For instance, the doctrine of the Trinity. How if this doctrine should at last, after endless errors, right and left, only bring men on the road to recognise that G.o.d cannot possibly be One in the sense in which finite things are one, that even His unity must be a transcendental unity, which does not exclude a sort of purality?
Must not G.o.d at least have the most perfect conception of Himself, i. e., a conception in which is found everything which is in Him?
But would everything be found in it which is in Him, if a mere conception, a mere possibility, were found even of his necessary Reality as well as of His other qualities? This possibility exhausts the being of His other qualities. Does it that of His necessary Reality? I think not. Consequently G.o.d can either have no perfect conception of himself at all, or this perfect conception is just as necessarily real, i. e., actually existent, as He Himself is.
Certainly the image of myself in the mirror is nothing but an empty representation of me, because it only has that of me upon the surface of which beams of light fall. But now if this image had everything, everything without exception, which I have myself, would it then still be a mere empty representation, or not rather a true reduplication of myself? When I believe that I recognise in G.o.d a familiar reduplication, I perhaps do not so much err, as that my language is insufficient for my ideas: and so much at least for ever incontrovertible, that they who wish to make the idea thereof popular for comprehension, could scarcely have expressed themselves more intelligibly and suitably than by giving the name of a Son begotten from Eternity.
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And the doctrine of Original Sin. How, if at last everything were to convince us that man standing on the first and lowest step of his humanity, is not so entirely master of his actions as to be able to obey moral laws?
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And the doctrine of the Son"s satisfaction. How, if at last, all compelled us to a.s.sume that G.o.d, in spite of that original incapacity of man, chose rather to give him moral laws, and forgive him all transgressions in consideration of His Son, i. e., in consideration of the self-existent total of all His own perfections, compared with which, and in which, all imperfections of the individual disappear, than not to give him those laws, and then to exclude him from all moral blessedness, which cannot be conceived of without moral laws.
Let it not be objected that speculations of this description upon the mysteries of religion are forbidden. The word mystery signified, in the first ages of Christianity, something quite different from what it means now: and the cultivation of revealed truths into truths of reason, is absolutely necessary, if the human race is to be a.s.sisted by them. When they were revealed they were certainly no truths of reason, but they were revealed in order to become such.
They were like the "that makes"--of the ciphering master, which he says to the boys, beforehand, in order to direct them thereby in their reckoning. If the scholars were to be satisfied with the "that makes," they would never learn to calculate, and would frustrate the intention with which their good master gave them a guiding clue in their work.
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And why should not we too, by the means of a religion whose historical truth, if you will, looks dubious, be conducted in a familiar way to closer and better conceptions of the Divine Being, our own nature, our relation to G.o.d, truths at which the human reason would never have arrived of itself?
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It is not true that speculations upon these things have ever done harm or become injurious to the body politic. You must reproach, not the speculations, but the folly and the tyranny of checking them.
You must lay the blame on those who would not permit men having their own speculations to exercise them.
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On the contrary, speculations of this sort, whatever the result, are unquestionably the most fitting exercises of the human heart, generally, so long as the human heart, generally, is at best only capable of loving virtue for the sake of its eternal blessed consequences.
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For in this selfishness of the human heart, to will to practice the understanding too, only on that which concerns our corporal needs, would be to blunt rather than to sharpen it. It absolutely will be exercised on spiritual objects, if it is to attain its perfect illumination, and bring out that purity of heart which makes us capable of loving virtue for its own sake alone.
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Or, is the human species never to arrive at this highest step of illumination and purity?--Never?
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Never?--Let me not think this blasphemy, All Merciful! Education has its goal, in the Race, no less than in the Individual. That which is educated is educated for something.
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The flattering prospects which are open to the people, the Honor and Well-being which are painted to him, what are they more than the means of educating him to become a man, who, when these prospects of Honor and Well-being have vanished, shall be able to do his Duty?
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This is the aim of human education, and should not the Divine education extend as far? Is that which is successful in the way of Art with the individual, not to be successful in the way of Nature with the whole? Blasphemy! Blasphemy!!
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No! It will come! it will a.s.suredly come! the time of the perfecting, when man, the more convinced his understanding feels itself of an ever better Future, will nevertheless not be necessitated to borrow motives of action from this Future; for he will do the Right because it is right, not because arbitrary rewards are annexed thereto, which formerly were intended simply to fix and strengthen his unsteady gaze in recognising the inner, better, rewards of well-doing.
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It will a.s.suredly come! the time of a new eternal Gospel, which is promised us in the Primer of the New Testament itself!
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Perhaps even some enthusiasts of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries had caught a glimpse of a beam of this new eternal Gospel, and only erred in that they predicted its outburst at so near to their own time.
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Perhaps their "Three Ages of the World" were not so empty a speculation after all, and a.s.suredly they had no contemptible views when they taught that the New Covenant must become as much antiquated as the old has been. There remained by them the similarity of the economy of the same G.o.d. Ever, to let them speak my words, ever the self-same plan of the Education of the Race.
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Only they were premature. Only they believed that they could make their contemporaries, who had scarcely outgrown their childhood, without enlightenment, without preparation, men worthy of their Third Age.
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And it was just this which made them enthusiasts. The enthusiast often casts true glances into the future, but for this future he cannot wait. He wishes this future accelerated, and accelerated through him. That for which nature takes thousands of years is to mature itself in the moment of his existence. For what possession has he in it if that which he recognises as the Best does not become the best in his lifetime? Does he come back? Does he expect to come back? Marvellous only that this enthusiastic expectation does not become more the fashion among enthusiasts. 91
Go thine inscrutable way, Eternal Providence! Only let me not despair in Thee, because of this inscrutableness. Let me not despair in Thee, even if Thy steps appear to me to be going back. It is not true that the shortest line is always straight.
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Thou hast on Thine Eternal Way so much to carry on together, so much to do! So many aside steps to take! And what if it were as good as proved that the vast flow wheel which brings mankind nearer to this perfection is only put in motion by smaller, swifter wheels, each of which contributes its own individual unit thereto?
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It is so! The very same Way by which the Race reaches its perfection, must every individual man--one sooner--another later-- have travelled over. Have travelled over in one and the same life?
Can he have been, in one and the self-same life, a sensual Jew and a spiritual Christian? Can he in the self-same life have overtaken both?
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Surely not that! But why should not every individual man have existed more than once upon this World?
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Is this hypothesis so laughable merely because it is the oldest?
Because the human understanding, before the sophistries of the Schools had dissipated and debilitated it, lighted upon it at once?
Why may not even I have already performed those steps of my perfecting which bring to man only temporal punishments and rewards?
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And once more, why not another time all those steps, to perform which the views of Eternal Rewards so powerfully a.s.sist us?