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ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
x
ISPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
BY
- T. HECKER,
OF "QUESTIONS OF THE SOUL.'
NEW YORK: JAMES B. KIRKEIl,
371 BROADWAY.
M.DCCC.LVII.
LIBRARY ST. MARY'S COLLEGE
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by
I. T. HECKER,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of Now York.
CONTENTS.
PAOK
I.— THE DAWN, ... .9
II.— THE REALITY, ... 15
III.— LOYALTY, 21
IV.— CHOOSING THE WAY, . . . 20
V.--MAN," ) CONFESSIONS ( 31
VI.— " RELIGION," V OF 35
VII.-" CHURCH,'' ) AN EARNEST SEEKER. ( 4Q
VIII.— THE SEARCH, .. . . . 44
IX.— HEATHEN PHILOSOPHY, . . .49
X. — GERMAN PHILOSOPHY, . . 58
XI. — FRENCH PHILOSOPHY, . . .68
XII. — ASPIRATIONS OF REASON, . 76
XIII.— ADMISSIONS, . . . .84
XIV.— TESTIMONY, .... 93
XV.— AGREEMENT, . . . .99
XVI.— WHITHEB? ... 103
6 CONTENTS.
PAOB
XVII.— REASON, . . . . .115
XVIII.— FREE-WILL, .... 128
XIX.— HUMAN NATURE, . . . .141
XX. — JUSTIFICATION, . . . .152
XXI.— SECTARIANISM, . . . .102
XXII.— THE RESULTS, ... 174
XXIII.— REASON, 193
XXIV.— CONTINUATION, . . .207
XXV.— FREE-WILL, . . . .219
XXVI.— HUMAN NATURE, ... 220
XXVII.— CONTINUATION, . . . .238
XX VII I.— JUSTIFICATION, .... 250
XXIX. — INDIVIDUALITY, .... 202
XXX.— UNIVERSALITY, .... 279
XXXI.— CHURCH, . . . . .292
XXXII.— AUTHORITY, .... 297
XXXIII.— APPLIANCES, . . . .312
XXXIV.— FELLOWSHIP, .... 329
XXXV.— MEMORIALS, . . . .344
XXXVI.— CONCLUSION, .... 358
PEEFACE.
THIS book claims the attention of a large body of our intelligent countrymen.
Many of them are born and brought up with out any definite religious belief ; and no sooner are the religious aspirations of the soul awakened ; than they go forth to seek a religion which, while it answers and supports these, does not gainsay the dictates of Reason.
Others receive early religious instructions, and, as soon as the eye of Reason opens, they find that many of the doctrines taught them in their child- nood and youth, violate its plainest dictates, and shock the clearest convictions of conscience
8 PREFACE.
Loyal to Reason, they repudiate these false tenets, and endeavor to find or construct a religion agree able to the laws of man's intelligence, and com mensurate with all the wants of Human Nature.
Another class have discarded all denominable religions, and betake themselves to the different movements of the day in hopes of obtaining the solutions of the dark enigmas of life, and of find ing the satisfaction which their religious instincts demand.
The following pages are addressed to these men. Let them be read in the spirit in which they were written, in earnestness, in sincerity, and in unswerving loyalty to Truth.
4442
THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
I.
gaton.
How beautiful that yesterday, that stood
Over us like a rainbow 1 I am alone.
The past ia past." A. SMITH.
first sensations of the happiness of our JL being, consist in the pleasure to look upon, and enjoy the exquisite charms which nature spreads with a lavish hand every where, to attract and win our attention.
The flowers, the sea, the air, the sky, the whole earth, is instinct with and breathes a life which entrances our senses, steals into and dilates the soul, and imparadises the heart. 1*
10 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
Nature, in all and through, all things, smiles on us in our childhood. Fascinated by her charms, we yield ourselves willing captives to her em braces, and are happy beyond measure, and we know it not.
Such are childhood's opening scenes, and its early blessings. Were these only lasting, life would seem sufficient joy, and earth a paradise.
But kind nature deceived us. We were not happy. This was only an infant's dream of bliss ; a faint echo of lost Eden ; an enchantment whose charm was soon broken ; and, alas, we were left alone ! and strangers to that nature which ap peared as though it were " bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh/'
Childhood's sweet blossoms are crushed ; and we find ourselves strangers every where, to every one, to our own selves even ! Mystery covers all that hitherto stood open to our gaze and seemed so familiar. It is, indeed, strange to be conscious of loneliness in the wide world of things and exist ences, while all is around, and so near us ! To stand apart, to feel ourselves outside of all things ! To be fearfully clone, and to discover the prophet speaking our own language : " I beheld the earth, and lo it was void and nothing ; and the heavens, and there was no light m them. I beheld the
THE DAWN. 11
birds of the air, they were gone, and lo there was no man ! " *
What has robbed us of our early joys ? Is childhood's blissful vision for ever gone ? Oh, we ask no ray of light to see into the future, we would be a child again !
Alas ! its fair dreams have fled. Keality is making its prey of all that was so beautiful to be hold. The flowers look faded ; the song of the birds is cheerless ; the air has lost all its fresh ness ; the earth, the sea, the sky, and all things are as though they were not. All is void : the heart forsaken ; paradise is closed ; the golden age is past ; and the soul, like the fabled Psyche, no longer content with past imperfect joys, is doomed to toil and wo, until it has realized the promises of its new-born capacities.
This is life's greatest moment, when the soul unfolds capacities which reach beyond earth's boundaries. We seem no longer the beings we were. New depths are broken up in the soul. Hidden energies come forth to light. A fresh life stirs within us. We know what we see is not what we seek, and what we seek we know not. Dimly opens to our vision a loftier and fairer world, promising an ampler bliss. The soul beholds its
* Jeremiah.
12 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
goal, and like the butterfly which has escaped the chrysalis, finds now that its lot is away !
All great minds have recognized this fact : that man has capacities to conceive sublime truths ; powerful aspirations, noble presentiments which carry the soul beyond the region of sense, and lead it on to that brighter world where dwells the First True, the First Good, the First Fair — the eternal type of all perfections, and aim of all our strivings ; —
" That even in savage bosoms There are longings, yearnings, strivings For the good they comprehend not." *
It is written on every page and breathed through all the works of genius. The philoso phers, from Plato to Kant, vainly strove to sound these secret depths of the soul ; the poets, from the author of " Prometheus Bound" to the author of the " Intimations of Immortality," exhausted their gifts to express it ; the pencil and the chisel have alike failed adequately to embody this mysterious birth of the conscious soul, — a birth which is the starting point of all philosophy, the ideal of all genius, and the basis of all religious beliefs.
* Hiawath.x
THE DAWN. 13
No man of the world can be wholly unaware of the moment in his soul's history when he first became distinctly conscious of his own personal existence. It is this fact which throws so strange an interest around that most beautiful creation of genius, Undine.
How many hearts have thrilled ; how many a one has recognized that the sentiments are drawn from the secret depths of his own being, which Undine expresses, when she exclaims, half musing with herself, half inquiring from her new found teacher :
" i There must be something lovely, but at the same time something most awful about a SOUL ! In the name of God, holy man, were it not better that we never shared a gift so mysterious ? '
" She paused and restrained her tears as if waiting for an answer. She, however, seemed to have eyes for no one but the holy man ; a fear ful curiosity was painted on her features, and this made her emotion appear terrible to others.
" ' Heavily must the soul weigh down its pos sessor/ she pursued, when no one returned her any answer ; ' very heavily ! for already its ap proaching image overshadows me with anguish and mourning, and, alas ! I have till now been so merry and light hearted/ " *
* Undine, ch. 8.
14 THE ASPI RATIONS OF NATURE.
Every effort to undo the soul's recognition of the great fact of its existence, seems but to fix it more firmly. We may writhe and struggle ; we may resolve to be as we were, and these efforts tend only to make this mysterious and new-awakened life more powerfully felt. For weal or for woe
it is
" Born to perish never, Which neither listlessness nor mad endeavor,
Nor man, nor boy, Nor all that is at enmity with joy, Can utterly abolish or destroy."*
* Wordsworth.
II.
gealitn.
"Those strupsling tides of life that seem In wayward, aimless course to tend, Are eddies of the mighty stream That rolls to an appointed end."
BUTANT.
THE soul naturally aspires to something which is better, higher, nohler, greater than itself. This aspiration is no fiction. For every act of a created being presupposes other existences.
We cannot think where there is nothing to be thought. We cannot love where there is nothing to be loved. We cannot act where there is nothing whereupon to act. Nothing can come of nothing.
The denial of this is the denial of the things we see, touch, taste, hear and smell ; it is the denial of our own existences, the world's existence,
16 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
and God's existence. It is the denial of all things. For the evidence of our being, and the evidence of the world's being, and the evidence of God's being, are seen simultaneously, and enter into one and the same fact of consciousness.
And the certitude of their several existences, is of equal authority ; for, although the organs through which Keason operates are not precisely of the same character, nevertheless Keason is one and indivisible, and is of equal authority in all that it duly attests.
Every operation of our faculties, therefore, is an incontestable evidence of the real being of something independent of our own being.
The certainty of our faculties is not only in contestable in regard to the fact of other existences, their certainty is equally incontestable in regard to the qualities and characteristics of those exist ences.
A rose does not affect us in the same way as a fine strain of music ; the sight of the ocean does not excite the same emotions as the society of our friends or families ; the remembrance of the Traitor Arnold produces quite different impres sions from that of the patriot Washington.
Whilst we have remained the same, we have been subject to rery diverse impressions. Why
THE REALITY. 17
is this ? The reason is simple and plain. The objects before us were^ changed, and these being of a different character, we were consequently dif ferently affected. For it is not the mind that creates things, or originates their qualities or characteristics, but it is these which inform and shape the mind.
The mind, therefore, takes cognizance of the existence not only of things, but also of their qual ities and characteristics, and its authority is no less reliable in the latter functions of its activity than in the former.
But the cognizance of existences and of their qualities is the cognizance of Truth, — for Truth is all which is or exists. The mind of man, there fore, is the organ of Truth.
We take, therefore, our stand upon the un questionable certitude of our faculties, and will permit no attempt to undermine their authority.
A well-organized and healthy mind will not allow an entrance to the slightest doubt concern ing the evident authority of the operations of its own faculties.
To entertain such a doubt is no mark of wis dom, but rather a proof of folly. For it involves the palpable absurdity of proving that worthless which serves as the basis and instrument of proof.
18 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
Existence is not a dream, but a solemn reality. Life was not given to be thrown away on miserable sophisms, but to be employed in earnest search after Truth.
There is a doubt, however, which springs from a deficiency of evidence, or from a lack of informa tion. This we respect, for it is an honest doubt — a mark of an honest, and the sign of the working of an independent mind. It
" Springs like a shoot, around the stock of truth ; And it is nature, from height to height, On to the summit prompts us." *
The other kind of doubt, the pretended doubt, the one which professes to doubt whether the light we see be light, or whether what we know we know ; this is mental cowardice, or the symptom of a diseased intellect.
One day, Dr. Johnson was asked by Boswell what he thought of the pretended demonstration of certain would-be philosophers of the non- existence of matter ? The Dr. answered with alacrity by striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone till he rebounded from it, " I refute it thus."
Let those whom this answer does not suffice,
* Dante.
THE REALITY. 19
be sent to an Insane Asylum ; for, according to their own showing, if one has no certitude of any thing, they condemn themselves to an eternal silence, or to talk nothing but nonsense.
To doubt, therefore, the evidence of our facul ties, is a sign of an unsound intellect ; to deny the authority of their evidence, is to banish one self outside of the domain of Reason, and, let us add, out of that also of humanity.
For the men that history enshrines on her immortal pages, the men whose memories arc embalmed in the hearts of their fellows for all ages, were men who placed unfaltering trust in the loftiest convictions of the soul, and consecrated life and death to their realization.
Men whose minds were of this temper the whole human race cherish with enthusiasm and deathless attachment. Nations rear monuments to perpetuate the remembrance of their noble deeds. The bare mention of their names causes the hearts of men to palpitate with life, and fires the breasts of millions with heroic resolves. Such is the faith of man. These are the sentiments of humanity. And sentiments of such majesty, im parted to the entire human race, can not but be the impressions of the Divinity.
A philosophy, therefore, which does not justify
20 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
and support the high and glorious promises of our nature, misapprehends the powers of Keason, fails to recognize the nobility of the soul, is false to its mission, and deserves not a thought of a human being who respects himself, or who comprehends the great end of existence.
Eesting, then, on the primary certitude of the operations of the human faculties as an incontest able and immovable basis, we affirm with their authority, and that of their great Author, that the very fact of the soul's possessing convictions which stretch forth beyond earth's horizon, is indisputable evidence of a world of realities corresponding to them.
III.
44 Call to mind from whence ye sprung ; Ye were not formed to live the life of brutes; But virtue to pursue, and knowledge high."
DANTE.
MAN is gifted with an intelligence to see natu rally into a world of more momentous real ities, and as surely, as he sees with his eyes the material objects in the world around him. This world of unrealized realities is within his reach.
For what reason has man in being, if the noblest desire of his breast is the thirst after truth, and the truth does not exist, or exists beyond the scope of his capacities ? If this be man's lot, then better were we quiet earth again, or rather, better had we never been aught but dust !
22 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
But the fault does not lie here, for truth does exist ; the striving after it is ample evidence that it does. Nor is man doomed, Tantalus-like, to strive after truth in vain ; for reason was given the capacity to lay hold of truth. The fault, then, is not on the side of truth, or in our faculties.
Wherein lies the fault ? The fault is in our neglect to use our faculties, or in not using them rightly.
And truth is not an ugly and merciless sphinx, but a fair and gentle maid. Eagerly she goes forth to meet the earnest seeker, and is easily won by the heroic lover. Earnestness in the search after truth, heroism in following it when found, these are the essential requisites for those who aspire to her friendship and love.
With a manly heart and bold resolves there is no true conception of the mind, no real aspiration of the heart, which may not be reached and real ized. " Else desire was given to no end."
Indifference or unconcernedness in regard to the realization of the bright inspirations of divine truths, is no mark of a noble mind. This is an unmistakable evidence of the absence of those original convictions which constitute tho soul's nobility and the dignity of our nature.
LOYALTY. 23
" Fame of such the world hath none, Nor suffers ; Mercy and Justice scorn them both. Speak not of them, but look, and pass them by." *
These lofty aspirations, these boundless in stincts, are traces of man's native nobility, and indicate the grandeur of his destiny. We should cherish them as our fondest hopes, and hold them dearer than life. Better live in a tub like Dioge nes, and feed on wild roots, than submit to the dreadful degradation of yielding them up unreal ized. For man has no other reason for living, but to unite his noblest capacities to their proper objects. This, and this alone, is the accomplish ment of the great end of his present existence.
They give up the soul, and shrink into the grovelling instincts of the worm, who
" Pause not to inquire Why we are here, and what the reverence Man owes to man. and what the mystery That links us to the greater world, beside "Whose borders we but hover for a space." f
Our sublime destiny and supreme happiness lie in the answer to our highest aspirations. The highest objects correspond to our highest capacities. Above Keason there is the Most High alone.
* Dante. t Bryant.
24 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
The Most High is the answer to our high aspira tions and glorious destiny. Nothing less than the Infinite can content man's noble and most sovereign Keason.
But the relation of the soul with the infinite is Religion. Religion, therefore, is the answer to that cry of Reason which nothing can silence, that aspiration of the soul which no created tiling can meet, that want of the heart which all creation cannot supply.
Where shall we find Religion ?
IV.
tlr*
"One good gift has the fatal apple given — Your Reason : — let it not be oversway'd By tyrannous threats to force you into faith 'Gainst all external sense and inward feeling."
BYRON.
WHERE is a large class of men who cherish the JL lofty aspirations of their nature, and are loyal to their religious convictions. They feel deeply their religious necessities, and yearn and seek after a religion which, at the same time that it answers to these wants, does not contradict the universal dictates of reason.
We have it from, authentic sources of informa tion, that this class of minds compose more than one-half of our population who have arrived at the age of manhood ; and it includes many, if not
26 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
most of our intellectually-gifted and noble-minded countrymen.
What lias brought about this state of things ? Does it spring from a want of religious sentiment, or earnestness on their part ? We opine that it does not. No people are more susceptible of religious impressions, no people are more in earnest in all that regards religion, than the American people. Witness the countless churches, the Sun day-school unions, missionary enterprises, Bible and Tract societies, and other religious institu tions, broadcast over this extensive land. The man who would charge our people "with infidelity, skepticism, or indifference in religious matters, would only display his unacquaintance with the heart and mind of the nation.
What, then, is the cause of this strange phe nomenon of a people sincerely and earnestly re ligious, and yet having no fixed Christian belief ? Ask them, and those who have reflected will an swer, in the lines of the poet Schiller :
1 What's my Religion? None of all the sects Which thou hast named. And why not ? From HELIGION."
The prevailing beliefs have presented Keligion in such a light that men of mature thought could
;•*". CHOOSING THE WAY. 27
not, without a feeling approaching to shame, and a certain sense of self- degradation, submit to their pretensions.
If Christianity be presented to men in such a way as to leave but the one choice, either to become fanatics or to profess no religion, where is there one who possesses a spark of reason, or has a manly feeling in his breast, that would not rather stand aloof from all religious sects, and pay such worship to his Creator as accords with the dictates of Reason and the inward convictions of the soul ? Reliance on the rational convictions of our nature is the first of all duties.
The time is gone by when men can easily be made to believe that that is Religion which leads its votaries to contradict the dictates of Reason, or trample down the convictions of conscience. Nor docs it sound well in the ears of an enlightened people, to tell them that the first step to Religion is to abdicate that which distinguishes man from the brutes which perish.
A large class of intellectual men share the conviction, that the only stable foundation for Religion is the human intelligence. They pro claim it openly to the world, that " Religion is yet to be settled on its fast foundations in the breast of man."
28 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
This is the great object to be aimed at in the present age. Would that those whom it concerns understood it ! Never can that be God's Religion which gainsays Reason's dictates and shocks the feelings of our moral nature.
The present generation of men, having receded from the common systems of Christian belief as unsatisfactory, have fallen back upon Human Na ture. Human Nature alone can be taken for granted. The Religion, therefore, that is to meet the wants of the age, and answer its demands, must take its starting point from man's nature. It is, therefore, upon the essential and indestruc tible elements of Human Nature that Religion, particularly in this country, has to raise the foun dations of its temple. The sanctuary of Religion must be restored* to the place where the God of nature placed it, in the human soul.
The work of doubt, denial, destruction, is ended ; it awakens no enthusiasm. The cry for edification is heard abroad in the land.
Wearied with fruitless search, disgusted with mere negation, freed from the awful nightmare of doubt, the time for action is at hand. The a^e
•' O
demands a Religion which unites reverence for God with a profound respect for the divinely-gifted in telligence and the heaven-born freedom of man.
CHOOSING THE WAY. 29
Say not that an inquiry after the true Religion is not called for. It is. The teachers followed by our Fathers are destitute of the truths which the age demands. It is the cry of Reason, of the Soul, of all earnest minds, of the people of our country. They demand a Religion which opens a future worthy of their youthful energies, which answers to their high aspirations, and elicits from their hearts deeds of generous and noble self- sacrifice.
What else is the meaning of all the modern spiritualisms and evocations of departed spirits, except that the religious sentiment, finding in the common system of modern religious belief no satis factory support or adequate answer to its demands, goes blindly groping about in its distress among the realms of the dead to discover something which will satisfy its deep, deathless, and irre sistible yearnings ?
We must therefore suffer the insupportable yearnings of our religious nature, or find the Re ligion which, will afford them ample satisfaction.
The question of Religion is not a question of opinion. The question of Religion is one of life and death. To attempt to be and live without Religion is a gross injustice to our Reason, a cruel mutilation of our nature, and an insult offered to
30 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
God. To be without Ecligion is to be not a man. but a monster. Our people are famishing for it ; and we must have religion, the true Religion, or die, — die of despair or inanition. For Religion is man's inmost being and existence.
We may, however, be told that this inquiry after the true Religion is difficult ? Difficult ! Well, suppose it is, what then ? Are we not here to conquer difficulties ? For what purpose was the light of Reason bestowed on man if not to discover the Truth ? For what purpose was the strength of his will given, if not to employ it in search of Truth ? No ! truth is not so difficult of discovery as some would have us believe. Truth is ever ready to show herself to the sincere, the earnest, and hastens to the arms of the ingenuous lover.
Let us give ear to the cry of an " Earnest Seeker."
"THE CONFESSIONS
OF
"AN EAKNEST SEEKER" V.
"Ian."
" TTTE arc conscious of an intense and painful I I void within our breast. How are we to bo relieved of this ? Belief there must be,' for it is insupportable. The insensibility of death wcro preferable. Forgctfulness a boon.
" Forgetfulncss— Of what, — of whom, — and why ? Of that which is within me ; Read it there — Ye know it, and I cannot utter it."*
" The world may appear beautiful ; the ties of friendship, kindred, love, seem dear and sweet ;
* Byron.
32 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
life may appear full of hope and bright prospects ; Alas ! what are all these joys to the soul, so long as deeper needs deprive us of their enjoyment ?
" A different object do these eyes require ; My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine , And in my heart the imperfect joys expire." *
" All sacrifices would he to us as steps to bliss, and renunciation enjoyment, so that we found what answers to our nobler necessities. A journey to the torrid zone, were we sure to meet it there, would be but a trip of pleasure. Somewhere it must be ; if not, the heavens will reveal it. This confidence is stronger than death.
" Thank God ! we were left unfettered and unswayed in our belief, in our childhood and youth. We are in our full manhood, in possession of our reason and freedom. Happy is the man who is ready to receive the whole of God's ever lasting truth, and searches after it with all the energies of his being.
" The possession of Truth, not the simple search of it, is the true end of Reason and the source of all true life. Whenever, therefore, the Truth is presented to the mind with rational and sufficient evidence, it matters not by whom, to
* Gray.
THE "SEEKER'S CONFESSIONS." 33
withhold one's assent, is to reduce Eeason to the ignominious servitude of passion, and to inflict upon the soul the most painful of deaths, — the death of inanition.
" The slave is noble, his chains brilliant orna ments, he is free, in comparison with the man who enslaves his godlike Reason by his passions, shackles it by his prejudices, or lets it rust unused from slavish fears.
" Reason affirms its own authority, and can admit of no other which does not support its claims, and coincide with its dictates. Of all forms of slavery, that of the soul is the most abject, degrading, and cruel. The negro slave possesses his soul, but the man who yields up the authority of his Reason, abdicates his manhood, and renders his soul a chattel.
" Endowed with Reason, man has no right to surrender his judgment. Endowed with Free- Will, man has no right to yield up his liberty. Reason and Free- Will constitute man a respon sible being, and he has no right to abdicate his independence. Judgment, Liberty, Independence, these are divine and inalienable gifts ; and man cannot renounce them if he would.
" As an intellectual being, man has the right to know the Truth. As a moral being, man has 2*
34 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
the right to follow the Truth. Any authority that interferes with our exercise of these, violates the natural rights of man, and insults their Divine Author.
" The assent of Keason to truth is not the subjection of Keason, but its sublimest assertion. The voluntary following of Truth is not a restric tion of our Free-Will, but the only and the truest expression of its liberty. The acknowledgment and acceptance of Truth constitute man's true Independence, Dignity and Glory.
" Man cannot be thought of consistently with just and honorable ideas of his Creator, otherwise than as good, in possession of all his faculties, whose primal tendencies are in accordance with the great end of his being.
" There is no earthly Dignity equal to that of Human Nature, for there is stamped upon it, in glowing characters, the perfect resemblance of its Divine Author.
"Let us therefore be loyal to the dictates of Reason, knowing that they will lead us to our Archetype and Divine Original.
" Let the light of Truth be our guide. Let Reason be our Authority. We fear not to -follow where they point the way. What contradicts Reason contradicts God.
VI.
It YI7E go forth in earnestness and in hope, with I T the sacred torch of Keason in our hand, to seek, to find, and to accept true Keligion, resolved at the same time to cast aside all creeds and sys tems of belief which exact the surrender of our judgment, independence, or liberty.
" If we find a religion to tell us that the truth we see is not truth, but falsehood ; if we find a religion to tell us that the good we love is not good, but evil ; if we find a religion to tell us that our good deeds are not virtues, but vices ; we in indignation answer : ' To the dogs with such a religion. We ask not its heaven ; nor fear its hell. Such a religion comes not down from heaven, but up from the bottomless pits below/
36 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
" A religion which gainsays the plain dictates of Reason, is hostile to our holiest affections, or mutilates our nature, is no religion, hut a hase im position. It is treason against God and Human Nature to listen to its horrid and impious creed. No, rather die a heathen or infidel than submit to a religion which outrages God hy making the creatures of his own likeness, ahject, hase, ac cursed.
"We say, with the voice and the united ener gies of our soul, and the Author of our heing : l Let the religion perish from the face of the earth which invades the sacred boundaries that consti tute man's Reason, or which would diminish the dignity of Human Nature/
" Reason's certitude is anterior to all other certitude, hence its authority is indisputable, and, in its own sphere, supreme. The denial of this is the undermining of the foundations of all knowl edge of truth, and of all religious belief, and opens the way to the triumph of Atheism. The first step of the true Religion is to confirm the rightful authority of Reason, to call forth the full exercise of its powers, to elicit its free and undivided assent, and look to it for its confirmation, support, and defence.
" A religion, therefore, that is not an imposi-
THE "SEEKER'S CONFESSIONS." 37
tion, a fraud, cannot move a single step inde pendently of the voluntary assent and suffrage of Keason. Its first duty is to afford rational and sufficient evidence of the doctrines which it teaches. Let it look to this, for the sake of its own honor, for a religion which interdicts the right exercise of Eeason, or violates its laws, exposes itself, sooner or later, to the just indignation of all intelligent thinkers.
" No truth or doctrine of Eeligion is really be lieved and held without an act of the intelligence and will. These united constitute man's rational nature. A religion unsupported by the inward witness and free assent of Keason to its truth, is no religion, but a delusion, an hypocrisy. For man, as a rational being, cannot, if he would, embrace a religious belief which is contrary to his essential nature — Reason.
" As on one hand Religion is bound to attest with satisfactory evidence the divine origin of the truths which it proposes to our belief, so on the other hand, we are bound to accept the truths so presented. To believe is not less a function of Reason than to know, or to perform any other of its normal operations. The refusal, therefore, of our belief to truths duly attested, is a violation of our allegiance to Reason, and if consistently carried out, would end in its entire overthrow.
38 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
" Kcligion adds no new faculty to the soul. A sure mark of its divine origin is, that when fairly presented, it meets and welcomes all the honest demands of the intellectual and moral faculties of our nature, and in such a way as to produce an entire conviction of its truth. True Keligion opens to our intellectual vision the great end of our existence, and so directs, strengthens, and excites our will and its energies that we reach it.
" It should not be forgotten that the destiny of the soul and body is one and indivisible. For man is soul and body, inseparably united in one person. The body, therefore, has a religious pur pose. ( Nothing is holier than that high form/ A religion which is of divine origin must be adapt ed, in its doctrines and worship, to the whole of man's nature.
" There is no use of disguising the fact, our religious needs are the deepest. There is no peace until they are satisfied and contented. The at tempt to stifle them is vain. If their cry bo drowned by the noise of the world, they do not cease to exist. In some unexpected moment they will break forth with redoubled energy. They must be answered. And unless they be satisfac torily answered, they will rise up at the last hour
THE "SEEKER'S CONFESSIONS." 39
of life, and, with irresistible force, seize upon the mind, and strike terror into the soul.
" It is a necessity, therefore, to find a religion coinciding with the dictates of Keason, and com mensurate with the wants of our whole nature, or else to wait for its revelation.
"If we find no such religion, and God deigns not to reveal it, then on our tomb shall be written, 6 Here lies one who asked with sincerity for truth, and it was not given. He knocked earnestly at the door of truth, and it was not opened. He sought faithfully after truth, and he found nothing
VII.
" T) ELIGION is a question between God and Jit tlie Soul. No human authority, therefore, has any right to enter its sacred sphere. The attempt is sacrilegious.
" Every man was made by his Creator to do his own thinking. What right then has one man, or a body of men, to dictate their belief, or make their private convictions, or sentiments, binding upon others ?
" There is no degradation so abject, as the submission of the eternal interests of the soul to the private authority or dictation of any man, or body of men, whatever may be their titles. Every right sentiment in our breast rises up in abhorrence
against it.
THE "SEEKER'S CONFESS IONS." 41
" A Church which is not of divine origin, and claims assent to its teachings, or obedience to its precepts, on its own authority, is an insult to our understandings, and deserves the ridicule of all men who have the capacity to put two ideas together.
"A Church that claims a divine origin, in order to be consistent must also claim to be un erring ; for the idea of teaching error in the name of the Divinity, is blasphemous.
" A Church, if it deserves that title, must yield us assistance, and not we the Church. The Church that needs our assistance, we despise. Only the Church which has help from above for mankind, and is conscious of it, is a divine insti tution.
" A Church that has its origin in heaven, is an organ of divine inspiration and life to humanity. For Religion is not only a system of divinely given truths, but also the organ of a divine life. Life, and its transmission, .is inconceivable, inde pendent of an organism. The office of the Church, therefore, is not only to teach divine truths, but also to enable men to actualize them.
" If entrance into the Church is not a step to a higher and holier life, the source of a larger and more perfect freedom, her claims do not merit
42 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
a moment's consideration. Away with the Church that reveals not a loftier manhood, and enables men to attain it.
" The object of the Church authority is not to lay restraints on man's activity, but to direct it aright ; not to make him a slave, but to establish his independence ; the object of Church authority is to develop man's individuality, consecrate and defend his rights, and elevate his existence to the plane of his divine destiny.
" Divine Keligion appeals to man's holiest instincts, and inspires the soul w^ith a sublime enthusiasm. A Church without martyrs is not on equality with the institution of the family or state ; for they are not wanting in heroes. A Church that ceases to produce martyrs is dead.
" Hearts are aching to be devoted to the down trodden and suffering of the race. Breasts are elated with heroic impulses to do something in the noble cause of Truth and God ; and shall all these aspirations and sentiments which do honor to our nature, be wasted, misspent, or die out for want of sanction and right direction ? Who can give this sanction ? Who can give this direction ? No one but God's Church upon earth. This is her divine mission.
" In concert with tho voice of all those who
THE SEEKER'S CONFESSIONS." 43
are conscious of their humanity, we demand a visible and divine authority to unite and direct the aspirations and energies of individuals and nations to great enterprises for the common wel fare of men upon earth, and for eternity.
" If the Religion we are in search of does not exist, and we remain in darkness, we shall be found standing Upright, looking heavenward, our Reason unshackled, in all the dignity and energy of our native manhood.
" ' Better roam for aye, than rest Under the impious shadow of a roof nnblest.' " *
* De Vere.
VIII.
M Arise, good youth ! . . . I know thine inmost bosom, and I feel A very brother's yearning for thee steal Into mine own : for why ? Thou openest The prison-gates that have so long oppressed My weary watchings." KEATS.
milOUGHTS like the preceding are largely JL shared by the living men of our time. Only genuine Religion can answer their high but just and searching demands. A false religion must not venture to face them. Its first words would be the sentence of its own condemnation. Never had true Religion so glorious a field for its con quest, never had a false religion so much to dread. Hitherto the conquests of Religion were among pagans, idolaters, and savages. Peoples
THE SEARCH. 45
who held a false religion, and subject to almost unconquerable prejudices and inveterate super stitions. Here we have men enlightened by Reason, free for the most part from false religions, and open to the convictions of Truth. What a noble prospect for the triumph of true Eeligion ! What a beautiful career for the champions of that Keligion which has its origin in heaven ! True Keligion has nothing to dread from the right use of Reason ; it demands free inquiry, and courts the strictest scrutiny, for the foundations on which true Religion stands are eternal.
In other places, infidelity, skepticism, preju dice, is rife and stalks over the land ; an- evident determination to reject all religion in spite of the voice of Reason and the cries of our religious na ture. We have little of that among us. That little is of foreign importation.
Our civilization is young, fresh, and in the vigor of its manhood. New elements are at work in it. We cannot repeat the past if we would. The new world promises a new civilization. And in this unfettered civilization, true Religion will find a reception it has in vain looked for elsewhere, and a development of unprecedented glory. For Religion is never so attractive and beautiful as when connected with intelligence and free convic tion.
46 THE ASPIKATIONS OF NATURE.
Our youthful people are ready to offer their hearts to the embraces of the Eeligion of heaven, as the soil of our country presents its virginal bosom to our countrymen for its cultivation.
This moment is a crisis, the great crisis of our history. For no people ever became great without religion. A religion, too, superior to themselves. A religion which was to them the source of their highest and purest inspiration. A religion which, in its main elements at least, was of divine origin. A religion which furnished ideals to its poets and artists, and enlightened the minds and nerved the arms of its sages and heroes to great enterprises. It is the very nature and essence of Religion to raise men, peoples and nations, above the common level of life, to break through its ordinary bounds, and express itself in a thousand ways, in poetry, painting, music, sculpture, and in every other form of ideal expression. The splendid monuments of the genius and greatness of by-gone ages are the monuments inspired by their religion.
Our destiny as a nation hangs on this moment. For no nation, as no individual, becomes fully conscious of its capacities, discovers its divine destination, until it is wholly under the influence of religious inspiration. No people becomes pro perly a nation, acts as one man, unfolds its highest
^>
THE
SEARCH. _. 47
capabilities, displays its true genius and utmost strength, until it becomes not only politically and socially, but religiously, of one mind and heart. Keligion ever was and for ever must be the highest source of inspiration, and the most powerful engine of progress in every department of human activity. Religion strikes the deepest roots into the human heart, inspires with divine light man's intelligence, and gives to his will a superabundant strength and the noblest kind of heroism. The zenith of glory of every nation is the period of the highest degree of its religious culture and development.
The whole character of our future depends on the direction of our present step. For in propor tion to the intcnseness of the unity of a people in a common religious belief, so will be their energy. In proportion to the universality of the principles of their religious belief will be the grandeur of their development. In proportion to the sub limity, purity, and truth of their religious belief, will be the stability and splendor of their civiliza tion. Religion — true, genuine Religion alone, makes a people a nation, powerful, great, glori< ms, and like herself, eternal. The character of a na tion's destiny is taken from the nature of its religion.
Our people begin to feel the necessity of a
48 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
religion adequate to their wants, adapted to their genius, and capable of guiding them to their divine destination. A religion coextensive with our vast extent of territory, in harmony with the spirit of our free institutions, embracing in one brotherhood the entire human race, and drawing its authority from the bosom of God.
The American people feel the need of such a religion, the need of its divine sanction, and its blessings and guidance.
Never in the history of man has there been presented a spectacle of greater interest than tho new page which our people are at this moment unfolding before the world's expectation.
The promises of the past, the hopes of the pre sent, the interests of the future, are bound up and vitally connected with our efforts and successes.
America is the country of the Future. The living God is above us, and the blessings of heaven are with us. Let us then go forward, trusting that our convictions will bring us to the realities which they foreshadow.
IX
" Philosophy is the endeavor to solve the formidable problems which tor ment the soul. The philosophical sentiment is the craving to pursue these solutions with the torch of Reason and Science."
LNTKOD. TO JOCFFKAY ; BY GEOKGE RIPLEY.
WHERE shall we go to find the religion of heaven ? Is it among the ancients we shall find it ? Shall we find in the writings of the philosophers and sages of Greece and Rome com plete and satisfactory answers to the problems which torment the soul ? We are told so. But we fear, not. By-gone ages listened to their so lutions, and found them to be insufficient for Reason, and unsatisfactory to the heart. The sages and philosophers of the ancients were listened to, not by men hostile to their religions, or preju- 3
50 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
diced, but by men of genius, able to comprehend and appreciate their teachings. They were even their own cherished disciples.
Lucian tells us, in his " Dialogues of the Dead :" " In the state of ignorance and perplexity in which I was concerning the origin of the world, I thought that I could do no better than have recourse to the philosophers. Persuaded that they wrere the de positaries of all truths, and that they would dispel all my doubts, I addressed myself to those ot them whom I thought the more clever. I judged their merit by the gravity of their exterior, the paleness of . their countenances and the length ot their beards ; unerring signs, as I thought, of the depth and the subtlety of their knowledge. I placed myself in their hands ; and after having agreed upon the price, wrhich was not a trifle, I desired at first to be instructed regarding all that they say happens in heaven, and to know how they would go to work to explain the order we meet everywhere in the universe. What was my aston ishment, \vhen ah* my learned masters, far from dissipating my first uncertitude, plunged me into a blindness a thousand times more obscure ! I had my ears every day stunned with their great words of principles, ends, atoms, void, matter, form. What was most insufferable for me, was
HEATHEN PHILOSOPHY. 51
that each of them taught me precisely the contrary to what the other said, exacted that I should con fide in him alone, and pretended that his system was alone the right one and good/'
Such was the result of the efforts of Lucian to find among the philosophers of his time the an swers to the formidable questions which torment Keason.
The philosopher Justin was a devout student of Plato's writings and disciple of his doctrines. Did he find them satisfactory ? By no means. In regard to the prince of philosophers, he says : " I abandon Plato, not that his doctrine is con trary to the truth, but because it is insufficient and fragmentary. The same judgment I pass on the disciples of Zeno, and your poets and historians." Origen,Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Augus tine and other great minds, pass the same judg ment on the results of the endeavors of the sages and philosophers of the Grecian states, and of those of the Roman empire. They sought ardently, they devoted their time and best energies of their minds, to find the solutions to the dark enigmas of life in the schools and writings of the various philosophies, and found them wanting.
52 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE,
"None
Could whisper to them a saving spell That might the house of death illume ; or raise Even in life the soul to hope and peace, Or look for ultimate union with the light.'1 *
That the solutions of the ancient philosophers were inadequate to the demands of Reason, is an historical fact. A sufficient evidence of the truth of this is their having passed into oblivion. Thus a palpable proof of the insufficiency of the ancient philosophical schools is found in their inability to establish themselves as permanent institutions of society. They could not stand the test of the strict scrutiny of enlightened Kcason. Men may be duped, for their lives are short ; not so with humanity, it lives for ages. Hence what is not commensurate with all the wants of man's nature, can never become universal either in time or space.
If this statement be not satisfactory, we will ourselves inquire of the schools of ancient philos ophy an answer to one of the great questions of Reason. The greatest question which Reason can ask is : What is the nature of God ? Upon the character of the solution given to this question all religious beliefs, all religious worships, all mora" actions depend. "What, then, is the voice of the
* Bailey
HEATHEN PHILOSOPHY. 53
ancients concerning the existence and nature of God?
Strange to say, we are stopped at the very threshold of our inquiry with the doubt, whether the ancient philosophers taught consistently the existence of the one true God ! Cicero, who was conversant with the writings of the ancient philos ophers and doctrines of their schools, has given a pretty complete summary of their opinions on this point, in his book entitled " Concerning the Na ture of the Gods."
" Thales," he tells us, " believed water to be the source of all things. Anaximander's opinion •was, that the gods were born at different intervals, and died after a great length of time. Anaximenes taught that the air was God. Anaxagoras affirmed that all things were contrived by an infinite mind. Alemas of Croton attributed a divinity to the sun, the moon, and the stars. Pythagoras supposed the Deity to be one soul, mixing with and per vading all nature. Zcnophanes would have all the parts of the universe to be infinite, and possessed of mind, and called that God. Premandes formed an orb of heat like a crown, and this he named God. Protagoras acknowledged that he did not know whether there were, or were not gods, or what they were. Democritus denies that there is any
LIBRARY ST. MARY'S COLLEGE
54 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
thing eternal. Plato, in liis Timaeus, denies the propriety of asserting a Father of the world, and in his books of Laws, he says, one ought not to make any inquiry concerning it. He likewise asserts, in Loth these books, that the world, the heavens, the stars, the earth, the mind, and men, are God. Plato's disciples made God a round figure, because their master said this was the most beautiful. Xcnophon, while he disputes the lawfulness of in quiring into the form of the Deity, asserts the sun, the moon, and the mind to be deities. He affirms the existence of one only God, and denies it in the same breath by declaring there are many. Aris totle does not differ from his master, Plato ; one while he attributes all divinity to the mind ; an other while he asserts the world to be God. Soon after he makes some other essence preside over the world ; then he asserts the heat of the elements is God. Zenocrates, his fellow-pupil, says, that the number of gods is eight, whom he locates in the stars and planets. Heraclides, of the same school of Plato, thinks the world is the Deity ; at other times the mind ; then the wandering stars. The- ophrastus is equally unsteady ; now it is mind that is God, then the firmament, then again the stars and celestial signs. Zeno thinks the laws of na ture to be God ; by and by he attributes the same
HEATHEN PHILOSOPHY. 55
power to the stars, the years, the months and seasons. Aristo, Zeno's disciple, is altogether in doubt whether the Deity is an animated being or not. Cleanthes, another disciple of the same master, one while says the world is God ; at other times he bestows divinity on the mind and the spirit of universal nature ; then he asserts it is neither ; again, the stars are the divinity ; and lastly, nothing is more divine than Reason."
Arrived at this stage of his investigations, seized as it were with bewilderment, amidst these absurd and conflicting opinions, Cicero gives ex pression to the voice of the common sentiment of mankind, when he exclaims, " Alas, that this God whom we know by our Reason, and of whom each one bears traces in his breast, by the labors of these men is wholly obliterated from the mind ! "
And what more striking proof can be asked, than the fact that millions of individuals of both sexes, of every age and rank, were put to the most cruel tortures and death by the edicts of heathen Emperors, many of whom professed philosophy, and for what ? Why, for no other reason than that they would not pay divine honors to men and demons, to stocks and stones, and even creeping things ! For what other crime was Socrates put to death, than venturing to insinuate in the mind of men the unity of God ?
56 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
As regards the opinions of ancient philosophers concerning the soul; they were no less absurd and contradictory than those given above " on the Nature of the Gods." The same Cicero concludes a resume of their opinions in his Tusculan Ques tions as follows : "In this matter the philosophers leave us in complete incertitude ; and it is a great question which of them is true."
Philosophy by her Platos, Aristotles, Zenos, was in the greatest incertitude, and taught the most absurd inconsistencies on these great prob lems which torment our intelligence. Nor were the ancient philosophers more successful in regard to the right rules of moral action. Marcus Varro counts up no less than two hundred and eighty- eight different opinions, which might be easily gathered from the doctrines of the philosophers concerning the relations of man with God.
Far be it from us to disparage, or to look down with contempt on the sincere efforts and earnest search for truth, displayed by several of the ancient sages and philosophers. No one who has had it for his task to find the truth in the midst of error, single and unaided, will be disposed to despise the generous efforts of others who had to fight the same battle, under less favorable circumstances.
But surely no one will at this day impose upon
HEATHEN PHILOSOPHY. 57
men the task of finding the solutions of the dark enigmas of life, or of fixing the true religion and determining the worship agreeable to the Deity, from the writings, or the schools, of philosophers of the ancient world, of whom
" The best
Were erring guides ; the worst were all but all. The world was one enigma ; life appeared A bridge of groans across a stream of tears/' *
• Bailey.
X.
• Sweet milk philosophy ! "
SHAKESPEARE.
IF the ancient philosophers were unable to give satisfactory answers to the demands of Keason, it may have been because this task was left to some after age and people to accomplish. What age can boast of greater enlightenment than the Nineteenth Century ? Which of the nations on the earth is superior in philosophical genius to the people of Germany ? Every age has its work, every people its mission ; where can we look with brighter hopes for success to our search, than among these bold adventurers on the broad ocean of thought ?
Kind reader, we beg, be not startled at the
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY.
idea of making a philosophical tour through the dry, dreary, barbarous field of speculation of the profound thinkers of Germany. Be assured that it is far from our intention to inflict a long dis sertation on their discoveries and relative merits. Patience ! we shall be brief, unbiased, and intel ligible.
Emmanuel Kant is entitled, if any one, to the name of the Father of the philosophy of modern Germany.
What is the true nature of Keason, and how is Keason to be placed upon that road by which we can march on a scientific basis in all philo sophical speculations and researches after know ledge ? This was the problem that Emmanuel Kant endeavored to solve in his celebrated work entitled " Critic of Pure Keason."
We shall not fatigue our readers with follow ing the philosopher of Konigsberg through his in many respects masterly examination of the powers of Keason. The results of his labors and philo sophical genius will suffice us.
Accordingly Kant tells us : — " All the powers of Keason in pure philosophy are, in fact, directed to the three great problems : The existence of God : The Immortality of the Soul : The Free dom of the Will/' Now, what is the value of
60 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
Keason in regard to the solution of these three great questions which never cease to occupy its powers and torment it unless rightly answered ?
" What can I know ? " asks boldly this great German thinker, at the close of his long, laborious, and severe critic of Reason's powers. The answer to this question, gives the direction to all the philosophical investigations of the then future German mind. Little did Kant think that the peace and happiness of thousands, and even mil lions, depended on the solution he should give to this question : " What can I know ? " " Is there a God ? " " Am I immortal ? " " Are we free ? " Every thing hangs upon the character of the answers given to these great questions ; society, the state, man's past, present, and future. Behold the answer of the Father of modern Ger man transcendental philosophy to the gravest, most important, and vital question that ever was asked by man : " What can I know ? " From the great ends to which all these efforts of pure Reason were in fact directed, such is his language : " We remain just as far removed as if we had consulted our ease, and declined the task at the outset." *
According then to the Master Genius of German
* Critic of Reason, p. 4S3— Bohn's edition
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 61
thought, Philosophy is not able to give to man satisfactory solutions to the great questions which agitate Keason. These great and momentous questions, these questions of life and death to man, are mere problems, for and against which the arguments are of equal force and value ; hence the Existence of God, the Immortality of the Soul, the Freedom of the Will, stand on the basis of being mere plausible hypotheses. In other words, Kant's answer to the question, " What can I know ? " reduced to simple words, is : I can know nothing ! Is not this sheer skepticism ? Thus Keason is a mocking gift, and man is doomed to have his life's energies tormented and devoured by uncertainty and doubt, like the vultures which devoured the vitals of the rock-bound Prometheus.
True to his philosophical character, Kant died a consistent philosopher. Bemg asked a few days before his death by his friend Hasse, " what he hoped for in the future life ? " he replied : " On that point I have no fixed opinions." At another time he said, " I have no notion of a future state."
Fichte, the distinguished disciple of Kant, pushed the doctrines of his master to their logical consequences. What Kant pronounced in doubt, and with hesitating lips, Fichte affirms with assu rance and with the tone of sincerity. According
62 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
to Kant, we cannot affirm from the image within to what is without ; so, according to Fichte, as it is only the image within we see, we cannot logically conclude that any thing without exists at all. Philosophy defined in the spirit of Ficht6 would be : The dialogue of a man with his own shadow. And God is nothing else than man's intuition of his own nature considered as an independent ex istence. In keeping with his transcendental philosophy, Fichte, at the close of one of his celebrated lectures at Berlin, announced the sub ject of the subsequent evening as follows : " To morrow evening, gentlemen, I will construct God."
Fichte, for his philosophical ability, was called to fill the chair of Philosophy at the celebrated University of Jena ; but sacrificed his position by defending the proposition that " God is to be thought as an order of events, to think of God as a substance, or with a personality, is to fall into contradictions and absurdities." Is not this Athe ism?
It is said that Ficht6 before his death adopted opinions more consonant with the universal con victions of man's religious nature. For his soul's sake it would be an unpleasant reflection to think otherwise.
Schelling is the next great representative of
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 63
German philosophy. To give an adequate idea of Schelling's system or systems, would be an end less task. For so many have been the changes of Schelling that it has been said, that the best refu tation of his philosophy would be an exact cata logue of his works. To escape, however, such a humiliation while living, he declared it to be his intention to give his last word on philosophy only at the end of his life. To increase our Tantalus- like agony, this philosopher lives to a ripe old age, and then leaves us hopelessly in the dark.
George Hegel is the next great German philosophical thinker. The fundamental formula of philosophy, according to this philosopher, is the Identity of contradiction — " Seyn und Nicht Seyn," being and not being, is one and precisely the same thing. His first axiom of philosophy is : Das Seyn ist Das Nichts. The first step towards becoming a philosopher, according to George Hegel, is to throw overboard common sense, and the disordering of one's reason.
" God/' according to this profound German thinker, " arrives in man to the most perfect con sciousness of his being ; for the Absolute consists in the identity of being and knowledge ; to think, therefore, is to be God. Hence, without man and
64 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
the world, God was not complete, nor was he yet God/' * Is not this pantheism ?
Let us listen to the confession of one of his celebrated disciples : " I accepted/' says Heine the poet, " without examination, the synthesis of Hegelian philosophy, the logical consequences of which tickled my vanity. I was young and proud — my pride was not moderately flattered with the idea that I was a god. I never would believe that God had become man ; I taxed with superstition this sublime dogma, ana1 later I believed Hegel at his word when I heard him affirm that man was God."
Speaking of his labors to bring out Hegel's philosophy, in a French translation he says : "I was occupied with this task during two years, and I was successful, by force of painful efforts, to master this rebel matter and to give a form as clear as possible to the most cloudy thoughts of this philosopher ; but when my work was ended, I was seized at its aspect with a shivering, and it seemed to me that the MSS. looked on me with a strange, mocking, contemptuous eye. The Translator and his work accorded no longer to gether. It was at this period that an aversion for atheism seized hold of my soul ; and as I was
* Keligions Philosophic.
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 65
forced to avow that my impiety had found its source and its principal support in the philosophy of Hegel, it began to weigh on me ... I saw that the publication of such a work could not be salu tary either to the public or the Translator ; and one day when the fire sparkled gaily on my hearth, I threw my MSS. into the flames, as formerly my friend Kitzler did on a like occasion. Then when these leaves, the fruit of so much labor, disap peared in the flames, I heard in the chimney a hissing sound like the laugh of a fiend. Oh ! could I but annihilate in the same manner all that I have ever published on German philoso- phy!"*
Such were the teachings, logical conclusions, and practical effects of the doctrines of the too famous German thinker, Mr. Geonre Ile^el, whose
O O j
philosophy one might define : a metaphysical discourse on the text, " You shall be as Gods/' which was promulgated by a very suspicious per sonage some six thousand years ago.
Hegel had other disciples : — Strauss, Bruno Bauer, Feuerbach. These were the more ardent in following the footsteps of their master. " The most consequent of the terrible children of our modern philosophy," says the same Heine, " the
* Les aveux (Tun poet. Ecvuo (les Doux Mondcs. 1854.
G6 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
modern Corypheus, is one who bears really the name of lake of fire (Feuerbach),he proclaims, in concert with his friends, the most radical atheism as the last word of our metaphysics. \Vith a bacchanalian frenzy, these impious zealots tear the blue veil from the heavens of Germany, and cry out : Look, all the divinities have fled, and there resides on high only an old woman with iron hands and a desolated heart, — Necessity ! " *
Let us listen for a moment to some of the proclamations of this philosopher of young Ger many.
" There is no other essence," so says Lewis Feuerbach, " which man can think of, dream of, imagine, feel, believe in, wish for, love and adore as the Absolute, than the essence of human na ture itself." f " Man is his own God." J " This is the great practical principle — this is the axis on which revolves the history of the world." § The revelation of God is nothing else than the revelation, the self-unfolding, of human nature. || " Keligion is a dream, in which our own concep tions and emotions appear to us as separate exist ences, beings out of ourselves." ^f
Such are the logical consequences of the prin-
* Los aveux <Tun poet. Eevue des Deux Monties. 1S54.
t Essence of Christianity. $ Ibid. Homo homini dcus est
§ Ibid. I Ibid. T Ibid.
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 67
ciples of the great philosophical movement of Germany. And what is worthy of remark, and curious too, is that each of these philosophers in his enthusiasm professed to have discovered the philosophy of the Absolute, and therefore promised for himself and his writings an undying fame. Some went so far as to proclaim themselves not only the Apostles of truth, but its Messiah, the Eternal. Thus Kant, so the Kantians in all sincerity believed, had settled all the questions of Reason on a firm basis, and his philosophy was to have a reign without end. Then Fichte rose and gave his master's philosophy such a hearty Teutonic blow that it failed to keep upright and fell. Eeinhold planked himself between the two. Scholling came and changed and changed, and, changing, left the scene. Hegel came, and God only knows the divisions of his disciples into right and left, extreme right and extreme left, forwards and backwards, upwards and downwards, until old chaos came again, and by right reigns supreme over the brood of deep thinkers of the German philosophical world.
XI.
Intuit Djri
" Philosophy is the last enfranchisement of Reason ; the intelligence and explication of all things; the source of a superior and an unalterable peace."
VICTOE COUSIN.
IEAVING the mystic Germans brooding over 1 their profound speculations and lifeless ab stractions, in their primeval forests, we will turn our attention to the practical and vivacious think ers of sunny France.
The first who strikes our attention among modern French thinkers, is M. Victor Cousin, with his school of Eclectics. What promises are held out here in the shape of philosophy ? Victor Cousin does not hesitate to picture for us the brightest and most cheering prospects. Like his German predecessors and cotemporaries, he sets out with the ambition to " construct a philosophy
FRENCH PHILOSOPHY. 69
superior to all systems — philosophy in itself— and consequently everlasting." *
In addressing the young men of France, he proclaims that " philosophy is the last victory of thought over every strange form and element ; it is the highest degree of liberty of intelligence ; — it is the last enfranchisement and the last pro gress of thought. It is the light of all lights, the authority of authorities. It is true that, in place of forming a party in the human race, it elim inates all parties. Young men, arrived at the close of your previous studies, you will find in philosophy, with the intelligence and explication of all things, a superior and unalterable peace/' •(•
We breathe freer, our hopes revive, and we are prompted to exclaim : At length we have found the man who will give us satisfactory explanations of the formidable problems of Keason, and the in telligence of the dark enigmas of life. Let us listen with profound respect and our whole atten tion, as is due to so great a philosopher. To begin with the beginning. What does he say of God ?
" My God," he replies, " is the God of con sciousness, who is at the same time God — Nature — Humanity. . . If God be not all, He is noth-
* Preface to Tcnncman's Hist, of Thilos. t Introd. Hist, de la Fhilos.
70 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
ing. . . It is in the human consciousness that God appears to himself." . . " Creation is not pos sible ; it is necessary. . . God cannot hut create ; and in creating the universe he does not draw it from nothingness, hut from Himself." *
We are greatly mistaken if there he any real difference between the God of Spinoza, George Hegel, and Schelling, and the God of M. Victor Cousin. u And such a being is not the God of the human race. He is not a God distinct from the world. Now the negation of a God distinct from the world has a well-known name in every language, as well as philosophy." The only differ ence we arc able to discover between the God of the former from the latter is, that one clothes him with a German and the other with a French cos tume.
As regards the soul, this French philosopher has the hardihood to tell us " that its immortality is a sublime probability, which perhaps eludes the rigor of a demonstration."
In view of these facts, we are surprised how one of his able American translators could hold the following language in his Introductory to Cousin's Philosophical Miscellanies : " Every primitive be lief of humanity is invested, in his eyes, with a
* Cousin's Hist. Philos.
FRENCH PHILOSOPHY. 71
character of peculiar, I may say, indeed, of awful sanctity/' . . " And that the philosophy of Cou sin exhibits to the speculative inquirer, in the rigorous forms of science, the reality of our instinc tive faith in God, in Virtue, in the Human Soul, in the Beauty of Holiness, and in the Immortality of Man. Such a philosophy," he contends, " I cannot but believe will ultimately find a cherished abode in the youthful affections of this nation, in whose history, from the beginning, the love of freedom, the love of philosophical inquiry, and the love of Keligion, have been combined in a thrice holy bond."
Happily for us is it, that this belief has not been fulfilled ; for, take from M. Victor Cousin his brilliant style and French enthusiasm, and you take away all that distinguishes his philosophy from the German Pantheism. This is not to be wondered at, when he delights in acknowledging that " he borrowed much from Hegel and Schelling, and felt honored publicly to call them his masters and friends, and the leaders of the philosophy of the age." *
Theodore Jouffray, Cousin's most distinguish ed disciple, less cautious than his master, avows frankly that the question of the Soul's Immortal-
* Frag. Philos.
72 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
ity "is premature, . . . and until now nothing completely demonstrative lias been produced in its favor. . . and that the opinion which attributes the facts of consciousness to a principle distinct from all corporeal organs, may be considered till now as an hypothesis." *
But Jouffray will let us farther into the secrets of the teaching, and the destructive effects, of the school of Eclectics and their master. Let us listen to some of the avowals made but shortly before his death, and mutilated by M. Victoi Cousin before being given to the public. In speak ing of the time of his youth he says : "As to the questions which alone merit the attention of man, the religion of my fathers gave me the answers ; I believed, and, thanks to this belief, the life of the present was clear, and beyond it I saw the future which was to follow it, unroll itself without a cloud. Tranquil about the path which I had to follow in this world ; tranquil as regards the end to which it must lead me in the other, compre hending life in both its phases, and death that unites them ; comprehending myself ; knowing the designs of God in my regard, and loving him for the goodness of his designs, I was happy with that happiness which flows from a lively and cer-
* Esquisse de Philos. Morale.
FRENCH PHILOSOPHY. 73
tain faith, and a doctrine which resolves all the grand questions which can interest man/'
No longer possessing the light of this faith, unable to suffer the incertitude which preyed upon his mind as regards the enigmas of man's destiny, " I resolved," he says, " to consecrate all the time which might be necessary, and my whole life if it were required, to their research. It was in this way that I found myself led to philosophy, which, it seemed to me, could be nothing else than this research itself."
Jouifray now enters FEcole Normale, at the head of which was M. Victor Cousin, teaching his philosophy with great eclat to the youth of France. " What did I find there ? " asks Jouffray. " All the disputes which had animated the slumbering echoes of the Faculty, and which agitated the heads of my companions in study, had for their object, their only object, . . . the question of the origin of ideas. This was all, . . . and in the helplessness in which I then was, I could not recover my astonishment that they should be oc cupied with the origin of ideas with so great an ardor, that it could be said that in this all phi losophy was included, leaving aside man, God, the world, the relations which unite them, the enigmas of the past and the mysteries of the future, 4
74 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
and so many gigantic problems concerning which it was not dissimulated that they were skeptical.
" All philosophy was in a pit where there was no air, and where my soul, recently exiled from Christianity, was smothered."
Behold the. realization of that promise to the young men of France, " of finding in philosophy, with the intelligence and explication of all things, a superior and an unalterable peace ! "
But the history of modern philosophy in France runs parallel with that of its parent source in Germany. Philosophy in Germany did not stop with Kant, Ficht6, Hegel ; it found its last expression in Strauss, Bauer, Feuerbach ; in France Leroux, Sand, and Proudhon, are its latest offspring.
Leroux partakes of the positiveness of the later school of Germans, and declares, " No, the soul is not distinct from the 'body. The earth is not outside of Heaven . . . Seize heaven in the present life." Such are the doctrines of the great Humanitarian, Pierre Leroux.
But the French Feuerbach, the corypheus of the latest school of philosophy in France, is Proudhon. One word from this logician of the bottomless pit, and we end, for with him all ends.
" I tell you," says this demoniac man,
FRENCH PHILOSOPHY. 75
" that the first duty of an intelligent and free man is to chase incessantly from the mind and con science the idea of God. Because God, if He does exist, is essentially hostile to our nature, and we elevate ourselves only at the expense of His authority. We arrive at science in spite of Him ; at society in spite of Him ; each step we take is a victory in which we crush the Divinity. With time I will idealize my being, and I will become the chief of creation, the equal of God." Our pen stops, our hand refuses to transcribe any further, and we are seized with a shudder at the outrageous blasphemies of this terrible Atheist.
What now are the results of Modern Philoso phy charged to speak to man of God, — of the soul, — of the formidable problems of his existence ? God is banished ; the soul is a fiction ; and Heaven a mockery. It has substituted in place of man's original and everlasting convictions, a sickly skepticism ; in place of the bright inspira tions of divine truths, an inscrutable chaos ; in place of his high hopes, blank despair !
XII.
j(rf
"There are
Powers deeper still beyond— I come in quest Of such, to answer what I seek."
BY EON.
IF such be the legitimate results of both ancient and modern philosophy, what, in this case, is the value of Reason ? Who will pretend to say that Socrates, Plato, Kant, Hegel, Cousin, Jouffray, did not possess Eeason, Reason informed and developed by profound and severe studies, cultivated and refined by long and continued ex ercise ; and if they failed to give satisfactory solutions to the dark enigmas of life, is not this to declare that the highest efforts of Reason are vain, and consequently Reason is but a delusive and mocking gift ? After a condemnation of this
ASPIRATIONS OF REASON. 77
kind, to talk of man's sovereign and godlike Rea son, is to prate nonsense, insincerity, and sham.
Patience, indulgent reader, and be careful not to fall into the mistake which is not seldom made, of taking the speculations of a certain class of men called philosophers, for a fair, adequate, and faith ful expression of the capabilities and powers of Reason.
What Reason is capable of doing, and what this class of men have done, are two distinct and separate things, and should not, therefore, be con founded. The ability of Reason is one thing, and the exercise of Reason by a class of men who were not altogether free from prejudice, passion, super stition, and, in some instances, of most shocking vices, is quite another thing. Reason is by no means implicated in the condemnations of the abuse made of her powers, or of the unfaithfulness to her plainest dictates. Failing to make this distinction, an injustice has not seldom been done to Reason, her rights even sacrificed, and the cause of truth made to suffer deplorable injury.
No hostile feelings actuate us towards philoso phy, for, after Theology, philosophy is the noblest occupation of man's intellectual powers. But our interest and affection for the cause of truth is above all others, and we cannot but acknowledge
78 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
that one of the most humiliating pages of man's intellectual history is that of philosophy. When we read this page, it would seem that this class of men, instead of bending all their efforts to strengthen and support the primary and universal convictions of mankind, have somehow done their utmost to unsettle and overthrow their everlasting foundations. And do not, candid reader, the fore going pages on philosophy fully confirm the truth of this remark?
How many of the ancient and modern philoso phers employed Eeason as a cloak to conceal their vanity, pride, or ambition ? How many, under the pretext of friendship for Eeason, exaggerated her powers, and became the demagogues of Keason ? How many made Reason their slave, so that to use the language of Cicero, " there is no absurdity, however great, in defence of which you will not find some one of the philosophers who has pros tituted the powers of Reason." " Religion and morality they never cared for to any part of the extent of their religious and moral natural abilities. These have been uniformly sacrificed in a vain endeavor to appease the disordered cravings that right Reason and Free- Will, assisted as they always are, should have struggled to restrain and
* Dr. Manahan.
ASPIRATIONS OF REASON. 79
Let it be clearly understood, then, that what we blame and deprecate in the class of men called philosophers, is not Reason, but the want of it ; not the exercise of Reason, but the neglect of its exercise ; not the use of Reason, but its wilful abuse. " They detained the truth of God in in justice : " — to use the strong language of the Apostle of the Gentiles. " Because they knew God, but did not glorify Him as God, or give thanks ; but became vain in their thoughts, their foolish hearts were darkened. For professing themselves to be wise they became fools. And they changed the glory of the incorruptible God, into the like ness of the image of a corruptible man, and of birds and of four-footed beasts, and of creeping things . . . They changed the truth of God into a lie ; and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever . . And as they liked not God in their knowledge, God delivered them up to a reprobate sense, to do those things which are not convenient/' *
Let not the friends of Reason, then, be dis mayed, or fearful that in casting off the false and vain speculations of philosophers, Reason thereby is in any way condemned or depreciated. On the contrary, it is in the august name of Reason that we
* Eom. c. 1.
80 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
declare that both, ancient and modern philosophy have failed in a most decided, not to say shameful manner, to meet the great questions which agitate the human mind. It is by the light of Reason, and on its authority, we are bold to give our deliberate and emphatic decision against their speculations as the fruits of a fair, impartial, arid faithful exercise of its powers.
Every lofty thought of man's intelligence and every noble impulse of the soul, revolt at the idea of accepting philosophy with its lifeless abstractions, and its dry and dreary speculations, as satisfactory answers to the earnest and solemn demands of Reason. This would be to dry up our noblest aspirations, to palsy our holiest affections, and spread desolation throughout the soul.
The idea of others, that men should wait for the solutions of the great problems of their exist ence until philosophy has accomplished the task, is so preposterous, that it requires an enormous amount of credulity to entertain it for a single moment ; and it exacts an incredible effrontery to put it forth in the face of the history of philosophy.
"Assuredly," says one, who ought to know, " the circle of incertitudes has been enlarged, new questions have been added to those which philos ophy agitated at her cradle ; but the new-comers
ASPIRATIONS OF REASON.
have had no better fortune than the ancients. Take any philosophical question ; note the day on which the first systems to give it a solution arose ; compare those systems with those of to-day, which dispute the honor to decide it ; you will find, doubtless, greater perfection and development in the latter, but you will see that their probability is not varied. If each one taken separately is the strongest, the equilibrium between them is the same ; and their progress, far from resulting in the solution of the question, has only consecrated in a more precise and more scientific manner, its incerti tude. So that, if one asks philosophy what it has done since its existence, it can answer, that it has given birth, and brought to a greater and greater perfection, systems which can aspire to the honor to solve it ; but that she has not solved one of these questions. Behold, then, what philosophy cannot say, because, if she said it, she would be forced to find examples, one at least, — that is to say, to disinter a philosophical question which has been definitely solved, as a crowd of questions of physics and chemistry, and this example she will not find, because it does not exist. And neverthe less these questions, Pythagoras and Democritus, Aristotle and Plato, Zeno and Epicurus, Bacon and Descartes, Leibnitz, Malebrauchc, Locke and Kant, 4*
82 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
have examined and discussed. It is not the fault of genius that they have not been solved. What is there in philosophy that has rendered all this genius helpless ? Whence comes it that a science stirred by such powerful hands, remains eternally barren ? There, is the problem in which all the fu ture of philosophy is placed, and so long as it is riot solved, one is confounded that distinguished minds venture still to cultivate a science so much cultivated, discuss those questions so much dis cussed ; as if, after the shipwreck of such great men, any intelligence, before discovering the rock on which they split, can flatter itself to be more skilful or more fortunate, and to arrive at the port which escaped them." *
After such an explicit and frank admission of the inadequateness of philosophy — to tell men to wait for the solutions of the great questions of their existence until they are solved by philoso phers, this is, indeed, to prate nonsense, insin cerity and sham ; this is mockery and delusion.
Accordingly, the pages of history prove, prove convincingly, that no one man or body of men, or nation, however great, learned, or civilized, suc ceeded with philosophy in establishing a Eeiigion which answered satisfactorily the demands of Reason.
* Jouffroy, Nouveaux Melanges Thilos. p. 90-93.
ASPIRATIONS OF REASON. 83
But who now will satisfactorily answer the demands of Reason? Six thousand years have passed on, and no man, or body or class of men, has yet been equal to the task. And what does this fact practically indicate ? It is a practical indication, in the plainest way possible, that man needs a guide greater than himself, to open to him the path to the realization of hfs sublime destiny. It indicates that no one but the great Author of man's existence is competent to solve satisfactorily the great question of Reason, and to teach him the way of accomplishing the great purpose of his existence. It indicates that man is endowed with the capacity which is susceptible of receiving a light superior to that of which he is in possession. And is not this to assert the nobility of man's origin, the dignity of his nature, and the gran deur of his destiny ? Is not this the crowning of Reason with a diadem of divine brilliancy, splen dor and beauty ?
Let us, however, adjourn, and discuss this all- important question at the tribunal of the whole human race. For the constant and unanimous testimony of the spontaneous belief of mankind claims our homage and exacts our assent.
XIII.
"Excuse me! in these olden pages We catch the spirit of the by-gone ages — We see what wisest men before our day have thought.'
GOETUE.
MAN, from the very cradle of his history, and every where, and throughout the course of time, acknowledged the necessity, and looked up to heaven above for the light to solve the dark enigmas connected with his present existence. No class of individuals have borne more emphatic testimony to the truth of the above statement, and made more explicit avowals of this need, than the philosophers both ancient and modern. It will not be uninteresting to listen awhile to their confessions on this point.
ADMISSIONS. 85
From the beginning, Truth was regarded, not as a product of the earth, or the creation of man, but as a gift of Heaven. Thus Zoroaster says : " The Truth is not a plant of this earth."
Socrates tells Alcibiades, who was about to offer up sacrifice, and at the same time was in great perplexity and fear about the way to pray to the divinity : " It seems to me necessary for us to wait until some one comes to instruct us how we ought to conduct ourselves towards God and men. Until this comes to pass, it were better that you should defer your offering, not knowing whether it will be pleasing, or a source of dis pleasure to God." *
And in speaking of the immortality of the soul, he says in Phaedon : " The Sage in this matter should hold what appears to him the most probable, unless he has a surer light, or the word of God himself for his guide to show him the way."
Plato does not differ from his master on this subject. In Epinomede, advising a legislator never to meddle with religious matters, he gives his reason for this advice by saying : " Because it is not possible for mortals to arrive at any thing certain in such matters." In the fifth book of Laws he counsels to consult the oracles touching
* 2<1 Dialog. Alciab.
86 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
the worship of the gods," because we of ourselves know nothing concerning this subject."
Cicero, to pass to the Romans, in his Tusculan Questions, in resuming the different opinions of philosophers, confesses that a divine light is neces sary to discover which of them is the true one. "It would require," such is his language, " a god to decide which of their opinions is the true one."
Jamblichus, in his life of Pythagoras, says that " Man is obliged to do what is agreeable to God ; but," he avows, " that it is not easy to discover this unless one has learnt it from God himself, or from the Genii, or from one who has been enlightened by a divine light." Equally ex plicit, and to the point, is his acknowledgment in his book of mysteries : " It is impossible," he says, " to speak rightly of the gods unless they them selves instruct us."
" No man," says Seneca, " is in condition to help himself; some one above him must stretch forth his hand to raise him up." *
" According to Proclus : " We shall never learn what regards the Divinity unless we are enlight ened by a divine light from heaven." f
Julian avows that " we should regard one as a pure intelligence, or rather as a god than a man,
* Epis. 52. t Iu P!aton, Theol. c. 1.
ADMISSIONS. 87
who should possess the knowledge of the nature of God." *
Xenophon in his Memorab. Socrat., lib. 4 ; Plutarch in his treatise on Isis and Osiris ; Marcus Aurelius Antoninus at the end of his Moral Re flections, Vol. I. ; in a word, all the great philoso phers of the ancient world, agree with Socrates and Plato, that the great enigmas of life can only be solved by the aid of a special light from heaven.
It is therefore on the plain, positive, and un impeachable testimony of the philosophers them selves, that we are furnished the basis of the affir mation of the need of a light superior to that of Heason to answer its own demands.
If our modern philosophers have not made the same frank and candid avowals, it is not to be attributed to their superiority of genius over the ancients, or their philosophical discoveries, but to their lack of a disinterested love for truth and genuine science.
We have, however, seen the insufficiency of modern philosophy to satisfy the demands of Rea son, and this to every one who would ba loyal to his Reason, and who would not give up his soul, speaks a language louder and easier of interpre tation than words.
* Letter to Thennis.
88 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
The more noble-minded and loyal souls among these, even, gave vent to the plaints of Keason, and the cry of conscience that the efforts and re sults of philosophy are not satisfactory. We have only to remind the reader of the frank and candid confessions of the distinguished pupil of V. Cousin, M. Jouifroy, and the avowals of Hegel's disciple Heine, in the foregoing pages.
No less candid, mournful, and sincere are the confessions of Schiller the poet. Schiller, at an early period of his life, devoted himself, with all his ardor and enthusiasm, to the study of philosophy We have the whole history of this period of his life told in a song entitled
THE PILGRIM!
Life's first beams were bright around me,
When I left my father's cot, Breaking every tie that bound me
To the dear and hallowed spot.
Childish hopes and youthful pleasures,
Freely I renounced them all ; Went in quest of nobler treasures,
Trusting to a higher call.
For to me a voice had spoken,
And a spirit seemed to say : "Wander forth ; the path is broken ;
Yonder, eastward, lies the way.
ADMISSIONS. 89
Rest not, till a golden portal
Thou hast reached ; — there enter in :
And what thou hast procured as mortal, There immortal life shall win.
Evening came, and morn succeeded ;
On I sped, and never tired ; Cold, nor heat, nor storm, I heeded ;
Boundless hope my soul inspired.
Giant cliffs rose up before me ;
Horrid wilds around me lay ; O'er the cliffs my spirit bore me ;
Through the wilds I forced my way.
Came to where a mighty river
Eastward rolled its sullen tide ; Forth I launched with bold endeavor, —
" Pilgrim stream, be thou my guide ! "
It hath brought me to the ocean :
Now, upon the wide, wide sea, Where's the land of my devotion ?
"What I seek seems still to flee.
Woe is me ! no path leads hither ;
Earth's horizon still retreats ; Yonder never will come hither,
Sea and sky will never meet.
Philosophy, by its glowing promises, excited in the bosom of Schiller what it had done in Jouffroy, " boundless hopes ; " they both pursued
90 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
it with all the devotion and courage of youth, and the results in both cases were the same — they were left on a trackless beach, with a vague, hope less, boundless sea before.
We may add to these, the testimony of one of our own countrymen, whose authority in such matters is preeminent, and extends abroad.
" This question, how to worship God, is the question of questions. It is terrible to feel that Reason imposes an obligation which it cannot instruct us how to fulfil, to find ourselves with broad conceptions which we know not how to realize, with a sense of duty hanging over us which we cannot practically fulfil, and to hesitate between probabilities, to balance between uncer tainties, to find the darkness increase as we ad vance, and finally to lose ourselves in doubt and bewilderment. Reason herself, if exercised, is sufficient to compel the soul to ask this fearful question, but what is and must be our condition, if we ask this question, and hear no answer but echo mocking us in the distance ?
" Every man abandoned to nature and the guidance of natural reason alone, does and must find himself in this situation, the most painful, the most terrible, that can be imagined. It is certain that, in this situation, unless God helps
ADMISSIONS. 91
us, there is no lielp for us ; unless he points out the way of deliverance, there are no means of our restoration, and no chance of our worshipping him as Keason declares we are bound to worship him, or to gain the end, the good, to which we are appointed.
" Are we, however, left in this condition ? Has not God, in fact, had compassion on us, and has he not made a revelation of his mercy ? Has he not made it possible for us to render him the worship which is his due, and to attain to the good which he originally intended us ? These are important questions. If they can be answered in the affirmative, there is hope for man ; his face may resume the smile of gladness, and a well of joy may spring up in his heart. If not, there is nothing for us but the blackness of despair, un failing sorrow and ceaseless remorse." *
We have another striking evidence, and a practical acknowledgment of the need of our receiving light from a higher source to meet the demands of Eeason. What other rational expla nation can be given to the recourse in ancient times to the practice of Theurgy, Magic, Astrology, Horoscopes, Omens, Divinations, etc., and in our day to the practice of Magnetism, Somnam-
* Brownson. Review. 1S4S.
92 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
bulism, Table-Tipping, and other species of Nec- rornancy, than the working of a mysterious instinct of our nature to seek for help to solve the enigmas of life and its future destiny. Is not this an open confession to all who have not closed up their ears, and shut the doors of their understanding, that Reason herself, if unswayed, leads man to look beyond her bounds, for the light which is needed to answer the questions which torment her ? He therefore is not the friend of Reason, who, under the pretext of her defence, would stifle these com mon instincts of our nature, and close her eyes against the light of heaven.
XIV.
" From God we come ; with awe From God those truths ideal draw
DE VERB.
dictates of Keason, the admissions of both JL ancient and modem philosophers, show the need of a divine light to direct man to his sublime destiny. This is also confirmed by the voice of humanity, for the unanimous belief of the race testifies that Keligion takes its origin from the fact of a Divine communication from heaven. The religious history of all nations, peoples and tribes, confirms this statement. This universal and spon taneous belief of the human race must be regarded by all reasonable minds as having its foundations in truth.
94 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
A volume might easily be filled with testimony in favor of this common belief of mankind ; we, however shall content ourselves with bringing for ward sufficient proof to put it beyond a reasonable doubt.
" The ancients," such is the testimony of Soc rates, " were better than we, and nearer the gods ; they have transmitted to us the sublime knowledge which they received from them ... to abandon their opinions is to go astray." *
Plato affirms that " It behooves us to believe without any opposition what the ancients have transmitted to us concerning the things which regard religion." And the reason for this is, — » " Because the first men, coming immediately from the hands of the gods, must have known best concerning this matter, and we ought to believe their testimony." f In his works on Politics, speak ing of the primitive age, he says : " God himself nourished men, and was their shepherd, as man now, a divine creature, feeds the lower animals."
On this point Aristotle agrees with his master Plato. " Do you desire to discover the truth," says Aristotle, " with certitude ; then separate with care what is of primitive origin, and hold that ; it is that, in truth, which is the original
* Phileb. t Timeo.
TESTIMONY. 95
dogma, which can come surely from no other source than God's own word." *
Cicero says the same thing. " There was," such is his language, " there was primitively a society of Reason with God." f
Again, in the Tusculan Questions, he says : " The Laws of the Twelve Tables ordain that we should hold the religion of our ancestors ; and that, because they were nearer to the gods ; and hence religion in this wise wras guaranteed to man as a divine institution."
The Stoic, Marcus Aurelius, in his first book, and the later Neo-Platonists, acknowledge that religion is an inspiration, a gift of the gods.
The primitive communication of God with men, the age of innocence and happiness, is found on almost every page of the poets of Greece and Eome, under the image of the Golden Age—
" That fair age of which the poets tell, Ere yet the winds grew keen with frost, or fire Fell with the rains, or spouted from the hills, To blast thy greenness, while the virgin night AVas guiltless and salubrious as the day." J
* Mctaph. xvii. c. viii. t De leg. lib. i. c. vii.
$ Earth, by Bryant. See Virgil, Georg., lib. 1. Juvenal, Satyra vi. Ovid, Metamorphosis, lib. 1. The same traditions arc found among the Persians; eeo Plutarch on Isis and Osiris; and other nations.
9G THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
Even Volney, in bringing together the different kinds of religious belief of mankind, in one point makes them all agree, and that is, their doctrines had for their basis a divine communication from heaven.
" The various groups/' he says, " having taken their places . . . Then, by order of position, the first standard on the left was allowed to speak.
" You are not permitted to doubt/' said their chiefs, " that our doctrine is the only true and infallible one. First, it is revealed by God him self."
" So is ours/' cried all the other standards, " and you are not permitted to doubt it." *
No one will contest the value and authority of the Bible as an historical document, especially when all other historical records agree with the events which it narrates. The only difference between the Traditions above, and those recorded in the Scriptures is, that the latter are more clear, more authentic, and more consonant with enlight ened Eeason.
In Genesis we are told that "God created man in his own image and likeness, and walked with him in the cool of the day."
But we have a more ample account of this
* liuins. c. xxL
TESTIMONY. 97
period in the Book of Ecclesiasticus. There we are told — •
" God created man of the earth, arid made him after his own image . . . He created of him a helpmate like to himself : he gave them counsel, and a tongue, and eyes, and ears, and a heart to devise ; and he filled "tiiem with knowledge and understanding. He created in them the science of the spirit, he filled their heart with wisdom, and showed them 'both good and evil. He set his eyes upon their hearts to show them the greatness of his works ; that they might praise the name he hath sanctified, and glory in his wondrous works ; that they might declare the glorious things of his works. Moreover, he gave them instructions and the law of life for an inheritance. He made an everlasting covenant with them, and he showed them his justice and judgments. And their eyes saw the majesty of his glory, and their ears heard his glorious voice, and he said to them : Beware of all iniquity. And he gave to every one com mandment concerning his neighbor/' *
In this account of man's primitive condition we have the original of those more or less obscure traditions of all peoples, of which the ancient bards, poets, and sibyls sung, and which humanity never once doubted.
* Ecclus. xvil.
98 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
The results of the labors of all past philosophy, the aspirations of Keason, confirmed by the ad missions of ancient and modern philosophers, the spontaneous voice of humanity, form one concert to proclaim the great need of a special light from heaven to solve the dark problems of man's exist ence, and to point out the way to the accomplish inent of his divine destiny.
XV.
" Raise thoii up thy head ; for know Time is not now for slow suspense. Behold That way, an angel hastening towards us.'1— DANTE.
PHILOSOPHY, both ancient and modern, hav- JL ing proved insufficient, and the dictates of Keason, the admissions of philosophers, and the history of all religious beliefs, pointing us upward to look for the light needed to solve the dark enig mas of our existence, what are we to do ? What is our duty ? Somewhere it must exist, for surely God has not brought us unto darkness.
Not to advance when Keason and the sponta neous belief of the race point out the way, would be to yield up our manhood and our humanity. Onward ! in obedience to our holiest instincts, looking heavenward for the light to solve the mys-
100 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
tcries of our being and existence ! For what is there more natural than for the creature to look up to its Creator, like a child to its mother, for the solution of the enigmas which torment it. On the other hand, can one conceive of an act of an in telligent creature more irrational than to refuse belief to the voice of his Creator ? We, for our part, are unable to appreciate the feeling of those who seem to have a certain dread in trusting the great Author and Sustainer of their being.
This trust or belief lies back of all our intel lectual knowledge. For, to know any thing, we must trust the certitude of the operations of our senses, faculties, and powers. No thought, no sen timent, no action can take place unless preceded by this belief. This principle we endeavored to establish in the second chapter.
But on the very same grounds that we believe in the testimony of our own faculties, we are also bound to believe in the testimony of other men. For Reason is one and equal in its authority. If this be so, that man, by the very law of his exist ence, is obliged to believe in the testimony of his own faculties, and those of other men, how much more is he bound, and how much more readily ought he, to believe God, who is truth itself, and the Author of his being, when He speaks ?
AGREEMENT. 101
Few men have so perverted their intellectual powers, or are sunk so low in the scale of moral existence, as to be guilty of refusing belief to their Creator and God. Should there be one who is guilty of this crime, how can he trust the testimo ny of his own faculties which are the work of God's own hands ? If the Creator himself can deceive us, his creations, surely, cannot be more trustworthy.
Consequently, we believe the testimony of our faculties, because it is repugnant to right Rea son to think that God should create a being whose faculties in their normal state should deceive him. And we believe God because the spontaneous im pulses of our nature lead us to confide in Him as our Creator, and as the source of all truth, who cannot deceive or be deceived. Primarily our be lief is in God, and this belief is the starting point and end of all knowledge.
The pretension of others, who profess to believe only what they comprehend, is the promulgation of a patent absurdity. Belief and comprehension are different operations of our faculties, and it is no mark of intelligence to confound them.
Do these professors know what it means to exclude from the mind that which lies beyond our powers of comprehension ? Do they know that 6
102 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
the moment a man makes this the rule of his thoughts, he must, if he would be consistent, deny his own existence, Reason, creation, and God's ex istence ? Thus this lofty pretension of non-belief ends in a manifest absurdity.
For where is there a man who comprehends man, creation, God ? Where is there a man who comprehends what it is to see, feel, hear, or think ? Where is there a philosopher who can explain the simplest movement of his own body ? Why, the smallest grain of sand that he treads under his foot, the meanest blade of grass that he passes un noticed, the feeblest tone that is wafted on the winds, present to the mind of man mysteries as incomprehensible as the unfathomable Godhead. There is not in this wide universe any thing which is not in some one or more of its bearings beyond the utmost reach of our comprehension. To start then from the principle to exclude all from the mind which we do not comprehend, is to believe nothing, to know nothing, to love nothing, and to do nothing. For believing is before all know ing, all loving, all doing.
He who professes, therefore, to exclude from his mind all that he cannot comprehend, is no friend but the foe and tyrant of Reason ; for be lief is one of the essential and legitimate results of the exercise of Reason.
AGREEMENT. 103
And, after all, these pretended non-believers believe in their way as strongly as other men. They are not able to help themselves. They be lieve in their senses ; for they eat, and drink, and love good cheer ; they believe in money, station, and the gratification of their instincts and pas sions. But on account of a systematic perversion or deficiency of the higher faculties of the soul, they would, under the pretext of rationality, have men think that their non-belief is a mark of superior intellect and wisdom ! This reasoning reminds us of -ZE sop's fable of the fox, who, being caught in a trap, had his tail cut off. Our readers will remember the rest of the story. So these men would have us believe that their defect is an ornament to be coveted.
Every integral intelligent thinker cannot but regard the man who refuses his belief to truths which come to him with rational evidence, simply because they are beyond the reach of his compre hension, for as great a simpleton as an astronomer who should deny the existence of the planets lying beyond the reach of his sight, because they are only discovered by means of the telescope.
Another class of men are prepared to welcome and accept all light and all truth, come from what quarter it may ; but they are not ready to accept
104 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
or admit any truth hostile to the plain dictates of Eeason, or that rests not on a rational and suffi cient basis. So speaks our " Earnest Seeker."
This is the statement of a sound and just mind, and all that can be required of men of this class is to act consistently and fearlessly on their own principles. For light cannot contradict light ; truth cannot contradict truth ; nor does it matter of what orders these may be. Light and truth are like the blue heavens and the wide ocean, all of one piece, and blend and join together in mutual intercourse. We may rest assured, therefore, if God affords to man the light to explain the enig mas of life, or makes known to him any new truth, these will be in accordance with the light of Eea son, and in harmony with the truths he has already knowledge of.
Is it not the height of absurdity to suppose that there can be any opposition betwixt the light of heaven and the light of Keason ? or contradic tion between the truth and the dictates of Eea son ? Truth in contradiction with the very faculty to which it is addressed ! Truth hostile to that faculty whose natural function is to wel come, assent, and embrace it ! This is ridiculous nonsense. For the light of heaven to one deprived of the light of Eeason would be of no more -utility
AGREEMENT. 105
than the light of the sun to a man stark blind. Truth, without the dictates of Reason, would be like a tree without soil. When will men open their eyes and learn that the voice of Heaven, the voice of Reason, and the voice of the vast uni verse, form in concert a hymn of praise to God who is their origin and final cause.
But does not the belief in what lies beyond our comprehension, in a word religious belief, as it is called, when once admitted, set aside Reason, limit its exercise, and tend to stultify it ?
A little indulgence, generous reader ; after the exposition of this mistake, we will advance on a clear and unobstructed path to our purpose.
Would it not be extremely silly to suppose that the acceptance of the additional knowledge of the wonders of the heavens, gained by powerful instruments, would lead one to set aside the organ of sight by which this knowledge was ob tained ? Would it not be equally foolish and absurd to suppose, that because astronomers have discovered other and larger luminous bodies in the heavens than the sun, therefore the exercise of our unaided sight is thereby limited, its powers con tracted, and rendered useless ? It is no less absurd and ridiculous to suppose that the ad ditional light and truths gained by virtue of a
LIBRARY ST. MARY'S COLLEGE
106 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
reasonable belief, set aside .Reason, limit its exer cise, and tend to stultify it. On tbe contrary, every new truth that is made known to Eeason, calls forth its exercise, sheds additional light on the truths already known, makes them better understood, and causes the mind to hold them more steadfastly ; and is not this upholding Keason, and giving to it a new splendor and an increasing beauty ?
The man therefore who believes, who possesses a reasonable belief, exercises his Keason. No one more so. No one so much so. He exercises the faculties of Keason in a higher, wider, more sublime sphere than the man of non-belief. For
"Belief is a higher faculty of Reason
*****
As the snow-headed-mountain rises o'er The lightning, and applies itself to heaven." *
Keasonable religious belief does not supplant Keason, nor dimmish its exercise, but presupposes its activity, extends its boundaries, elevates and ennobles it by applying its powers to the highest order of truth. Accordingly the truths gained by virtue of religious belief, take the deepest root is the heart, and fix themselves most firmly in the mind, and elicit the noblest deeds of self-sacrifice,
* Bailey.
AGREEMENT. 107
of heroism, and the highest form of martyrdom. Is not this an evident proof of their congeniality with human nature^ their elevating power, and divine origin ?
Surely, then, he who deprives himself of the knowledge of the order of truths made known to us by the exercise of a reasonable religious belief, voluntarily condemns himself to live on a lower range of thought and feeling, is false to his holiest instincts, and is the author of his own degradation.
The purpose then of true Keligion is to open to the eye of Keason its divine origin, to elevate it to the plane of its glorious destiny, and consecrate all the powers of the soul to its realization.
The aim of Keligion is to meet the lofty aspi rations of Reason, and answer the infinite longings of our nature. Let us then not refuse the light of heaven. Let us be loyal to Reason, and raise up Human Nature to its divine grandeur.
XVI.
« But ah, with the best will, I sec already No peace will well up in me, clear and steady. But why must hope so soon deceive us, And the dried-up stream in fever leave us ? For in this I have had a full probation ; And yet for this want a supply is provided, To a higher than earth the soul is guided, "VVe are ready and yearn for revelation."
GOETHE'S FAUST.
WE cannot but consider it an insult to the common sense of our readers, for us to at tempt to carry them back to the ancient religions of Egypt, Greece, Rome or India, for the needed light of heaven, to answer to the aspirations of Reason and the spontaneous belief of humanity. Marcus Varro, Celsus, Julian, the schools of Alex andria, and a thousand other efforts have been made
WHITHER ? 109
to restore their worship, but all was in vain. And now
"None
Are left to teach their worship. The fires Of sacrifice are chilled, and the green moss O'ercreeps their altars ; the fallen images Cumber the weedy courts, and for loud hj^mns, Chanted by kneeling multitudes, the wind Shrieks in the solitary aisles." *
Nor have the less ancient religious beliefs of Arabia, Gaul, the British Isles, or those of the savages of America or Australia, claims sufficient to engage our serious attention. The glance we already bestowed on some of the more intelligent forms of these beliefs, ought to be sufficiently convincing for candid minds, if the common convictions of civilized society did not suffice, to acknowledge their utter and complete insufficiency.
There are a few, here and elsewhere, who for a time seem interested in the writings of the Per sian, Chinese, and Indian sages and philosophers. These researches we cannot but regard as an intellectual amusement, rather than a single- hearted and earnest search after truth. In those who are not led by the novelty of the thing, it may be an attempt to shirk, or escape, the con-
* Bryant
110 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
victions and responsibilities which the dawning truth foreshadows.
Surely, in any case, it is to run athwart the enlightened and cherished convictions of civilized society, to look for, or expect, a complete or satis factory solution of the great and solemn questions which agitate Reason, and press on our attention, outside of Christianity. Any other hope or effort, is to tamper with conscience, to trample upon our moral sentiments, and to stultify our intelligence. We cannot therefore respect ourselves, or be loyal to the laws of our intellectual being, and look writh sincerity for a religion commensurate with the demands of Reason and the wants of our nature, except it be in Christianity.
There are others who tell us to look to the future. They speak of the " Religion of the Future ; " " The Church of the Future." Now the idea of forming or inventing a Religion at this period of the world's history, is as absurd as to tell one who is already famishing for bread, that he must wait till wheat be sown, till rain falls, the harvest ripens and is gathered, the grain be ground, and the flour be made into bread ; — too absurd for any not bereft of their proper senses to entertain.
" Every day," says a modern author, " we
WHITHEK? Ill
hear the future religion of mankind announced ; if they cannot produce it, at least they prophecy its coming. They transform powerlessness into hope. But mankind has no time to spend in waiting ; it desires God for to-day, and not for to-morrow. It has hungered and thirsted after God for six thousand years ; and you appearing so late, when you set yourselves about the work of providing for wants so deeply felt, for aspirations which centuries have not weakened, you are still reduced to prophecies ! For me, all that does not furnish humanity with its daily bread, I do not believe in. I believe God has been the father from the beginning of the soul as well as of the body ; I believe that the harvests are all come, that the rain has fallen ; that, in the order of truth, as in the order of nature, man not only hungers, but is also satisfied when he wills it. The bread is ready ; God has kneaded it with his own hands ; that which is wanting is the will to take it as God has prepared it. Men prefer to prepare it according to their own tastes ; they ask from Reason what Reason is unable to give them/' The idea then of forming or waiting for a new religion is a flat denial of God's providence ; and a mere subterfuge of a certain class of men to escape the claims of truth. Comte reveals their
112 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
secret when he says that "The Keligion of the Future is no religion."
If, therefore, we are to have a Keligion calcu lated for man's true happiness, one that can give satisfactory solutions to the enigmas of life, and present to us a pure worship acceptable to God, it is to be found in Christianity, or to be looked upon as a phantom of despair !
But what is Christianity ? The answer to this important question is not so clear, for Chris tianity is not one, but divided. Divided, however, so far as we are at present concerned, into two great parties. The answer, therefore, to the ques tion, What is Christianity ? is twofold.
The first division of Christianity, and the one which bespeaks our earliest attention, because it promises to be more favorable to our demands and more in accordance with our sentiments ; the one of our childhood and education ; the one which claims to have emancipated the human thought, broken the chains that shackled man's free activity, and opened up to him the true pathway to his glorious destiny — need we name it — it is the re ligion which broke forth in the Reformation of the sixteenth century ; — the Religion of Luther, Me- lancthon, Calvin, Knox, Cranrner, Fox and Wes ley — Protestant Christianity.
WHITHER? 113
Surely we shall not fail to meet with entire and perfect success, when we ask, what do these great lights of the Reformation teach in regard to the nature and dignity of man's Reason, its rights and value, its liberty and independence ? Has not Protestantism emancipated human Reason 'I consecrated its sovereignty ? asserted man's free dom ? upheld the dignity of human nature ? Has it not restored to man a reasonable worship, one acceptable to God, and in accordance with man's intelligence and moral feelings ? Surely it has done all this, and much more of the same nature, and to ask such questions in our enlightened day is to acknowledge oneself behind the times, uninformed of the commonest events, unacquainted with mod ern literature and the common language of civilized society. The merest schoolboy is prepared to answer questions such as these without a moment's hesitation. Our task is an easy one. The result can but be favorable to the cause of genuine Pro testant religion.
It is well for us to remember, however, that our "Earnest Seeker" at the outset resolved to repudiate all creeds and systems of belief which were found contradicting the plain dictates of Reason, or the clear convictions of conscience. He was fully determined to discard a religion
114 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.
which should demand in any respect the sacrifice of Reason, or whose doctrines should tend to dis parage this noble gift of heaven. He was also firmly determined not to suffer any religious belief to trample upon, or to mutilate, or to destroy, the integrity and dignity of human nature. This was his starting point. These were his principles, and are these not those of every intelligent mind and thinker ?
How now does the religion of the great Re- formation meet this appreciation of Eeason ? Does it harmonize with these convictions ? Does it look to Reason as the guide of man to truth ? appeal to it for its approbation ? seek to convince it of the truth by affording clear and rational argu ments ? Does it give to the enigmas of Reason a clear and reasonable solution ? Does it uphold the free and lawful exercise of Reason, and the dignity of Human Nature ? Or does Protestantism repu diate Reason, trample upon the convictions of con science, and endeavor to mutilate and abase man's nature ?
To be just, frank, and unbiassed, we must examine the Protestant Religion in its sources, follow it through to its legitimate consequences, and look at it in its practical results.
This all-important inquiry shall begin with the following chapter.
PROTESTANTISM
XVII.
"The Reformation is the consecration of the sovereignty of the individual Reason." — GCIZOT.
"T UTHER is the key of the Reformation," * JJ so we are told on the high authority of the historian of the Protestant Religion. Let us em ploy this key to unlock the precious treasures of that powerful movement which changed, in a measure, the Christian belief of sixteen centuries.
What then did Dr. Martin Luther teach con cerning the nature and dignity of human Reason ; — the light which is given to every man who cometh into the world as his guide and instrument in the discovery of Truth ? Let us interrogate and listen to the teaching of the oracle of the Religion of the Reformation. What does he think of man ?
* D'Aubiguey.
116 PROTESTANTISM.
" If you wish to define man rightly," he tells MS, " you may say that he is a rational animal, endowed with reason and possessing a heart, which are inventive."
A definition which may pass ; but let us see what are the proper functions of this inventive reason and heart.
" What do these faculties invent ? " he de mands. " They invent/' such is his reply, " they invent evil, they invent evil against God, against God's commandments, against man. Man there fore," he continues, " is endowed with reason of ceaseless activity. But its activity is always evil and godless." *
If this be true, were it not better a thousand times, that wre had never been endowed with the gift of Keason ? Who would not rather be like those who want discourse of Eeason, than to be gifted with the faculty which, with its ceaseless activity, leads us always astray ? Surely such a gift cannot come from a wise and benignant Being, but looks rather like the curse of a wicked and malignant fiend.
This opposition to Reason on the part of the great Reformer, is not the expression of a mo mentary ebullition of passion, or the flight of a
* 1 B. Moses. Walch i. 875.
REASON. 117
sudden but ill-judged piety, which, escaped his pen. It was, on the contrary, a fixed and unde- viating hostility. Let us see how Luther devel- opes it.
" The Christian revelation/' so he teaches, " rejects clearly all flesh and blood, that is, what is human, and all human Keason, since these cer tainly are not able to lead us to Christ ! Hence these things are undoubtedly nothing but vain darkness. Yet the High Schools, the schools of the devil, make a great noise, and not only extol the natural right of Reason, but even hold it up as something good, useful, necessary to the know ledge of Christian truth. It is clear that no one beside the High Schools have found this out, except it be the devil himself, in order to over throw and obscure Christian truth, which alas too often happened/' *
Thus, having established in his own mind an essential antagonism between the natural light of Reason and that of Revelation, he ridicules the idea that the light of the one can be of any service to the other. He says in the same work :
" With the pretty comparison that the divine light sheds its rays upon the natural light of Rea son, like the light of the sun on a fine painting,
• Kirchen Postil. xi. 459.
118 PROTESTANTISM.
this the Schools have introduced from the teaching of heathens into Christianity. The devil told them to say that. In this manner God's word is trampled under foot ; but, when it comes forth, it knocks all such devilish teachings to powder." *
In the first instance we were told that Reason with its ceaseless activity always leads us to evil and godlessness ; hence it is worthless as a guide or instrument in finding truth ; and secondly, we are instructed that Eeason is hostile to Christian truth, its light is nothing but vain darkness, and that God's word knocks its devilish teachings to powder. If the words of Dr. Luther be those of truth, if his teachings be the key of the Reforma tion, nothing can be more pleasing to God, and no duty is more imperative on one who holds the Protestant faith, than to endeavor to put out the light of Reason, and despise its dictates. Indeed we have the Dr. telling us so in his famous and classical Letters on the Galatians.
" The man of faith," so says the Reformer, " throttles Reason, and says to it : Reason, you are a silly, blind fool. You understand not a flirthing's worth. Do not cut up so many pranks with your bellowing opposition, but shut up your mouth, and hold your tongue. Do not pretend to
* Kirchen Tostil. p. 509.
REASON.
be the judge of God's word, but quiet yourself, and hear what it tells you, and believe it. In this way the faithful smother the beast, which the whole world could not do, and, by thus doing, they make the most pleasant offering and sacrifice that can be given to our Lord God." *
The destruction of Reason is not only the duty of the followers of this champion of true Christi anity, but its destruction must necessarily precede Christian faith. He answers those who hold that Reason is one of the necessary conditions of faith, in the following manner :
" Children on the very account that they have not Reason, can and do believe more perfectly ; since Reason goes straight against belief. We ought therefore to let Reason slide. Reason must be killed and buried in faith. You say Reason is a light to faith, that it should enlighten faith where it should go ; yes, in my judgment, Reason sheds light, like a piece of dirt in a lantern. It is Christ's will that if we would enter the kingdom of heaven we should become little children, that is, as children are wanting all Reason and under standing, so Reason should be destroyed in all Christians, otherwise faith has no place in them, for Reason lights against faith." f
* Walch v. iii p. 2044. t L. LTngedr. Pred. Bruno, p. 106.
120 PROTESTANTISM.
To be a Christian, according to this Gospel, one has to cease to be a rational creature, and become a ninny. This is indeed the consecration of the sovereignty of individual Keason with a vengeance ! Such a Gospel would find better material to work upon, and for its free and full development, among the beasts who want discourse of Reason, than among intelligent beings. It would find readier success among baboons, ourang- outangs, and other tribes of monkeys, than among a thinking and a reasoning people, for in the monkeys there is no need of the preparation work of the demolition of Reason to make way for faith ; this kind of faith could take root at once !
Why in the name of common sense are we told and told again to " read the Bible," to " search the Scriptures/' if we are not to use our Reason, if the destruction of Reason is the condition of faith ? Oh it is a pity that that " most blessed discovery of an old Latin Bible which Luther found in Erfurt Library " was not read to a better purpose ! Pity it did not shed a brighter light in the Reformer's soul than to teach him to disparage and despise God's noblest gift to man, — Reason !
But listen once more to this great German, whose followers pretend that he emancipated the human mind, — Reason :
REASON. 121
" You must come to this point/' he says, " or it is all over with you ; you must strip yourselves of Reason altogether, and through faith throw it away ; it is this word faith which gives eternal life. Moreover, he that would hear the word of Christ, let him leave the Jackass Reason at home, and neither be guided, nor judge according to Rea son ; if he does so, he irritates Christ." *
Is it to be wondered at, when men discover that the only way to religious belief is by repudi ating Reason, and by trampling under foot its dic tates, that they prefer to retain their self-respect and reverence for God, rather than embrace a Re ligion which outrages both ? " If Reason in its' most decisive judgments on Religion, is unworthy of trust, then Christianity, even natural theology, must be abandoned ; for the existence and veracity of God, and the divine original of Christianity, are conclusions of Reason, and must stand or fall with it. If revelation be at war with this faculty, it subverts itself, for the great question of its truth is left by God to be decided at the bar of Reason. It is worthy of remark, how nearly the bigot and the skeptic approach. Both would annihilate our confidence in our faculties, and both throw doubt and confusion over every truth. We honor reve-
* Ausleg. Ev. Johan. vii. 2160.
6
122 PROTESTANTISM.
lation too highly to make it the antagonist of Reason, or to believe that it calls us to renounce our highest powers." *
Bat did Luther really mean what we have quoted from his writings ? Were not these ex pressions thrown out in the heat of argument, or uttered in sport ? Did he renounce thus the authority of Reason, and abandon himself to the mercy of every error and absurdity ? Judge by the following. He says :
" That two and five make seven, that I can grasp with my Reason ; but if it should be told me from above, No, two and five make eight, I would believe it against my Reason and feelings. The devil's sole occupation is to get the Romish priests to measure God's will in his works with Reason." |
By this we see that the author of the Refor mation was not satisfied with setting aside Rea son to make way for what he calls faith ; but even would have us believe what is contradictory to the plainest dictates of Reason. Yet the sup position that any thing can come from above which may contradict Reason, is simply absurd. We may rest assured if any* such message comes, it comes not down from above, but up from below
+ Dr. Channing. Vol. 3, p. 66. t Kirch Post. xi. 2308.
REASON. 123
And the proper answer to one who should bring such a message would be, "Away, you black imp, and return to the father of lies who sent you I "
Let us close our account with " the key of the Reformation" by a passage taken from his last sermon at Witternbcrg, in which he treats the very point in hand, " The relations of human Reason with Revelation/'
" Reason is the devil's bride," so says Dr. Luther, " a pretty strumpet, a cursed whore, an outcast, a public prostitute, the greatest whore of the devil ; she should be trampled under foot with all her wisdom, she should be murdered, dirt should be thrown in her face to make her hateful, she should be dragged through the privy, the cursed whore with her darkness/' *
Is this, candid Reader, the language of one " for whom we, and generations to come, have to be thankful " ? f or is it the raving of a madman ? Surely his co-reformer Hospinian was not far out of the way when he said : " This man Luther is absolutely mad." Or Zwingle, another co-worker in this pretended liberation of the human mind, when he declared that " The devil has made him self master of Luther."
* Lcip. Ausg. xii. 373. t Carlylo.
124 PROTESTANTISM.
If this be the boasted emancipation of human Reason which we have had rung in our ears from Diir earliest childhood by our fathers, teachers, orators, school books, literature, press, and every other channel of communication, then have we been most grossly imposed upon. Luther the champion of Kcason ! Luther the Friend of Pro gress ! Luther the Liberator of modern thought ! Was there ever such a shame-faced imposition practised upon mankind ? Yet those who plume themselves in being the more enlightened portion of society, have swallowed it in perfect simplicity ! And would have the world believe too that "it is under a lasting debt of gratitude to the German monk of Erfurt ! " *
It may be said that these opinions were those of Luther, and not shared by his co-workers in the great Reformation ? But are we not told that " Luther is the key of the Reformation ? " Is it not then through him we are to find the great truths which shed so glorious a light on the world ? Certainly. And if we find any difference in this matter between the key of the Reformation and his followers, it will be not in opinion, but in lack of the same boldness and freedom of expression.
" The Theologian of the Reformation/' as
* Carlyle.
REASON. 125
Melanctlion was called, let us into the secret of his opinioDS on this point by showing an antipathy to the very name of Keason. He says : " that it was by the gradual introduction of philosophy in religion, that the most pernicious word Eeason began to be used." *
This passage alone would be sufficient to con vict Melancthon of holding the same opinions as his master, had we no other proofs. Further on we shall take occasion to show that not only Melancthon, Calvin, etc., condemned Reason and its exercise, but denied to man in his present state, even the possession of the faculty of Reason.
Leibnitz, sensible of the discredit it would throw upon the Protestant religion if it were once admitted that Luther was an enemy to Reason, endeavors to explain away his meaning. Thus Luther in his work, entitled " The Slave-Will," says : " If it pleases thee that God crowns the unworthy, it ought not to displease thee that God condemns the worthy." f
Now Leibnitz, in construing this passage, says : " This reduced to more moderate expressions, means, if you approve that God gives eternal glory to those who are no better than others, you
* Loc. Tlieol. Augs. 1S21, p. 10. t Ch. 174.
126 PROTESTANTISM.
ought not to disapprove that he abandons those who are no worse than others." *
With all due regard to the intellectual gifts of Leibnitz, his friendly interference does not save his fellow-countryman from shocking Keason and out raging the sense of justice. Luther tells us that " God crowns the unworthy/' Leibnitz that " God gives eternal glory to those who are no better than others." Who are these " no better than others " of which Leibnitz speaks ? Are they worthy of eternal glory? If so, then his proposition is alto gether dissimilar to Luther's. Are they unwor thy ? If so, then he has not helped his friend Luther, but only reiterated his statement. Lu ther's second proposition is, that " God condemns the worthy." That of Leibnitz is that "God abandons those no worse than others." Who are these " no worse than others " of Leibnitz ? Do they deserve condemnation ? If so, then his pro position is contrary to Luther's. Are they not deserving condemnation ? Then, again, Leibnitz does not escape the charge any less than Luther, of contradicting the dictates of Eeason and vio lating the principles of justice.
"Men may construe things after fashion, Clean from the purpose of the things themselves."
* Leib. Opera ; Conform, dc la foi nvec raison.
REASON. 127
But it would require a greater philosopher even than Leihnitz to show that the Protestant religion is not unfriendly, hostile, and destructive of man's Keason.
If we wanted proof of the unintellectual char acter of the Reformation, we have it in the ac knowledgment of the distinguished historian and protestant, Guizot. In his history of Civilization of Europe, he says, in speaking of " the religious revolution of the Sixteenth Century," that "it was ignorant of the true principles of intellectual liberty. It did not elevate itself to the first cause, nor descend to the last consequences of its work . . . The Reformation did not fully comprehend and receive its own principles and effects." *
Which means, in other words, that Protestant ism, from the point of view of intelligence, was from its commencement a stupid affair, illogical, and an insult to the common sense and Reason of mankind.
* 12 Logon.
XVIII.
Jim-Mill.
" Of this be sure,
Where freedom is not, there no virtue is; If there be none, this world is all a cheat, And the divine stability of heaven, — (That assured seat for good men after death,) Is but a transient cloud, displayed so fair To cherish virtuous hope, but at our need Eludes the sense, and fools our honest faith, Vanishing into a lie." CKOWK.
WHATEVER man may be, take from him moral freedom and you rob him of his dignity, destroy his conscience, and undermine his responsi bility to God, his duty to himself, and to his fellow- men. Deny to man free will and you lower him down in the scale of existence to the beasts which perish, and make a total wreck of the noble struc ture of his being. Disinherit man of his free agency, and you make him a slave to some foreign,
FREE-WILL. 129
tyrannical, or despotic power. You make man a machine, a thing without sense, nobility, or grandeur.
But Protestantism cannot surely be charged justly with teaching doctrines of such degrading tendencies. Did not the Reformation awaken the spirit of freedom throughout the world ? Were not the Reformers stanch friends of human lib erty ? Did not the people, when Luther passed through their streets, cry out to this bold and fearless champion, " Free us ! " and did he not do it ? Did not the Protestant Religion give such a blow to the chains which had fettered the minds of men for ages, that they were shattered for ever in pieces ; and thus man restored to his native dignity and heaven-born freedom ? Can any doubt exist in intelligent minds of the truth of this ?
Let it not weary our readers to pause awhile here, and examine these grand assertions freely. It is not all gold that glitters. And as free in quiry is a part of our birthright, we will use it.
Taking once more " the Key of the Reforma tion," Dr. Martin Luther, in our hands, let us interrogate his writings concerning the free will of man.
" Man/' so says the Doctor, " is like a horse. 6*
130 PROTESTANTISM.
Does God leap into the saddle ? The horse is obedient, accommodates itself to every movement of the rider, and goes whither he wills it. Does God throw down the reins ? Then Satan leaps upon the back of the animal, which bends, goes, and submits to the spurs and caprices of its new rider. The will cannot choose its rider, and can not kick against the spur that pricks it. It must get on, and its very docility is a disobedience and a sin. The only struggle possible is between the two riders, God and the Devil, who dispute the momentary possession of the steed. And then is fulfilled the saying of the Psalmist : " I am be come like a beast of burden." *
In reading this passage one is in doubt whether to break out in bursts of laughter at-the ridiculousness and absurdity of such a picture of man, or to give way to bursts of indignation against doctrines which so utterly degrade our nature. If man be the mere passive instrument of God, or the complete slave of the devil, as the case may be, and he has no more to say about it than a horse has to say who shall be his rider, then what have we left to do, but despair, or live in good cheer, and be indifferent. As to the possibility of doing any thing towards realizing the great end
* Op. Luth. torn. 11, p. 1776.
FREE-WILL. 131
of our existence, — that is out of all question. Foi this " true great man for whom the whole world and its history was waiting/' * adds that :
" In spiritual and divine things which regard salvation, man is like a statue of salt such as Lot's wife was changed into. Yes, man is a stock and a stone, a dead statue which has no use of its eyes, mouth, any of its senses, or its heart." f
To talk after this or that " instinct of lib erty," " nohility of the soul," " dignity of Human Nature," and pretend to be a Protestant, a dis ciple of Lather, is to throw overboard common sense, and to proclaim oneself fanatically absurd. This " great man" is not satisfied with enunciating his doctrine, he employs illustrations that he may be* understood, and illustrations of his own kind and classical taste.
" Catch me, in the name and strength of Free Will, a flea or a louse, and kill it," he says, in reply to Erasmus' defence of Free Will, " then you will have gained your cause. Then we will come to you and offer up our prayers to this grea* God of Free Will." J
Is it not mockery to tell us that man is a responsible being, and accountable for all his actions, if this be true ? Virtue, self-sacrifice,
* Carlyle. t In Gen. c. 14. % Wit. Ausg. Th. 6, 462.
132 PROTESTANTISM.
heroism — those are but empty sounds. This champion of human liberty is not yet done. Listen !
" Before all," he says, "it is necessary and useful for the Christian to know that God foresees nothing in a contingent manner ; but he foresees, proposes, and acts from his eternal and immutable will ; this is the thunderbolt which destroys and overturns Free WillV, Let those, then, who come forward as the champions of that doctrine, deny first this thunderbolt. And thus it follows irre- fragably, that every human action, although it seerns to be done in a contingent manner, and subject to the doctrine of chances, is necessary and irresistible in the order of Providence. Therefore it is not Free Will but necessity which is the acting principle in us." *
Can we trust our eyes, and ourselves, when doctrines such as these are put forward in an intelligent and Christian community as the teach ings of the Gospel, as evangelical Christianity f They sound more like the ravings of the Grand Turk Mahomet, who with his all-absorbing Pan theism annihilates all human agency. Yet we are told by men who boast of doing their own thinking, that " Luther was the mighty man
* DC Serv. Arb. adv. Eras, t iii. p. 170.
FBEE-WILL. 133
whose light was to flame as the beacon over long centuries and epochs of the world ! " *
Not satisfied with the denial of Free Will, Luther would reject it were it offered to him.
" As for myself/' he says, " I confess that were Free Will offered to me I would not accept it, nor any other instrument that might aid in my salvation/' f
One would believe that according to the light of Protestantism, the great purpose of Christianity was to make man an abject slave, and to have him hug the chains which fetter his free limbs.
The mild and learned Melancthon held the same hostile opinions, and shared the same feel ings of hatred against the doctrine of man's Free Will.
He stigmatizes it as "an impious doctrine, introduced into Christianity from the Pagans." J
Like Luther, he denies man's freedom in toto. He says : " There is no liberty of our will. All that takes place happens according to a divine predestination." §
Melancthon had the hardihood even to assert that " God wrought all things, evil as well as good ; that God was the author of David's adultc-
* Carlyle's Heroes. t Ibid. t. 1. p. 171.
$ Loc. Theol. Aug. ed. 1821, p. 10. § Loc. Theol. Bale, 1521, p. 35.
134 PROTESTANTISM.
ry, and the treachery of Judas, as well as of the conversion of Paul — not permissively, but effectu ally as his own work." *
But in a subsequent edition of his works he combats this very opinion, and carefully abstains from mentioning that formerly it was his own.
Zwingle asserts the same detestable opinions. He says : " Adultery and murder are one and the same crime, since God is the author, mover, and impeller to sin. . . . God impels the robber to kill the innocent, even though he is unprepared for
death/' t
As regards the Genevan Keformer, Calvin, he, in numberless instances, employs the expressions : " Man, at the instigation of God, doeth what it is unlawful to do." " By a mysterious and divine inspiration, the heart of man turneth to evil." " Man falleth because the providence of God so ordaineth." J
Let one citation from this coryphaeus of pre destination suffice. He says : " The reprobate are inexcusable though they cannot avoid the necessity of sinning, and this necessity comes from God. God speaks, but it is in order to render
* Mart. Chemnitz, loc. theol. edit. Leyden, 1615, p. 1, 173.
t Do Prov. p. 805-6. $ Just b. iv. c. 18, § 12 ; b. iiL c. 23, § 8.
FREE-WILL. 135
them more deaf. He offers to them remedies, but it is in order that they may not be cured/'*
Beza goes so far as to say that God created a portion of men as his instruments, with the intent of working evil through them." f
We may, however, be told that this is old Protestantism ; modern Protestantism is quite another thing. Not so fast, generous reader ; here we have " the Confession of Faith of the Presby terian Church, held in Philadelphia, in the United States of America, in the year of our Lord 1827," and it discourses in the following strain on these points :
" Of God's Eternal Decree, c. in., 3. iii. By the decree of God for the manifestation of his glory some men and angels are predestinated unto ever lasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death." Sec. v. " Those of mankind that are pre destinated unto life God hath chosen in Christ unto everlasting glory, out of his mere free grace and love, without any foresight of faith and good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature, as conditions, or causes moving him thereto, and all to the praise of his glorious grace." Sec. viii. " The rest of mankind God was pleased, for the glory of his sovereign
* Inst. 1, c. 3, 234. t Aphor. xxii.
136 PROTESTANTISM.
power over his creatures, to pass by, and ordain tliem to dishonor and wrath for their sins, to the praise of his glorious justice/'
It would seem in reading what has preceded that the Keformers and their worthy descendants have endeavored to gather together in one body all the doctrines which could shock reason, and out rage those moral feelings implanted in our breast by our Creator, and called them Christianity, Evangelical Christianity !
Nor is the Church of England behind her sister Protestant churches in " Evangelical Chris tianity." From the thirty-nine Articles and the Homilies, and still more from the persecution of the assertors of Free Will in England, it is clear that the Anglican Church held these doctrines till the end of the reign of James I. In the course of this king's reign there were sent Episcopal representatives from England and Scotland to the great Protestant Synod of Dort. There, in the name of their representative churches, they signed that " the faithful who fall into atrocious crimes do not forfeit justification, or incur damnation."
Does not the seventh of the " Articles of Ke- ligion" justify their conduct ? It says :
" Predestination to life is the everlasting pur pose of God, whereby, before the foundations of
FREE-WILL. 137
the world were laid, he hath constantly decreed by his counsel, secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them to Christ to everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honor."
The Methodists held the same degrading opinions. Charles Wesley shall be our witness. He gives us the following conversation held by himself with one whom he calls " a pillar of the Church, J. W., at Birmingham."
" Do you believe that you have nothing to do with the law ? I have not. I am not under the law. I live by faith. Have you, as living by faith, a right to every thing in the world ? I have. All is mine since Christ is mine ! May you then take any thing you will, any where ? Suppose, out of a shop, without the consent of the owner ? I may if I want it ; for it is mine ; only I will not give offence. Have you a right to all the women in the world ? Yes, if they consent ! And is not that sin ? Yes, to him that thinks it a sin ; but not to those whose hearts are free." " And Koger Ball of Dublin afterwards affirmed the same thing." *
To make man irresponsible for his actions is
* Southcy's Lifo, v. ii. p. 144
138 PROTESTANTISM.
to deny the freedom of the will. The one goes with the other. Alarmed at the results of his preaching, Wesley called a Conference of the leading Methodist preachers, and publicly confessed " that they had leaned too much to Calvinism, and also to Antinomianism. The main pillar of which was that Christ had abolished the moral law., that Christians are under no obligation to observe it, and that a part of Christian liberty was liberty from observing the commandments of God." *
" A separation took place, and the greater part of the Methodist clergy adhered to Lady Huntingdon's party, who was the head of the Cal vin ists." f
That the founder of Methodism was not behind the early Reformers in his unnatural creed, is made clear from a letter of his to parents on the education of children. He says : " that in par ticular they should labor to convince them of atheism, and show them that they do not know God, love him, delight in him, or enjoy him, any more than do the beasts that perish." J
How one so destitute of all the feelings of our common humanity should be looked up to as almost an inspired teacher of him who said :
* Whitebead, p. 273. t Southey, p. 179. $ Southey, p. 235.
FKEE-WILL. 139
" Suffer little children to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven/' is strange, pass ing strange !
The same sentiments are taught to the little baptized children of the Protestant Episcopal Church in our own day. In the Sunday-school library of one of the Chapels of Trinity Church, we found a volume of " Hymns for Children/' containing the following liaes :
" Sin is the substance of each thought. Each word, each deed with sin is fraught. Your little hearts are all unclean, And quite the dwelling-place of sin."
The image of God which each one bears in his soul consists chiefly in Keason and Free- Will ; yet here is a religion pretending to be God's re ligion, and at the same time would rob us of his image, dry up all the generous impulses of the soul, and stifle its noble aspirations ; and make virtue, devotion, love, a mere name, a phantom !
Such is Protestantism in theory, such is Pro testantism in practice. Listen to the language of one who felt its soul-destroying influence, and therefore speaks from experience. It is a voice from the once Calvinistic New England.
" Too many think religion a depressing, rather
140 PROTESTANTISM
than an elevating service, that it breaks rather than ennobles the spirit, that it teaches us to cower before an almighty and irresistible Being ; and I must confess, that religion, as it has gener ally been taught, is any thing but an elevating principle. It has been used to scare the child, and appal the adult. Men have actually been taught to glorify God by flattery, rather than by becoming excellent and glorious themselves, and thus doing honor to their Maker. Our dependence on God has been so taught, as to extinguish the consciousness of our free nature and moral power. Religion, in one or another form, has always been an engine for crushing the human soul. But such is not the religion of Christianity. If it were, it would deserve no respect. We are not, we cannot be bound to prostrate ourselves before a deity, who makes us abject and base. That moral principle within us, which calls us to watch over and perfect our souls, is an inspiration which no teaching can supersede or abolish." *
* Dr. Charming, v. iL p. 214.
XIX.
fjuman $tot»«.
44 DJgitum erigcre peccas."— PERCIUS. To raise your flnger is to sin.
TTTILLINGLY we would have stopped our iii- i T vcstigation on so unpleasant a subject in our last chapter, for it is already sufficiently shown, in our judgment, that Protestantism is inimical to Keason, disinherits man of his liberty, and hence has no claims on intelligent minds, and men who respect themselves. Yet, every body knows that we shall have it proclaimed from pulpits, pub lished in the papers, spoken forth by orators, sung by poets, and written and rewritten by historians until we are sickened at it, that the Protestant Eeformation was the dawn of a new light, the advocate of liberty, and the upholder of the dignity of Human Nature.
142 PROTESTANTISM.
To keep silence while such falsehoods are pro claimed boldly in our streets and from our house tops, would be recreant to the cause of truth. The time has come to strip this religion, hostile to our nature, of its garb of light, and show its hidden character to the world.
The two foregoing chapters must have con vinced our readers, that one of the cardinal doc trines of Protestantism is that of the utter worth- lessness of Human Nature. But as this was not the precise point we had then in hand, we will now devote a few pages bearing directly on it.
" Sin," so says Dr. Luther, " is not an act or a phenomenon of our nature ; it is our very nature, and our whole being itself." *
If our nature is in itself wholly depraved, what points of contact can truth, goodness, religion have with it ? How can these touch or affect us in any manner ? How is virtue, religion, morality pos sible ? For,
" All that you can do/' says the same Luther, " begins in sin, remains in sin ; it may appear ever so good and pretty ; you can do nothing but sin, act as you please." f Again,
" All that is in our will is evil, all that is in our understanding is only error and blindness.
* Aug. Ausg. xi. 2793. t Walch. Ausg. xi. 12.
HUMAN NATURE. 143
Therefore, man has, in regard to divine things, nothing else than utter darkness, error, wickedness, perverseness, bad will, and misunderstanding." *
Melancthon takes up the same theme, and says :
"It is sufficient for a Christian to know that all works of nature, all inclinations and endeavors of Human Nature are sins/' f Again, " Such is man that by his natural strength he can do no thing but sin The works which precede
justification are all the fruit of the cursed tree, and although they may be examples of the most beautiful virtues, nevertheless they are nothing but deceit and lies." £
If this be so, what becomes of the bright ex amples of virtue of the pagan world, as Aristides, Socrates, Zenocrates, Lucretia, Camillas, and a thousand others ? Listen to " the mild Melanc thon," and he will satisfy your curiosity.
" Let it be supposed," he says, " that there was a certain constancy in Socrates, and chastity in Zenocrates, temperance in Zeno, these shadows of virtue dwelt in impure souls, and sprang from self-love and vanity, and ought not to be held for virtues, but looked upon as so many vices." §
* Walch. Ausg. v. 778. t Loc. Com. de peccato, ed. 1521.
$ De Just. § Ibid.
144 PROTESTANTISM.
A celebrated writer, in speaking of the bane ful effects of these views, remarks : " Some of the most affectionate tokens of God's love within and around us are obscured by this gloomy theology. The glorious faculties of the soul, its high aspira tions, its sensibility to the great and good in char acter, its sympathy with disinterestedness and suffering virtue, its benevolent and religious in stincts, its thirst for a happiness not found on earth, these are overlooked or thrown into the shade, that they may not disturb the persuasion of man's natural corruption. Ingenuity is employed to dis parage what is interesting in the human character. Whilst the bursts of passion in the new-born child are gravely urged as indications of a nature rooted in corruption, its bursts of affection, its sweet smile, its innocent and irrepressible joy, its loveli ness and beauty are not listened to, though they plead more eloquently its alliance with higher na tures. . . . Even the higher efforts of disinterested benevolence, and the most unaffected expressions of piety, if not connected with what is called the i true faith/ are, by the most rigid disciples of this doctrine which I oppose, resolved into passion for distinction, or some other working of unsanctified nature.7' *
Calvin by no means softens this picture of
* Dr. Channing, vol. iii. p. 186.
HUMAN NATURE. 145
man. He passes the same judgment in his Insti tutes on the virtues of the ancient pagans, * and one of its chapters has for its title the following proposition : " From corrupt Human Nature pro ceeds nothing that is not damnable." f One cita tion will suffice to show the opinions of Calvin :
" There remains/' he says, " this indubitable truth which no artifice can shake, that the mind of man is so far alienated from God's justice, that he violently conceives, desires, and strives after nothing that is not impious, fallacious, filthy, im pure ; his heart is so filled with poison, that it breathes forth nothing but stench." J
If our nature be wholly bad, desires nothing, and can do nothing, but sin, of course we cannot be expected to desire the truth, to love the good, to crave religion, to reverence God, or to wish for any virtue or goodness whatever. Human Nature and Religion are once and for all eternally sepa rated and divorced. How they ever can be united again is beyond comprehension. This point, however, will afford material for another chapter of absurdities. Let us not anticipate.
The Presbyterian Confession of Faith of 1827, Art. xi., speaking of the effects of the fall, holds the following language :
* Lib. iii. 614, § 1-T. t Lib. ii. c. 3, p. 93. J Inst xi. c. v.
7
146 PROTESTANTISM.
" From the original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, or made opposite to all good, wholly inclined to all evil." Again, c. xvi. § viii. " Of good works. — Works done by unregenerate men," so runs the article, " although for the matter of them, they may be things which God commands, and of good use both to them selves and others ; yet because they proceed not from a heart purified by faith ; nor are done in a right manner, according to the word ; nor to a right end, the glory of God ; they are therefore sinful and cannot please God, or make a man meet to receive grace from God. And yet, the neglect of them is more sinful and displeasing to God."
The eighth article of the Anglican religion is conceived in the same spirit. " Of works before justification, for that they are not done as God hath willed and commanded them to be done, we doubt not but they have the nature of sin."
" Works done by unregenerate men are sinful." " Yet the neglect of them is displeasing to God." It follows, then, that we displease God by not doing " sinful works." Such is the manifest ab surdity, impiety, and blasphemy of the purified Christianity taught by the great " Gospel Doctors." The best compendium of these wretched tenets is the following :
HUMAN NATTRE. 147
"You shall and you shan't, You can and you can't, You will and you won't, You'll be damned if you do, You'll be damned if you don't."
But we have not yet fully sounded the depths of man's depravity according to the glorious light of the Keformation. Not content with making all our acts sinful, they attack our very nature, substance, and essence, and deprave that also. Luther teaches that :
" It is in the nature of man to sin ; sin con stitutes the essence of man ; man, as he is born of his father and mother, together with his whole nature and essence, is not only a sinner, but sin itself." *
Melancthon,f and also Matthias Flacius fol lowed their master, Luther, in this matter. And Mr. Charles Wesley, in his sermon, " The way to the Kingdom," says :
" Know that thou art corrupted in every power, in every faculty of thy soul, that thou art totally corrupted in every one of these, all the foundations of being are out of course. The eyes of the under standing are darkened, so that they cannot dis cern God or the things of God/'
* Quenstedt. Theo. part ii. p. 134. t Loc. theol., p. 19.
148 PROTESTANTISM.
Thus Wesley was true to the genuine spirit of Protestantism ; believing with its founder, Luther, that " the person, the nature, our whole being is corrupted by the fall of Adam." *
In remarking on this wretched theology, a modern author says : " What is most desolating in this psychological system, is, that this monarch of creation is not permitted to raise himself from the abyss into which the fall of the first man has plunged him ; to efface from his brow the mark which the avenging hand of the Creator has stamped on it, to recover the titles of his heavenly origin. More unhappy than the violet of which Luther not long since spoke, man knows himself ; he knows all the happiness which he has lost, all the misery and ignorance which he retains, and the inheritance of glory which has escaped him. A few drops of water will renew a flower that droops on its stem ; but man is doomed to debasement ; nothing henceforth can vivify or restore him, — neither will, nor thought, nor deed ; for these mental operations are corrupted like their source, and man sins even in doing good. Such was Luther's doctrine, a doctrine of despair, which might be understood in hell, where the soul, sur prised in sin, cannot merit ; but which,, upon
* Aug. Ausg. xi. p. 375.
HUMAN NATURE. 149
earth, cleansed by the blood of the Lamb, is only an outrage on the Deity/' *
As one abyss calls unto a deeper, so does one error lead to a more serious one. According to the Protestant religion, all of man's thoughts, feelings, actions, are depraved ; more, his very nature, being, essence, is totally corrupt. But not content with this, the Keformcrs go still fur ther, and endeavor to despoil man of even the faculties of his soul, and those too the noblest given to him by his Creator — Keason and Free- Will.
The Lutheran confession describes the image of God in man as the natural capacity in man to know God, to fear Him, and to confide in Him. f
" Man/' so Luther affirms, " lost by sin these natural faculties ; he did not remain in his natural integrity as the scholastics dream." J
Thus does this false religion mutilate our nature, and despoil man of his noble and most excellent powers, and reduce him to the level of the creatures which perish.
" I say," repeats the German Keformer, " that the spiritual powers are not only corrupted, but also, by sin, wholly and altogether effaced, both in men and the devils." §
* Awlin's Life of Luther, v. 2, p. 71. t Apol. peceat. orig. § 7. 56. t In Gen. c. iii. § Werko, 1539, i. p! 19.
150 PROTESTANTISM.
"The Formulary of Concord" expresses the same ; it says : " that man no longer possesses even the least spark of spiritual powers." *
Victorinus Stringel, a Protestant, asserted " that fallen man possesses at least the faculty, the capacity, the aptitude to know God, and to will what is holy ; although this faculty is com pletely paralyzed, as it were benumbed, and is not susceptible of any spontaneous exertion." f
But the orthodox party of Protestants con demned him, and affirmed that even the bare faculty of knowledge and will, — that mere empty form in the soul of man had been destroyed.
" They are to be repudiated," so runs " the Solid Declaration," " who teach that man has yet left remaining from his original state any thing good, whatever it may be, or however paltry or trifling it may be, as for instance : the capacity or aptitude, or any powers in spiritual things." J Again : " The divine image has been utterly effaced by original sin, and thereby plucked from the posterity of Adam." §
Plank, a Protestant, in his History of Protest antism, puts all doubts aside, and admits that " Luther gave to the assertion that man no longer possesses any will for good, so extensive a sense,
* p. G29. t Tlank. v. iv. p. 5S4.
% Lib. arb. § 44, p. 644. § § 9, p. C14.
HUMAN NATURE. 151
that it would thence follow, that man, corrupted by original sin, no longer possesses the power of will, that is, the faculty of will." *
"Had Plank," says Moehler, "only added, £ and no longer possesses the faculty of knowledge for the superabundance (for both are included in Liberum arbitrium)', he would then have stated with perfect accuracy the Lutheran doctrine. Thus," continues Moehler, " according to the Lu theran orthodoxy, did man lose, through Adam's fall, the most exalted and most subtle portion of his spiritual essence, — the part of his substance kindred to divinity, — the implanted organ for God, and for divine things inherent in his nature ; so that after its loss, he sank down into a mere earthly power, having henceforth organs only for the finite world, its laws, its ordinances, its rela tions, f
* Vol. vi. p. T15. f Symbolism, p. 147.
XX.
The soul onco saved shall never cease from bliss, Nor God lose that He buyeth with his blood. She doth not sin. The deeds which look like sin, The flesh and the false world, are all to her Hallowed and glorified."
OUR intention was not to touch on this point, but its close connection with, or rather its logical sequence from, what has preceded, and its being considered as the central doctrine of Protes tantism, has determined us to devote a few pages to its consideration.
" Without this doctrine of justification by faith alone," says Luther, " the Holy Ghost will not abide with us." ° " All knowledge of the truth will fall to the ground." f " If this doctrine falls, all is over with us." J
* Jen. Ausg. v. 22S. t Walch, Ausg. viii. % Table Talk.
JUSTIFICATION. 153
We must not forget what we have already learned ; — that according to the Keligion of Prot estants, " man is wholly depraved/' " corrupted even to the very essence and core of his being," " and has lost every spark of his spiritual faculties."
It is a subject worthy of serious consideration to every reflecting mind, ho.w such a being can become good again, reconciled to God, and inherit eternal glory. How this can be brought about, consistently with Reason, every body must be curious to know. The doctrine concerning the nature and operation of this change is the one on which the whole Protestant religion is reared.
We must ascend to the fountain source on a point of such importance, and once more employ " The key of the Reformation/'
" The Justification of a Christian," says Dr. Luther, " is not an essential justification, but a reputed one." *
This has at least in its favor logical consistency. For it is inconceivable how a being who is essen tially corrupt can be essentially justified. The work of justification must necessarily be not essential, for there is no solid foundation, nothing good for it to be based upon. It must be a foreign, extraneous justification, reputed to man,
* 1 c. 6423. a.
7*
154 PROTESTANTISM.
not his, but as though it were his own, — a sham justification. Luther explains : —
" Christ has fulfilled the law for us, and we have only to appropriate this to ourselves by faith/' *
We are again puzzled how one who has not left a spark of spiritual powers, can have faith ? This too, of course", must be something wholly ex-
«/
trinsic. But let this appropriation be made, it does not change the nature of the one who makes it. Luther says so : —
" The faithful, on account of the obedience of Christ, are looked upon as just, although, by virtue of corrupt nature, they are truly sinners, and remain such even unto death." f
Man, therefore, according to the religious principles of Protestantism, is not justified from his sins, but in them ; for " the faithful are truly sinners even unto death." But we are curious to know what happens beyond death.
For the difficulty is not less great in the next than in this world, how a being corrupted in its very essence can ever be made good, perfect, holy. Will Protestants send a depraved, corrupted, alto gether sinful being to heaven to enjoy the presence of God ? Yet how can they escape doing this if true to their principles ? We see not. Rather
* Walch, Ausg. x. 1461. t Solid, declar. de fide 815. p. C57.
JUSTIFICATION. 155
than give up this essential doctrine of their re ligion, they will send a man " as black and ugly as the devil himself almost, to heaven ! " Listen to Martin the Reformer.
"It is because of Christ that Christians are called snow-white, even much purer than the sun, the moon, and the stars. But herein we must pay great attention, that this purity is not ours, but extraneous purity. For the Lord Christ adorns and clothes us with his purity and justice. However, if you regarded a Christian aside from the purity and justice of Christ, as he is in him self, you would simply see, however holy he might be, no purity at all in him ; you would see him as black and ugly as the devil himself almost." *
If ever there was a religion whose fundamental principle was an unreality, it is the religion founded by " Luther, this bringer back of men to reality," f as he is called. If ever there was a paradise of shams, it is the paradise of Christians who fol low " this true spiritual Hero/' J The paradise of Mahomet is vastly more attractive than a heaven composed of so-called " Christians as black and ugly as the devil himself almost." We have not, however, reached the end of the absurdities of the glorious Reformation — absurdities sufficient
* Augs. Ausg. viii. p. 54a t Carlyle. $ Ibid.
156 PROTESTANTISM.
to deprive any man who would believe them of common sense.
Having put out the light of Reason in man, and concealed his corruption by a cloak, Luther endeavors now to blind the Almighty, whose eyes are brighter than the sun, and who sees the inmost recesses of our hearts.
" God can see no sins in us," such is his lan guage, " though we were filled with sins, even though we were nothing but sin, within and with out, body and soul, from the top of the head to the soles of our feet. He sees only the dear, costly blood of his beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, with which we are sprinkled. For this same blood is the golden mantle of grace, with which we are clothed, and in which we appear before God. Wherefore he cannot, and will not, see us other than were we his beloved Son himself, full of justice, holiness, and innocence/' *
Those who can believe in such a God, who can accept such a redemption, and adopt such a re ligion, the powers above help them ! As for our selves, it is too enormous a tax on credulity.
The sinner is not only unclean sed from his sins, he is even exhorted by this restorer of Chris tianity to continue in them.
* Augs. Ausg. viii. p. 878. -
JUSTIFICATION. 157
" Sin lustily, but be more lusty in faith, and rejoice in Christ, who is the conqueror of sin, of death, and of the world. Sin we must, so long as we remain here. It suffices, that, through the riches of the glory of God, we know the Lamb which taketh away the sins of the world ! from Him no sin will sever us, though a million times a day we should fornicate, or commit murder/' *
What must not be the stupidity of those who can be made to believe that the promulgation of doctrines such as these, was the " re-appearance of Christianity ! " that " Protestantism was the emancipation of Reason ! " Reappearance rather of barbarism, and heathendom ! Emancipation of " the flesh ! " The Protestant Reformation was nothing else than the rebellion of the unregu lated passions of man under the guise of the emancipation of the human mind. That this is no unfair statement of the views of Luther, we have his own words for it. Read his definition of Christianity.
" Christianity," he says, " is nothing else than a constant practice of this article that you are not sensible of sin, however you may have sinned, since your sins adhere to Christ, who is for all eternity a Saviour from sin, death, hell/' f
* Epist. to lo. Aurifabio, torn. 1 ; Jena. 1856, p. 545. t Op. Lat. 1 c.
158 PROTESTANTISM.
Thus under the garb of Christianity license is given to every excess of passion, and the commis sion of the worst of crimes. Turks would reject with abhorrence such a religion, and the Thugs of India, though practising on its principles, would blush to avow them in broad daylight. How can we account for such doctrines unless we admit, with Dr. Johnson, that " to find a substitution for violated morality, was the leading feature in all perversions of religion/' *
Melancthon and Calvin held like opinions. The latter says : —
"The word ' justification ' signifies the de claring one just, the acquitting him of sins, the eternal justice of Christ, which is by God imputed to faith." f Again : " We are accounted just in Christ, which in ourselves we are not." J
" This is the same," says Moehler, "as if any one were to purchase a very learned book, and, instead of stamping its contents deeply on his mind, and in this way appropriating it, so that he might become a living book, should hold himself very learned, because the learned book was his outward property!" §
The Protestant Episcopal Church of England looks with the same jealous eye on this doctrine as
* Boswell's Life, t Inst. lib. iii. c 11, § 2, fol. 260. J Ibid. § 3. § 212.
JUSTIFICATION. 159
" the strong Eock and foundation of the Christian religion." In Art. XI. "Of the Justification of man," it says : —
" Wherefore, that we are justified by Faith only, is a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort."
That the founder of Methodism held this same most pernicious doctrine, and that it was practised on "by the early Methodists to an alarming and horrid extent, we have seen in the preceding pages. And when he was charged with not preaching this doctrine, he refutes it by saying : rt Now, do I preach that we are justified by faith and works ? I did for 10 years : I was fundamentally a papist and knew it not. But I do testify to all, that no good works can be done before justification, none which have not in them the nature of sin." *
" How few," exclaims Fletcher, another pillar of Methodism, " how few of our celebrated pulpits are there, where more has not been said for sin than against it ! " f
Sir Rowland Hill, another pillar of Methodism, maintained that
" Even adultery and murder do not hurt the pleasant children, but rather work for their good." J
* Southey's Life. v. i. p. 141. t Check to Antinom. p. 215. $ Fletcher's works, vol. iii. p. 50.
160 PROTESTANTISM.
" God sees no sin in believers," says the same, " whatever sin they may commit. My sins might displease God ; my person is always acceptable to him. Though I should out-sin Manasses, I should not be less a pleasant child, because God always views me in Christ. Hence in the midst of adul teries, murders, and incests, he can address me with f Thou art all fair, my dove, my undefiled ; there is no spot in thee/ Though I believe not those who say, ' let us sin that grace may abound;' adultery, incest, and murder, shall, upon the whole, make me holier on earth, and merrier in heaven." *
This may seem revolting to our moral senti ments, and no one can deny that it is. And yet there is no escape from it on Protestant principles. For once admit the doctrine of " total depravity/' and the doctrine of " justification by faith alone/' the " imputation of righteousness/' and the " im possibility of good works/' follow necessarily.
If the modern professors of Protestant Christi anity pretend to escape these shocking doctrines, and their dreadfully immoral issues, they may ; but they can only do it by rejecting the funda mental doctrine of the great Keformation ; or, by " stifling their Keason," as the great lights of .the
* Check to Antinom. vol. iv. p. 97.
JUSTIFICATION. 161
Reformation did, and sagaciously recommended their followers to do.
For Reason and Protestantism cannot stand together. No one was more convinced of this fact
o
than the author of the Reformation ; and it was this conviction that led him to send Reason to the wall. Modern Protestants, lacking the courage of their fearless leader, escape taking this bold posi tion, only by adopting a depraved logic.
XXI.
Stttarianisra.
" To bear Such wrangllngs is joy for vulgar minds.1' — DANTK.
CJTRANGrE as it may seem, yet it is none the O less true, that not a few regard one of the most evident marks of error, and the most destruc tive feature of the religious revolution of the sixteenth century, as a sign of truth, as a proof of progress, and a title to their gratitude. Were this confined to a few or to vulgar minds, it might be passed over in silence ; but such is not the case. There are poets, historians, philosophers, literary men, who would have us believe that the endless discussions and subdivisions into which Protestantism has divided the religious world is a cheering sign of life and a benefit to humanity.
SECTARIANISM. 163
The poet, out of respect to his rank, shall first give in his evidence of this popular hallucination :
" God sends his teachers unto every age, To every clime, and every race of men ; With revelations fitted to their growth And shape of mind, nor gives the realms of Truth Into the selfish rule of one sole race : Therefore each form of worship that hath swayed The life of man, and given it to grasp The master-key of knowledge, reverence, Enfolds some germs of goodness and of right." *
The idea conveyed in these lines is that God parcels out the truth to men as though they had not the capacity to receive it in its integrity. All men are integrally, constitutionally, the same ; each possessing all the capacities and powers of another. What one race knows all races may substantially know, and equally so every man of the race. Instead of making God the author of wrangling creeds, it would be more in accord ance with right and honorable views of God, to look for their causes elsewhere.
Truth leads the mind to take broader views of things, and gives to men common sympathies ; it is therefore precisely the realm of truth which men have need of to free them from the selfish rule of
* Lowell.
164 PROTESTANTISM.
one sole race. The idea that man is not endowed with the capacity to receive the whole truth, or that God has not given it to him, is as unsound in philosophy as it is false to history.
The historian shall now give his lesson on this subject :
" Wherever you see men clustering together to form a party, you may," he says, " be sure that how ever much error may be there, truth is there also."
Had the writer of the above stopped his pen at this point, he would have remained inside the boundaries of sound philosophy. Indeed he has enunciated a great truth, and one which, rightly understood, overthrows completely the fundamen tal errors of Protestantism.
For his statement implies that the intellect of man cannot operate without the truth. It follows that we must either deny to man all rational, intellectual life, which is abominable ; or we must repudiate the hateful doctrine of total depravity, which implies that man has lost all hold on the true.
But the historian did not stop here ; he con tinues, and says :
" Apply this principle boldly ; for it contains a lesson of candor and a voice of encouragement. There never was a school of philosophy, nor a clan
SECTARIANISM. 165
in the realm of opinion, but carried along with it some important truth." Mark now, ingenuous reader, what follows : " And therefore every sect that has ever flourished has benefited Humanity ; for the errors of that sect pass away and are for gotten ; its truths are received into the common inheritance." *
The candor of this lesson we accept most cor dially ; but its voice sounds to our ears, not as one of encouragement, but as the saddest kind of dis couragement. It were indeed a sad and gloomy prospect for Humanity, if we had to grope about in darkness for the truth, and be doomed to pick up her scattered linibs, and find of these but fragments. It is greatly to be feared that the discovery of the fair form of truth would eventuate as disastrously as the fabled search which Isis made for the mangled body of Osiris. For truth is one, and has its source in an eminent unity, and the attempt to form the whole body of Truth from its scattered limbs, would end in producing a mass of fragments, without unity, symmetry, or a life- giving principle. The failure would be as certain as the effort to form the sun by gathering together its scattered beams.
On the supposition that God has brought men
* Bancroft's Miscel. p, 416.
166 PROTESTANTISM.
into darkness, or that man is incapable of grasping the whole truth at once, the smallest fraction of truth discovered is a benefit to Humanity. This is not the lot of man, and the multiplication of sects must be regarded, not as a means of increas ing the common inheritance of truth, but rather as the decay and destruction of its fair proportions.
Thomas Carlyle tells us in his usual odd way, the same thing. " All isms/' he says, " have a truth in them, or men would not take them up." *
Unmixed error does not exist, and if it did, the mind of man could not take it up. His statement would be more in accordance with truth had he said that all isms have a most pernicious lie in them, and no man whose mind is not par tially blinded or asleep, would take up with any of them, or all put together. Man has divine instincts which seek to know the universal truth, and crave for the illimitable good, and this is the reason why sects are so unsatisfactory, and so soon outlived.
Some of these advocates of sects go so far as to look upon the divisions of Protestantism as the source of its strength.
" The truth is," says the celebrated Dr. Chan- ning, " that the divisions of Protestantism go far
* Heroes.
SECTARIANISM. 167
to constitute its strength Protestantism,
by being broken into a great variety of sects, has adapted itself to the various modifications of Hu man Nature. Every sect has embodied religion in a form suited to a large class of minds. It has met some want, answered to some great principle of the soul."*
The unperverted religious sentiment naturally and powerfully yearns after unity. He, therefore, who looks upon the isolation of men in their re ligious sympathies as an evidence of strength, is like a man who should detect in the process of decay of bodies, signs of vigorous life. There is life there, but it is that of desolation, destruc tion and death.
Consistent with right views of Truth and of Human Nature, variety of sects should be looked upon not as adaptations to its wants, but as the marks of a deep-seated uneasiness ;
" Like a sick wretch
"Who finds no rest upon her down, but ol't Shifting her side, short respite seeks from pain." f
" Sects are essential to freedom and progress," says Dr. Channing. Yes ; where error and not truth lies at the foundation. Error disunites,
* Works, v. iii., p. 273. t Dante.
1G8 PROTESTANTISM.
isolates, and produces harsh discord ; while truth brings men together in bonds of common brother hood, producing love and perfect unity. It is a proof of a secret and painful tyranny exercised over the mind, and a mark of a radically false re ligion, where freedom and progress can only be preserved by hostile sects, and by causing violent divisions among men. This thraldom accounts in a great measure for the constantly increasing sects in Protestant communities ; and explains why the great body of intelligent men stand aloof, and look with indifference, if not contempt, at the countless sects of the Protestant Religion.
Is not the idea that regards the multiplication of contradictions concerning man's most sacred relations and solemn obligations to God himself, and his fellow-man, as " beneficial to Humanity," or " essential to freedom and progress," the com plete abandonment of the belief in Christianity as a Divine Religion ? Is it not to insult our com mon sense, outrage our moral feelings, or to sup pose we have none ?
How is it that men, otherwise intelligent, venture to put forth such glaringly false theories ? They must be in a most unnatural relation with things, to have recourse to such pitiful and con tracted views to sustain their position. A mode-
SECTARIANISM. 169
rately sound intellect, with the common instincts of Humanity, in its better moments would have, even in spite of itself, opened its eyes to see the absurdity of these views, and made it feel how unworthy they were of God and of Human Na ture. In some such moment, Channing must have penned the following most energetic passage : —
" I am lost in amazement/' he exclaims, " at the amount of arrogant folly, of self-complacent intolerance, of almost incredible blindness, to the end and essence of Christianity, which the history of sects reveals ... On sects, and on the spirit of sects, I must be allowed to look with grief, shame, pity, — I had almost said, with contempt/1 *
When Religion fails to teach men their true relations with God, either because it has no fixed doctrines, or does not teach them in such a way as to produce conviction, the intellect becomes tbe prey of doubt and despair, and men, instead of uniting their activities in one common aim, sepa rate, turn selfish, and are indifferent to their future. Art degenerates and becomes fragmentary, science lends itself to skepticism, and political institutions are made the sport of revolutions.
This point demands development, but we have neither the space, nor leisure, to treat it as its
* Works, p. 2S4. 8
170 PROTESTANTISM.
importance requires , the Reader must "be satisfied with an individual example of its truth, and that in the order of art.
It would be a difficult task to find one whose natural gifts of genius were superior to those of Goethe. He was Lorn and bred a Protestant, and is held up to the world by a class of men as one who completed his nature by a beautiful and har- moniou^ development of all his faculties.
"With his surprising gifts he seemed to under stand, if he did not always appreciate, the separate and isolated views of almost every sect and party. But these he never saw in their kindred relations with the whole body of truth. He saw with a wonderful clearness the scattered rays of truth, and is well called, the many-sided Goethe ; but he failed to discover the splendid orb from whose centre they come forth and depend. He possessed in an extraordinary degree the gift of throwing himself into the state and feelings of others, and expressing those with fidelity ; yet he never suc ceeded in giving to them unity, symmetry, and completeness, in forming them into a perfect work of art. The most artistically finished pro ductions of Goethe are imitations of the classics ; his original ones are fragmentary, disconnected,
SECTARIANISM. 171
incomplete ; for instance, Wilhelm Meister, and Faust.
Goethe's abilities, breadth of mind and culture, have led his admirers to suppose that the creations of his own genius were also pure works of art, and his critics, not finding them such, fail to satisfy these cherished opinions. The admirers of Goethe condemn his critics for his deficiencies.
These deficiencies are not, however, to be at tributed to his genius, but to the discordant and irreconcilable elements of his religion. It is Re ligion that reveals to man his inmost being and its adequate expression. The image must be placed face to face with the original to bring out its full meaning, value, and beauty. Man is God's image, and it is the office of Religion to teach him his true relations to God. But this task Protestantism was unable to accomplish, hence its inadequacy to give unity and peace to the mind, and elevate the soul to a steady union with the first true, good, and fair, its Original.
How sensible Goethe himself was of this, runs all through the tragedy of Faust, and we select the following passage as but one of its many ex pressions :—
172 PROTESTANTISM.
" Two souls, alas ! are lodged in my wild breast, Which evermore opposing ways endeavor. The one lives only on the joys of time, Still to the world with clamp-like organs clinging ; The other leaves this earthy dust and slime, To fields of sainted sires up-springing."
Deprived of the answers and help of the true Religion, he was compelled to make one of his own. Following one-sidedly the intellect, he ex cluded the sensitive part of man's nature, by adopting the false maxim of Spinoza, that virtue was to be practised without any idea of reward or merit. Now the appetite for the good is no less an essential part of our common nature than the desire for the true, or the admiration of the beau tiful. To attempt to exclude it from its legitimate action in Religion, or any other sphere of life, must needs end in failure. As one extreme pro duces its opposite, so here, in his practical life, Goethe sacrificed his rational nature by following one-sidedly the sensitive. Thus, in his theory of Religion, he was a purist ; in his practice, an epicurean.
"Many-sided" Goethe! We accept this word applied to him by his admirers, and regard it as the severest criticism that could be made on one so highly gifted as he was, as a thinker, poet,
SECTARIANISM. 173
and religions man. It was only by virtue of his various and richly-gifted genius that he escaped the common fate of Protestants of becoming one sided. Had he discovered that Religion which, in its transcendent and majestic unity, embraces all truth, he would have been all-sided.
What we hold to be the truth in this matter is very simple and easily understood. Briefly it is as follows : —
God has endowed all men with the faculties to know all truth necessary for their happiness here and eternal happiness hereafter. All these necessary truths God has not failed to make known to men, and in such a way that the knowledge of them may be easily gained by men of the simplest capacity. Consequently, if men differ in regard to these truths, it is either because they have neglected to employ their faculties, or have not employed them rightly.
These principles commend themselves to all men who think justly, and are agreeable to till true and honorable ideas of God. At the same time they demolish altogether and conclusively the arguments of the advocates of sectarianism, and refute the speculations of the philosophers of narrow-mindedness.
XXII.
Ijrt $ts»Iis.
; S<> after many years in seeming free, More closely fettered than at first are we." GOKTIIE.
SUCH being the fundamental principles of Protestant Christianity, it is not to be won dered at that a large class of intelligent minds have found it an unsatisfactory Keligion. Soino of this class keep up an outward connection with one or the other of its more distinguished sects for the sake of the younger members of their families, and because it is a part of respectability ; others profess a general belief in Christianity, but regard all its distinctive doctrines as mere matters of opinion. A still larger share stand aloof from all forms and sects of Protestantism, adopt in the mean time such religious views as accord with the
THE RESULTS. 175
truths of Reason, and look forward in hope for a Keligion which shall welcome the highest aspira tions and he commensurate with the deepest wants of their nature.
What does excite our wonder is not that intel ligent men should detect and repudiate this anti- natural religion and spurious Christianity, but that they should have suffered this degrading impo sition so long in silence. For lie who would re ceive genuine orthodox Protestantism, must begin by stifling in his breast the convictions of con science, trample under foot his heaven-born free dom, and put out with his own hands the light of his Reason. A genuine Protestant is one who has effaced from his soul all vestiges of the Divine image of his Maker, and that in the name of Religion !
This is no exaggeration, but sacred truth, and truth acknowledged and felt to be so by them selves.
" The natural movements of the soul are re pressed," says one who knew from experience the effects of orthodox Protestant preaching ; " the grace, and ornament, and innocent exhilarations of life frowned upon ; and a gloomy, repulsive re ligion is cultivated, which, by way of compensation for its privations, claims a monopoly of God's
176 PROTESTANTISM.
favor, abandoning all to his wrath who will not assume its own sad livery and echo its own sepul chral tones. Through such exhibitions Religion has lost its honor ; and though the most ennobling of all sentiments, dilating the soul with vast thoughts and unbounded hope, has hcen thought to contract and degrade it." *
Speaking of the prevailing theology of his time, and its mournful effects, he says : " I know that it spreads over minds an unsupportable gloom, that it generates a spirit of bondage and fear, that it chills the best affections, that it represses virtuous efforts, that it sometimes shakes the throne of reason. On susceptible minds the influence of this system is always to be dreaded. If it be be lieved, I think there is ground for despondency bordering on insanity. If I, and my beloved friends, and my whole race, have come from the hand of our Creator wholly depraved, irresistibly propcnse to all evil and averse to all good — if only a portion are chosen to escape from this miserable state, and if the rest are to be consigned by the Being who gave us our depraved and wretched nature, to endless torments in unextinguishable flames, — then, too, I think that nothing remains
* Dr. Channing's Works, viii. p. 267.
THE RESULTS. 177
but to mourn in anguish of heart ; then existence is a curse, — the Creator is -
" 0 nay merciful Father ! I cannot speak of Thee in the language which this system would suggest. No ! Thou hast been too kind to me to deserve this reproach from my lips. Thou hast created me to be happy ; Thou callest me to vir tue and piety, because in these consists my felicity ; and Thou wilt demand