacy and vice which would 
 otherwise overflow the world. I remember a conversation 
 I had with Dr. Rees, the resident tutor of the college 
 where I was educated, in which I put it to him whether 
 he sincerely believed in the torments which the damned 
 in hell are to suffer, we are told, to all eternity. He 
 frankly confessed that he did not ; but added that it 
 would be of very dangerous consequence, if we were to 
 
2S6 CONCL USION. 
 
 shake this creed in the minds of the vulgar, that they 
 would make no great account of the punishments of 
 hell, if they were to last a thousand years only, but that, 
 when they were told they were to be never-ending, this 
 terrified them, and made them pause, ere they would 
 incur such stupendous consequences. 
 
 I have the misfortune to differ from this opinion. I 
 believe that the vulgar are not so nice in their distinctions. 
 I hold that they do not discriminate between a thousand 
 years of torture and an eternity, the last of which is in 
 reality an idea to which the human understanding is 
 scarcely commensurate. I conceive that, if they were 
 truly and sincerely persuaded that their offences here 
 were to be followed by one year, three hundred and sixty- 
 five days of unremitted torment, the whole to be closed 
 with annihilation, this would have as full an effect to 
 deter them from the perpetration of crimes, as if they 
 were menaced with an eternal punishment. 
 
 But, in reality, the fears of damnation, of an imaginary 
 hell, of which no man can form a credible and tangible 
 idea, are of much too aerial and evanescent a nature to 
 have great effect in the midst of the busy scenes of 
 human life, and of the tumult of the passions, upon the 
 conduct of men. They confess the truth of the doctrine 
 as an article of their creed. They never pretend to 
 dispute it. They swallow it whole, as they received it 
 from their progenitors, and it interferes little or nothing 
 with their digestion of the temptations of life. They 
 
CONCLUSION. 2 $7 
 
 reserve the consideration of it as a matter seriously to be 
 meditated for the solemn and penitentiary days of their 
 existence. It is requisite, if we would make a strong 
 impression on the mind respecting it, that it should be- 
 set before us in emphatic and grave discourse. They 
 are but few persons, and those of a diseased and melan- 
 choly temperament, upon whose thoughts this question 
 dwells on level occasions, and without some express 
 excitement. In periods of sickness, or in the immediate 
 danger of death, upon criminals, either in imprisonment, 
 or having received sentence of death from an earthly 
 judge, such subjects will frequently obtrude so as pain- 
 fully to harass the mind, and even to afflict it with 
 great agonies. Though in this last case it will generally . 
 happen that a clergyman is called in, who, from the most 
 obvious motives of humanity, will seek to soothe the 
 wretched sufferer, and will set before him the efficacy of 
 repentance, which is never too late on this side the 
 grave ; and, in consequence, the criminal by degrees 
 becomes tolerably composed, and quits his existence 
 with a humble hope, often with no ordinary confidence 
 in the divine mercy. 
 
 Men have believed during the successive centuries of 
 the Christian era, because they dared not enquire. They 
 have regarded every nascent inclination to doubt, as the 
 suggestion of the evil one. They have seen that faith 
 is made the vital and saving principle in the Scriptures. 
 How great is our danger, where the least error may be 
 
288 CONCLUSION. 
 
 damnable ! How subtle are the inroads of mistake 
 How easily are we brought to assent to what we wish 
 may be true ! Who shall say that he has held in equal 
 poise the balance of his understanding, and that no bias 
 has crept in unawares, that shall have perverted the 
 whole train of his conclusions ? Will not this be a realising 
 of the parable of him who "sowed good seed in his 
 field ; but while men slept, the enemy came and sowed 
 tares?" (Matt. xiii. 25.) 
 
 And then "the Lord our God is a jealous God." 
 (Exodus xx. 5.) Shall He have suspended the whole 
 course of nature, have interfered by a series of stupen- 
 dous miracles, and have sent His only son, whatever being 
 may be described by that mysterious epithet, to suffer 
 and to die amongst us, that we may live ; and shall we 
 contemn this revelation, and treat it as an imposture ? 
 Will not God resent the attempt to frustrate His infinite 
 condescension, and to set at nought the instruction He 
 has marvellously vouchsafed us ? God sent His servants 
 first, that they might collect the fruits of His vineyard : 
 " and the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, 
 and killed another, and stoned another ; . . . last of all, 
 he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence 
 my son ; " but him also they maltreated and despised : 
 "When the Lord therefore of the vineyard cometh, what 
 will he do unto those husbandmen ? " (Matt. xxi. 
 
 35, ff.) 
 
 In consequence of this state of things, the majority of / 
 
CONCLUSION. 289 
 
 men in a Christian country dare not trust themselves with 
 their own understandings. They do not exactly believe. 
 Rut, seeing the professed creed of their ancestors for 
 many generations, remembering the lessons and the 
 prayers they were taught to repeat before their lips 
 could fully articulate the sounds, seeing the thousands 
 of churches that have been built, the vast establishments 
 that have been settled, the numerous train of clergy 
 that have been spread over so many parts of the earth, 
 they think it a safer course to submit themselves in 
 silence to the religion that seems entailed upon them by 
 their birth. 
 
 There are in reality, in matters of religion, two kinds 
 of belief, — one that thinks of, and the other that does 
 not think of, the " secrets, of the world unknown." 
 
 The first, in its natural and full operation, leads to 
 madness. If we think daily and hourly of a future 
 state, as \ id down in the Scriptures, if we recollect how 
 peculiar l id uncommon are the qualifications that 
 characterise the elect, how it is scarcely possible for a 
 rational and cautious mind to satisfy itself that it 
 possesses these qualifications, how u strait is the gate 
 and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life," it is 
 impossible that that way we should escape madness. If 
 we went about t 1 world, if we lay down every night, 
 and rose every morning, with the conviction that our 
 lot after death would be to be " cast into the lake that 
 burneth with fire and brimstone" (Rev. xxi. 8), it 
 
 u 
 
29O CONCLUSION. 
 
 could not be that we should pay the attention required 
 for the ordinary affairs of life. How, beyond measure, 
 wretched and contemptible would be these things, 
 compared with the thought which in that case would 
 for ever engross us ! 
 
 Those persons, therefore, who have the future fate of 
 mankind continually before their eyes, must of necessity 
 take refuge in some strong delusion, as a drowning man 
 will catch at every twig, persuading themselves that they 
 are amone " the few that shall be saved." It is even 
 thus that men in the article of death, and malefactors, 
 who have incurred the last sentence of the law, send for 
 a priest, have a few prayers recited over them, receive 
 the unction of salvation, and pass away with the " sure 
 and certain hope " that the gates of heaven are already 
 open to receive their souls. Who does not see that this 
 is mere quackery, which a man must part with all 
 sobriety and soundness of understanding before he can 
 believe ? But these men rock themselves in the cradle 
 of faith, " in pleasing slumber lull their sense, and in 
 sweet madness " become " robbed of themselves." This 
 is the kind of belief that is found in a small minority of 
 mankind. 
 
 But the rest of our race in Christian countries are 
 content with an indolent kind of belief that scarcely ever 
 calls to mind the articles of its creed. They say, " Oh, 
 ay, that is all very true ; I shall find a time to think of 
 it ; but not now." And the time scarcely ever comes. 
 
CONCLUSION. 291 
 
 They " live without God in the world." Some of them 
 go to church ; but they dwell in a decent exterior, and 
 carefully banish from their minds what the church was 
 made to present to them, as things that would unseason- 
 ably disturb their composure. They skim the surface, 
 but are careful to draw no blood. They rarely think of 
 those things they profess to believe. They lock them 
 up, as Bluebeard locked up the bodies of his murdered 
 wives, and regard it as the most dreadful of afflictions 
 if the key should be applied to the lock, and the 
 horrible secrets within should once take air and be 
 disclosed. 
 
 But how pitiable is the state of the man to whose in- 
 heritance has fallen this, unthought-of creed ! He is for 
 ever conscious that he is attended by and dogged with a 
 reality which, if once it should intrude, and, having in- 
 truded, should keep possession of his soul, would poison 
 all his pleasures, and render life intolerable. He must 
 keep himself in a state of perpetual inebriety. He 
 knows that he has a faith, " which he does most abhor, 
 which he would not think of, but that he must, and that 
 when it occurs to him, he is perpetually at war between 
 will and not." By habit he acquires considerable skill 
 in keeping the foe at arm's length form him ; but he is 
 continually in dread of the time when it will no longer 
 be said nay. In reality, that time almost never comes. 
 Even at the period of death we are so unaccustomed to 
 these thoughts, and the petty things of sense so perpetu- 
 
292 CONCLUSION. 
 
 ally intrude, that the world to come, though the case 
 is so imminent, is little adverted to. The belief of 
 the great mass of mankind is very nearly akin to no 
 belief ; and we complain of the pricking of a pin, 
 when in consistency we should be thinking of fire and 
 brimstone, 
 
 " Of torture without end, a deluge, fed 
 With ever-burning sulphur, unconsumed." 
 
 Yet how poor is the state of that man who at least 
 thinks he believes in these things, and has no refuge 
 but in flying from the recollection of that which, if true, 
 concerns him infinitely more than all others ! What 
 infinite imbecility and laboured distraction must intrude 
 upon the man so circumstanced ! " Oh, how unlike " 
 what man, but for this emasculating creed, seems capable 
 of becoming ! " How noble in reason, how infinite in 
 faculties, in form and moving ; how express and admi- 
 rable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how 
 like a God !" 
 
 It is by such means, then, that men have gone on 
 from age to age, not daring to dispute, not daring to 
 submit to the criterion of their reason, — a dogma the most 
 revolting to our understanding, the most absurd, and the 
 most horrible. We dare not enquire, we dare not frame 
 propositions, and draw conclusions on the subject. We 
 think it safer to abide in a sort of belief, and to refrain 
 
CONCLUSION. 293 
 
 from speculating on so perilous a question. We bow 
 down our faculties in silence, deluding others and de- 
 luding ourselves, and subscribing to tenets the most 
 groundless and indefensible. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Printed by Watson and Hazell, London and Aylesbury. 
 
b3 
 
 92...85-S1...f1 
 7io-U 
 
 m 
 
 2 2.2,-. ^^-t^-^swjt^'YI^' 
 
 -zr^f*. 
 
 Ib'S 
 
RETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT 
 
 TO— * 202 Main Library 
 
 LOAN PERIOD 1 
 HOME USE 
 
 2 : 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 5 ( 
 
 b 
 
 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 
 
 Renewals and Recharges may be made 4 days prior to the due date. 
 
 Books may be Renewed by calling 642-3405 
 
 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 WdS^U Q 1 
 
 
 
 ■cSjjeK-C^ 7 /£? 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 oec Z6 ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 FORM NO. DD6 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY 
 BERKELEY, CA 94720 
 
 H 
 
I 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 
 UC BERKELEY LIBRARIES 
 
 CDMESMflS?? 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 mBK^m 
 
 H 
 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 M 
 
 ■ Hi 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 ■ 
 
 ¥>