The Divine sentiments towards right and wrong every man naturally
believes to be a reflection of whatever is most pure and solemn in his
own. We cannot be sincerely persuaded, that God looks with aversion on
dispositions which we revere as good and noble; or that he regards with
lax indifference the selfish and criminal passions which awaken our own
disgust. We may well suppose, indeed, his scrutiny more searching, his
estimate more severely true, his rebuking look more awful, than our
self-examination and remorse can fitly represent; but we cannot doubt
that our moral emotions, as far as they go, are in sympathy with his;
that we know, by our own consciousness, the general direction of his
approval and displeasure; and that, in proportion as our perceptions of
duty are rendered clear, our judgment more nearly approaches the
precision of the Omniscient award. Our own conscience is the window of
heaven through which we gaze on God; and, as its colors perpetually
change, his aspect changes too;--if they are bright and fair, he dwells
as in the warm light of a rejoicing love; if they are dark and turbid,
he hides himself in robes of cloud and storm. When you have lost your
self-respect, you have never thought yourself an object of Divine
complacency. In moments fresh from sin, flushed with the shame of an
insulted mind, when you have broken another resolve, or turned your back
upon a noble toil, or succumbed to a mean passion, or lapsed into the
sickness of self-indulgence, could you ever turn a clear and open face
to God, nor think it terrible to meet his eye? Could you imagine
yourself in congeniality with him, when you gave yourself up to the
voluble sophistry of self-excuse, and the loose hurry of forgetfulness?
Or did you not discern him rather in your own accusing heart, and meet
him in the silent anguish of full confession, and find in the
recognition of your alienation the first hope of return? To all
unperverted minds, the verdict of conscience sounds with a
preternatural voice; it is not the homely talk of their own poor
judgment, but an oracle of the sanctuary. There is something of
anticipation in our remorse, as well as of retrospect; and we feel that
it is not the mere survey of a gloomy past with the slow lamp of our
understanding, but a momentary piercing of the future with the vivid
lightning of the skies. Our moral nature, left to itself, intuitively
believes that guilt is an estrangement from God,--an unqualified
opposition to his will,--a literal service of the enemy; that he abhors
it, and will give it no rest till it is driven from his presence, that
is, into annihilation; that no part of our mind belongs to him but the
pure, and just, and disinterested affections which he fosters, the
faithful will which he strengthens, the virtue, often damped, whose
smoking flax he will not quench, and the good resolves, ever frail,
whose bruised reed he will not break; and that he has no relation but of
displeasure, no contact but of resistance, with our selfishness and sin.
In the simple faith of the conscience it is no figure of speech to say,
that God "is angry with the wicked every day," and is "of purer eyes
than to behold iniquity." So long as the natural religion of the heart
is undisturbed, to sin is, in the plainest and most positive sense, to
set up against Heaven, and frustrate its will.
Soon, however, the understanding disturbs the tranquillity of this
belief, and constructs a rival creed. The primitive conception of God
is acquired, I believe, without reasoning, and emerges from the
affections; it is a transcript of our own emotions,--an investiture of
them with external personality and infinite magnitude. But a secondary
idea of Deity arises in the intellect, from its reasonings about
causation. Curiosity is felt respecting the origin of things; and the
order, beauty, and mechanism of external nature are too conspicuous
not to force upon the observation the conviction of a great Architect
of the universe, from whose designing reason its forces and its laws
mysteriously sprung. Hence the _intellectual_ conception of _God the
Creator_, which comes into inevitable collision with the _moral_
notion of _God the holy watch of virtue_. For if the system of
creation is the production of his Omniscience; if he has constituted
human nature as it is, and placed it in the scene whereon it acts; if
the arrangements by which happiness is allotted, and character is
formed, are the contrivance of his thought and the work of his
hand,--then the sufferings and the guilt of every being were objects
of his original contemplation, and the productions of his own design.
The deed of crime must, in this case, be as much an integral part of
his Providence, as the efforts and sacrifices of virtue; and the
monsters of licentiousness and tyranny, whose images deform the
scenery of history, are no less truly his appointed instruments, than
the martyr and the sage. And though we remain convinced that he does
not make choice of evil in his government for its own sake, but only
for ultimate ends worthy of his perfections, still we can no longer
see how he can truly hate that which he employs for the production of
good. That which is his chosen instrument cannot be sincerely regarded
as his everlasting enemy; and only figuratively can he be said to
repudiate a power which he continually wields. There must be _some
sense_ in which it appears, in the eye of Omniscience, to be eligible;
some point of view at which its horrors vanish; and where the moral
distinctions, which we feel ourselves impelled to venerate, disappear
from the regards of God.
Here, then, is a fearful contradiction between the religion of
conscience and the religion of the understanding; the one pronouncing
evil to be the antagonist, the other to be the agent, of the Divine
will. In every age has this difficulty laid a heavy weight upon the
human heart; in every age has it pointed the sarcasm of the blasphemer,
mingled an occasional sadness with the hopes of benevolence, and tinged
the devotion of the thoughtful with a somewhat melancholy trust. The
whole history of speculative religion is one prolonged effort of the
human mind to destroy this contrariety; system after system has been
born in the struggle to cast the oppression off,--with what result, it
will be my object at present to explain. The question which we have to
consider is this, "How should a Christian think of the origin and
existence of evil?" I propose to advert, first, to the speculative;
secondly, to the scriptural; thirdly, to the moral relations of the
subject; to inquire what relief we can obtain from philosophical
schemes, from biblical doctrine, and from practical Christianity.
* * * * *
Let us then, for final decision, consult the practical spirit of
Christianity, and ascertain to what view of the origin of sin it
awards the preference. Is it well for the consciences and characters
of men, to consider God--either directly or through his dependant,
Satan, either by his general laws or by vitiating the constitution of
our first parents--as the primary source of moral evil? _or_, on the
contrary, to regard it as in no sense whatever willed by the Supreme
Mind, and absolutely inimical to his Providence? Are we most in
harmony with the characteristic spirit of the Gospel when we call sin
his instrument, or when we call it his enemy? For myself, I can never
sit at the feet of Jesus, and yield up a reverential heart to his
great lessons, without casting myself on the persuasion, that God and
evil are everlasting foes; that never, and for no end, did he create
it; that his will is utterly against it, nor ever touches it, but with
annihilating force. Any other view appears to be injurious to the
characteristic sentiments, and at variance with the distinguishing
genius, of Christian morality.
(1.) Christianity is distinguished by the profound sentiment of
_individual responsibility_ which pervades it. All the arbitrary forms,
and sacerdotal interpositions, and hereditary rights, through which
other systems seek the Divine favor, are disowned by it. It is a
religion eminently _personal_; establishing the most intimate and
solitary dealings between God and every human soul. It is a religion
eminently _natural_; eradicating no indigenous affection of our mind,
distorting no primitive moral sentiment; but simply consecrating the
obligations proper to our nature, and taking up with a divine voice the
whispers, scarce articulate before, of the conscience within us. In this
deep harmony with our inmost consciousness of duty resides the true
power of our religion. It subdues and governs our hearts, as a wise
conqueror rules the empire he has won; not by imposing a system of
strange laws, but by arming with higher authority, and administering
with more resolute precision, the laws already recognized and revered.
To trifle in any way with this plain and solemn principle, to invent
forms of speech tending to conceal it, to apply to moral good and ill
language which assimilates them to physical objects and exchangeable
property, implies frivolous and irreverent ideas of sin and
excellence. The whole weight of this charge evidently falls on the
scheme which speaks of human guilt as an hereditary entail; a scheme
which shocks and confounds our primary notion of right and wrong, and,
by rendering them impersonal qualities, reduces them to empty names.
No construction can be given to the system, which does not pass this
insult on the conscience. In what sense do we share the guilt of our
progenitor? His concession to temptation did not occur within our
mind, or belong in any way to our history. And if, without
participation in the _act_ of wrong, we are to have its _penalties_,
crimes in the planet Saturn may be expected to shower curses on the
earth; for why may not justice go astray in space, as reasonably as in
time? If nothing more be meant, than that from our first parents we
inherit a constitution _liable_ to intellectual error and moral
transgression,--still it is evident that, _until_ this liability takes
actual effect, no sin exists, but only its possibility; and _when_ it
takes effect, there is just so much guilt, and no more, than might be
committed by the individual's will: so that where there is _no_
volition, as in infancy, cruelty only could inflict punishment; and
where there is _pure_ volition, as in many a good passage of the
foulest life, equity itself could not withhold approval.
(2.) I submit as a second distinguishing feature of practical
Christianity, that it makes no great, certainly no exclusive, appeal
to the _prudential feelings_, as instruments of duty; treats them as
morally incapable of so sacred a work; and relies, chiefly and
characteristically, on affections of the heart, which no motives of
reward and punishment can have the smallest tendency to excite.
The Gospel, indeed, like all things divine, is unsystematic and
unbound by technical distinctions, and makes no metaphysical
separation between the will and the affections. It is too profoundly
adapted to our nature, not to address itself copiously to both. The
doctrine of retribution, being a solemn truth, appears with all its
native force in the teachings of Christ, and arms many of his appeals
with a persuasion just and terrible. But never was there a religion
(containing these motives at all) so frugal in the use of them; so
able, on fit occasions, to dispense with them; so rich in those
inimitable touches of moral beauty, and tones that penetrate the
conscience, and generous trust in the better sympathies, which
distinguish a morality of the affections. In Christ himself, where is
there a trace of the obedience of pious self-interest, computing its
everlasting gains, and making out a case for compensation, by
submitting to infinite wisdom? In his character, which is the
impersonation of his religion, we surely have a perfect image of
spontaneous goodness, unhaunted by the idea of personal enjoyment,
and, like that of God, unbidden but by the intuitions of conscience
and the impulses of love. And what teacher less divine ever made such
high and bold demands on our disinterestedness? To lend out our virtue
upon interest, to "love them only who love us," he pronounced to be
the sinners' morality; nor was the feeling of duty ever reached, but
by those who could "do good, hoping for _nothing_ again," except that
greatest of rewards to a true and faithful heart, to be "the children
of the Highest," who "is kind unto the unthankful and the evil." In
the view of Jesus, all dealings between God and men were not of
bargain, but of affection. We must surrender ourselves to him without
terms; must be ashamed to doubt him who feeds the birds of the air,
and, like the lily of the field, look up to him with a bright and
loving eye; and he, for our much love, will pity and forgive us. In
his own ministry, how much less did our Lord rely for disciples on the
cogency of mere proof, and the inducements of hope and fear, than on
the power of moral sympathy, by which every one that was of God
naturally loved him and heard his words; by which the good shepherd
knew his sheep, and they listened to his voice, and followed him; and
without which no man could come unto him, for no spirit of the Father
drew him. No condition of discipleship did Christ impose, save that of
"faith in him"; absolute trust in the spirit of his mind; a desire of
self-abandonment to a love and fidelity like his, without tampering
with expediency, or hesitancy in peril, or shrinking from death.
There is, then, a wide variance between the genius of Christianity,
and that philosophy which teaches that all men must be bought over to
the side of goodness and of God, by a price suited to their particular
form of selfishness and appetite for pleasure. Our religion is
remarkable for the large confidence it reposes on the disinterested
affections, and the vast proportion of the work of life it consigns to
them. And in thus seeking to subordinate and tranquillize the
prudential feelings, Christ manifested how well he knew what was in
man. He recognized the truth, which all experience declares, that in
these emotions is nothing great, nothing lovable, nothing powerful;
that their energy is perpetually found incapable of withstanding the
impetuosity of passion; and that all transcendent virtues, all that
brings us to tremble or to kneel, all the enterprises and conflicts
which dignify history, and have stamped any new feature on human life,
have had their origin in the disinterested region of the mind,--in
affections unconsciously entranced by some object sanctifying and
divine. He knew, for it was his special mission to make all men feel,
that it is the office of true religion to cleanse the sanctuary of the
secret affections, and effect a regeneration of the heart. And this is
a task which no direct _nisus_ of the will can possibly accomplish,
and to which, therefore, all offers of reward and punishment,
operating only on the will, are quite inapplicable. The single
function of volition is _to act_; over the executive part of our
nature it is supreme, over the emotional it is powerless; and all the
wrestlings of desire for self-cure and self-elevation, are like the
struggles of a child to lift himself. He who is anxious to be a
philanthropist, is admiring benevolence, instead of loving men; and
whoever is laboring to warm his devotions, yearns after piety, not
after God. The mind can by no spasmodic bound seize on a new height of
emotion, or change the light in which objects appear before its view.
Persuade the judgment, bribe the self-interests, terrify the
expectations, as you will, you can neither dislodge a favorite, nor
enthrone a stranger, in the heart. Show me a child that flings an
affectionate arm around a parent, and lights up his eyes beneath her
face, and I know that there have been no lectures there upon filial
love; but that the mother, being lovable, has _of necessity_ been
loved; for to genial minds it is as impossible to withhold a pure
affection, when its object is presented, as for the flower to sulk
within the mould, and clasp itself tight within the bud, when the
gentle force of spring invites its petals to curl out into the warm
light. As you reverence all good affections of our nature, and desire
to awaken them, never call them duties, though they be so; for so
doing, you address yourself to the will; and by hard trying no
attachment ever entered the heart. Never preach on their great
desirableness and propriety; for so doing, you ask audience of the
judgment; and by way of the understanding no glow of noble passion
ever came. Never, above all, reckon up their balance of good and ill;
for so doing, you exhort self-interest; and by that soiled way no true
love will consent to pass. Nay, never talk of them, nor even gaze
curiously at them; for if they be of any worth and delicacy, they will
be instantly looked out of countenance and fly. Nothing worthy of
human veneration will condescend to be embraced, but for its own sake:
grasp it for its excellent results,--make but the faintest offer to
use it as a tool, and it slips away at the very conception of such
insult. The functions of a healthy body go on, not by knowledge of
physiology, but by the instinctive vigor of nature; and you will no
more brace the spiritual faculties to noble energy and true life by
study of the uses of every feeling, than you can train an athlete for
the race by lectures on every muscle of every limb. The mind is not
voluntarily active in the acquisition of any great idea, any new
inspiration of faith; but passive, fixed on the object which has
dawned upon it, and filled it with fresh light.
If this be true, and if it be the object of practical Christianity,
not only to direct our hands aright, but to inspire our hearts, then
can its ends never be achieved by the mere force of reward and
punishment; then no system can prove its sufficiency by showing that
it retains the doctrine of retribution, and must even be held
convicted of moral incompetency, if it trusts the conscience mainly to
the prudential feelings, without due provision for enlisting the
co-operation of many a disinterested affection.
We cannot refrain from affording those into whose hands this volume
will go, the pleasure and the lofty encouragement which they must
derive from the perusal of an extract on