OF THE DIVINE WISDOM AS MANIFESTED IN THE REALM OF TRUTH, AND OF THE
CONFLICT OF THE AGE WITH ERROR.
God is a spirit of truth; and in the realm of truth, therefore, the
divine order, and the law of wisdom which reigns therein, shines forth
with an especial clearness--with a higher degree of evidence or greater
perspicuity than even in the region of nature, which for us is for the
most part half-dark, or at the very best but a _chiaro-oscuro_--a
mixture of light and darkness. But man, formed out of the dust of the
earth, placed, as it were, in the very center of nature, as its
first-born son or its earthly lord, is in this respect himself a natural
being. Even in his susceptibility for higher and divine truth, man is
tied to and is dependent on a similar and collateral grade of
development in the life of nature, which can in no case be violently
broken, nor a step in it arbitrarily overleaped, without involving the
most disastrous consequences as the penalty of so unnatural a course.
Even in education there reigns a similar law of gradual development
according to the natural progression of the different ages of life. With
the boy of good and natural abilities, who shows an aptness and
willingness to learn when knowledge is presented to his mind, and
implanted in a true and living form, the teacher’s first care is to
improve this disposition, and to strengthen and to foster it, and, by
furnishing it with the due measure and the right quality of intellectual
culture, gradually to develop its powers. At this age the moral part of
education will wisely confine itself to laying a foundation of good
habits, to the careful exclusion of all evil communication and the
deadly contagion of wicked example. In the soft and yielding character
of the child there can scarcely be as yet any question about principles
or sentiments. But the case is very different with youth. If at this
time of life the moral character be not carefully formed simultaneously
with its scientific cultivation, then is the good season irreparably
lost, and rarely, if ever, can the deficiency be afterward supplied. For
when this stage of intellectual and moral culture is once passed, when
the mind has begun at last to move with greater freedom and to mature
itself, the young man is at once admitted to the full light of science,
or enters into the busy course of active life, to be there brought to
the touchstone of experience.
And a similar series of gradation may be observed on a larger scale in
the historical succession and development of the ages of the world. For
such is, in every case, the gradual expansion of man’s consciousness, as
he is at present constituted. His senses must be first excited and
expanded; then, and then only, with any good result, can the soul be led
to the good and divine, which, however, not content to dismiss them
after the first look of wonder and amazement, it must rather dwell upon
with the full and deep feelings of admiration and reverence; until at
last, being wholly filled with them, it derives from their inspiration a
new stimulus and excitement, and thereby is forever and permanently
directed to the true end and aim of existence. And now at last can the
free spirit apprehend aright the divine truth, and, in the spirit of
this knowledge, act with vital energy, conformably to that position in
God’s great world which has been assigned and allotted to him.
And this order can not be transgressed with impunity. None of its
intermediate steps can be overleaped without involving the most fearful
consequences. If the senses be not first of all excited and expanded,
then will it be lost labor to attempt to win and fortify the heart, or
to turn the soul toward the never-setting sun of divine truth. And,
accordingly, how many attempts, both on a large and a small scale, at
the moral regeneration of mankind have totally failed even for want of
the first step of a forerunning light and previous illumination, by
which the observation should have been roused, the senses stimulated,
and the eye opened. But when, on the contrary, the full light is
imparted to or gained by the mind, while the soul still remains
enveloped in darkness and fast wedded to its evil habits, without
attaining to a higher exaltation, then, indeed, the result is equally
grievous, though different from that which follows from the mistake of
overleaping at the first step. It has an effect; it does not remain
without an influence. So long as the moral part of man is wholly
neglected, and is either left rude and barbarous, or suffered to become
degenerate, then science works indeed, but only as a destroying element.
In so bad a soil the true knowledge is ever transformed into false, and
the more profoundly it is apprehended--the more vividly and vigorously
it is pursued--the more fatally, perniciously, and destructively does it
work. The examples and the proofs of the injurious consequences of too
rapid and premature development of scientific enlightenment amid a
general prevalence of moral depravity, and the subversion of those
principles which are the foundation of national existence and
prosperity, might easily be found at no great distance from our own age.
And they admit also of being demonstrated as clearly and convincingly by
earlier instances from the history of the Greeks and Romans. The
production of these proofs, however, would carry us beyond our present
limits, and the truth they would establish is not, moreover, the end to
which our present disquisitions are directed. The theme of this Lecture
is the course observed by eternal wisdom, or the divine order in the
realm of truth. My object is to call your attention to the care with
which Providence observes a gradual progression in its mental
development of the human race, lovingly suiting and adapting itself to
the weakness and finiteness of humanity, and to the imperfection of
earthly creatures, according to that principle of divine condescension,
so often mentioned already, which, throughout the divine operations in
the world, and His influence on man, is distinctly visible.
Thus, then, in the knowledge immediately imparted to man by a higher
providence we may discern a preliminary period--a previous illumination,
in order to reopen the eye of man, which heathenism had blinded to the
truth, that it might be able to see and discern God. This first step of
revelation was little more than a preparation for the future; but the
second was, or has been, an illumination of the soul--a vital renewal of
it--a total conversion of it from the state of darkness to the
Everlasting Light and the Sun of Righteousness. But in this living
development of the highest life, which is even the divine light of the
Spirit, the third and last step (which indeed commences in and is
involved in the second, even as it also had its germ in the first) is
the full enlightenment of the spirit or mind. And accordingly this full
revelation is in Scripture itself, as being the close and completion of
the whole, expressly described, and named the last time.
Before attempting, however, to point out the divine order in the
education of the human race, by the gradual revelation of truth, two
general and preliminary remarks seem called for. I observe, then, first
of all, that when we speak of sense, soul, and spirit, as the successive
terms in the growing capacity of the human consciousness for a higher
knowledge and heavenly training, and for truth in general, but more
especially for divine truth, then the general sense of truth, which such
an hypothesis supposes, and which indeed is its essential foundation,
must be understood as comprising all those other particular species,
branches, or departments which we have already enumerated. I mean the
common sense of sound reason. For that susceptibility for the
impressions of nature, and the understanding, which, as I said before,
constitute the sense for the revelation of spirit, or the spirit of
revelation--whether written or historical--are alike comprised in that
one and common sense for truth. Or perhaps we may rather say, that by
their joint operations they form it; while, however, in its special
application, now this now that constituent preponderates--or perhaps
that this one and universal sense for truth is called into action, and
made to co-operate now in this direction and now in that. Moreover, that
internal concurrence and assent of the will, which I have endeavored to
show is the proper sense in man for God and for divine things, belongs
also, as an essential and element of its constitution, to this general
sense for truth. For that the opposite fault of self-will and obstinacy
is in the highest degree a hinderance of good, even in the acquisition
of knowledge and the recognition of truth, is found by experience in the
earliest essays of education. But not only in the elementary principles
of learning, but even in the most highly-finished and elaborate systems
of metaphysical ideas, constructed by the profoundest thinkers and
philosophers, does this spirit of negation and contradiction show
itself, and prove the greatest obstacle to truth and the most fruitful
source of error.
The second remark which we have to make before entering upon the
immediate subject of our Lecture refers to the natural progression of
the living development of the human consciousness. This gradation, we
would observe, holds good, and is applicable, not merely to the moral
education of man, but also to the intellectual improvement of man’s
capacity, as at present constituted, for all higher and divine verities.
But, however true this may be, where the general sense for truth is not
from the first open and full of light, where the soul is not already
perfectly free and pure; yet on the other hand there is nothing
against--on the contrary, every thing favors the supposition, that the
earliest revelation imparted to mankind--the illumination which was
given to the first man, and bestowed upon him as his heavenly
inheritance on earth, was a full and perfect enlightenment of his mind
[_geist_]. For his senses were open and clear, his soul as yet
incorrupt, pure, and free. Both were directed to God, and being one with
and at unison with nature, were keenly alive to and deeply impressed by
every token of God’s glory and majesty in creation. It is quite an error
to assume, or, rather, to fancy, that this state of purity and innocence
was a state of ignorance like that of the child or of the wild man. The
tree of life was given to him entirely and without reserve, as also
dominion over the earth, whose first-made living creatures the Lord
subjected to his dominion, bringing them before him to call and to name
them. The knowledge of death was indeed designedly withheld from him, as
also the existence of the evil spirits, even because it was exactly
therein that his trial and probation were to consist. And so both are
perfectly reconcilable: that height of knowledge in the clearest light
of nature, which the sacred traditions of all primitive nations so
positively and unanimously assign to the first man, is in nowise
inconsistent with that ignorance of death which is no less expressly
ascribed to him. Moreover, had man but preserved and kept alive in his
heart this feeling of God, he would immediately have recognized his
enemy, and even thereby have triumphed over him, and become the redeemer
of nature, instead of requiring, now that he has failed in that his high
destination, a Redeemer for his own fallen race. This first revelation,
therefore, was, we may well assume, in the beginning as it will also be
in the end, a full enlightenment of the spirit of man, but which,
however, was soon darkened by his disobedience and fall. This, too, is
the shape which the matter assumes in the legendary history of all the
primeval nations of antiquity, and these are the threads of light which
in the labyrinthine confusion of legends, symbols, and tongues of
earliest heathendom, carry us safely out of its mazes and back to the
clear starting-point of the pure and undefiled revelation of God. It
were not difficult to show how, through the first two millenniums and a
half, or five-and-twenty centuries, a higher providence and divine
guidance was ever quietly carrying on these luminous threads of original
truth, and from time to time renewing them. But this history of the
human mind in the primeval world, however highly attractive, would take
us out of our proper limits. Upon the eclipse of man’s soul, when
spiritual darkness universally prevailed, the senses originally open to
a higher light were closed against it. His better perceptions were
overwhelmed or buried beneath a chaos of true and false or half-true
images and symbols. Then it was that the natural law of spiritual
development commenced in its full force. It followed the progression
already described. In the first term the numbed and deadened sense had
to be awakened and quickened again, and in its second the soul renewed,
purified, and converted, before either could become susceptible of the
full and perfect illumination of the Spirit. To trace this natural law
in the human consciousness and in the divine education of mankind, and
to ascertain the progressive steps in the divine revelations, expressly
given and designed to effect that gradual development, is the object of
the present Lecture.
The first step or term thereof was the selection of a single people to
be the schoolmaster of the whole human race.[37] When the heathenish
mass of legends or myths and symbols had reached the height of
confusion, and the evil had become otherwise incurable, one nation was
chosen and set apart by God as His instrument in opening the eyes of men
to the abyss of error in which the whole world was plunged, and to
direct their looks exclusively to the future. Many prophets were sent to
the chosen people, and it was at first guided and ruled by none but
prophets. And, perhaps, we can not form a more correct notion of the
character and history of this people, so peculiarly distinguished from
all the other nations of the ancient world, than by thinking of it
absolutely and in its destination as the _prophetic_ people exclusively
intended to point to a distant future, and whose leading ideas and
inmost feelings were to be attached to, and to look far into, a remote
futurity. Three strokes or words, at most, comprise the highly-simple
revelation of the first stage--the first ray of light at the
beginning--in which, however, lies contained the hidden key and solution
for the chaos of legends, and all the enigmas of the primitive world and
of primeval history. But this brief and simple revelation was
accompanied with a strict line of demarcation between the Gentiles and
the chosen people, who were separated from all the heathen nations by
customs and laws, while a long ray of hope reached far into the distant
future. This point of light at the beginning was, however, but little
considered and ill-understood; the line of demarcation, too, was often
transgressed upon the slightest pretext and most ordinary temptations.
And when at last it was more strictly kept, it was observed, not in its
spirit, but in the letter; and, in consequence, even that high and
lofty-hope which irradiated it was totally misunderstood, being
interpreted, in a narrow spirit of national exclusiveness, of a temporal
Redeemer, and a political redemption from the yoke of the Roman
oppressor. This delusion, and the extreme ingratitude with which,
consequently, the Light that came into the world was, on the whole,
received by those to whom It was in the first place communicated, has
been often painted in the darkest colors of indignant censure by the
stern pen of history. The stiffneckedness of the Jews has been a
fruitful theme for virtuous indignation. But, for my part, I hardly know
whether, in this respect, a different and more favorable sentence can be
passed on the generations which have witnessed the subsequent steps of
divine revelation in its further development. Full time was allowed to
the prophetic people to develop itself; and, after the lapse of
twenty-fire centuries, which make up the first age of the world, a
millennium and a half was allowed to this initiatory step of revelation.
And now, at length, after forty centuries of preparation and hope, when
the long, dark winter of the olden idolatry was over, the historical
development of the human race reached its culminating point, and with
the vernal solstice [_Fruhling’s-Solstitium_] of this new manifestation
commenced the second term in this series of revelation or of the divine
education of the human race. Even from its very first opening, every
thing characterizes this second term of development as not intended for
a complete and final revelation of spirit and knowledge. Promising, and
reserving to the future that final manifestation, it forms, in this
respect, a marked contrast to the highly-cultivated science of the
Greeks, which, however, in spite of its high pretensions, did but become
continually more and more sensuous in its character. The immediate
object of this second enlightenment of the whole human race was to be a
total conversion of the soul from its previous earthly darkness to the
everlasting light and the one and only Sun of Truth, and thereby to
effect a complete renewal of life, and a reformation of all its habits,
customs, and institutions. This alone did God require; and glorious, and
noble, and deeply-touching was the conflict in which this wholly new but
heaven-descended sentiment had to engage with the opposing spirit of the
old world.
But men soon relapsed into their former discord; and it is now our
painful task to point out the rise and growth of this dissension through
the succeeding eras of history. For thus only--by considering, in every
period, man’s relation, or, rather, his opposition, to the divine
revelation--is it possible, amid the rapid progress of the widening
disagreement, to trace the divine order which rules amid the anarchy of
mind, and to follow it along its path of light up to its appointed end,
and to its close and conclusion.
In the first three or four centuries of Christianity, this spirit of
opposition showed itself in two different forms. In the one, the new and
simple faith was first of all perverted into a chaos of philosophical
fictions of an old Asiatic character.[38] In the other, a secret and
half infidelity hid itself behind a veil of words,[39] against which the
faith must defend itself behind an outwork of words also; and in this
period of history, a subtile and refined logomachy first of all attained
to a great and lasting importance for mankind. In this dispute, the
simple foundation of the faith was indeed maintained and defended, in
its purity and integrity, against all hostile attacks; but the
first-love lost much of its freshness and ardor. Consequently the new
life, which sprung up with the new faith, was unable to fulfill the
hopes which at its first rise men had reasonably entertained of it, and,
by reforming the corrupt civilization of the old Roman world, to renew
it entirely in God. Accordingly, an alien and purely physical element
had to be associated with it. The northern nations were called in to
infuse fresh energy into the worn-out races of England.
In this work of physical regeneration three centuries were again spent.
But at the close of this first period, it was seen, on a sudden, how
little the olden spirit of dissension had been really conquered, or even
mollified. The faith, it was said, may, in all essential points, be
perfectly identical, but a division may be, and still subsists,
notwithstanding. But what does that mean, but that the God and Savior
of the world worshiped by the East, is different from Him whom the West
acknowledges? And thus the one God and the one faith was in the life of
man again divided into two; and this singular schism, without any
adequate cause, still subsists to the present day.[40] In the following
great period a fresh life blossomed in rich and manifold expansion out
of that revelation of love which, properly speaking, now first of all
put forth its full vital energies, giving a new shape to all the
institutions of human society, and impressing on art, as well as on
moral and political science, a new character, totally different from
that which they possessed among the most enlightened nations of
antiquity. Viewed in its loving aspect, _i.e._, in its chivalry, there
is much in this period to attract and engage our enthusiasm and
sympathies, but for the fearful discord which broke out within it, and
set one half of the world in hostile array against the other. The two
powers which ought to work together for one divine end--the two swords
of which the Lord had said, “It is enough,”[41]--the spiritual sword of
the kingdom of faith and truth, and the civil sword of earthly justice,
were drawn and held in threatening attitude against each other, by
which, however, the minds of men were torn and distracted by the inward
struggle of conflicting duties in a far greater degree than the external
peace of society was disturbed. But it was not merely in such a
collision that the strife alone showed itself; but it extended even to
the confusion of the two domains, and a forgetfulness of their proper
duties and respective positions.
In the instance, it is true, of the mailed ecclesiastic, however, at
first sight, the union in one person of such opposite characters as the
soldier and priest may startle the mind, the gallant and noble bearing
of the spiritual knight soon reconciles us to the strange phenomenon.
So, too, when he whose vocation it was to hold the pastoral staff began
also to sway the scepter of a civil prince, the eminent skill and
judgment with which the difficult task of discharging the double and
often conflicting duties of so mixed a sovereignty was accomplished,
silence every murmur of a protest. But when he who ought to carry the
crosier of peace hoisted the pennon of war, such a sight naturally gave
great offense, and sadly perplexed the minds of men.
Thus, then, passed seven centuries more, making, with the eight already
described, fifteen altogether that have elapsed from that great center
of the world’s history, when the spiritual sun reached its meridian
altitude in this earthly life. These, added to the fifteen which had
previously passed from the first shining of the light of revelation,
make no less than three millenneums. And to these, again, three
centuries more are to be added. Such is the extremely slow course of the
divine guidance of the world, as regulated by the inexhaustible patience
and long-suffering of God in the education of his human creatures.
In this last period, however, the spirit of discord has become still
more general, and has broken out in all its violence, gradually
attacking and drawing into the dispute every institution of society and
every department of life. In the wonderful coincidence of many and great
discoveries, simultaneously made in widely-distinct and independent
branches of science, the spirit of man read the proclamation of his
majority. Conscious of this intellectual ripeness, in the first use of
its new powers it assumed toward the faith an attitude of estrangement
and controversy, instead of calmly advancing along the assigned path
toward perfection. Even at the very commencement of this period, the
hostile relation between the new science and the ancient faith is
perceptible enough. But it soon showed itself more distinctly, as the
rupture became wider and more general, till at last the discord extended
to the very faith itself, which was henceforth broken up into bitter and
opposing parties. Still later, a newer and deeper animosity divided the
faith in general from the whole civil and political life, from which in
many places its religious foundation was altogether removed. And now
that life was thus deprived of its higher and spiritual significance,
the strife became universal and complete. Involving science and life
into the discord, it set them also in deadly array against each
other--for life thus unspiritualized could no longer reconcile itself to
the dreamy ideal of a science which at most was but partially true,
while life itself could not satisfy the requisitions of science. And
fearful was the outbreak in which this last antagonism of principle
openly displayed its animosity.
This fourfold schism, then--first, between science and faith; secondly,
in the faith itself; thirdly, between life and faith; and lastly,
between the new science (which usurped the place of the faith it had
discarded) and life itself--this fourfold schism, with its several
branches and ramifications, extending to every department of human
existence, lies now before us, in the present age, as the still-unsolved
problem of life.
And who but God alone shall or is able to solve it? As a question of
dispute, this problem--and especially its inmost root, the schism in the
faith--can be profitably discussed only in the spirit of love and mutual
forbearance between cognate and kindred minds, who, while they think
differently on a few points, yet agree in most. Many works might be
adduced on both sides, composed in that conciliatory spirit of
approximation which is most accordant with true philosophy, whose first
effort is, in all cases, directed to reconciling and removing the
deeply-rooted animosities of human nature. To a complete decision,
however, of the whole matter in question, we shall never arrive on the
road of disputation. Even though the dispute were maintained with the
most valid reasoning, and were conducted with the most dignified
forbearance and mildness, the attempt would only be lost labor. For
there exists no supreme court of appeal to whose sentence both sides
would be ready to submit. On the one side, the reason--which advances
with unlimited freedom in its investigations--and faith on the other,
with its assumed authority to decide in the last instance, would alike
refuse to acknowledge its adversary as a competent tribunal.
Thus deeply piercing into the very marrow of humanity, and thus mortal
is the conflict. Indeed, a man can scarcely touch upon it without being
carried almost involuntarily into the very midst of the strife, and very
fortunate may he account himself if he retires from it unscathed. And if
it were only from a mere human point of view of a scientific dispute
that I had to consider it, good reason should I have to be on my guard,
lest on this matter my mind should be, as it were, forcibly rent and
divided into two halves. I have, however, at present no anxiety of the
kind. For my purpose is solely and entirely to trace out the divine
order in the revelation progressively given to mankind, and following
this luminous thread to lead reflection up to the finishing close of
God’s education of the human race, where, in the full shining of the
perfect day, there shall be no more controversy and no more doubt.
Viewing the matter in this light, I see but little to attract my
sympathies in the publicly-conducted controversy, however highly
important and pre-eminent a place it may hold in the history of the
world. Far more attractive to me are those isolated and retiring spirits
on both sides who, taking but little, if any, part in the prevailing
dispute, have their eyes directed rather to the future, in watchful
expectation of that full and final illumination, with all its attendant
promises--among which we must reckon, first and foremost, the peace and
joy of believing--in the last revelation of divine mind. Of these calmer
spirits, however, some have actually fallen, and others have been on the
very brink of falling, into the plausible error of regarding this third
step of enlightenment as an absolutely new revelation, whereas it is
quite clear that it will be nothing more than the simple completion of
the earlier steps. For a revelation which should give itself out as
perfectly new, apart from and independent of that saving illumination of
the soul which marks the second step, and which we are already in
possession of--which should disavow this earlier divine revelation of
the heart, of love and life in faith, which is withheld from no one, and
which every one knows, would, even by such an announcement, proclaim its
own falsity. New heavens and a new earth are indeed expressly promised
among the blessings of this last age. Mention is also made of a Gospel
that shall be preached “unto all them that dwell on the earth, and to
every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people.”[42] This Gospel,
however, is nowhere called a new one; since in the old one there is
enough for life, if only it be duly observed, and also for knowledge, if
only it be rightly understood. But it is called the “everlasting”
Gospel; and by this term it is plain that nothing is to be understood
but this full light of divine knowledge now made perfect in God, and
which has become one with faith, and, consequently, fully reconciled
with life also. In this domain, and in this spiritual sense, it is not
necessary that the fair morning-star of faith, which has guided us
through the dark night, and lighted us to the day-spring, should become
extinct when the sun ascends the heavens in his full meridian splendor.
On the contrary, it shall burn the more brightly; or, rather, to speak
more correctly--for here no such contrast finds a place--it is the
morning-star itself that shall expand into the full sun, and illuminate
the whole world with its light.
Waiting, therefore, for this manifestation, we must endure with the more
patience the existing discord so long as our lot is placed amid it, and
show greater moderation toward it, since we are subject to it in hope.
Only let me not be thought of as recommending a spurious impartiality,
which, in truth, is little better than a culpable indifference to
questions the most important that can agitate our own generation and all
humanity--or the indiscriminating contempt of an arrogated superiority,
which is even still more offensive and baneful to truth than the most
vehement adoption of either of the conflicting views, if associated with
honesty of purpose and conviction. As little, too, would I be thought to
favor the presumptuous decisions of individuals, which, adopting a
peculiar principle, or, as it is styled, a higher point of view, even
though occasionally it does justice to each in part, yet on the whole
materially wrongs them both. In the first ages of this intellectual
disease, great names were arrayed on either side; and that through all
its variations brilliant talents and scientific attainments maintained
the conflict, while there was much that was false and wrong in both
parties, is equally unquestionable. But what avails the unrighteousness
of man against the righteousness of the cause, when, as we must, we
regard the latter as the cause of God?
The painful feature of the conflict is the fact that, in a certain
measure, God Himself has become the object of man’s rancor and
animosity. In sacred lore and tradition, but pre-eminently in
revelation, God Himself became as it were a child; and in the childlike
language of the heart, and in the most confiding manner, gave Himself
into the hands of men. But now, even this marvelous child and the divine
word is near being torn asunder by the disputants, like the child in the
old story or parable. Two mothers, we are told, came and stood before
the king, disputing violently whose was the child that had been
overlaid, and whose was the living one. But the true mother, for both
had fallen asleep in the night, was recognized by her prayer that the
child might not be divided in two by the sword of justice, but preferred
that her son should live, even though she must lose it by resigning it
to the other. Whereupon the king ordered his officers in no wise to slay
the living child, but to give it to her who by her love had proved
herself its mother.[43]
But for us the great sentence which is to decide all controversies, and
can alone put an end to this discord, is not yet pronounced. But, in
truth, the more confirmed symptoms of the deepening intellectual strife
which mark the present generation, furnish one proof the more of the
near approach of the day of final decision. And then the perfect triumph
of divine revelation and the fiery baptism of the Spirit, which in those
last days shall be administered, shall bring with it the long-promised
universal peace of the soul when under a divine leader--the invisible
One now become visible--all that hope in Him, of all kindreds and
families, shall be reunited in Him in one love and one fellowship. A
universal and perfect peace like this, which, according to revealed
truth, is the last that is to be imparted to the human race, and is even
to continue for ever, must, it is natural to suppose, be preceded by a
violent but closing conflict. And do we not in our own age see such a
one developing itself in a manner unparalleled by all that have gone
before in it? To this conflict of our age, then, I must now devote a few
words, and consider pre-eminently the relations subsisting between it
and science.
In many and various ways, unquestionably, was the spirit of man called
upon in this beautiful era of the restoration of science to consider
itself ripe and mature; its feelings, too, answered to the call, and, in
some respects, perhaps it was even so. But let us examine the matter by
the same law of sound reason that we should judge of a corresponding
case in ordinary and social life. Let us suppose a youth to have
attained his legal majority, or, perhaps, by his father’s will, declared
of age at a still earlier period. Is it right for him, all at once, to
forget the love wherewith his mother has nursed and reared him? Is it
right in him, misinterpreting altogether the motive of his father’s
dying wish, to cast off and trample under foot all the wise and useful
lessons with which, according to the measure of his years, his mind was
stored at school, merely because he has remarked or experienced that
there is much in life which was not touched upon in his school-learning?
If we saw this in private life, should we not form a very bad opinion of
such a youth who so suddenly throws off all restraint, and take care
that sooner or later he should fall under another and stricter
oversight, since he has all at once outgrown parental control. Why,
then, should we form a different judgment in the realm of science and
truth? All eyes and universal expectation were directed to this
restoration of science. And these hopes were right in so far as through
the lapse of these last times which are hastening to a close, the course
and trial of human nature are even to lie therein. But if, as already
pointed out, they fell into a grave error, who, even while they kept
within the bounds of faith, looked upon the promised completion and
final triumph of the divine and eternal revelation in the light of a new
manifestation of truth, and almost as a new religion; far greater was
the aberration of those who formed the conception of, and hoped to
attain to, an ever-advancing science altogether without God, or at least
one which, proceeding side by side with Him, should never come into
vital contact with Him! But men can not thus pass along by the side of
Omnipotence, without coming into contact with him; and every effort to
rise into the higher regions of truth, which is begun and intended to
remain wholly without God, will, sooner or later, be directed against
Him. And every branch of knowledge, and more especially the highest, if
it be without God, is but a false light of the mind [_geist_], which
will only too soon beguile it into the olden darkness of the soul. And
so it came to pass then. For under this smooth surface of a seeming
moral mildness, the lurking poison suddenly broke out, as it were, by a
fearful conspiracy of the times, spreading its contagion far and wide,
and corrupting every thing that came within its reach--even as it had
been predicted of it in the second book of the future.[44]
For even out of the struggle of good against evil, the latter suddenly
arose again in a new and unexpected shape, coming forth, as it were, out
of the sea, and the moral world was transformed into a sea of blood. And
so, indeed, in these prophetic pages, it is predicted of the enigmas of
the last days. Now, throughout this great catastrophe of the world, so
far as it can be regarded as a peculiar and especial, but historical
warning from God, and a revelation of the divine will, we may trace,
among the better disposed, the same gradation of illumination, advancing
through the ascending series of sense, soul, and spirit, that we have
already noticed, on a larger scale, in the course of the history of
mankind. The senses of many individuals become, indeed, more and more
open, the more clearly they recognized, by its historical characters,
the fatal abyss to which the age of the world was drawing nigh. The
epoch of the restoration was, moreover, followed by a general revolution
in the sentiments, the moral principles, and prevailing pursuits of men.
The third step, however, of a right and true knowledge which, from the
position of a full scientific enlightenment of the mind or spirit,
should penetrate into the profoundest depths of truth, is still wanting,
or at any rate exists as yet only in a very imperfect degree. This
property is the defective point in the problem of the age, and in all
attempts hitherto made to solve it.
The false science, even that unhuman and godless science which has been
already described, can only be overcome and conquered by the true. The
mere method of negation--which, generally, indeed, is seldom the right
one--is here, too, insufficient for the purpose. And so, in fact, when
clouds of dust darken the air, or swarms of noxious insects fill it, it
may suffice if the goodman of the house shuts to his casement, as he may
lawfully do, even because it is his own; but when the fearful
thunderstorm is lowering in the heavens, the closed window will but
little insure the safety of his dwelling, unless he has more wisely
provided against the danger, by a good lightning-conductor. But what is
that? And how came man first to think of it? Why, by studying the
electrical phenomena, and arriving at a full understanding of its
nature, and so, in obedience to its laws, contriving a counteracting and
diverting agent for the electric current, and converting the natural
action of the threatening element into an instrument of protection. And
just in the same way will a true wisdom proceed in the domain of science
and truth. It is only by a good power, of a like kind and similar action
to its own, that the supremacy of evil can be overcome. Even, therefore,
and to this purport was the earnest warning uttered by the mouth of
Truth Itself against those who, although they sat in Moses’s seat,
neither went in themselves nor suffered others that were entering to go
in.[45]
And what a different picture does Holy Writ set before us in the noble
example of Moses! No doubt the preparation for the work to which he was
to be called, of leading successfully the people intrusted to him by God
out of their Egyptian darkness through the fearful Red Sea and all the
wanderings in the wilderness, to the borders of the promised land, was
even the forty years of solitude among the noble pastoral people with
whom he spent the long period of his exile. But still it is not without
a deep significance that it is written that the daughter of the Egyptian
monarch, having adopted the foundling of the waters, brought him up and
educated him as her own son. So, too, assuredly is it not without design
that it is said so emphatically of him, that he “was learned in all the
wisdom of the Egyptians.”[46] In the first place, we have good reason to
rejoice at and to acknowledge the comprehensive spirit and wide standard
of judgment which Holy Writ here sets up. For whereas it passes a
severer sentence of reprobation on the Egyptians than on any other
heathen nation or people, for their moral depravity, it yet acknowledges
that they possessed a scientific wisdom, which amply rewarded the labor
of its acquisition, while it proved the very errors wherewith in their
extreme corruption they had overloaded it, to be only the more culpable
and deserving of punishment. Shallow and superficial skeptics may,
indeed, as many have already done, avail themselves of such an
admission, and cry, “There! it is plain enough--Moses borrowed every
thing from Egypt and the hieroglyphics.”
But this is not the case. No doubt both the first ten and the last
twelve letters of the Hebrew alphabet are hieroglyphics, as their very
names indicate; but in its primary natural roots, nevertheless, and,
above all, in its whole spirit, and structure, and tone, this language
differs widely from the hieroglyphical Egyptian. Certainly Moses did
learn from Egypt all that there was for him to learn. And this learning
enabled him the more easily to disperse the thick Egyptian darkness, and
the less cause, consequently, had he to fear the false arts of the
Egyptian magicians and serpent-charmers. He took from them all that was
available for his purpose, but he made it quite new again, and gave it
another nature by the end to which he employed it. He despoiled them of
their “jewels of gold and jewels of silver,” by a theft permissible in
the realm of science and truth. For it is lawful for man to wrest from
the evil power all that may be converted into a means of honoring the
things of God and His revealed truth, and which thereby is better
employed, spiritualized, and invested with a higher and better
significance. This is true even of our own days, as it was then, and,
indeed, always has been.
Oh, that the many great men who, in our own generation, have deserved
so well of mankind, by devoting themselves to the noble work of
re-establishing right sentiments and principles, had, in this their good
design, followed the great example set them by this man so highly
preferred of God! But, with one or two exceptions, it is impossible to
boast of them that, like Moses, they were “learned in all the wisdom of
the Egyptians.” And hence the fact is at once explicable why, with such
ardent and unbounded zeal, they should have effected comparatively so
little against the modern Egyptians, and the new Egyptian darkness of
our own days.
An intellectual conflict about truth, and, indeed, about divine truth,
is the struggle of our age. This fact is already seen and admitted by a
few, but, ere long, it will be still more generally acknowledged. God is
a spirit of truth; and even on this account is His adversary, the spirit
of contradiction, termed “a liar from the beginning;” and, of all the
powerful instruments and wicked devices of that evil one, the lie is the
first and chiefest. And this suggests to me to notice, in passing, a
point in the moral systems of our day, notwithstanding that it does not
properly lie within our prescribed limits. In most of our ethical
treatises the question of falsehood and untruth is but carelessly
treated, and seldom discussed with that prominence and gravity which its
great importance demands. Overt transgressions of the laws belong rather
to jurisprudence than to ethics, which properly treats of and analyzes
the leading faults of human character as so many diseases of the soul.
Now, the worst among these are usually denominated mortal, _i.e._,
likely to bring the soul unto death; but the lie, in the full import of
the term--the intrinsic proper lie of the soul, as the predominant fault
in a character of untruth--a whole life become, as it were, one great
lie, is far more than mortal--it is even death itself. And it is even of
this sin--this secret revolting against and wounding of the Spirit, even
the divine Spirit of Eternal Truth--that is said in Holy Writ, that it
shall be forgiven neither in this world nor in the next.
On this point, then, I think that moral theory and teaching can never be
stern and rigorous enough in its precepts, especially as regards
individuals. It is not, indeed, a question about words, but about their
interpretation, and what is meant by those who use them; and in this
respect there may be, and often is a false and over-scrupulous delicacy
of conscience. When, however, we remember how, in particular ages of
history, oaths have been played with--millions of oaths lavishly
proffered and shortly retaken in quite a different and opposite sense,
and soon again abjured with as little difficulty; and when we consider
the evil effects this trifling with the most solemn of obligations must
have had on the moral character of a people, we can not but see some
excuse in this monstrous fact for certain small communities of
Christians who absolutely refuse to take an oath in any case. For when,
in the important point of truth and falsehood, a grave error has been
committed on one side, it is better to meet it on the other by too great
strictness. A rigorous severity can never entail such fearful
consequences in such a case, as the opposite fault of an over-indulgent
laxity, or, what is even still more false and erroneous, the regarding
the matter as trifling and indifferent. But the further prosecution of
this topic would lead me out of my proper province, and I have only
touched upon it in passing to that which lies more immediately before
us.
If, then, there is nothing so dangerous to the character of an
individual, both inwardly and outwardly--if there is nothing that works
so insidiously, conveying its secret poison to the very lowest roots and
extremities of the moral character, as untruth and the spirit of lying,
how much more fearful must its malignant influence prove when it is
become the universal and prevailing fault of an age which has not only
wandered far from the truth, but is even animated with a deadly hatred
of it!
It is to this spirit of lies, and the false splendor of his colossal
empire, and to the final conflict which truth will have to wage with it
on earth, that the most awful of the prophecies already alluded to
refer. And the application is easily made, since a greater part of their
warning denunciations have in our age already come to an actual
fulfillment. If, then, this giant spirit of destruction and untruth was
strong enough even in his cradle to throttle two quarters of the
world,[47] what must it be now that the permitted interval of rest has
passed away without being profitably employed to the cause of truth, and
now that this same spirit of murder and lies, with a far greater body,
and endued with far more magical powers, is let loose again to tread
the earth for a while with iron feet, and to deceive the nations?
Those whose responsible position in public life, or comprehensive sphere
of intellectual activity, enable them to take in at one glance all the
various elements of evil and pernicious principles and destructive
tendencies which are so actively at work in our days, will not, perhaps,
be disposed to regard these remarks as groundless or exaggerated;
others, perhaps, may make a mock at them--but they may go on in their
delusion for a while.
In conclusion, I have but three observations to add. The first regards
the divine permission of evil, and is intended to form a supplement to
that Theodicée which I have attempted, in the only way that such a
justification of the divine ways is permissible to man, by appealing,
viz., to his feelings, rather than by attempting to force his conviction
by the rigor of demonstration. The full justification of the ways of
Providence is reserved for a future day, when all mouths shall be
stopped, whether that awful crisis be near at hand or yet tarries for a
while. If, now, the human race be actually sick and in a sickly state,
as indeed can not well be denied, then must God’s overruling providence
in the affairs of the world be judged of in the same light as, and be
compared to, the wise treatment of a skillful physician. For as the
latter, in the case of a patient whose death was to be apprehended from
a total prostration of his bodily powers and energy, might wish for or
even venture to super-induce a violent paroxysm, in the hope that in it
he might perhaps be able to throw off his fatal lethargy; even so, in
God’s government of the world, those predetermined counsels, which seem
so singular, but, nevertheless, are so expressly foretold, may have a
somewhat similar design. In the times of the last struggle the power of
darkness will probably work itself to death on the earth; and while the
remnant shall come out of the crisis and fiery trial purer and
healthier, the divine truth is to gain a complete triumph over sin and
death.
The second remark I have to make applies to ourselves and all the
well-disposed among our cotemporaries, and refers to the disunion which
subsists in these evil times even among the best of men. Were two
nations threatened in common by a formidable enemy, would they not,
however widely they might differ in, or perhaps be estranged from each
other by their respective constitutions languages, and customs, forget
in the moment of danger their characteristic differences, and, laying
aside all previous feelings of jealousy or estrangement, unite for their
mutual protection and safety? My heart’s wish, therefore, is that all
the truly pious and well-wishers of truth, on whichever of the two sides
of the now divided faith they may stand, would unite together without
sacrificing those more intimate differences which can not at present be
got rid of or reconciled, and, making a righteous peace of mutual
forbearance, join together in a firm alliance against the common enemy
of all truth and all faith. For that the dearest interests of religion
are in our generation exposed to a violent assault, and menaced with
great and immediate danger, will not be denied by any lover of truth,
even though his conception of the truth may differ from mine.
Lastly, the third observation that I promised will not take the form of
the utterance of a wish, as rather of the expression of the firmest
conviction, that, however awful and severe this final conflict may
prove, the good cause will not eventually be lost, but that the great
battle will have a favorable issue in the complete victory of divine
revelation, and the celestial wisdom in the government of this kingdom
of truth will be fully manifest both to men and angels.