All pious Christians feel, and all the New Testament proclaims, that Faith is a moral act and a test of the moral and spiritual that is within us; so that he who is without faith, (faithless, unfaithful, "infidel,") is morally wanting and is cut off from G.o.d. To a.s.sent to a religious proposition _solely_ in obedience to an outward miracle, would be Belief; but would not be Faith, any more than is scientific conviction. Bishop Butler and all his followers can insist with much force on this topic, when it suits them, and can quote most aptly from the New Testament to the same effect. They deduce, that a really overpowering miraculous proof would have destroyed the moral character of Faith: yet they do not see that the argument supersedes the authoritative force of outward miracles entirely. It had always appeared to me very strange in these divines, to insist on the stupendous character and convincing power of the Christian miracles, and then, in reply to the objection that they were _not_ quite convincing, to say that the defect was purposely left "to try people"s Faith." Faith in what? Not surely in the confessedly ill-proved miracle, but in the truth as discernible by the heart _without aid of miracle._
I conceived of two men, Nathaniel and Demas, encountering a pretender to miracles, a Simon Magus of the scriptures. Nathaniel is guileless, sweet-hearted and of strong moral sense, but in worldly matters rather a simpleton. Demas is a sharp man, who gets on well in the world, quick of eye and shrewd of wit, hard-headed and not to be imposed upon by his fellows; but dest.i.tute of any high religious aspirations or deep moral insight. The juggleries of Simon are readily discerned by Demas, but thoroughly deceive poor Nathaniel: what then is the latter to do? To say that we are to receive true miracles and reject false ones, avails not, unless the mind is presumed to be capable of discriminating the one from the other. The wonders of Simon are as divine as the wonders of Jesus to a man, who, like Nathaniel, can account for neither by natural causes. If we enact the rule, that men are to "submit their understandings" to apparent prodigies, and that "revelation" is a thing of the outward senses, we alight on the unendurable absurdity, that Demas has faculties better fitted than those of Nathaniel for discriminating religious truth and error, and that Nathaniel, in obedience to eye and ear, which he knows to be very deceivable organs, is to abandon his moral perceptions.
Nor is the case altered, if instead of Simon in person, a huge thing called a Church is presented as a claimant of authority to Nathaniel.
Suppose him to be a poor Spaniard, surrounded by false miracles, false erudition, and all the apparatus of reigning and unopposed Romanism.
He cannot cope with the priests in cleverness,--detect their juggleries,--refute their historical falsehoods, disentangle their web of sophistry: but if he is truehearted, he may say: "You bid me not to keep faith with heretics: you defend murder, exile, imprisonment, fines, on men who will not submit their consciences to your authority: this I see to be wicked, though you ever so much pretend that G.o.d has taught it you." So, also, if he be accosted by learned clergymen, who undertake to prove that Jesus wrought stupendous miracles, or by learned Moolahs who allege the same of Mohammed or of Menu, he is quite unable to deal with them on the grounds of physiology, physics, or history.--In short, nothing can be plainer, than that _the moral and spiritual sense is the only religious faculty of the poor man_; and that as Christianity in its origin was preached to the poor, so it was to the inward senses that its first preachers appealed, as the supreme arbiters in the whole religious question. Is it not then absurd to say that in the act of conversion the convert is to trust his moral perception, and is ever afterwards to distrust it?
An incident had some years before come to my knowledge, which now seemed instructive. An educated, highly acute and thoughtful person, of very mature age, had become a convert to the Irving miracles, from an inability to distinguish them from those of the Pauline epistles; or to discern anything of falsity which would justify his rejecting them. But after several years he totally renounced them as a miserable delusion, _because_ he found that a system of false doctrine was growing up and was propped by them. Here was a clear case of a man with all the advantages of modern education and science, who yet found the direct judgment of a professed miracle, that was acted before his senses, too arduous for him! He was led astray while he trusted his power to judge of miracle: he was brought right by trusting to his moral perceptions.
When we farther consider, that a knowledge of Natural Philosophy and Physiology not only does not belong to the poor, but comes later in time to mankind than a knowledge of morals;--that a Miracle can only be judged of by Philosophy,--that it is not easy even for philosophers to define what is a "miracle"--that to discern "a deviation from the course of nature," implies a previous certain knowledge of what _the course of nature_ is,--and that illiterate and early ages certainly have not this knowledge, and often have hardly even the idea,--it becomes quite a monstrosity to imagine that sensible and external miracles const.i.tute the necessary process and guarantee of divine revelation.
Besides, if an angel appeared to my senses, and wrought miracles, how would that a.s.sure me of his moral qualities? Such miracles might prove his power and his knowledge, but whether malignant or benign, would remain doubtful, until by purely moral evidence, which no miracles could give, the doubt should be solved.[7] This is the old difficulty about diabolical wonders. The moderns cut the knot, by denying that any but G.o.d can possibly work real miracles. But to establish their principle, they make their definition and verification of a miracle so strict, as would have amazed the apostles; and after all, the difficulty recurs, that miraculous phenomena will never prove the goodness and veracity of G.o.d, if we do not know these qualities in Him without miracle. There is then a deeper and an earlier revelation of G.o.d, which sensible miracles can never give.
We cannot distinctly learn what was Paul"s full idea of a divine revelation; but I can feel no doubt that he conceived it to be, in great measure, an _inward_ thing. Dreams and visions were not excluded from influence, and nacre or less affected his moral judgment; but he did not, consciously and on principle, beat down his conscience in submission to outward impressions. To do so, is indeed to destroy the moral character of Faith, and lay the axe to the root, not of Christian doctrine only, but of every possible spiritual system.
Meanwhile, new breaches were made in those citadels of my creed which had not yet surrendered.
One branch of the Christian Evidences concerns itself with the _history_ and _historical effects_ of the faith, and among Protestants the efficacy of the Bible to enlighten and convert has been very much pressed. The disputant, however, is apt to play "fast and loose." He adduces the theory of Christianity when the history is unfavourable, and appeals to the history if the theory is impugned. In this way, just so much is picked out of the ma.s.s of facts as suits his argument, and the rest is quietly put aside.
I. In the theory of my early creed, (which was that of the New Testament, however convenient it may be for my critics to deride it as fanatical and _not_ Christian,) cultivation of mind and erudition were cla.s.sed with worldly things, which might be used where they pre-existed, (as riches and power may subserve higher ends,) but which were quite extraneous and unessential to the spiritual kingdom of Christ. A knowledge of the Bible was a.s.sumed to need only an honest heart and G.o.d"s Spirit, while science, history, and philosophy were regarded as doubtful and dangerous auxiliaries. But soon after the first reflux of my mind took place towards the Common Understanding, as a guide of life legitimately co-ordinate with Scripture, I was impressed with the consideration that _Free Learning_ had acted on a great scale for the improvement of spiritual religion. I had been accustomed to believe that _the Bible_[8] brought about the Protestant Reformation; and until my twenty-ninth year probably it had not occurred to me to question this. But I was first struck with the thought, that the Bible did not prevent the absurd iniquities of the Nicene and Post Nicene controversy, and that the Church, with the Bible in her hands, sank down into the gulf of Popery. How then was the Bible a sufficient explanation of her recovering out of Popery?
Even a superficial survey of the history shows, that the first improvement of spiritual doctrine in the tenth and eleventh centuries, came from a study of the moral works of Cicero and Boethius;--a fact notorious in the common historians. The Latin moralists effected, what (strange to think!) the New Testament alone could not do.
In the fifteenth century, when Constantinople was taken by the Turks, learned Greeks were driven out to Italy and to other parts of the West, and the Roman Catholic world began to read the old Greek literature. All historians agree, that the enlightenment of mind hence arising was a prime mover of religious Reformation; and learned Protestants of Germany have even believed, that the overthrow of Popish error and establishment of purer truth would have been brought about more equably and profoundly, if Luther had never lived, and the pa.s.sions of the vulgar had never been stimulated against the externals of Romanism.
At any rate, it gradually opened upon me, that the free cultivation of the _understanding_, which Latin and Greek literature had imparted to Europe and our freer public life, were chief causes of our religious superiority to Greek, Armenian, and Syrian Christians. As the Greeks in Constantinople under a centralized despotism retained no free intellect, and therefore the works of their fathers did their souls no good; so in Europe, just in proportion to the freedom of learning, has been the force of the result. In Spain and Italy the study of miscellaneous science and independent thought were nearly extinguished; in France and Austria they were crippled; in Protestant countries they have been freest. And then we impute all their effects to the Bible![9]
I at length saw how untenable is the argument drawn from the inward history of Christianity in favour of its superhuman origin. In fact: this religion cannot pretend to _self-sustaining power._ Hardly was it started on its course, when it began to be polluted by the heathenism and false philosophy around it. With the decline of national genius and civil culture it became more and more debased. So far from being able to uphold the existing morality of the best Pagan teachers, it became barbarized itself, and sank into deep superst.i.tion and manifold moral corruption. From ferocious men it learnt ferocity. When civil society began to coalesce into order, Christianity also turned for the better, and presently learned to use the wisdom, first of Romans, then of Greeks: such studies opened men"s eyes to new apprehensions of the Scripture and of its doctrine. By gradual and human means, Europe, like ancient Greece, grew up towards better political inst.i.tutions; and Christianity improved with them,--the Christianity of the more educated. Beyond Europe, where there have been no such inst.i.tutions, there has been no Protestant Reformation:--that is in the Greek, Armenian, Syrian, Coptic churches. Not unreasonably then do Franks in Turkey disown the t.i.tle Nazarene, as denoting _that_ Christianity which has not been purified by European laws and European learning.
Christianity rises and sinks with political and literary influences: in so far,[10] it does not differ from other religions.
The same applied to the origin and advance of Judaism. It began in polytheistic and idolatrous barbarism: it cleared into a hard monotheism, with much superst.i.tion adhering to it. This was farther improved by successive psalmists and prophets, until Judaism culminated. The Jewish faith was eminently grand and pure; but there is nothing[11] in this history which we can adduce in proof of preternatural and miraculous agency.
II. The facts concerning the outward spread of Christianity have also been disguised by the party spirit of Christians, as though there were something essentially _different in kind_ as to the mode in which it began and continued its conquests, from the corresponding history of other religions. But no such distinction can be made out. It is general to all religions to begin by moral means, and proceed farther by more worldly instruments.
Christianity had a great moral superiority over Roman paganism, in its humane doctrine of universal brotherhood, its unselfishness, its holiness; and thereby it attracted to itself (among other and baser materials) all the purest natures and most enthusiastic temperaments.
Its first conquests were n.o.ble and admirable. But there is nothing _superhuman_ or unusual in this. Mohammedism in the same way conquers those Pagan creeds which are morally inferior to it. The Seljuk and the Ottoman Turks were Pagans, but adopted the religion of Tartars and Persians whom they subjugated, because it was superior and was blended with a superior civilization; exactly as the German conquerors of the Western Empire of Rome adopted some form of Christianity.
But if it is true that _the sword_ of Mohammed was the influence which subjected Arabia, Egypt, Syria and Persia to the religion of Islam, it is no less true that the Roman empire was finally conquered to Christianity by the sword. Before Constantine, Christians were but a small fraction of the empire. In the preceding century they had gone on deteriorating in good sense and most probably therefore in moral worth, and had made no such rapid progress in numbers as to imply that by the mere process of conversion they would ever Christianize the empire. That the conversion of Constantine, such as it was, (for he was baptized only just before death,) was dictated by mere worldly considerations, few modern Christians will deny. Yet a great fact is here implied; viz., that Christianity was adopted as a state-religion, because of the great _political_ power accruing from the organization of the churches and the devotion of Christians to their ecclesiastical citizenship. Roman statesmen well knew that a hundred thousand Roman citizens devoted to the interests of Rome, could keep in subjection a population of ten millions who were dest.i.tute of any intense patriotism and had no central objects of attachment. The Christian church had shown its immense resisting power and its tenacious union, in the persecution by Galerius; and Constantine was discerning enough to see the vast political importance of winning over such a body; which, though but a small fraction of the whole empire, was the only party which could give coherence to that empire, the only one which had enthusiastic adherents in every province, the only one on whose resolute devotion it was possible for a partizan to rely securely. The bravery and faithful attachment of Christian regiments was a lesson not lost upon Constantine; and we may say, in some sense, that the Christian soldiers in his armies conquered the empire (that is, the imperial appointments) for Christianity. But Paganism subsisted, even in spite of imperial allurements, until at length the sword of Theodosius violently suppressed heathen worship. So also, it was the spear of Charlemagne which drove the Saxons to baptism, and decided the extirpation of Paganism from Teutonic Europe. There is nothing in all this to distinguish the outward history of Christianity from that of Mohammedism. Barbarous tribes, now and then, venerating the superiority of our knowledge, adopt our religion: so have Pagan nations in Africa voluntarily become Mussulmans. But neither we nor they can appeal to any case, where an old State-religion has yielded without warlike compulsion to the force of heavenly truth,--"charm we never so wisely." The whole influence which Christianity exerts over the world at large depends on the political history of modern Europe.
The Christianity of Asia and Abyssinia is perhaps as pure and as respectable in this nineteenth century as it was in the fourth and fifth, yet no good or great deeds come forth out of it, of such a kind that Christian disputants dare to appeal to them with triumph. The politico-religious and very peculiar history of _European_ Christendom has alone elevated the modern world; and as Gibbon remarks, this whole history has directly depended on the fate of the great battles of Tours between the Moors and the Franks. The defeat of Mohammedism by Christendom certainly has not been effected by spiritual weapons. The soldier and the statesman have done to the full as much as the priest to secure Europe for Christianity, and win a Christendom of which Christians can be proud. As for the Christendom of Asia, the apologists of Christianity simply ignore it. With these facts, how can it be pretended that the external history of Christianity points to an exclusively divine origin?
The author of the "Eclipse of Faith" has derided me for despatching in two paragraphs what occupied Gibbon"s whole fifteenth chapter; but this author, here as always, misrepresents me. Gibbon is exhibiting and developing the deep-seated causes of the spread of Christianity before Constantine, and he by no means exhausts the subject. I am comparing the ostensible and notorious facts concerning the outward conquest of Christianity with those of other religions. To _account_ for the early growth of any religion, Christian, Mussulman, or Mormonite, is always difficult.
III. The moral advantages which we owe to Christianity have been exaggerated by the same party spirit, as if there were in them anything miraculous.
1. We are told that Christianity is the decisive influence which has raised _womankind_: this does not appear to be true. The old Roman matron was, relatively to her husband,[12] morally as high as in modern Italy: nor is there any ground for supposing that modern women have advantage over the ancient in Spain and Portugal, where Germanic have been counteracted by Moorish influences. The relative position of the s.e.xes in Homeric Greece exhibits nothing materially different from the present day. In Armenia and Syria perhaps Christianity has done the service of extinguishing polygamy: this is creditable, though nowise miraculous. Judaism also unlearnt polygamy, and made an unbidden improvement upon Moses. In short, only in countries where Germanic sentiment has taken root, do we see marks of any elevation of the female s.e.x superior to that of Pagan antiquity; and as this elevation of the German woman in her deepest Paganism was already striking to Tacitus and his contemporaries, it is highly unreasonable to claim it as an achievement of Christianity.
In point of fact, Christian doctrine, as propounded by Paul, is not at all so honourable to woman as that which German soundness of heart has established. With Paul[13] the _sole_ reason for marriage is, that a man may gratify instinct without sin. He teaches, that _but_ for this object it would be better not to marry. He wishes that all were in this respect as free as himself, and calls it a special gift of G.o.d.
He does not encourage a man to desire a mutual soul intimately to share griefs and joys; one in whom the confiding heart can repose, whose smile shall reward and soften toil, whose voice shall beguile sorrow. He does not seem aware that the fascinations of woman refine and chasten society; that virtuous attachment has in it an element of respect, which abashes and purifies, and which shields the soul, even when marriage is deferred; nor yet, that the union of two persons who have no previous affection can seldom yield the highest fruits of matrimony, but often leads to the severest temptations. How _should_ he have known all this? Courtship before marriage did not exist in the society open to him: hence he treats the propriety of giving away a maiden, as one in which _her_ conscience, _her_ likes and dislikes, are not concerned: 1 Cor. vii. 37, 38. If the law leaves the parent "power over his own will" and imposes no "necessity" to give her away, Paul decidedly advises to keep her unmarried.
The author of the Apocalypse, a writer of the first century, who was received in the second as John the apostle, holds up a yet more degrading view of the matrimonial relation. In one of his visions he exhibits 144,000 chosen saints, perpetual attendants of "the Lamb,"
and places the cardinal point of their sanct.i.ty in the fact, that "they were not defiled with women, but were virgins." Marriage, therefore, is defilement! Protestant writers struggle in vain against this obvious meaning of the pa.s.sage. Against all a.n.a.logy of Scriptural metaphor, they gratuitously pretend that _women_ mean _idolatrous religions_: namely, because in the Old Testament the Jewish Church is personified as a virgin betrothed to G.o.d, and an idol is spoken of as her paramour.
As a result of the apostolic doctrines, in the second, third, and following centuries, very gross views concerning the relation of the s.e.xes prevailed, and have been everywhere transmitted where men"s morality is exclusively[14] formed from the New Testament. The marriage service of the Church of England, which incorporates the Pauline doctrine is felt by English brides and bridegrooms to contain what is so offensive and degrading, that many clergymen mercifully make unlawful omissions. Paul had indeed expressly denounced _prohibitions_ of marriage. In merely _dissuading_ it, he gave advice, which, from his limited horizon and under his expectation of the speedy return of Christ, was sensible and good; but when this advice, with all its reasons, was made on oracle of eternal wisdom, it generated the monkish notions concerning womanhood. If the desire of a wife is a weakness, which the apostle would gladly have forbidden, only that he feared worse consequences, an enthusiastic youth cannot but infer that it is a higher state of perfection _not_ to desire a wife, and therefore aspires to "the crown of virginity." Here at once is full-grown monkery. Hence that debas.e.m.e.nt of the imagination, which is directed perpetually to the lowest, instead of the highest side of the female nature. Hence the disgusting admiration and invocation of Mary"s perpetual virginity. Hence the transcendental doctrine of her immaculate conception from Anne, the "grandmother of G.o.d."
In the above my critics have represented me to say that Christianity has done _nothing_ for women. I have not said so, but that what it has done has been exaggerated. I say: If the _theory_ of Christianity is to take credit from the _history_ of Christendom, it must also receive discredit. Taking in the whole system of nuns and celibates, and the doctrine which sustains it, the root of which is apostolic, I doubt whether any balance of credit remains over from this side of Christian history. I am well aware that the democratic doctrine of "the equality of souls" has a _tendency_ to elevate women,--and the poorer orders too; but this is not the whole of actual Christianity, which is a very heterogeneous ma.s.s.
2. Again: the modern doctrine, by aid of which West Indian slavery has been exterminated, is often put forward as Christian; but I had always discerned that it was not Biblical, and that, in respect to this great triumph, undue credit has been claimed for the fixed Biblical and authoritative doctrine. As I have been greatly misunderstood in my first edition, I am induced to expand this topic. Sir George Stephen,[15] after describing the long struggle in England against the West Indian interest and other obstacles, says, that, for some time, "worst of all, we found the people, not actually against us, but apathetic, lethargic, incredulous, indifferent. It was then, and _not till then_, that we sounded the right note, and touched a chord that never ceased to vibrate. _To uphold slavery was a crime against G.o.d!_ It was a NOVEL DOCTRINE, but it was a cry that was heard, for it would be heard. The national conscience was awakened to inquiry, and inquiry soon produced conviction." Sir George justly calls the doctrine novel.
As developed in the controversy, it laid down the general proposition, that _men and women are not, and cannot be chattels_; and that all human enactments which decree this are _morally null and void_, as sinning against the higher law of nature and of G.o.d. And the reason of this lies in the essential contrast of a moral personality and chattel. Criminals may deserve to be bound and scourged, but they do not cease to be persons, nor indeed do even the insane. Since every man is a person, he cannot be a piece of property, nor has an "owner" any just and moral claim to his services. Usage, so far from conferring this claim, increases the total amount of injustice; the longer an innocent man is _forcibly_ kept in slavery, the greater the reparation to which he is ent.i.tled for the oppressive immorality. This doctrine I now believe to be irrefutable truth, but I disbelieved it while I thought the Scripture authoritative; because I found a very different doctrine there--a doctrine which is the argumentative stronghold of the American slaveholder. Paul sent back the fugitive Onesimus to his master Philemon, with kind recommendations and apologies for the slave, and a tender charge to Philemon, that he would receive Onesimus as a brother in the Lord, since he had been converted by Paul in the interval; but this very recommendation, full of affection as it is, virtually recognizes the moral rights of Philemon to the services of his slave; and hinting that if Onesimus stole anything, Philemon should now forgive him, Paul shows perfect insensibility to the fact that the master who detains a slave in captivity against his will, is guilty himself of a continual theft.
What says Mrs. Beecher Stowe"s Ca.s.sy to this? "Stealing!--They who steal body and soul need not talk to us. Every one of these bills is stolen--stolen from poor starving, sweating creatures." Now Onesimus, in the very act of taking to flight, showed that he had been submitting to servitude against his will, and that the house of his owner had previously been a prison to him. To suppose that Philemon has a pecuniary interest in the return of Onesimus to work without wages, implies that the master habitually steals the slave"s earnings; but if he loses nothing by the flight, he has not been wronged by it.
Such is the modern doctrine, developed out of the fundamental fact that persons are not chattels; but it is to me wonderful that it should be needful to prove to any one, that this is _not_ the doctrine of the New Testament. Paul and Peter deliver excellent charges to masters in regard to the treatment of their slaves, but without any hint to them that there is an injustice in claiming them as slaves at all. That slavery, _as a system_, is essentially immoral, no Christian of those days seems to have suspected. Yet it existed in its worst forms under Rome. Whole gangs of slaves were mere tools of capitalists, and were numbered like cattle, with no moral relationship to the owner; young women of beautiful person were sold as articles of voluptuousness. Of course every such fact was looked upon by Christians as hateful and dreadful; yet, I say, it did not lead them to that moral condemnation of slavery, _as such_, which has won the most signal victory in modern times, and is destined, I trust, to win one far greater.
A friendly reviewer replies to this, that the apathy of the early Christians to the intrinsic iniquity of the slave system rose out of "their expectation of an immediate close of this world"s affairs. The only reason why Paul sanctioned contentment with his condition in the converted slave, was, that for so short a time it was not worth while for any man to change his state." I agree to this; but it does not alter my fact: on the contrary, it confirms what I say,--that the Biblical morality is not final truth. To account for an error surely is not to deny it.
Another writer has said on the above: "Let me suppose you animated to go as missionary to the East to preach this (Mr. Newman"s) spiritual system: would you, in addition to all this, publicly denounce the social and political evils under which the nations groan? If so, your spiritual projects would soon be perfectly understood, and _summarily dealt with_.--It is vain to say, that, if commissioned by Heaven, and endowed with power of working miracles, you would do so; for you cannot tell under what limitations your commission would be given: it is pretty certain, that _it would leave you to work a moral and spiritual system by moral and spiritual means_, and not allow you to turn the world upside down, and _mendaciously_ tell it that you came only to preach peace, while every syllable you uttered would be an incentive to sedition."--_Eclipse of Faith_, p. 419.
This writer supposes that he is attacking _me_, when every line is an attack on Christ and Christianity. Have _I_ pretended power of working miracles? Have I imagined or desired that miracle would shield me from persecution? Did Jesus _not_ "publicly denounce the social and political evils" of Judaea? was he not "summarily dealt with"? Did he not know that his doctrine would send on earth "not peace, but a sword"? and was he _mendacious_ in saying, "Peace I leave unto you?" or were the angels mendacious in proclaiming, "Peace on earth, goodwill among men"? Was not "every syllable that Jesus uttered" in the discourse of Matth. xxiii., "an incentive to sedition?" and does this writer judge it to be _mendacity_, that Jesus opened by advising to OBEY the very men, whom he proceeds to vilify at large as immoral, oppressive, hypocritical, blind, and destined to the d.a.m.nation of h.e.l.l? Or have I anywhere blamed the apostles because they did _not_ exasperate wicked men by direct attacks? It is impossible to answer such a writer as this; for he elaborately misses to touch what I have said. On the other hand, it is rather too much to require me to defend Jesus from his a.s.sault.
Christian preachers did not escape the imputation of turning the world upside down, and at length, in some sense, effected what was imputed.
It is matter of conjecture, whether any greater convulsion would have happened, if the apostles had done as the Quakers in America. No Quaker holds slaves: why not? Because the Quakers teach their members that it is an essential immorality. The slave-holding states are infinitely more alive and jealous to keep up their "peculiar inst.i.tution," than was the Roman government; yet the Quakers have caused no political convulsion. I confess, to me it seems, that if Paul, and John, and Peter, and James, had done as these Quakers, the imperial administration would have looked on it as a harmless eccentricity of the sect, and not as an incentive[16] to sedition. But be this as it may, I did not say what else the apostles might have succeeded to enforce; I merely pointed out what it was that they actually taught, and that, _as a fact_, they did _not_ declare slavery to be an immorality and the basest of thefts. If any one thinks their course was more wise, he may be right or wrong, but his opinion is in itself a concession of my fact.
As to the historical progress of Christian practice and doctrine on this subject, it is, as usual, mixed of good and evil. The humanity of good Pagan emperors softened the harshness of the laws of bondage, and manumission had always been extremely common amongst the Romans. Of course, the more humane religion of Christ acted still more powerfully in the same direction, especially in inculcating the propriety of freeing _Christian_ slaves. This was creditable, but not peculiar, and is not a fact of such a nature as to add to the exclusive claims of Christianity. To every _proselyting_ religion the sentiment is so natural, that no divine spirit is needed to originate and establish it. Mohammedans also have a conscience against enslaving Mohammedans, and generally bestow freedom on a slave as soon as he adopts their religion. But no zeal for _human_ freedom has ever grown out of the purely biblical and ecclesiastical system, any more than out of the Mohammedan. In the middle ages, zeal for the liberation of serfs first rose in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the clergy, after the whole population had become nominally Christian. It was not men, but Christians, whom the clergy desired to make free: it is hard to say, that they thought Pagans to have any human rights at all, even to life. Nor is it correct to represent ecclesiastical influences as the sole agency which overthrew slavery and serfdom. The desire of the kings to raise up the chartered cities as a bridle to the barons, was that which chiefly made rustic slavery untenable in its coa.r.s.est form; for a "villain" who escaped into the free cities could not be recovered. In later times, the first public act against slavery came from republican France, in the madness of atheistic enthusiasm; when she declared black and white men to be equally free, and liberated the negroes of St. Domingo. In Britain, the battle of social freedom has been fought chiefly by that religious sect which rests least on the letter of Scripture. The bishops, and the more learned clergy, have consistently been apathetic to the duty of overthrowing the slave system.--I was thus led to see, that here also the New Testament precepts must not be received by me as any final and authoritative law of morality. But I meet opposition in a quarter from which I had least expected it;--from one who admits the imperfection of the morality actually attained by the apostles, but avows that Christianity, as a divine system, is not to be identified with apostolic doctrine, but with the doctrine _ultimately developed_ in the Christian Church; moreover, the ecclesiastical doctrine concerning slavery he alleges to be truer than mine,--I mean, truer than that which I have expounded as held by modern abolitionists. He approves of the principle of claiming freedom, not for _men_, but for _Christians_. He says: "That Christianity opened its arms at all to the servile cla.s.s was enough; for in its embrace was the sure promise of emanc.i.p.ation.... Is it imputed as a disgrace, that Christianity put conversion before manumission, and _brought them to G.o.d, ere it trusted them with themselves_?... It created the simultaneous obligation to make the Pagan a convert, and the convert free." ... "If our author had made his attack from the opposite side, and contended that its doctrines "proved too much" against servitude, and _a.s.sumed with too little qualification the capacity of each man for self-rule_, we should have felt more hesitation in expressing our dissent."
I feel unfeigned surprize at these sentiments from one whom I so highly esteem and admire; and considering that they were written at first anonymously, and perhaps under pressure of time, for a review, I hope it is not presumptuous in me to think it possible that they are hasty, and do not wholly express a deliberate and final judgment. I must think there is some misunderstanding; for I have made no high claims about capacity for _self-rule_, as if laws and penalties were to be done away. But the question is, shall human beings, who (as all of us) are imperfect, be controlled by public law, or by individual caprice? Was not my reviewer intending to advocate some form of _serfdom_ which is compatible with legal rights, and recognizes the serf as a man; not _slavery_ which p.r.o.nounces him a chattel? Serfdom and apprenticeship we may perhaps leave to be reasoned down by economists and administrators; slavery proper is what I attacked as essentially immoral.
Returning then to the arguments, I reason against them as if I did not know their author.--I have distinctly avowed, that the effort to liberate Christian slaves was creditable: I merely add, that in this respect Christianity is no better than Mohammedism. But is it really no moral fault,--is it not a moral enormity,--to deny that Pagans have human rights? "That Christianity opened its arms _at all_ to the servile cla.s.s, _was enough_." Indeed! Then either unconverted men have no natural right to freedom, or Christians may withhold a natural right from them. Under the plea of "bringing them to G.o.d," Christians are to deny by law, to every slave who refuses to be converted, the rights of husband and father, rights of persons, rights of property, rights over his own body. Thus manumission is a bribe to make hypocritical converts, and Christian superiority a plea for depriving men of their dearest rights. Is not freedom older than Christianity?
Does the Christian recommend his religion to a Pagan by stealing his manhood and all that belongs to it? Truly, if only Christians have a right to personal freedom, what harm is there in hunting and catching Pagans to make slaves of them? And this was exactly the "development"
of thought and doctrine in the Christian church. The same priests who taught that _Christians_ have moral rights to their sinews and skin, to their wives and children, and to the fruit of their labour, which _Pagans_ have not, consistently developed the same fundamental idea of Christian superiority into the lawfulness of making war upon the heathen, and reducing them to the state of domestic animals. If Christianity is to have credit from the former, it must also take the credit of the latter. If c.u.mulative evidence of its divine origin is found in the fact, that Christendom has liberated Christian slaves, must we forget the c.u.mulative evidence afforded by the a.s.sumed right of the Popes to carve out the countries of the heathen, and bestow them with their inhabitants on Christian powers? Both results flow logically out of the same a.s.sumption, and were developed by the same school.
But, I am told, a man must not be freed, until we have ascertained his capacity for self-rule! This is indeed a tyrannical a.s.sumption: _vindicioe secundum servitutem_. Men are not to have their human rights, until we think they will not abuse them! Prevention is to be used against the hitherto innocent and injured! The principle involves all that is arrogant, violent, and intrusive, in military tyranny and civil espionage. Self-rule? But abolitionists have no thought of exempting men from the penalties of common law, if they transgress the law; we only desire that all men shall be equally subjected to the law, and equally protected by it. It is truly a strange inference, that because a man is possibly deficient in virtue, therefore he shall not be subject to public law, but to private caprice: as if this were a school of virtue, and not eminently an occasion of vice. Truer far is Homer"s morality, who says, that a man loses half his virtue on the day he is made a slave. As to the pretence that slaves are not fit for freedom, those Englishmen who are old enough to remember the awful predictions which West Indian planters used to pour forth about the bloodshed and confusion which would ensue, if they were hindered by law from scourging black men and violating black women, might, I think, afford to despise the danger of _enacting_ that men and women shall be treated as men and women, and not made tools of vice end victims of cruelty. If ever sudden emanc.i.p.ation ought to have produced violences and wrong from the emanc.i.p.ated, it was in Jamaica, where the oppression and ill-will was so great; yet the freed blacks have not in fifteen years inflicted on the whites as much lawless violence as they suffered themselves in six months of apprenticeship. It is the _masters_ of slaves, not the slaves, who are deficient in self-rule; and slavery is doubly detestable, because it depraves the masters.
What degree of "worldly moderation and economical forethought" is needed by a practical statesman in effecting the liberation of slaves, it is no business of mine to discuss. I however feel a.s.sured, that no const.i.tutional statesman, having to contend against the political votes of numerous and powerful slave-owners, who believe their fortunes to be at stake, will ever be found to undertake the task _at all_, against the enormous resistance of avarice and habit, unless religious teachers pierce the conscience of the nation by denouncing slavery as an essential wickedness. Even the petty West Indian interests--a mere fraction of the English empire--were too powerful, until this doctrine was taught. Mr. Canning in parliament spoke emphatically against slavery, but did not dare to bring in a bill against it. When such is English experience, I cannot but expect the same will prove true in America.
In replying to objectors, I have been carried beyond my narrative, and have written from my _present_ point of view; I may therefore here complete this part of the argument, though by antic.i.p.ation.
The New Testament has beautifully laid down Truth and Love as the culminating virtues of man; but it has imperfectly discerned that Love is impossible where Justice does not go first. Regarding this world as destined to be soon burnt up, it despaired of improving the foundations of society, and laid down the principle of Non-resistance, even to Injurious force, in terms so unlimited, as practically to throw its entire weight into the scale of tyranny. It recognises individuals who call themselves kings or magistrates (however tyrannical and usurping), as Powers ordained of G.o.d: it does _not_ recognize nations as Communities ordained of G.o.d, or as having any power and authority whatsoever, as against pretentious individuals. To obey a king, is strenuously enforced; to resist a usurping king, in a patriotic cause, is not contemplated in the New Testament as under any circ.u.mstances an imaginable duty. Patriotism has no recognised existence in the Christian records. I am well aware of the _cause_ of this; I do not say that it reflects any dishonour on the Christian apostles: I merely remark on it as a calamitous fact, and deduce that their precepts cannot and must not be made the sufficient rule of life, or they will still be (as they always have hitherto been) a mainstay of tyranny. The rights of Men and of Nations are wholly ignored[17] in the New Testament, but the authority of Slave-owners and of Kings is very distinctly recorded for solemn religious sanction. If it had been wholly silent, no one could have appealed to its decision: but by consecrating mere Force, it has promoted Injustice, and in so far has made that Love impossible, which it desired to establish.
It is but one part of this great subject, that the apostles absolutely command a slave to give obedience to his master in nil things, "as to the Lord." It is in vain to deny, that _the most grasping of slave-owners asks nothing more of abolitionists than that they would all adopt Paul"s creed_; viz., acknowledge the full authority of owners of slaves, tell them that they are responsible to G.o.d alone, and charge them to use their power righteously and mercifully.
3. LASTLY: it is a lamentable fact, that not only do superst.i.tions about Witches, Ghosts, Devils, and Diabolical Miracles derive a strong support from the Bible, (and in fact have been exploded by nothing but the advance of physical philosophy,)--but what is far worse, the Bible alone has nowhere sufficed to establish an enlightened religious toleration. This is at first seemingly unintelligible: for the apostles certainly would have been intensely shocked at the thought of punishing men, in body, purse, or station, for not being Christians or not being orthodox. Nevertheless, not only does the Old Testament justify b.l.o.o.d.y persecution, but the New teaches[18] that G.o.d will visit men with fiery vengeance _for holding an erroneous creed_;--that vengeance indeed is his, not ours; but that still the punishment is deserved. It would appear, that wherever this doctrine is held, possession of power for two or three generations inevitably converts men into persecutors; and in so far, we must lay the horrible desolations which Europe has suffered from bigotry, at the doors, not indeed of the Christian apostles themselves, but of that Bibliolatry which has converted their earliest records into a perfect and eternal law.
IV. "Prophecy" is generally regarded as a leading evidence of the divine origin of Christianity. But this also had proved itself to me a more and more mouldering prop, whether I leant on those which concerned Messiah, those of the New Testament, or the miscellaneous predictions of the Old Testament.
1. As to the Messianic prophecies, I began to be pressed with the difficulty of proving against the Jews that "Messiah was to suffer."
The Psalms generally adduced for this purpose can in no way be fixed on Messiah. The prophecy in the 9th chapter of Daniel looks specious in the authorized English version, but has evaporated in the Greek translation and is not acknowledged in the best German renderings.
I still rested on the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, as alone fortifying me against the Rabbis: yet with an unpleasantly increasing perception that the system of "double interpretation" in which Christians indulge, is a playing fast and loose with prophecy, and is essentially dishonest _No one dreams of a "second" sense until the primary sense proves false_: all false prophecy may be thus screened. The three prophecies quoted (Acts xiii. 33--35) in proof of the resurrection of Jesus, are simply puerile, and deserve no reply.--I felt there was something unsound in all this.