[41] To Hippolytus and the writers of his period, Dorner ascribes the latter, preponderantly over the former, side of this alternative; while Hanell charges their view with Sabellianism. See Dorner"s "Entwickelungsgeschichte der Lehre von der Person Christi," I. p. 611, _seq._
[42] "Tert. adv. Prax.," c. 3.
[43] Euseb. H. E., V. 28.
[44] See Adolph Schliemann"s "Clementinen, nebst den verwandten Schriften und der Ebionitismus," Cap. III. ii. ---- 8, 9.
[45] M. Bunsen must have some authority which has escaped our memory for attributing to "the whole school of Tubingen" the opinion "that the fourth Gospel was written about the year 165 or 170." (I. v.) We cannot call to mind any criticism which a.s.signs so late a date. Schwegler uses various expressions to mark the time to which he refers; e. g. "about the middle of the second century" (Nachapost. Zeitalter, II. 354, and Montanismus, p. 214); "intermediate between the Apologists and Irenaeus"
(II. 369); "previous to the last third of the second century" (II. 348); "in the second quarter of the second century" (II. 345). Zeller also fixes on the year 150 as the time when the Gospel may probably have first appeared. (Zeller"s Jahrb., 1845, p. 646.)
[46] The earliest testimony is that of Apollinaris, of Hierapolis in Phrygia, preserved in the "Paschal Chronicle," probably about A. D.
170-175.
[47] We will give, from this very section on Basilides, and its subsequent recapitulation, three examples of the irregular mode of citation to which we refer: (_a_) of the singular verb with plural subject expressed; (_b_) of plural verb with singular subject expressed; (_c_) of the mixture of singular and plural subjects in the same sentence, so that the affirmation belongs indeterminately to either.
(_a_) ?d?e? ??? p?? ?atafa??? ?as??e?d?? ??? ?a? ?s?d???? ?a? pa? ?
t??t?? ?????, ??? ?p??? ?ata?e?deta? ???? ?at?a???, a??a ?a? ?a? t??
S?t???? a?t??. ??, f?s??, ?te ?? ??de?, ?. t. ?.--p. 230.
(_b_) ?as??e?d?? de ?a? a?t?? ?e?e? e??a? ?e?? ??? ??ta, pep???e???
??s?? e? ??? ??t??, ... ? ?? ??? ta?? e??? e? ?a?t? t?? t?? ???at??
p??????? p?????, ?a? t??t? e??a? fas? t? t?? ??s?? spe?a, ?. t.
?.--p. 320.
(_c_) ?a? ded???e ta? ?ata p?????? t?? ?e????t?? ??s?a? ? ?as??e?d??
... a??a e?pe, f?s?, ?a? e?e?et?, ?a? t??t? est?? ? ?e???s?? ?? a?d?e?
??t??, t? ?e??e? ?p? ??se??, "Ge????t? f??, ?a? e?e?et? f??." ???e?, f?s?, ?e???e t? f??; ... Ge???e, f?s??, e? ??? ??t?? t? spe?a t??
??s??, ? ????? ? ?e??e?? ?e????t? f??, ?a? t??t?, f?s??, est? t?
?e??e??? e? t??? ??a??e?????. "?? t? f?? t? a???????, ? f?t??e? pa?ta a????p?? e???e??? e?? t?? ??s??."--p. 232. Now can any one decide whether this comment on the "Let there be light, and there was light,"
with its applications to John i. 9, proceeds from "Basilides" or from "these men"?
[48] Page 528.
[49] Euseb. H. E., V. 28.
[50] "Philosophumena," p. 258.
[51] Iren. Lib. II. c. 39.
[52] I. p. 341.
[53] The words of the author of the "Philosophumena" are these: ???t??
e???e? e? pa??e??? s?a a?e???f?ta ?a? t?? pa?a??? a????p?? d?a ?a???? p?ase?? pef?????ta, e? ?? d?a pas?? ?????a? e??????ta, ??a pas? ?????a a?t?? ???? ?e???? ?a? s??p?? t?? ?d??? a????p?? pas??
a????p??? ep?de??? pa???, ?a? d? a?t?? e?e??? ?t? ?de? ep???se? ?
?e?? p??????.--p. 337.
THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
1. _The Creed of Christendom; its Foundations and Superstructure._ By WILLIAM RATHBONE GREG. London: Chapman. 1851.
2. _St. Paul"s Epistles to the Corinthians; an Attempt to convey their Spirit and Significance._ By JOHN HAMILTON THOM. London: Chapman. 1851.
These two books are placed together without the least intention to intimate a resemblance between them, or to represent either author as sharing in the conclusions of the other. They are, indeed, concerned with opposite sides of the same subject; viewed, moreover, from the separate stations of the layman and the divine; and are the expression of strongly contrasted modes of thought. Mr. Greg deals princ.i.p.ally with the external vehicle of the primitive Christianity; Mr. Thom with its internal essence. The one seeks in vain for any outward t.i.tle in the records to suppress the operations of natural reason; the other clears away from the interior every interference with the free action of conscience and affection. The one, in the name of science, demolishes the outworks of ecclesiastical logic with which the shrine of faith has been dangerously guarded: the other, in the name of Christ, expels both priest and dogma from the sanctuary itself. The one, selecting deep truths from the words of Jesus, would construct religion into a philosophy; the other, with eye upon His person as an image of perfect goodness, would develop it from a sentiment. As all opposites, however, are embraced in the circ.u.mference of the same circle, so are these works complements of each other. Mr. Greg, in common with the Catholics and the Unitarians, evidently looks for the strength of Christianity in the Gospels; Mr. Thom, with the majority of Protestants, in the Epistles. For want of some mediating harmony between the two, each perhaps requires some correction: the historical picture of Christ saved by the former is but a pale and meagre outline; while the Pauline ideal presented by the latter is a glow of rich but undefined coloring. Mr. Greg, who, in spite of particular errors, manifests a large knowledge and a masterly judgment in his criticism of the Evangelists, appears to have, in his own sympathies, no way of access to a mind like that of Paul, and to be much at fault in estimating the place of the Apostle both as a witness and a power in the organization of Christian tradition and doctrine. Had the acuteness and severity of his understanding been a little more qualified by such reflective depth and moral tenderness as Mr. Thom brings to the work of interpretation, his religion, we fancy, would have retained a less slender remnant of the primitive Christianity.
Measured by the standard of common Protestantism, there can be no doubt that the second of these books would be condemned for heresy, and the first for unbelief. These ugly words, however, have been too often applied to what is fullest of truth and faith, to express more than a departure, which weak men feel to be irritating, from a favorite type of thought. They have lost their effect on all who are competent to meditate on the great problems of religion, and are fast taking their place in the scandalous vocabulary of professional polemics. It is a thing offensive to _just_ men when divines, who have succeeded in smothering, or been too dull to entertain, doubts which rend the soul of genius and faithfulness, and insist on a veracious answer, meet them, not with sympathy, still less with mastery, but with the commonplaces of incompetent pity and holy malediction. And the offence is doubled in the eyes of _instructed_ men, who know the state to which Biblical criticism has brought the theology of the Reformation. It is notorious that, in the revolt from Rome, the Scriptures--like a dictator suddenly created for the perils of a crisis--were forced into a position where it was impossible for them permanently to repose; that they cannot be treated as infallible oracles of either fact or doctrine, and were never meant to bear the weight of such unnatural claims; that the authority once concentrated in them, and held even _against_ the reason and conscience, must now be distributed, and ask their concurrence. These are not questionable positions, but so irresistibly established, that learning of the highest order would no more listen to an argument against them, than Herschel or Airy to a disquisition against the rotation of the earth.
When a clergyman, therefore, treats them with horror, and denounces them as infidelity, he produces no conviction, except that he himself is either ill-informed or insincere. Professional reproaches against a book so manly and modest, so evidently truth-loving, so high-minded and devout, as this of Mr. Greg"s, are but a melancholy imbecility. We may hold to many things which he resigns; we may think him wrong in the date of a Gospel or the construction of a miracle; we may even dissent from his estimate of the grounds of immortal hope and the ways of eternal Providence: but we do not envy, and cannot understand, the religion which can feel no thankful communion with thought so elevated, and trust so sound and real. No candid reader of the "Creed of Christendom" can close the book without the secret acknowledgment that it is a model of honest investigation and clear exposition; that it is conceived in the true spirit of serious and faithful research; and that whatever the author wants of being an ecclesiastical Christian is plainly not essential to the n.o.ble guidance of life, and the devout earnestness of the affections.
It is highly honorable to an English layman, amid the pressure of affairs, to take up a cla.s.s of critical inquiries, which the clergy seem to have abandoned for a narrower and more pa.s.sionate polemic. It is a remarkable characteristic of the present age, that, when the most startling attacks are made upon the very foundations of existing churches, n.o.body repels them. Nothing is offered to break their effect, except the inertia of the ma.s.s that rests upon the base a.s.sailed. For every great sceptical work of the last century there was some score of reputable answers; but half a dozen books of the same tendency have appeared within a few years, all of which have been copiously reviewed, have spread excitement over a wide surface, and set an immense amount of theological hair on end, but not one of which has received any adequate reply. Yet the slightest of these productions would favorably compare, in all the requisites for successful persuasion,--in learning, in temper, in acuteness,--with the best of the last age, excepting only the philosophical disquisitions of Hume and the ecclesiastical chapters of Gibbon. The first in time,--Hennell"s "Inquiry into the Origin of Christianity,"--though the most open to refutation, was permitted to pa.s.s through an unmolested existence; and its influence, considerable in itself, and increased by the sweet and truthful character of the author, is still traceable in the pages of Mr. Greg. To the effect of Strauss"s extraordinary work, the good Neander"s _Leben Jesu_ offers but a mild resistance, and is itself, through the extent of its concessions, an open proclamation that the problems of theology can never be restored to the state in which all churches a.s.sume them to be. Parker was excommunicated by his sect; but his "Discourse of Matters pertaining to Religion" has walked the course unchallenged, and displayed the splendor of its gifts, within the entire lines of the English language. Newman, Foxton, and Greg have since entered their names on the _index expurgatorius_ of Orthodoxy; but they also will be simply excluded from the sacred circle of readers bound over not to think; and, beyond this, will make their converts undisturbed, and acc.u.mulate fresh charges of threatening power in the intellectual atmosphere which surrounds the Church. Whence this pusillanimous apathy? Is it forgotten that creeds always a.s.sailed and never defended are sure to perish? Or is it felt that the defence, to be sound and strong, must be so partial--so limited to points of detail--as to promise a mere diversion, instead of a repulse, and be more dangerous than the att.i.tude of pa.s.siveness? Or does the Church resignedly give up her hold on the cla.s.s of earnest, intellectual men who cannot degrade religion into a second-hand tradition, but must "know what they worship"? Certain it is that her whole activity has long abandoned this cla.s.s, and addressed itself exclusively to the narrower and lower order of mind, whose vision is bounded by the periphery of a given creed, and whose life is satisfied with the squabbles and the gossip of articles forced into neighborhood, but no longer on speaking terms. If the efficacy of "holy orders" is called in question, streams of sacerdotal refutation flow from the press; but if the inspiration of the twelve Apostles is denied, it is a thing that neither bishop nor priest will care to vindicate. If a word of mistake is uttered about the drops of water on the face of a baptized baby, it conjures up a storm that rolls from diocese to diocese; but if you say that pure religion has no rite or sacrament at all, the ecclesiastic atmosphere remains still as a Quaker"s silent meeting. The deepest interest is felt about the origin of liturgies, and the history of articles, but n.o.body heeds the most staggering evidence that three of the Gospels are second-hand aggregations of hearsay reports, and the fourth of questionable authenticity. You deny the self-consistency of the Church of England and call it a compromise; and the sudden rustle of gowns and sleeves proclaims a great sensation. You a.n.a.lyze the accounts of Christ"s resurrection; you ask whether they are not discrepant; you point out that, apparently, the oldest record (Mark"s) contained, in its original form, no account of the event at all, and that the others bear seeming traces of distinct and incompatible traditions. You cry aloud for help in this perplexity, and hold yourselves ready to follow any vestiges of truth; and, except that the creeds are still muttered every Sunday, all the oracles are dumb. If you want to find the true magic pa.s.s into heaven, scores of rival professors press round you with obtrusive supply: if you ask in your sorrow, Who can tell me whether there be a heaven at all? every soul will keep aloof and leave you alone. All men that bring from G.o.d a fresh, deep nature, all in whom religious wants live with eager power, and who yet are too clear of soul to unthink a thought and falsify a truth, receive in these days no help and no response. The Church feels its interest, as an _educated_ corporation, to consist in overlaying and covering up the foundations of faith with huge piles of curious learning, history, and art, which, by affording endless occupation, may detain men from search after the living rock, or notice of the undermining flood. And, as an _established_ corporation, she relies on the lazy conservatism of mental possession; on the dislike felt by the comfortable cla.s.ses towards the trouble of thought and the disturbance of feeling, and their usual willingness to hand over these operations to the prayer-book and the priest. We are grateful to Mr. Greg for shaking this ign.o.ble and precarious reliance, which he notices in these admirable sentences.
"A more genuine and important objection to the consequences of our views is felt by indolent minds on their own account. They shrink from the toil of working out truth for themselves out of the materials which Providence has placed before them. They long for the precious metal, but loathe the rude ore out of which it has to be extricated by the laborious alchemy of thought. A ready-made creed is the paradise of their lazy dreams. A string of authoritative, dogmatic propositions comprises the whole mental wealth which they desire. The volume of nature--the volume of history--the volume of life--appall and terrify them. Such men are the materials out of whom good catholics of all sects are made. They form the uninquiring and submissive flocks which rejoice the hearts of all priesthoods. Let such cling to the faith of their forefathers, if they can. But men whose minds are cast in a n.o.bler mould, and are instinct with a diviner life,--who love truth more than rest, and the peace of Heaven rather than the peace of Eden,--to whom "a loftier being brings severer cares,"--
"Who know man does not live by joy alone, But by the presence of the power of G.o.d,"--
such must cast behind them the hope of any repose or tranquillity, save that which is the last reward of long agonies of thought; they must relinquish all prospect of any heaven, save that of which tribulation is the avenue and portal; they must gird up their loins and trim their lamp for a work which cannot be put by, and which must not be negligently done. "He," says Zschokke, "who does not like living in the _furnished lodgings of tradition_, must build his own house, his own system of thought and faith for himself.""--p. 242.
The work of Mr. Greg derives its interest, not from anything in it that will be new to the studious theologian, but from the freshness and force with which it presents the results of the author"s reading and reflection on both the claims and the contents of Scripture.
Adopting the ordinary notion of "inspiration," as equivalent to a supernaturally provided "infallibility," he reviews and condemns the reasonings by which this attribute has been a.s.sociated with the Bible; and decides that the mere discovery of a statement in the Scriptures is no sufficient reason for our implicit reception of it. Having cleared away this obstacle to all intelligent criticism, he pursues his way, chiefly under the guidance of De Wette, through the earlier literature of the Hebrews; and adds another to the many exposures of the humiliating attempts, on the part of English divines, to reconcile the cosmogony of Genesis with modern science; attempts which we should call obsolete, did we not remember that Buckland and Whewell are both living, and have not yet attained the episcopal bench. Mr. Greg adopts the views of which Baur is the best known recent expositor, but which Lessing long ago traced out, as to the gradual formation of the Hebrew monotheism; and shows the striking contrast between the family Jehovah of the Patriarchs and the universal G.o.d of the later Prophets.
Whatever be the origin of the doctrine of a Messiah, and under whatever varieties it appeared, it never pointed, the author conceives, to such a person as Jesus of Nazareth, or such a product as the Christian Church; and it is only by perverse interpretations, unendurable out of the field of theology, that any pa.s.sages in the Old Testament can be made out to prefigure the events in the New. In the argument, therefore, between the early missionaries of the Gospel and the unconvinced Jews, Mr. Greg maintains that the latter were the more faithful to their sacred books. The phenomena of the first three Gospels are next examined sufficiently to explain the several hypotheses respecting the order and materials of their composition.
The author rests on Schleiermacher"s conclusion, that a number of fragmentary records of incident and discourse formed the groundwork, partly common, partly exclusive, of the triple Evangile. He thus removes us, in this portion of the Scriptures, from first-hand testimony altogether; and throws upon internal criticism the task of discriminating between the original and reliable elements on the one hand, and those on the other which did not escape the accidents of floating tradition and the coloring of later ideas. This delicate task the author attempts; and manifests throughout an acquaintance with the methods and models of the higher criticism, fully qualifying him to form the independent judgment which he sums up in these words:--
"In conclusion, then, it appears certain that in all the synoptical Gospels we have events related that did not really occur, and words ascribed to Jesus which Jesus did not utter; and that many of these words and events are of great significance. In the great majority of these instances, however, this incorrectness does not imply any want of honesty on the part of the Evangelists, but merely indicates that they adopted and embodied, without much scrutiny or critical ac.u.men, whatever probable and honorable narratives they found current in the Christian community."--p. 137.
The peculiarities of the fourth Gospel are next dealt with: its apparent polemic reference to the gnosis of the first and second centuries; its absence of demoniacs and parables; the length, the mysticism, the dogma of its discourses, and their uniformity of complexion with the historian"s own narrative and reflections; the narrowness of its charity, and the apocryphal appearance of its "first miracle." Without questioning the probability that within the contents of this Gospel is secreted a nucleus of facts, Mr. Greg thinks the book so clearly imbued throughout with the writer"s idiosyncrasy, as to be inferior in historical value to the Synoptics; and the discourses of Jesus, in particular, must be regarded as free compositions by the Evangelist. In our author"s management of this subject there seems to us to be an unfavorable change. The style of thought peculiar to John, as well as that characteristic of Paul, lies out of the lat.i.tude native to him; and with every intention to be just in his appreciation, he fails, we think, to reach the point of sympathy from which the fourth Gospel should be judged. The realism of his mind makes him a better critic of the hard Judaical element of the Christian Scriptures, with its objective distinctness and its moral beauty, than of the more ideal Gentile ingredients, where a subjective dialectic traces forms of thought in the intense fires of spiritual consciousness.
In a separate discussion of the question of miracles they are restored to the subordinate position, as compared with moral evidence, a.s.signed to them by the early Protestant divines. Adopting the position of Locke, that "the miracles are to be judged by the doctrines, and not the doctrines by the miracles," he can admit with the less pain his conviction, that, even in the instance of the resurrection of Jesus, the historical evidence is too conflicting and uncertain to bear the supernatural weight imposed upon it. He admits, indeed, that Jesus _may_ have risen from the dead; the Apostles manifestly believed it; and that the marked change in their character and conduct, from despair to triumph, affords the strongest evidence of the sustaining energy of this belief. But, in our ignorance of the grounds of this belief, (the Gospels and book of Acts containing no correct or first-hand report of the facts,) it is impossible, he conceives, to form any rational estimate of their adequacy. In Mr. Greg"s decision on this important point, we see the effect of his entrance on the problem of Christianity from the historical end. If, instead of addressing himself first to the Gospels which lie most remote from the source of the religion, and represent the latest and most const.i.tuted form of the primitive tradition, he had begun with the earliest remains of Christian literature, and traced the doctrine of the resurrection from the Epistles of Paul into the story of the Evangelists, we think he would have arrived at a different conclusion.
In dismissing the testimony of Paul as "of little weight," he throws away the main evidence of the whole case. We can understand the critic who, having put the miraculous entirely aside, as logically inadmissible, makes light of the Pauline statements on this matter, and appeals to their writer"s openness to impressions of the supernatural in proof of a certain vitiating unsoundness of mind. But one who, like our author, regards this _a priori_ incredulity as an unphilosophical prejudice, and upon whose list of real causes, never precluded from possible action, supernatural power finds a place, cannot consistently condemn another for believing in concrete instances what he himself allows in the general; and put the Apostle out of court, on the plea that we have no evidence but _his a.s.sertion_ of his intercourse with the risen Christ. Is not _his a.s.sertion_ the only evidence possible of a subjective miracle? and is there any ground for restricting supernatural agency to an objective direction?
No doubt, facts presented to external perception have the advantage of being open to more witnesses than one; and if it be deliberately laid down as a canon, that in no case can any anomalous event be admitted on one man"s declaration, we allow the consistency of refusing a hearing to the Apostle. But such a rule would only be an example of the futility of all attempts to reduce moral evidence to mathematical expression. Facts of the most extraordinary nature have always been, and will always be, received on solitary attestation; and if so, it makes no logical difference whether they be called "objective," or "subjective." A man has faculties for apprehending what pa.s.ses within him, as well as what pa.s.ses without; nor do we know any ground for trusting the latter which does not hold equally good for the former.
If it be said that the reporter of a miracle not only announces what he sees or feels,--which we may accept on his veracity,--but proclaims its supernatural source,--which we may repudiate from distrust of his judgment,--the remark is perfectly just, only that it applies alike to _all_ testimony, and not exclusively to miraculous reports. Our disposition to receive the evidence of a witness a.s.sumed to be veracious, depends on our having the same preconceptions of causation with himself. In the ordinary affairs of life, this common ground is sure to exist, and therefore remains a mere latent condition of belief. But the slowness to admit a miracle arises from the failure of this common ground; and if the hearer reserved in the background of his mind, and in equal readiness for action, the same supernatural power to which the witness"s a.s.sertion refers, he would feel no more temptation to incredulity than in listening to some matter of course.
The reluctance to believe, is proof that his store of causation is limited to the natural sphere; and every phenomenon irreducible to this drops away from all hold upon his mind. As there is no such thing as a fact perceived without a judgment formed, so is there no belief in the attestation of a fact without reliance on the soundness of a judgment; and that reliance depends on the hearer having the same list of causes in his mind as the witness. If, then, Mr. Greg holds, with Paul, that the power exists whence a subjective miracle might issue, and if from the nature of the case such miracle must remain a matter of personal consciousness, why reject the Apostle"s report of his experience? In choosing from among the causes which both parties admit, it cannot be denied that Paul alights upon that which, _if there_, gives the easiest and most certain explanation; and to find a satisfactory origin for his impressions and conduct in natural agencies is so difficult, that critics would never attempt it, but to escape the acknowledgment of miracle. On his own principles we do not see how our author could excuse himself to the Apostle for rejecting his testimony; which does but communicate, in the only conceivable way, that which is allowed to be possible enough, and which best clears up the mystery of an astonishing revolution in personal character, and in the convictions of an earnest and powerful mind.
The whole question of miracles, however, loses its anxious importance with those who, like our author, would still, amid their constant occurrence, look to other sources for the credentials of moral and religious truth. If anything is positively and incontrovertibly known respecting the Apostles,--and in proportion as we trust the synoptical Gospels must we allow Mr. Greg to extend the remark to their Master,--it is this: that whatever powers they exercised, and whatever communications they received, were inadequate to preserve them from serious error; and from delivering to the world, as a substantive part of their message, a most solemn expectation which was not to be fulfilled. This fact, no longer denied by any reputable theologian, alone shows that, even in the presence of the highest Christian authority, the natural criteria of reason and conscience cannot be dispensed with. In the application of these to the teachings and life of Christ, our author finds, if not any truths of supernatural dictation, at least the highest object of veneration and affection yet given to this world.
"Now on this subject," he says, "we hope our confession of faith will be acceptable to all save the narrowly orthodox. It is difficult, without exhausting superlatives, even to unexpressive and wearisome satiety, to do justice to our intense love, reverence, and admiration for the character and teachings of Jesus. We regard him, not as the perfection of the intellectual or philosophic mind, but as the perfection of the spiritual character,--as surpa.s.sing all men of all times in the closeness and depth of his communion with the Father. In reading his sayings, we feel that we are holding converse with the wisest, purest, n.o.blest Being that ever clothed thought in the poor language of humanity. In studying his life, we feel that we are following the footsteps of the highest ideal yet presented to us upon earth. "Blessed be G.o.d that so much manliness has been lived out, and stands there yet, a lasting monument to mark how high the tides of divine life have risen in the world of man!""--p. 227.
We differ altogether from our author in his notion of inspiration, and his reduction of Christianity within the limits of human resource. But we must say, that while there is such an estimate as this of what Jesus Christ _was_, it is a matter of subordinate moment what is thought about the mode in which he _became so_.
By a process of "Christian Eclecticism," Mr. Greg draws forth from the Gospels the elements which he regards as characteristic of the religion of Jesus; distinguishing those which make it the purest of faiths from others which appear to him irreconcilable with a just philosophy. The doctrine of a future life is reserved for a separate discussion; the general result of which we know not how to describe, otherwise than by saying that the author discards all the evidence and yet retains the conclusion. All the arguments, metaphysical and moral, for human immortality, he condemns as absolutely worthless; he confesses that he has no new ones to propose; he affirms that all appearances, without exception, proclaim the permanence of death, the absence of any spiritual essence in man, and the absolute sway of the laws of organization; yet, on the report of that very "soul" within him, whose existence nature disowns, he holds the doctrine of a future existence by the irresistible tenure of a first truth. We do not wonder that the rigor with which Mr. Greg has pushed his principles through other subjects of thought should relent at this point, and refuse to cast the sublimest of human hopes over the brink of darkness. We respect, as a holy abstinence, his refusal to silence the pleadings of the inner voice. But we admire his faith more than his philosophy; and are astonished that he does not suspect the soundness of a scientific method which lands him in results he cannot hold. No scepticism is so fatal,--for none has so wide a sweep,--as that which despairs of the self-reconciliation of human nature; which flings among our faculties the reproach of irretrievable contradiction; which sets up first truths against deductions, conscience against science, faith against logic. Ever since Kant balanced his Antinomies, and employed the gravitation of _Practical_ reason to turn the irresolute scales of the _Speculative_, this unwholesome practice has been spreading, of a.s.suming an ultimate discordance between co-existing powers of the mind. In the language of rhetoric or poetry, in the discussion of popular notions on morals and religion, it would be hypercritical to complain of the ant.i.theses of understanding and feeling,--sense and soul. But to an exact thinker it must be apparent that an ambidextrous intellect is no intellect at all; and that, were this all our endowment, the life of the wisest would be but a chase after mocking shadows of thought. The following words of our author, with all their tranquil appearance, describe a state of things which, were it real, might well strike us with dismay:--
"There are three points especially of religious belief, regarding which intuition (or instinct) and logic are at variance,--the efficacy of prayer, man"s free-will, and a future existence. If believed, they must be believed, the last without the countenance, the two former in spite of the hostility of logic."--p. 303.
This is absolute Pyrrhonism, and though said in the interest of religion, is subversive alike of knowledge and of faith. The pretended "logic" can be good for very little, which comes out with so suicidal an achievement as the _disproof of first truths_. The condition under which alone logic can exist as a science is the unity in the human mind of the laws of belief,--a condition which would be violated if any first truth contradicted another in itself, or in its deductions. The moment, therefore, such a contradiction turns up, a consistent thinker will either regard it as a mere semblance, and proceed to re-examine his premises, and test his reasoning; or he will treat it as real; and then it throws contempt on logic altogether, and relegates it into impossibility. In neither case can his reliance incline to the logical side. Mr. Greg, however, sticks to his logic whenever, as in the two cases mentioned in the foregoing extract, it loudly _negatives_ a point of religious belief; and abandons it only where it restricts itself to cold and dumb discouragement. A bolder distrust of _his_ logic, and a firmer faith in the logic of nature, would perhaps have harmonized the differing voices of the intellect and the soul, blending them in a faith neither afraid to think nor ashamed to pray.
Had our author been as familiar with the Catholic and Arminian divines, as with the literature of inductive science and Calvinistic theology, he would have known that there is a philosophy from which the religious intuitions encounter no repugnance; and would, at least, have noticed its offer of mediation between Faith and Reason. He is, however, entirely shut up within the formulas of a different school, which press with their resistance on his religious feeling in every direction, and produce a conflict which he can neither appease nor terminate. With an intellect entirely overridden by the ideas of Law and Necessity, no man can escape the force of the common objections to any doctrine of prayer, or of forgiveness of sin; and if those ideas possess universal validity, the very discussion of such doctrines is, in the last degree, idle and absurd. But what if some mediaeval schoolman, or some impugner of the Baconian orthodoxy, were to suggest that, though Law is coextensive with outward nature, Nature is not coextensive with G.o.d, and that beyond the range where his agency is bound by the pledge of predetermined rules lies an infinite margin, where his spirit is free? And what if, in aggravation of his heresy, he were to contend that Man also, as counterpart of G.o.d, belongs not wholly to the realm of nature, but transcends it by a certain endowment of free power in his spirit? Having made these a.s.sumptions, on the ground that they were more agreeable to "intuitive" feeling, and not less so to external evidence, than the one-sidedness of their opposites, might he not suggest that room is now found for a doctrine of prayer? Not that any event bespoken and planted in the sphere of nature can be turned aside by the urgency of desire and devotion; not that the slightest swerving is to be expected from the usages of creation, or of the mind; wherever law is established--without us or within us--there let it be absolute as the everlasting faithfulness.
But G.o.d has not spent himself wholly in the courses of custom, and mortgaged his infinite resources to nature; nor has he closed up with rules every avenue through which his fresh energy might find entrance into life; but has left in the human soul a theatre whose scenery is not all pre-arranged, and whose drama is ever open to new developments. Between the free centre of the soul in man, and the free margin of the activity of G.o.d, what hinders the existence of a real and living communion, the interchange of look and answer, of thought and counterthought? If, in response to human aspiration, a higher mood is infused into the mind; if, in consolation of penitence or sorrow, a gleam of gentle hope steals in; and if these should be themselves the vivifying touch of divine sympathy and pity, what law is prejudiced?
what faith is broken? what province of nature has any t.i.tle to complain? And so, too, (might our mediaeval friend continue,) with respect to the doctrine of forgiveness. If men are under moral obligation, and G.o.d is a being of moral perfection, he must regard their unfaithfulness with disapproval. Of his sentiments, the clear trace will be found in the various sufferings which const.i.tute the natural punishment of wrong. These are incorporated in the very structure of the world and the const.i.tution of life; and to persistence in their infliction, the Supreme Ruler is committed by the a.s.surance of his constancy. They fasten on the guilty a chain which no pardon will strike off, but which he will drag till it is worn away.