Grunt and groan,
Cursing all systems but their own.
Agreeing in little else save disagreement, the 'main point' of this
class of believers is a matter of little consequence to that class of
believers, and no matter at all to a third class of believers. Look at
the thousand-and-one sects into which the Christian world is divided.
'Some reject Scripture; others admit no other writings but Scripture.
Some say the Devils shall be saved, others that they shall be damned;
others that there are no Devils at all. Some hold that it is lawful to
dissemble in religion, others the contrary. Some say that Antichrist is
come, some say not; others that he is a particular man, others that he
is not a man, but the Devil; and others that by Antichrist is meant a
succession of men. Some will have him to be Nero, some Caligula, some
Mohammed, some the Pope, some Luther, some the Turk, some of the Tribe
of Dan; and so each man according to his fancy will make an Antichrist.
Some only will observe the Lord's day, some only the Sabbath; some both,
and some neither. Some will have all things in common, some not. Some
will have Christ's body only in Heaven, some everywhere; some in the
bread, others with the bread, others about the bread, others under the
bread, and others that Christ's body is the bread, or the bread his
body. And others that his body is transformed into his divinity. Some
will have the Eucharist administered in both kinds, some in one, some
not at all. Some will have Christ descend to hell in respect of his
soul, some only in his power, some in his divinity, some in his body,
some not at all. Some by hell understand the place of the damned, some
_limbus patrum_, others the wrath of God, others the grave. Some will
make Christ two persons, some give him but one nature and one will; some
affirming him to be only God, some only man, some made up of both, some
altogether deny him. Some will have his body come from Heaven, some from
the Virgin, some from the elements. Some will have our souls mortal,
some immortal; some bring them into the body by Infusion, some by
traduction. Some will have souls created before the world, some after;
some will have them created altogether, others severally; some will have
them corporeal, some incorporeal; some of the substance of God, some of
the substance of the body. So infinitely are men's conceits distracted
with a variety of opinions, whereas _there is but one Truth_, which
every man aims at, but few attain it; every man thinks he hath it, and
yet few enjoy it.' [20:1]
Chiefs of these sects are, for the most part, ridiculously intolerant;
so many small Popes, who fancy that whomsoever they bind on earth shall
be bound in Heaven; and whomsoever they loose on earth shall be loosed
in Heaven. They remorselessly cobble the true faith, without which, to
their 'sole exclusive Heaven,' none can be admitted.
As if religion were intended,
For nothing else but to be mended.
And never seem so happy as when promising eternal misery to those who
reject their chimeras.
But wisdom, we read, is justified by her children; and to the wise of
every nation the Universalist confidently appeals. He rejects popular
religion, because such religion is based on principles of imaginative
ignorance. Bailly defines it as 'the worship of the unknown, piety,
godliness, humility, before the _unknown_.' Lavater as 'Faith in the
supernatural, invisible, _unknown_'. Vauvenargus as 'the duties of men
towards the _unknown_.' Dr. Johnson as 'Virtue founded upon reverence of
the _unknown_, and expectation of future rewards and punishments.'
Rivarol as 'the science of serving the _unknown_.' La Bruyere as 'the
respectful fear of the _unknown_.' Du Marsais, as 'the worship of the
_unknown_, and the practice of all the virtues.' Walker as 'Virtue
founded upon reverence of the _unknown_, and expectation of rewards or
punishments; a system of divine faith and worship as opposed to other
systems.' De Bonald as 'social intercourse between man and the
_unknown_.' Rees as 'the worship or homage that is due to the _unknown_
as creator, preserver, and, with Christians, as redeemer of the world,'
Lord Brougham as 'the subject of the science called Theology:' a science
he defines as 'the knowledge and attributes of the _unknown_' which
definitions agree in making the essential principle of religion a
principle of ignorance. That they are sufficiently correct definitions
will not be disputed, and upon them the Universalist is satisfied to
rest his case. To him the worship or adoration of what is confessedly
unknown is mere superstition; and to him professors of theology are
'artists in words,' who pretend to teach what nobody has any conception
of. Now, such persons may be well-intentioned; but their wisdom is by no
means apparent. They must be wonderfully deficient of the invaluable
sense so falsely called 'common.' Idolizers of 'thingless names,' they
set at naught the admirable dictum of Locke that it is 'unphilosophic to
suppose names in books signify real entities in nature, unless we can
frame clear and distinct ideas of those entities.'
Theists of every class would do well to calmly and fully consider this
rule of philosophising, for it involves nothing less than the
destruction of belief in the supernatural. The Jupiter of Mythologic
History, the Allah of Alkoran, and the Jehovah of 'Holy Scripture,' if
entities at all, are assuredly entities that baffle human conception. To
'frame clear and distinct ideas of them' is impossible. In respect to
the attribute of _unknown ability_ all Gods are alike.
Books have been written to exhibit the difficulties of (what priests
choose to call) Infidelity, and without doubt unbelief has its
difficulties. But, according to a universally recognised rule of
philosophising, of two difficulties we are in all cases to choose the
least. From a rule so palpably just no one can reasonably depart, and
the Universalist, while freely admitting a great difficulty on his own
side, is satisfied there can be demonstrated an infinitely greater
difficulty on the side of his opponents. The Universalist labours to
convince mankind they are not warranted by the general course of Nature
in assigning to it a Cause; inasmuch as it is more in accordance with
experience to suppose Nature the uncaused cause, than to imagine, as
errorists do, that there is an uncaused cause of Nature.
Theologians ask, who created Nature? without adducing satisfactory
evidence that Nature _was_ created, and without reflecting that if it is
difficult to believe Nature self-existent, it is much more difficult to
believe some self-existent Super-nature, capable of producing it. In
their anxiety to get rid of a natural difficulty, they invent a
supernatural one, and accuse Universalists of 'wilful blindness,' and
'obstinate deafness,' for not choosing so unphilosophic a mode of
explaining universal mystery.
The rule of philosophising just adverted to--that rule which forbids us,
in any case, to chose the greater of two difficulties--is of immense
importance, and should be carefully considered by every one anxious to
arrive at correct conclusions with respect to theology. For if believers
in God do depart from that rule--if their belief necessarily involve its
violation--to persist in such belief is to persist in what is clearly
opposed to pure reason. Now, it has been demonstrated, so far as words
can demonstrate any truth whatever, that the difficulty of him who
believes Nature never had an author, is infinitely less than the
difficulty of him who believes it had a cause itself uncaused.
In the 'Elements of Materialism,' an unequal, but still admirable work
by Dr. Knowlton, a well-known American writer, this question of
comparative difficulty is well handled.
'The sentiment,' says the Doctor, 'that a being exists which never
commenced existence, or what is the same thing, that a being exists
which has existed from all eternity, appears to us to favour Atheism,
for if one Being exist which never commenced existence--why not
another--why not the universe? It weighs nothing, says the Atheist, in
the eye of reason, to say the universe appears to man as though it were
organised by an Almighty Designer, for the maker of a thing must be
superior to the thing made; and if there be a maker of the universe
there can be no doubt, but that if such maker were minutely examined by
man, man would discover such indications of wisdom and design that it
would be more difficult for him to admit that such maker was not caused
or constructed by a pre-existing Designer, than to admit that the
universe was not caused or constructed by a Designer. But no one will
contend for an infinite series of Makers; and if, continues the Atheist,
what would, if viewed, be indications of design, are no proofs of a
designer in the one case, they are not in the other; and as such
indications are the only evidence we have of the existence of a Designer
of the universe, we, as rational beings, contend there is no God. We do
not suppose the existence of any being, of which there is no evidence,
when such supposition, it admitted, so far from diminishing would only
increase a difficulty, which, at best, is sufficiently great. Surely, if
a superior being may have existed from all eternity, an inferior may
have existed from all eternity; if a great God sufficiently mighty to
make a world may have existed from all eternity, of course without
beginning and without cause, such world may have existed from all
eternity, without beginning, and without cause.' [23:1]
These are 'strong reasons' for Universalism. They prove that Theists set
at nought the rule of philosophising which forbids us to choose the
greater of two difficulties. Their system compels them to do so; for
having no other groundwork than the strange hypotheses that time was
when there was no time--something existed when there was nothing, which
something created everything; its advocates would be tongue-tied and
lost if reduced to the hard necessity of appealing to facts, or rigidly
regarding rules of philosophising which have only their reasonableness
to recommend them. They profess ability to account for Nature, and are
of course exceeding eager to justify a profession so presumptuous. This
eagerness betrays them into courses, of which no one bent on rejecting
whatever is either opposed to, or unsanctioned by, experience, can
possibly approve. It is plain that of the God they tell us to believe
'created the worlds,' no man has any experience. This granted, it
follows that worship of such fancied Being is mere superstition. Until
it be shown by reference to the general course of things, that things
had an author, Himself uncreated or unauthorized, religious philosophers
have no right to expect Universalists to abandon their Universalism. The
duty of priests is to reconcile religion with reason, _if they can_, and
admit their inability to do so, _if they cannot_.
Romanists will have nothing to do with reason whenever it appears at
issue with their faith. All sects, as sects, play fast and loose with
reason. Many members of all sects are forward enough to boast about
being able to give a reason for the faith that is in them; but an
overwhelming majority love to exalt faith above reason. Philosophy they
call 'vain,' and some have been found so filled with contempt for it, as
to openly maintain that what is theologically true, is philosophically
false; or, in other terms, that the truths of religion and the truths of
philosophy have nothing in common. According to them, religious truths
are independent of, and superior to, all other truths. Our faith, say
they, if not agreeable to _mere_ reason is infinitely superior to it.
Priests are 'at one' on the point. Dissenting and Protestant, as well as
Romanising priests, find it convenient to abuse reason and extol faith.
As priests, they can scarcely be expected to do otherwise; for reason is
a stern and upright judge whose decrees have hitherto been unfavourable
to superstition. Its professors, who appeal to that judge, play a part
most inconsistent and dangerous, as is evident in the case of Origen
Bachelor, who more zealous and candid than prudent, declared the real
and only question between Atheism and Theism a question of fact;
reducing it to these terms--'Is there reason, all things considered, for
believing that there is a God, an intelligent cause of things, infinite
and perfect in all his attributes and moral qualities?' [24:1]
Now, the reader has seen that the hypothesis of 'an intelligent cause of
things' involves difficulties, greater, infinitely greater than the one
difficulty involved in the hypothesis that things always existed. He has
seen the folly of explaining natural, by the invention of supernatural
mystery, because it manifestly violates a rule of philosophising, the
justness of which it would be ridiculous to dispute. Having clearly
perceived thus much, he will perhaps think it rather 'too bad' as well
as absurd, to call Universalists 'madmen' for lacking faith in the
monstrous dogma that Nature was caused by 'something amounting to
nothing' itself uncaused.
There is something. That truth admits not of being evidenced. It is,
nevertheless, accepted. It is accepted by men of all religious opinions,
equally with men of no religious opinions. If any truth be self-evident
and eternal, here is that truth. To call it in question would be worse
than idle. We may doubt the reality of an external world, we may be
sceptical as to the reality of our own bodies, but we cannot doubt that
there is something. The proposition falls not within the domain of
scepticism. It must be true. To suppose it false is literally
impossible. Its falsehood would involve contradiction, and all
contradiction involves Impossibility. But, if proof of this were needed,
we have it in the fact that no man, sage or simple, ever pretended to
deny there is something. Whatever men could doubt or deny they have
doubted or denied, but in no country of the world, in no age, has the
dogma--there is something--been denied or even treated as doubtful. Here
then Universalists, Theists, and Polytheists agree. They agree of
necessity. There is no escape from the conclusion that something is,
except we adopt the unintelligible dogma--there is nothing--which no
human being can, as nothing amounts to nothing, and of what amounts to
nothing no one can have an idea. To define the word something by any
other word would be labour in vain. There is no other word in any
language whoso meaning is better understood, and they who do not
understand what it means, if such persons there be, are not likely to
understand the meaning of any word or words whatever. Ideas of nothing
none have. That there is something, we repeat, must be true, all dogmas
or propositions being necessarily true whose denial involves an
impossibility. What the nature of that something may be is a secondary
question, and however determined cannot affect the primary dogma--things
are things whatever may be their individual or their aggregate nature.
Nor is it of the least consequence what name or names we may see fit to
give things, so that each word has its fixed and true meaning. Whether,
for example, we use for the sign of that something which is, the word
Universe, or God, or Substance, or Spirit, or Matter, or the letter X,
is of no importance, if we understand the word or letter used to be
merely the sign of that something. Words are seldom useful except when
they are the sign of true ideas; evidently therefore, their legitimate
function is to convey such ideas; and words which convey no ideas at
all, or what is worse, only those which are false, should at once be
expunged from the vocabularies of nations. Something is. The
Universalist calls it matter. Other persons may choose to call it other
names: let them. He chooses to call it this one--and no other.
There ever has been something. Here, again, is a point of unity. All are
equally assured there ever has been something. Something is, something
must always have been, cry the religious, and the cry is echoed by the
irreligious. This last dogma, like the first, admits not of being
evidenced. As nothing is inconceivable, we cannot even imagine a time
when there was nothing. Universalists say, something ever was, which
something is matter. Theists say, something has been from all eternity,
which something is not matter but God. They boldly affirm that matter
began to be. They affirm its creation from nothing, by a something,
which was before the universe. Indeed, the notion of universal creation
involves first, that of universal annihilation, and secondly, that of
something prior to everything. What creates everything must be before
everything, in the same way that he who manufactures a watch must exist
before the watch. As already remarked, Universalists agree with Theists,
that something ever has been, but the point of difference lies here. The
Universalist says, matter is the eternal something, and asks proof of
its beginning to be. The Theist insists that matter is not the eternal
something, but that God is; and when pushed for an account of what he
means by God, he coolly answers, a Being, having nothing in common with
anything, who nevertheless, by his Almighty will, created everything. It
may without injustice be affirmed, that the sincerest and strongest
believers in this mysterious Deity are often tormented by doubts, and,
if candid, must own they believe in the existence of many things with a
feeling much closer allied to certainty than they do in the reality of
their 'Great First Cause, least understood.' No man's faith in the
inconceivable is ever half so strong as his belief in the visible and
tangible.
But few among professional mystifiers will admit this, obviously true as
it is. Some have done so. Baxter, of pious memory, to wit, who said, _I
am not so foolish as to pretend my certainty be greater than it is,
because it is dishonour to be less certain; nor will I by shame be kept
from confessing those infirmities which those have as much as I, who
hypocritically reproach with them._ MY CERTAINTY THAT I AM A MAN IS
BEFORE MY CERTAINTY THAT THERE IS A GOD.
So candid was Richard Baxter, and so candid are _not_ the most part of
our priests, who would fain have us think them altogether _un_sceptical.
Nevertheless, they write abundance of books to convince us 'God is,'
though they never penned a line in order to convince us, we actually
are, and that to disbelieve we are is a 'deadly sin.'
Could God be known, could his existence be made 'palpable to feeling as
to sight,' as unquestionably is the existence of matter, there would be
no need of 'Demonstrations of the existence of God', no need of
arguments _a priori_ or _a posteriori_ to establish that existence.
Saint John was right; 'No man hath seen God at any time', to which 'open
confession' he might truly have added, 'none ever will,' for the unreal
is alway unseeable. Yet have 'mystery men' with shameless and most
insolent pertinacity asserted the existence of God while denying the
existence of matter.
_The incomprehensible is not to be defined._ It is difficult to give
_intelligible_ account of an Immense Being confessedly mysterious and
about whom his worshippers admit they only know, they know nothing,
except that
'He is good,
And that themselves are blind.'
Spinoza said, _of things which have nothing in common, one cannot be the
cause of the other_; and to me it seems eminently unphilosophic to
believe a Being having nothing in common with anything, capable of
creating or causing everything. 'Only matter can be touched or touch;'
and as the Christian's God is not material, his adorers are fairly open
to the charge of superstition. An unknown Deity, without body, parts or
passions, is of all idols the least tangible; and they who pretend to
know and reverence him, are deceived or deceivers.
In this Christian country, where men are expected to believe and called
'Infidel' if they _cannot_ believe in a 'crucified Saviour,' it seems
strange so much fuss should be made about his immateriality. All but
Unitarian Christians hold as an essential article of faith, that in him
dwelt the fulness of the Godhead bodily; in other words, that our
Redeemer and our Creator, though two persons, are but one God. It is
true that Divines of our 'Reformed Protestant Church,' call everything
but gentlemen those who lay claim to the equivocal privilege of feasting
periodically upon the body and blood of Omnipotence. The pains taken by
Protestants to show from Scripture, Reason and Nature, that Priests
cannot change lumps of dough into the body, and bumpers of wine into the
blood, of their God, are well known and appreciated. But the Roman
Catholics are neither to be argued nor laughed out of their 'awful
doctrine' of the real presence, to which they cling with desperate
earnestness.
Locke wrote rather disparagingly of 'many among us,' who will be found
upon Inquiry, to fancy God in the shape of a man fitting in heaven, and
have other absurd and unfit conceptions of him.' As though it were
possible to think of shapeless Being, or as though it were criminal in
the superstitious to believe 'God made man after his own image.'
That Christians as well as Turks 'really have had whole sects earnestly
contending that the Deity was corporeal and of human shape', is a fact,
so firmly established as to defy contradiction. And though every sincere
subscriber to the Thirty Nine Articles must believe, or at least must
believe he believes in Deity without body, parts, or passions, it is
well known that 'whole sects' of Christians do even now 'fancy God in
the shape of a man sitting in heaven, and entertain other absurd and
unfit conceptions of him.'
Mr. Collibeer, who is considered by Christian writers 'a most ingenious
gentleman', has told the world in his Treatise entitled 'The Knowledge
of God,' that Deity must have some form, and intimates it may probably
be the spherical; an intimation which has grievously offended many
learned Theists who considered going so far an abuse of reason, and warn
us that 'its extension beyond the assigned boundaries, has proved an
ample source of error.' But what the 'assigned boundaries' of reason
are, they don't state, nor by whom 'assigned.' That if there is a God he
must have _some_ form is self-evident and why Mr. Collibeer should be
ostracized by his less daringly imaginative brethren, for preferring a
spherical to a square or otherwise shaped Deity, is to my understanding
what God's grace is to their's.
But admitting the unfitness, and absurdity, and 'blasphemy' of such
conceptions, it is by no means clear that any other conceptions of the
'inconceiveable' would be an improvement upon them. Undoubtedly, the
matter-God-system has its difficulties, but they are trifles in
comparison with those by which the spirit-God system is encompassed;
for, one obvious consequence of faith in bodiless Divinity is an utter
confusion of ideas in those who preach it, as regards possibilities and
impossibilities.
The universe is an uncaused existence, or it was caused by something
before it. By universe we mean matter, the sum total of things, whence
all proceeds, and whither all returns. No truth is more obviously true
than the truth that matter, or something not matter, exists of itself,
and consequently is not an effect, but an uncaused cause of all effects.
From such conviction, repugnant though it be to vulgar ideas, there is
no rational way of escape; for however much we may desire, however much
we may struggle to believe there was a time when there was nothing, we
cannot so believe. Human nature is constituted intuitively or
instinctively to feel the eternity of something. To rid oneself of that
feeling is impossible. Nature or something not Nature must ever have
been, is a conclusion to which what poets call Fate--
Leads the willing and drags the unwilling.
But does this undeniable truth make against Universalism? Far from
it--so far, indeed, as to make for it. The reason is no mystery. Of
matter we have ideas clear, precise, and indispensable, whereas of
something not matter we cannot have any idea whatever, good, bad, or
indifferent. The Universe is extraordinary, no doubt, but so much of it
as acts upon us is perfectly conceivable, whereas, any thing within,
without, or apart from the Universe, is perfectly inconceivably.
The notion of necessarily existing matter seems fatal to belief in God;
that is, if by the word God be understood something not matter, for 'tis
precisely because priests were unable to reconcile such belief with the
idea of matter's self-existence or eternity, that they took to imagining
a 'First cause.'
In the 'forlorn hope' of vanquishing the difficulty of necessarily
existing _Matter_, they assent to a necessarily existing _Spirit_, and
when the nature of spirit is demanded from these assertors of its
existence, they are constrained to avow that it is material or nothing.
Yes, they are constrained to make directly or indirectly one or other of
these admissions; for, as between truth and falsehood, there is no
middle passage; so between something and nothing, there is no
intermediate existence. Hence the serious dilemma of Spiritualists, who
gravely tell us their God is a spirit, and that a spirit is not any
thing, which not any thing or nothing (for the life of us we cannot
distinguish between them) 'framed the worlds' nay, _created_ as well as
framed them.
If it be granted, for the mere purpose of explanation, that spirit is an
entity, we can frame 'clear distinct ideas of'--a real though not
material existence, surely no man will pretend to say an uncreated
Spirit, is less inexplicable than uncreated Matter. All could not have
been caused or created unless nothing can be a Cause, the very notion of
which involves the grossest of absurdities.
_Whatever is produced, without any cause, is produced by nothing; or, in
other words, has nothing for its cause. But nothing never can be a cause
no more than it can be something or equal to two right angles. By the
same intuition that we perceive nothing not to be equal to two right
angles, or not to be something, we perceive that it can never be a
cause, and consequently must perceive that every object has a real cause
of its existence. When we exclude all causes we really do exclude them,
and neither suppose nothing nor the object itself to be the causes of
the existence, and consequently can draw no argument from the absurdity
of these suppositions except to prove the absurdity of that exclusion.
If everything must have a cause, it follows that upon the exclusion of
other causes, we must accept of the object itself or nothing as causes.
But it is the very point in question whether everything must have a
cause or not, and therefore, according to all just reasoning ought not
to be taken for granted_. [29:1]
This reasoning amounts to logical demonstration (if logical
demonstration there can be) of a most essential truth, which in all ages
has been obstinately set at nought by dabblers in the supernatural. It
demonstrates that something never was, never can be, caused by nothing,
which can no more be a cause, properly so called, than it can be
something, or equal to two right angles; and therefore that everything
could not have had a cause, which, the reader has seen, is the very
point assumed by Theists--the very point on which as a pivot they so
merrily and successfully turn their fine metaphysical theories and
immaterial systems.
The universe, quoth they, must have had a cause, and that cause must
have been First Cause, or cause number one, because nothing can exist of
itself. Oh, most lame and impotent conclusion! How, in consistency, can
they declare nothing can exist without a cause in the teeth of their oft
repeated dogma that God is uncaused. If God never commenced to be, _He_
is an uncaused existence, that is to say, exists without a cause. [29:2]
The difference on this point between Theists and Universalists is very
palpable. The former say, Spirit can exist without a cause, the latter
say Matter can exist without a cause. Whole libraries of theologic dogma
would be dearly purchased by Hume's profound remark--_if everything must
have a cause, it follows that upon the exclusion of other causes we must
accept of the object itself or of nothing as causes._
Saint Augustine, more candid than modern theologians, said 'God is a
being whom we speak of but whom we cannot describe and who is superior
to all definitions.' Universalists, on the other hand, as candidly deny
there is any such being. To them it seems that the name God stands for
nothing, is the archetype of nothing, explains nothing, and contributes
to nothing but the perpetuation of human imbecility, ignorance and
error. To them it represents neither shadow nor substance, neither
phenomenon nor thing, neither what is ideal nor what is real; yet is it
the name without senseless faith in which there could be no
superstition.
If Nature is all, and all is Nature, nothing but itself could ever have
existed, and of course nothing but itself can be supposed ever to have
been capable of causing. To cause is to act, and though body without
notion is conceivable, action without body is not. Neither can two
Infinites be supposed to tenant one Universe. Only 'most religious
philosophers' can pretend to acknowledge the being of an infinite God
co-existent with an infinite Universe.
Universalists are frequently asked--What moves matter? to which question
_nothing_ is the true and sufficient answer. Matter moves matter. If
asked how we know it does, our answer is, because we see it do so, which
is more than mind imaginers can say of their 'prime mover.' They tell us
mind moves matter; but none save the _third sighted_ among them ever saw
mind, and if they never saw mind, they never could have seen matter
pushed about by it. They babble about mind, but nowhere does mind exist
save in their mind; that is to say, nowhere but nowhere. Ask these
broad-day dreamers where mind is _minus_ body? and very cutely they
answer, body is the mind, and mind is the body.
That this is neither joke nor slander, we will show by reference to No.
25 of 'The Shepherd,' a clever and well known periodical, whose editor,
[30:1] in reply to a correspondent of the 'chaotic' tribe, said 'As to
the question--where is magnetism without the magnet? We answer,
magnetism is the magnet, and the magnet is magnetism.' If so, body is
the mind and the mind is body; and our Shepherd, if asked, 'Where is
mind without the body?' to be consistent, should answer, body is the
mind and the mind is the body. Both these answers are true, or both are
false; and it must be allowed--
Each lends to each a borrowed charm,
Like pearls upon an Ethiop's arm.
Ask the 'Shepherd' where is mind without the body? and, if not at issue
with himself, he _must_ reply, mind is the man and man is the mind.
If this be so,--if the mind is the man and the man is the mind, which
none can deny who say magnetism is the magnet and the magnet
magnetism--how, in Reason's name, can they be different, or how can the
'Shepherd' consistently pretend to distinguish between them; yet he does
so. He writes about the spiritual part of man as though he really
believed there is such a part. Not satisfied, it would seem, with body,
like Nonentitarians of vulgar mould, he tenants it with Soul or Spirit,
or Mind, which Soul, or Spirit, or Mind, according to his own showing,
is nothing but body in action; in other terms, organised matter
performing vital functions. Idle declamation against 'facts mongers'
well becomes such self-stultifying dealers in fiction. Abuse of
'experimentarians' is quite in keeping with the philosophy of those who
maintain the reality of mind in face of their own strange statement,
that magnetism is the magnet and the magnet magnetism.
But we deny that magnetism is the magnet. These words magnetism and
magnet do not, it is true, stand for two things, but one thing: that one
and only thing called matter. The magnet is an existence, _i.e._, that
which moves. Magnetism is not an existence, but phenomenon, or, if you
please, phenomena. It is the effect of which magnetic body is the
immediate and obvious cause.
To evade the charge of Materialism, said Dr. Engledue, we
(Phrenologists) content ourselves with stating that the immaterial makes
use of the material to show forth its powers. What is the result of
this? We have the man of theory and believer in supernaturalism
quarrelling with the man of fact and supporter of Materialism. We have
two parties; the one asserting that man possesses a _spirit_ superadded
to, but not inherent in, the brain--added to it, yet having no necessary
connection with it--producing material changes, yet
immaterial--destitute of any of the known properties of matter--in fact
an _immaterial something_ which in one word means _nothing_, producing
all the cerebral functions of man, yet not localised-not susceptible of
proof; the other party contending that the belief in spiritualism
fetters and ties down physiological investigation--that man's intellect
is prostrated by the domination of metaphysical speculation--that we
have no evidence of the existence of an _essence_, and that organised
mutter is all that is requisite to produce the multitudinous
manifestations of human and brute cerebration.
We rank ourselves with the second party, and conceive that we must cease
speaking of 'the mind,' and discontinue enlisting in our investigations
a spiritual essence, the existence of which cannot be proved, but which
tends to mystify and perplex a question sufficiently clear if we confine
ourselves to the consideration of organised matter--its forms--its
changes--and its aberrations from normal structure. [31:1]
The eccentric Count de Caylus, when on his death-bed, was visited by
some near relation and a pious Bishop, who hoped that under such trying
circumstance he would manifest some concern respecting those 'spiritual'
blessings which, while in health, he had uniformly treated with
contempt. After a long pause he broke silence by saying, _'Ah, my
friends, I see you are anxious about my soul;'_ whereupon they pricked
up their ears with delight; before, however, any reply could be made the
Count added, _'but the fact is I have not got one, and really my good
friends you must allow me to know best.'_
If people in general had one tenth the good sense of this _impious_
Count, the fooleries of Spiritualism would at once give place to the
philosophy of Materialism, and none would waste time in talking or
writing about non-entities. All would know that what theologians call
sometimes spirit, sometimes soul, and sometimes mind, is an imaginary
existence. All would know that the terms _immaterial something_ do in
very truth mean _nothing_. Count de Caylus died as became a man
convinced that soul is not an entity, and that upon the dissolution of
our 'earthly tabernacle', the particles composing it cease to perform
vital functions, and return to the shoreless ocean of Eternal Being.
Pietists may be shocked by such _nonchalance_ in the face of their 'grim
monster;' but philosophers will admire an indifference to inevitable
consequences resulting from profoundest love of truth and contempt of
superstition. Count de Caylus was a Materialist, and no Materialist can
consistently feel the least alarm at the approach of what
superstitionists have every reason to consider the 'king of terrors.'
Believers in the reality of immaterial existence cannot be 'proper'
Materialists. Obviously, therefore, no believers in the reality of God
can be _bona fide_ Materialists; for 'God' is a name signifying
something or nothing; in other terms matter or that which is not matter.
If the latter, to Materialists the name is meaningless--sound without
sense. If the former, they at once pronounce it a name too many; because
it expresses nothing that their word MATTER does not express better.
Dr. Young held in horror the Materialist's 'universe of dust.' But there
is nothing either bad or contemptible in dust--man is dust--all will be
dust. A _dusty_ universe, however, _shocked_ the poetic Doctor, whose
writings analogise with--
Rich windows that exclude the light,
And passages that lead to nothing.
A universe of nothing was more to his taste than a universe of dust, and
he accordingly amused himself with the 'spiritual' work of imagining
one, and called its builder 'God.'
The somewhat ungentle 'Shepherd' cordially sympathises with Dr. Young in
his detestation of the Materialist's universe of dust, and is sorely
puzzled to know how mere dust contrives to move without the assistance
of 'an immaterial power between the particles;' as if he supposed
anything could be between everything--or nothing be able to move
something. Verily this gentleman is as clever a hand at 'darkening
counsel by words without knowledge' as the cleverest of those he rates
so soundly.
The names of Newton and Clarke are held in great esteem by all who are
familiar with the history of mechanical and metaphysical philosophy. As
a man of science, there is no individual, ancient, or modern, who would
not suffer by comparison with Sir Isaac Newton; while common consent has
assigned to Dr. Samuel Clarke the first place among religious
metaphysicians. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to cite any
other Theists of better approved reputation than these two, and
therefore we introduce them to the reader's notice in this place; for as
they ranked among the most philosophic of Theists, it might be expected
that their conceptions of Deity, would be clear, satisfactory, and
definite.--Let us see, then, _in their own writings_, what those
conceptions were.
Newton conceived God to be one and the same for ever, and everywhere,
not only by his own virtue or energy, but also in virtue of his
substance.--Again, 'All things are contained in him and move in him, but
without reciprocal action' (_sed sine muta passione_) God feels nothing
from the movements of bodies; nor do they experience any resistance from
his universal presence. [33:1]
Pause, reader, and demand of yourself whether such a conception of Deity
is either clear, satisfactory, or definite,--God is _one_. Very
good--but one _what?_ From the information, 'He is the same for ever and
everywhere,' we conclude that Newton thought him a Being. Here, however,
matter stops the way; for the idea of Being is in all of us inseparably
associated with the idea of substance. When told that God is an 'Immense
Being,' without parts, and consequently unsubstantial, we try to think
of such a Being; but in vain. Reason puts itself in a _quandary_, the
moment it labours to realise an idea of absolute nothingness; yet
marvellous to relate, Newton did distinctly declare his Deity 'totally
destitute of body,' and urged that _fact_ as a _reason_ why He cannot be
either seen, touched, or understood, and also as a _reason_ why he ought
not to be adored under any corporeal figure!
The proper function of 'Supernaturality or Wonder,' according to
Phrenologists, is to create belief in the reality of supernatural
beings, and begets fondness for news, particularly if extravagant. Most
likely then, such readers of this book as have that organ 'large' will
be delighted with Newton's rhodomontade about a God who resists nothing,
feels nothing, and yet with condescension truly divine, not only
contains all things, but permits them to move in His motionless and
'universal presence;' for 'news' more extravagant, never fell from the
lips of an idiot, or adorned the pages of a prayer-book.
By the same great _savan_ we are taught that God governs all, not as the
soul of the world, but as the Lord and sovereign of all things: that it
is in consequence of His sovereignty He is called the Lord God, the
Universal Emperor--that the word God is relative, and relates itself
with slaves--and that the Deity is the dominion or the sovereignty of
God, not over his own body, as those think who look upon God as the soul
of the world, but over slaves--from all which _slavish_ reasoning, a
plain man who had not been informed it was concocted by Europe's pet
philosopher, would infallibly conclude some unfortunate lunatic had
given birth to it. That there is no creature now tenanting Bedlam who
would or could scribble purer nonsense about God than this of Newton's,
we are well convinced--for how could the most frenzied of brains imagine
anything more repugnant to every principle of good sense than a
self-existent, eternal, omnipotent, omnipresent Being, creator of all
the worlds, who acts the part of 'universal emperor,' and plays upon an
infinitely larger scale, the same sort of game as Nicholas of Russia, or
Mohammed of Egypt, plays upon a small scale. There cannot be slavery
where there is no tyranny, and to say, as Newton did, that we stand in
the name relation to a universal God, as a slave does to his earthly
master, is practically to accuse such God, at reason's bar of _tyranny_.
If the word God is relative, and relate itself with slaves, it
incontestably follows that all human beings are slaves, and Deity is by
such reasoners degraded into the character of universal slave-driver.
Really, theologians and others who declaim so bitterly against
'blasphemers,' and take such very stringent measures to punish
'infidels', who speaks or write of their God, should seriously consider
whether the worst, that is, the least superstitious of infidel writers,
ever penned a paragraph so disparaging to the character of that God they
effect to adore, as the last quoted paragraph of Newton's.
If even it could be demonstrated that there is a super-human Being, it
cannot be proper to clothe Him in the noblest human attributes--still
less can it be justifiable in pigmies, such as we are, to invest Him
with odious attributes belonging only to despots ruling over slaves.
Besides, how can we imagine a God, who is 'totally destitute of body and
of corporeal figure,' to have any kind of substance? Earthly emperors we
know to be substantial and common-place sort of beings enough, but is it
not sheer abuse of reason to argue as though the character of God were
at all analogous to theirs; or rather, is it not shocking abuse of our
reasoning facilities to employ them at all about a Being whose
existence, if we really have an existence, is perfectly enigmatical, and
allowed to be so by those very men who pretend to explain its character
and attributes? We find no less a sage than Newton explicitly declaring
as incontestible truth, that God exists necessarily--that the same
necessity obliges him to exist always and everywhere--that he is all
eyes, all ears, all brains, all arms, all feeling, all intelligence, all
action--that he exists in a mode by no means corporeal, an yet this same
sage, in the self-same paragraph, acknowledges God is _totally unknown
to us_.
Now, we should like to be informed by what _reasonable_ right Newton
could pen a long string of 'incontestible truths,' such as are here
selected from his writings, with respect to a Being of whom, by his own
confession, he had not a particle of knowledge. Surely it is not the
part of a wise man to write about that which is 'totally unknown' to
him, and yet that is precisely what Newton did, when he wrote concerning
God.
So much for the Theism of Europe's chief religious philosopher. Turn we
now to the Theism of Dr. Samuel Clarke.
He wrote a book about the being and attributes of God, in which he
endeavoured to establish, first, that 'something has existed from all
eternity;' second, that 'there has existed from eternity some one
unchangeable and independent Being;' third, that 'such unchangeable and
independent Being, which has existed from all eternity, without any
external cause of its existence, must be necessarily existent;' fourth,
that 'what is the substance or essence of that Being, which is
necessarily existing, or self-existent, we have no idea--neither is it
possible for us to comprehend it;' fifth, that 'the self-existent Being
must of necessity be eternal as well as infinite and omnipresent;'
sixth, that 'He must be one, and as he is the self-existent and original
cause of all things, must be intelligent;' seventh, that 'God is not a
necessary agent, but a Being endowed with liberty and choice;' eighth,
that 'God is infinite in power, infinite in wisdom, and, as He is
supreme cause of all things, must of necessity be a Being infinitely
just, truthful, and good--thus comprising within himself all such moral
perfections as becomes the supreme governor and judge of the world.'
These are the leading dogma contained in Clarke's book--and as they are
deemed invincible by a respectable, though not very numerous, section of
Theists, we will briefly examine the more important important of them.
The dogma that _something has existed from all eternity_, as already
shown, is perfectly intelligible, and may defy contradiction--but the
real difficulty is to satisfactorily determine _what that something is_.
Matter exists, and as no one can even imagine its non-existence or
annihilation, the Materialist infers _that_ must be the eternal
something. Newton as well as Clark thought the everlasting Being
destitute of body, and consequently without parts, figure, motion,
divisibility, or any other such properties as we find in matter--_ergo_,
they did not believe matter to be the eternal something; but if not
matter, again we ask, what can it be? Of bodilessness or incorporiety no
one, even among those who say their God is incorporeal, pretend to have
an idea. Abady insisted that _the question is not what incorporiety is,
but whether it be?_ Well, we have no objection to parties taking that
position, because there is nothing more easy than to dislodge those who
think fit to do so--for this reason: the advocates of nothing, or
incorporiety, can no more establish by arguments drawn from unquestioned
facts, that incorporiety _is_ than they can clearly show _what_ it is.
It has always struck the author as remarkable that men should so
obstinately refuse to admit the possibility of matter's necessary
existence, while they readily embrace, not only as possibly, but
certainly, true, the paradoxical proposition that a something, having
nothing in common with anything, is necessarily existent. Matter is
everywhere around and about us. We ourselves are matter--all our ideas
are derived _from_ matter--and yet such is the singularly perverse
character of human intellect that, while resolutely denying the
possibility of matter's eternity, an immense number of our race embrace
the incredible proposition that matter was created in time by a
necessarily existing Being, who is without body, parts, passions, or
positive nature!
The second dogma informs us that this always-existing Being is
unchangeable and independent. One unavoidable inference from which is
that Deity is itself immoveable, as well as unconnected with the
universe--for a moveable Being must be a changeable Being, by the very
fact of its motion; while an independent Being must be motiveless, as it
is evident all motives result from our relationship to things eternal;
but an independent Being can have no relations, and consequently must
act without motives. Now, as no intelligent _human_ action can be
imagined without necessary precursors in the shape of motives, reasoning
from analogy, it seems impossible that the unchangeable and independent
Being, Clarke was so sure must ever have existed, could have created the
universe, seeing he could have had no _motive_ or _inducement_ to create
it.
The third dogma may be rated a truism--it being evidently true that a
thing or Being, which has existed from eternity without any eternal
cause of its existence, must be self-existent: but of course that dogma
leaves the disputed question, namely, whether matter, or something _not_
matter, is self-existent, just where it found it.
The fourth dogma is not questioned by Universalists, as they are quite
convinced that it is not possible for us to comprehend the substance or
essence of an immaterial Being.
The other dogmas we need not enlarge upon, as they are little more than
repetition or expansion of the preceding one. Indeed, much of the
foregoing would be superfluous, were it not that it serves to
illustrate, so completely and clearly theistical absurdities. The only
dogma worth overturning, of the eight here noticed, is the _first_, for
if that fall, the rest must fall with it. If, for example, the reader is
convinced that it is more probable matter is mutable as regards _form_
but eternal as regards _essence_, than that it was willed into existence
by a Being said to be eternal and immutable, he at once becomes a
Universalist--for if matter always was, no Being could have been before
it, nor can any exist after it. It is because men in general are shocked
at the idea of matter without beginning and without end, that they do
readily embrace the idea of a God, forgetting that if the idea of
eternal matter shock our sense of the _probable_, the idea of an eternal
Being who existed _before_ matter, _if well considered_, is sufficient
to shock all sense of the _possible_.
The man who is contented with the universe, who stops at _that_ has at
least the satisfaction of dealing with something tangible--but he who
don't find the universe large enough for him to expatiate in, and whirls
his brains into a belief that there is a necessarily existing something
beyond the limits of a world _unlimited_, is in a mental condition no
reasonable man need envy.
Of the universe, or at least so much of it as our senses have been
operated upon by, we have conceptions clear, vivid, and distinct; but
when Dr. Clarke tell us of an intelligent Being, not _part_ but
_creator_ of that universe, we can form no clear, vivid, distinct, or,
in point of fact, _any_ conception of such Being. When he explains that
it is infinite and omnipresent, like poor Paddy's famed ale, the
explanation 'thickens as it clears;' for being ourselves _finite_, and
necessarily present on one small spot of our very small planet, the
words _infinite_ and _omnipresent_ do not suggest to us either positive
or practical ideas--of course, therefore, we have neither positive nor
practical ideas of an infinite and omnipresent Being.
We can as easily understand that the universe ever did exist, as we now
understand that it does exist--but we cannot conceive its absence for
the millionth part of an instant--and really it puzzles one to conceive
what those people can be dreaming of who talk as familiarly about the
extinction of a universe as the chemist does of extinguishing the flame
of his spirit-lamp. The unsatisfactory character of all speculations
having for their object 'nonentities with formidable names,' should long
ere this have opened men's eyes to the folly of _multiplying causes
without necessity_--another rule of philosophising, for which we are
indebted to Newton, but to which no superstitious philosophiser pays due
attention. Newton himself in his theistical character, wrote and talked
as though most blissfully ignorant of that rule.
The passages given above from his 'Principia' palpably violate it. But
Theists, however learned, pay little regard to any rules of
philosophising, which put in peril their fundamental crotchet.
A distinguished modern Fabulist [38:1] has introduced to us a
philosophical mouse who praised beneficent Deity because of his great
regard for mice: for one half of us, quoth he, received the gift of
wings, so that if they who have none, should by cats happen to be
exterminated, how easily could our 'Heavenly Father,' out of the bats
re-establish our exterminated species.
Voltaire had no objection to fable if it were symbolic of truth; and
here is fable, which, according to its author, is symbolic of the little
regarded truth, that our pride rests mainly on our ignorance, for, as he
sagely says, 'the good mouse knew not that there are also winged cats.'
If she had her speculations concerning the beneficence of Deity would
have been less orthodox, mayhap, but decidedly more rational. The wisdom
of this pious mouse is very similar to that of the Theologian who knew
not how sufficiently to admire God's goodness in causing large rivers
almost always to flow in the neighbourhood of large towns.
To jump at conclusions on no other authority than their own ignorant
assumption, and to Deify errors on no other authority than their own
heated imagination, has in all ages been the practice of Theologians. Of
that practice they are proud, as was the mouse of our Fabulist. Clothed
in no other panoply than their own conceits they deem themselves
invulnerable. While uttering the wildest incoherencies their
self-complacency remains undisturbed. They remind one of that ambitious
crow who, thinking more highly of himself than was quite proper,
strutted so proudly about with the Peacock's feathers in which he had
bedecked himself.--Like him, they plume themselves upon their own
egregious folly, and like him should get well _plucked_ for their pains.
Let any one patiently examine their much talked of argument from design,
and he will be satisfied that these are no idle charges. That argument
has for its ground-work beggarly assumption, and for its main pillar,
reasoning no less beggarly. Nature must have had a cause, because it
evidently is an effect. The cause of Nature must have been one God,
because two Gods, or two million Gods, could not have agreed to cause
it. That cause must be omnipotent, wise, and good, because all things
are double one against another, and He has left nothing imperfect. Men
make watches, build ships or houses, out of pre-existing metals, wood,
hemp, bricks, mortar, and other materials, therefore God made nature out
of no material at all. Unassisted nature cannot produce the phenomena we
behold, therefore such phenomena clearly prove there is something
unnatural. Not to believe in a God who designed Nature, is to close both
ears and eyes against evidence, therefore Universalists are wilfully
deaf and obstinately blind.
These are samples of the flimsy stuff, our teachers of what nobody
knows, would palm upon us as demonstration of the Being and Attributes
of God.
By artfully taking for granted what no Universalist can admit, and
assuming cases altogether dissimilar to be perfectly analogous, our
natural theologians find no difficulty in proving that God is, was, and
ever will be; that after contemplating His own perfections, a period
sufficiently long for 'eternity to begin and end in,' He said, let there
be matter, and there was matter; that with Him all things are possible,
and He, of course, might easily have kept, as well as made, man upright
and happy, but could not consistently with his own wisdom, or with due
regard to his own glorification. Wise in their generation, these 'blind
leaders of the blind' ascribe to this Deity of their own invention
powers impossible, acts inconceivable, and qualities incompatible; thus
erecting doctrinal systems on no sounder basis than their own ignorance;
deifying their own monstrous errors, and filling the earth with misery,
madness, and crime.
The writer who declared theology _ignorance of natural causes reduced to
system_, did not strike wide of the true mark. It is plain that the
argument from design, so vastly favoured by theologians, amounts to
neither more nor less than ignorance of natural causes reduced to
system. An argument to be sound must be soundly premised. But here is an
argument whose primary premise is a false premise--a mere begging of the
very question in dispute. Did Universalists _admit_ the universe was
contrived, designed, or adapted, they could not _deny_ there must have
been at least one Being to contrive, design, or adapt; but they see no
analogy between a watch made with hands out of something, and a universe
made without hands out of nothing. Universalists are unable to perceive
the least resemblance between the circumstance of one intelligent body
re-forming or changing the condition of some other body, intelligent or
non-intelligent, and the circumstance of a bodiless Being creating all
bodies; of a partless Being acting upon all parts; and of a passionless
Being generating and regulating all passions. Universalists consider the
general course of nature, though strangely unheeded, does proclaim with
'most miraculous organ,' that dogmatisers about any such 'figment of
imagination' would, in a rational community, be viewed with the same
feelings of compassion, which, even in these irrational days, are
exhibited towards confirmed lunatics.
The author, while passing an evening with some pleasant people in
Ashton-under-Lyne, heard one of them relate that before the schoolmaster
had made much progress in that _devil-dusted_ neighbourhood, a labouring
man walking out one fine night, saw on the ground a watch, whose ticking
was distinctly audible; but never before having seen anything of the
kind, he thought it a living creature, and full of fear ran back among
his neighbours, exclaiming that he had seen a most marvellous thing, for
which he could conceive of no better name than CLICKMITOAD. After
recovering from their surprise and terror, this 'bold peasant' and his
neighbours, all armed with pokers and other formidable weapons, crept up
to the ill-starred ticker, and smashed it to pieces.
The moral of this anecdote is no mystery. Our clickmitoadist had never
seen watches, knew nothing about watches, and hearing as well as seeing
one for the first time, naturally judged it must be an animal. Readers
who may feel inclined to laugh at his simplicity, should ask themselves
whether, if accustomed to see watches growing upon watch trees, they
would feel more astonished than they usually do when observing crystals
in process of formation, or cocoa-nuts growing upon cocoa-nut trees; and
if as inexperienced with respect to watches, or works of art, more or
less analogous to watches, they would not under his circumstances have
acted very much as he did.
Supposing, however, that theologians were to succeed in establishing an
analogy between 'the contrivances of human art and the various
existences of the universe,' is it not evident that Spinoza's axiom--of
things which having nothing in common one cannot be the cause of the
others--is incompatible with belief in the Deity of our Thirty-Nine
Articles, or, indeed, belief in _any_ unnatural Designer or Causer of
Material Nature. Only existence can have anything in common with
existence.
Now, an existence, properly so called, must have at least two
attributes, and whatever exhibits two or more attributes is matter. The
two attributes necessary to existence are solidity and extension. Take
from matter these attributes and matter itself vanishes. That fact was
specially testified to by Priestley, who acknowledged the primary truths
of Materialism though averse to the legitimate consequences flowing from
their recognition.
According to this argument, nothing exists which has not solidity and
extension, and nothing is extended and solid but matter, which in one
state forms a crystal, in another a blade of grass, in a third a
butterfly, and in other states other forms. The _essence_ of grass, or
the _essence_ of crystal, in other words, those native energies of their
several forms constituting and keeping them what they are, can no more
be explained than can the _essentiality_ of _human_ nature.
But the Universalist, because he finds it impossible to explain the
action of matter, because unable to state why it exhibits such vast and
various energies as it is seen to exhibit, is none the less assured it
_naturally_ and therefore _necessarily_ acts thus energetically. No
Universalist pretends to understand how bread nourishes his frame, but
of the _fact_ that bread does nourish it he is well assured. He
understands not how or why two beings should, by conjunction, give
vitality to a third being more or less analogous to themselves, but the
_fact_ stares him in the face.
Our 'sophists in surplices,' who can no otherwise bolster up their
supernatural system than by outraging all such rules of philosophising
as forbid us to choose the greater of two difficulties, or to multiply
causes without necessity, are precisely the men to explain everything.
But unfortunately their explanations do, for the most part, stand more
in need of explanation than the thing explained. Thus, they explain the
origin of matter by reference to an occult, immense, and immensely
mysterious phantasm without body, parts or passions, who sees though not
to be seen, hears though not to be heard, feels though not to be felt,
moves though not to be moved, knows though not to be known, and, in
short, does everything, though not to be _done_ by anything. Well might
Godwin say _the rage of accounting for what is obviously unaccountable,
so common among philosophers of this stamp, has brought philosophy
itself into discredit_.
There is an argument against the notion of a Supernatural Causer which
the author does not remember to have met with, but which he considers an
argument of great force--it is this. Cause means change, and as there
manifestly could not be change before there was anything to change, to
conceive the universe caused is impossible.
That the sense here attached to the word cause is not a novel one every
reader knows who has seen an elaborate and ably written article by Mr.
G.H. Lewes, on 'Spinoza's Life and Works,' where effect is defined as
cause realised; the _natura naturans_ conceived as _natura naturata_;
and cause or causation is define as simply change. When, says Mr. Lewes,
the change is completed, we name the result effect. It is only a matter
of naming.
These definitions conceded accurate, the conclusion that neither cause
nor effect _exist_, seems inevitable, for change of being is not being
itself any more than attraction is the thing attracted. One might as
philosophically erect attraction into reality and fall down and worship
_it_ as change which is in very truth a mere "matter of naming." Not so
the things changing or changed; _they_ are real, the prolific parent of
all appearance we behold, of all sensation we experience, of all ideas
we receive, in short, of all causes and of all effects, which causes and
effects, as shown by Mr. Lewis, are merely notional, for "we call the
antecedent cause, and the sequent effect; but these are merely relative
conceptions; the sequence itself is antecedent to some subsequent
change, and the former antecedent was once only a sequent to its cause,
and so on."
Ancient Simonides, when asked by Dionysius to explain the nature of
Deity, demanded a day to "see about it," then an additional two days,
and then four days more, thus wisely intimating to his silly pupil, that
the more men think about Gods, the less competent they are to give any
rational account of them.
Cicero was sensible and candid enough to acknowledge that he found it
much easier to say what God was not, than what he was. Like Simonides,
he was _mere_ Pagan, and like him, arguing from the known course of
nature, was unable, with all his mastery of talk, to convey positive
ideas of Deity. But how should he convey to others what he did not,
could not, himself possess? To him no revolution had been vouchsafed,
and though my Lord Brougham is quite sure, without the proof of natural
Theology, revelation has no other basis than mere tradition; we have
even better authority than his Lordship's for the staggering fact that
natural Theology, without the prop of revelation, is a 'rhapsody of
words,' mere jargon, analogous to the tale told by an idiot, so happily
described by our great poet as 'full of sound and fury, signifying
nothing.' We have a Rev. Hugh M'Neil 'convinced that, from external
creation, no right conclusion can be drawn concerning the _moral_
character of God,' and that 'creation is too deeply and disastrously
blotted in consequence of man's sin, to admit of any satisfactory result
from an adequate contemplation of nature.' [42:1] We have a Gillespie
setting aside the Design Argument, on the ground that the reasonings by
which it is supported are 'inapt' to show such attributes as infinity,
omnipresence, free agency, omnipotency, eternality, or unity,' belong in
any way to God. On this latter attribute he specially enlarges, and
after allowing the contrivances we observe in nature, may establish a
unity of _counsel_, desires to be told how they can establish a unity of
_substance_. [42:2] We have Dr. Chalmors and Bishop Watson, whose
capacities were not the meanest, contending that there is no natural
proof of a God, and that we must trust solely to revelation. [42:3] We
have the Rev. Mr. Faber in his 'Difficulties of Infidelity' boldly
affirming that no one ever did, or ever will 'prove without the aid of
revelation, that the universe was designed by a _single_ designer.'
Obviously, then, there is a division in the religious camp with respect
to the sufficiency of natural Theology, unhelped by revelation. By three
of the four Christian authors just quoted, the design argument is
treated with contempt. Faber says, 'evident design must needs imply a
designer,' and that 'evident design shines out in every part of the
universe.' But he also tells us 'we reason exclusively, if with the
Deist we thence infer the existence of one and only one Supreme
Designer.' By Gillespie and M'Neil, the same truth is told in other
words. By Chalmers and Watson we are assured that, natural proof of a
God there is none, and our trust must be placed solely in revelation;
while Brougham, another Immense Being worshipper, declares that
revelation derives its chief support from natural Theology, without
which it has 'no other basis than vague tradition.'
Now, Universalists agree with Lord Brougham as to the traditionary basis
of Scripture; and as they also agree with Chalmers and Watson with
respect to there being no natural proof of a God, they stand acquitted
to their own consciences of 'wilful deafness' and 'obstinate blindness,'
in rejecting as inadequate the evidence that 'God is,' drawn either from
Nature, Revelation, or both.
It was long a Protestant custom to taunt Roman Catholics with being
divided among themselves as regards topics vitally important, and to
draw from the fact of such division an argument for making Scripture the
only 'rule of faith and manners.' Chillingworth said, _there are Popes
against Popes, councils against councils, some fathers against others,
the same fathers against themselves--a consent of fathers of one age
against a consent of fathers of another age, the church of one age
against the church of another age. Traditive interpretations of
Scripture are pretended, but there are few or none to be found. No
tradition but only of Scripture can derive itself from the fountain, but
may be plainly proved, either to have been brought in in such an age
after Christ, or that in such an age it was not in. In a word, there is
no sufficient certainty but of Scripture only for any considering man to
build on_. [43:1] And after reading this should 'any considering man'
be anxious to know something about the Scripture on which alone he is to
build, he cannot do better than dip into Dr. Watt's book on the right
use of Reason, where we are told _every learned (Scripture) critic has
his own hypothesis, and if the common text be not favourable to his
views a various lection shall be made authentic. The text must be
supposed to be defective or redundant, and the sense of it shall be
literal or metaphorical according as it best supports his own scheme.
Whole chapters or books shall be added or left out of the sacred canon,
or be turned into parables by this influence. Luther knew not well how
to reconcile the epistle of St. James to the doctrine of justification
by faith alone, and so he could not allow it to be divine. The Papists
bring all their Apocrypha into their Bible, and stamp divinity upon it,
for they can fancy purgatory is there, and they find prayers for the
dead. But they leave out the second commandment because it forbids the
worship of images. Others suppose the Mosaic history of the creation,
and the full of man, to be oriental ornaments, or a mere allegory,
because the literal sense of those three chapters of Genesis do not
agree with their theories._
These remarks are certainly not calculated to make 'considering men' put
their trust in Scripture. Coming from a Protestant Divine of such high
talent and learning, they may rather be expected to breed in
'considering men' very unorthodox opinions as well of the authenticity
as the genuineness of _both_ Testaments, and a strong suspicion that
Chillingworth was joking when he talked about their "sufficient
certainty." The author has searched Scripture in vain for 'sufficient
certainty,' with respect to the long catalogue of religious beliefs
which agitate and distract society. Laying claim to the character of a
'considering man,' he requires that Scripture to be proved the word of a
God before appealed to, as His Revelation; a feat no man has yet
accomplished. Priests, the cleverest, most industrious, and least
scrupulous, have tried their hands at the pious work, but all have
failed. Notwithstanding the mighty labours of our Lardner's and
Tillemont's and Mosheim's, no case is made out for the divinity of
either the Old or New Testament. 'Infidels' have shown the monstrous
absurdity of supposing that any one book has an atom more divinity about
it than any other book. These 'brutes' have completely succeeded in
proving that Christianity is a superstition no less absurd than
Mohammedanism, and to the full as mischievous.
Christian practice is after all, the best answer to Christian theory.
Men who think wisely, do not, it is true, always act wisely; but
generally speaking, the moral, like the physical tree, is known by its
fruit, and bitter, most bitter, is the fruit of that moral tree, the
followers of Jesus planted. Notwithstanding their talk about the pure
and benign influence of their religion, an opinion is fast gaining
ground, that Bishop Kidder was right, when he said, _were a wise man to
judge of religion by the lives of its professors, perhaps, Christianity
is the last he would choose_.