OF THE DIVINE ORDER IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD AND THE RELATIONS OF
STATES.
“The history of the world is the world’s tribunal,”[48] says one of our
most famous poets. If by these words he meant to convey an opinion that
no other tribunal of judgment is to be expected than that which is even
now set up in the history of the world, then such an opinion, implying
that the human race is to live forever in its present state, and in this
particular terrestrial life, would be even as groundless as that of the
fanciful conceit that the human race had existed from all eternity, if,
in sooth, any of the philosophical dreamers of antiquity had ever fallen
on such a fancy, or, in modern times, any of the antipodes to the usual
current mode of thinking should ever stumble upon it. The poet himself,
as dramatist and artist, would but have taken it ill had any one laid
before him a great drama, composed of several acts and scenes, from
which, however, the beginning was torn off, and which, ever going on,
untied the existing perplexities only to fall again into new and fresh
complications; or like a poor journal ever referring to a continuation,
had no true end, no conclusion or proper termination. But unquestionably
a better sense is also contained in the poet’s words. He may have merely
meant to say that the mind which rules the course of mundane affairs is
a mind that inflicts retribution on the world; and that all the great
epochs and incidents of history have a retributive character and
vindicatory significance.[49] Such an interpretation of the words,
which indeed suits well with the author’s serious mind and character,
would bring them in perfect unison with my own sentiments, and
adequately express the truth which forms the theme of our present
consideration on the divine order in the history of the human race.
The human race, then, as it had a beginning, so also will it have an
end; it will not continue forever in this present form, but must
eventually come to a termination. But, to speak according to the measure
of a divine chronology, where a thousand years are but as one day, who
can say, who shall dare, off-hand, to decide whether six or seven of
these great days of God are fixed for its duration? Enough to know that
we stand on the borders of the fourth age, and on the passage from the
third to the fourth. And not unimportant is it, on the other hand, for
the clear understanding of the whole, to form a right conception of each
of these, its great divisions and epochs. The first age is made up of
the twenty-five centuries of obscure primeval history. The second, which
we called the age of preparation, is formed by the fifteen hundred years
which we reckon from the end of the first up to the center and
turning-point of the history of the world as known to us, and from which
modern history takes its commencement. Even in the oldest traditionary
history of the Gentile nations of antiquity we do not meet with any
statements that can be relied upon, or any tenable data beyond, if
indeed so far back as, the fifteenth century before the epoch of the
commencement of modern history. The fifteen centuries which follow this
epoch form the third age, in which this principle of a new life in the
spiritual, moral, and political world had to develop and completely to
unfold itself. In the last Lecture I also reckoned in this period the
sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries of our era. But if it
seems to any more advisable to consider these as the introductory
portion of the fourth and subsisting age, there is nothing positively to
condemn such a mode of reckoning; only, for my part, I can not but
regard it as less correct and more inaccurate than the one which I have
proposed. In one case as well as the other the same important
consideration will be involved. Reckoning from some point or other
within these last forty years, we have, it must be acknowledged by all,
entered upon a grand and decisive epoch in the history of the world; and
our attention can not be too often or too strongly directed to the fact,
that we stand at the critical point of transition from one great period
to another.
Now one of the most characteristic signs by which such important moments
of general revolution in the history of the world are, for the most
part, known and distinguished, is a number of great events pressed
closely together and following each other in rapid succession; or, in
other words, the accelerated course of time. It is no new remark, that,
in the political history of our own age, modern Europe has, in the short
space of two-and-twenty years, ran through all the epochs of the old
Roman world, from the first party struggles of the republic, and its
long wars with Carthage, that mistress of the seas, up to the imperial
rule of the Cæsars, in the first reigns mild and indulgent, but at the
last so fearfully oppressive and cruel; and even up to the final
immigration of the northern nations. Such a simple remark is alone
sufficient proof that another law now rules in the history of the
world--a quicker life pulsates in its arteries than beat in the calmer
days of old. Whether, however, this life be thoroughly sound, or, on the
contrary, sickly and feverish, that is quite another question.
But not only in the political world, but also in the intellectual domain
of science has the same accelerated course been noticeable. Only, as
compared with that of antiquity, the course or direction pursued by
modern science is altogether different. We have traveled with equal
celerity, but in quite an opposite course to the ancients. Starting from
the last term, we have reversed the series of their mental progression.
First of all, in the last decades of the preceding century, the
Epicurean cast of thought, or one very nearly resembling it, was the one
chiefly predominant in the philosophical world. And then, together with
but subordinate to it, came scholastic subtilties and hair-splitting
distinctions, similar to those of the later Greek schools, not
unaccompanied, perhaps, with the same patient industry of research and
extensive erudition, and exercising altogether on the minds of men an
influence no less wide, nor less pernicious, than did the most brilliant
of the sophists of Greece. All the erroneous systems which it was
possible for the human mind to embrace, and which are grounded in its
essential qualities, or which could possibly originate in any (so to
speak) of its inborn misconceptions, which it took the Greeks several
centuries to evolve in slow succession, our age has rapidly, and almost
simultaneously, run through in as many decades. And in this fact, if I
do not greatly deceive myself, there is much ground of consolation. It
encourages me to hope that this inverse progression is leading us back
again to the truth--that in this ascending line we are gradually coming
nearer to the better times of the first great philosophers of Greece--of
a Plato, a Socrates, and a Pythagoras. It must be self-evident, that in
this case, and still more so in that analogy of political history which
I have so recently noticed, as generally, in all such historical
parallels, nothing more is intended to be asserted than a general
resemblance, which, however, as such, is eminently remarkable. It would
not, perhaps, be difficult anxiously to work out the general resemblance
into points of detail, but such an overwrought assimilation could only
lead to false conclusions and results.
Now that the conflict which our age has to go through is eminently
intellectual is implied simply in the prevailing notion of a _public
opinion_ and its influence. But, at the same time, we must observe, that
in the very notion of opinion, and in the word itself, there is involved
a certain character of extreme vagueness and uncertainty. No doubt that
which man can properly be said to know is extremely limited and
confined. Of very much all that we can have is merely an opinion, and
with that must we be content to put up. Nay, inasmuch as all scientific
certainty admits not of being imparted to all men, very much of that
which we do properly and certainly know is best and most beneficially
set forth to others merely as an opinion, in order that we may not seem
to force their minds to the admission of this higher certainty. And what
is there that the passions of a prejudiced or excited multitude can not
be made to adopt as an opinion, which, if presented to them as a sober
conviction of reason, would never make an impression? So devoid are
they, generally, of that intelligence and accurate knowledge of men and
things which are essential and necessary to the formation of a right
judgment. If, instead of public opinion (which, unquestionably, is a
great power, but which, if it takes a wrong direction, is also a very
dangerous one), the appeal were to be made to a public conscience, this
would be, to my mind, far more impressive and serious. To illustrate my
meaning:--the impression which the events of 1793 made on the general
feeling of all Europe, and the universal movement of discontent which,
among all European nations, preceded the great political catastrophe of
our own days, are instances to which the old maxim, _vox populi vox
Dei_, may, without hesitation, be applied. Such feelings are founded on
a true and higher judgment--often on a correct presentiment of evil and
wrong--even though, as we must admit, that in their utterance more or
less of passion and exaggeration reveals itself, and that individual
prejudices are not unfrequently mixed up with them. But now seldom, in
the ebbing and flooding tide, in the ever-changing course of the stream
of public opinion, flows there aught that truly deserves to be called a
public judgment. And yet public opinion is even that on which, in this
respect, and relatively to the theme of our present Lecture, every thing
mainly and principally turns.
In discussing the theory of consciousness a chasm remained, or, rather,
was intentionally left open, and the present seems the appropriate place
for filling it up and supplying it. The power, or, rather, the faculty
of judgment has not, as yet, had its place assigned it. The reason, with
its immediate subordinates, memory and conscience--the fancy, with its
subordinates, the senses and inclinations, form six faculties of the
inner man, with which the understanding and will make together eight.
The ninth is the living, loving, feeling soul, which, although it be the
center of the whole consciousness, must, nevertheless, be counted as an
independent and peculiar faculty. As for the heart [_Gemuth_]--as some
peculiarly designate the collective sum of the tender, moral emotions of
the soul, and which, at any rate, must be carefully distinguished from
the conscience, and also from love--it is, however, a kind of
application of the triple relation and function of the soul rather than
an independent faculty. But the tenth faculty, which completes the whole
cycle and theory of the human consciousness, and which may be regarded
as its crown and perfection, is the judgment, or, in other words, the
judging mind [_geist_].
But now, if this term judgment be understood purely in a logical sense,
as that process of thought which forms combinations and deductions, and
by means of which we ascribe to a subject A a predicate B, this would
fall very far short of the signification in which I here intend it to be
taken. Moreover, it would be, in truth, quite a superfluous task to
separate this cogitative relation, or this relative cogitation, from
the other logical functions of the understanding, and to make of it a
special and independent faculty. The judgment is something higher than
this mere coupling in the thought of some special A with some general B.
Understanding is the cognition of spirit and of that which it has
uttered; and judgment is the decision between two things understood, or
the “discerning of spirits.” Of how great a multitude of intellectual
relations does a scientific or even an artistic judgment imply the
coincidence and concurrent action! And yet these are merely private
judgments, which involve an assenting feeling in the individual, but
beyond that can not pretend to any valid authority. In practical life
the judicial function in the state alone furnishes an adequate standard
for estimating the high rank which the faculty of judgment holds as the
center of the human consciousness. For, in the deliberative sentence of
the judge there is comprised both the mature art of the
understanding--which has taken due cognizance of the matter, and
impartially discerned between two objects equally well understood--and
also a determination of the will: for, though the actual carrying into
effect--that which properly and peculiarly constitutes a willing--belong
not to, but is independent of, the judge’s office, still the conclusion
of a positive judgment implies the existence of the first determining
motive of the will. In this one act of judging, therefore, there is
contained both functions of the mind [_geist_], understanding and
willing; and as the loving soul is the center of the consciousness, so
the judging mind, or spirit, is the highest of all its operations.
In the Book of Truth there is a sentence which admits of application
here. “There is none good,” it is there written, “but one, that is,
God.” However harsh and severe this judgment may sound at the first
hearing, still, upon a little reflection, we shall see ample cause to
admit its justice. Man is not wholly and purely good; at the very best
he is not free from faults, and more or less of imperfection cleaves to
all that he does or is. And even granting that a man might be found
devoid of all admixture of imperfection, and quite faultless and
thoroughly good, still he was not so always and from the first. And even
if any should here urge that the angels, who have continued such as they
were originally created, were good from the beginning, we must remember
that, at least, they are not good in and by themselves, but that, that
they are good, comes from God, who is the source of all goodness. Now,
just in the same sense can we also say, Who judges rightly? There is
none that judges rightly but one, _i.e._, God. He is Himself the truth;
and, therefore, He alone has the standard of truth in Himself, and all
truth has its ground and principle in Him alone. Every individual
judgment and decision, in all important matters, has its ground, either
mediately or immediately, in this divine basis, and its rectitude must
be estimated according to this standard. But this latter condition need
not make us foolishly anxious, for nothing impossible is required of us
by God; and this requisition, like every other which He lays upon man,
is modified by, and adjusted to, the measure of human finiteness. The
conscientious judge, who, after a patient investigation of the cause as
it is laid before him, and after a careful weighing of all the possible
reasons and motives, nevertheless errs, or is deceived by a rare
coincidence of circumstances, stands, nevertheless, exonerated, even
though he should have passed an unjust sentence, and have had the
misfortune to condemn the innocent. Although, when he becomes aware of
it, the thought must be painful enough to his own feelings, yet who, in
justice, can reproach him merely because he was not omniscient? He who,
in thought, in science, and in faith, adheres to this divine
foundation--the best and most certain that he can find, or that is any
where offered to him, may rest calm and composed; he has done the utmost
that lies in his power. He alone, who makes a bad use of what he has and
what has been given to him, like an unjust steward, need fear to give an
account of his stewardship.
This reference of all judicial sentences to, and their foundation in a
divine authority, is an idea which was not unknown even to the
republican states of antiquity, as is evident from the way they
expressed themselves on the irrefragable sanctity of the laws and the
inviolability of the supreme judicial power, and also in the maxims
which they practically advanced on this subject. They honored herein a
higher and a diviner principle, of which, however, in theory they
possessed no clear and perfect knowledge, though in practical life they
were taught by a correct feeling of sound reason and the natural
conscience accurately enough to recognize and steadily and distinctly to
respect it. With us still more generally is it become an admitted
doctrine that all sovereignty and kingly power is of God, and that all
obedience to the laws and to the supreme authority in the state rests
ultimately on a divine foundation and sanction. If very recently men
were for a while disposed to argue that political institutions must be
founded on the reason and its unconditional liberty, yet bitter
experience quickly convinced them of their error, and it was soon fully
refuted by the convincing argument of actual fact. And, accordingly,
theory has for the most part reverted to a right principle, and
recognized the divine authority as the true foundation of political
authority.
But the principle being thus generally recognized, it is, I think, still
necessary to distinguish with care and accurately to define in what
sense the supreme ruler of the state is the vicegerent of God. The
indefinite titles which are assumed by Eastern despots have always been
alien to the habits of the West. But it is not enough to avoid such
exaggerated titles of honor, if, nevertheless, the appeal to divine
right be made so very vaguely, and simply in general terms to God
himself. In His absolute essence, God is wholly inconceivable; it is
only in his operations on man and nature, and in His relations to the
human race, that we can at all think precisely of Him. It is only as
Creator of the world, as the Lawgiver of nature, or as the Benefactor
and Redeemer of mankind, and so forth, that we can form a clear and
distinct notion of the Godhead.
Now, is the supreme ruler of the state God’s deputy as Creator of the
world? Who would venture to assert any thing of the kind? It is true
that the paternal rule of the earthly parent, and the universal feeling
among all peoples and nations of the sanctity of a father’s authority,
rests on a resemblance--which is, however, only symbolical--between his
relation and that of our unseen Father which is in heaven. And it is no
less true, also, that the reign of a truly paternal monarch over his
people may be regarded as a mere amplification of the father’s
government of his family; a good king is the father of his people. But
such remote, although most significant analogies, furnish us with no
precise notion of right; and it is on such alone that the whole question
here turns. No doubt when a people is governed well and wisely--which is
even the same as to say, paternally governed--it exhibits a wonderful
power of natural development; productive industry flourishes, population
increases, and its physical and mental cultivation advances rapidly.
Unfavorable seasons may undoubtedly check this tendency, and it will be
entirely stopped as soon as the subject refuses to follow with loving
confidence the guiding hand of the paternal monarch. Whenever they whose
duty it is to obey seek to be supreme, then are the natural energies of
a great people transmuted into a fearful element of universal
desolation.
If now we inquire in the next place how far it is allowable to compare
the highest authority in the state to the Lawgiver of nature, we shall
find that even in this respect the difference is so very great that
analogy almost entirely fails us. Holy, unquestionably, are the laws of
every political community in respect to the duty of obedience which they
suppose and require; but this is not paid spontaneously and naturally,
but needs to be enforced and maintained by pains and penalties. And not
to speak of the stem laws of retributive justice, but rather of those
mild and equitable enactments designed for the general benefit and the
improvement of the whole community; these are still more subject to the
imperfection and manifold changes of human things. Suppose, for
instance, a measure promulgated in any country with the design of
balancing in some degree the agricultural and the manufacturing
interests--however wisely designed, it is found within a few years to
have totally failed; under it misery has but increased on both sides,
and the law must be repealed or modified. But it is not so with the laws
which God has implanted in the system of the universe: they never fail
of their intended effect.
Do we further ask in what, if in any respect, the earthly sovereign is
the deputy of God, as Redeemer, Emancipator, and Liberator? A notion of
grace and mercy does, we must admit, attach itself to our idea of
supreme authority; and in this respect it presents a sort of analogy and
resemblance to the idea of the Godhead. Properly speaking, however, the
exercise of grace and mercy forms an exception to the general rule of
man’s sovereignty, and belongs to him only in his special function as
administrator of justice. Moreover, the most paternal and beneficent of
earthly rulers can at most provide only for the physical happiness of
his people. He may alleviate or avert heavy calamities, or procure many
temporal blessings and advantages for his subjects; but the unhappy soul
can be helped by One alone. The distinction I have just made will become
more apparent by means of a contrast. Wherever the clergy are not
regarded merely as teachers of the people, but as is the case in the
greater part of Western and of Eastern Christendom, as priests speaking
with a divine authority, this their public vicegerency relates primarily
and immediately to the _Redeemer_; its judicial functions over the
conscience ought to shun a visible publicity, and to be left entirely to
the conscience and guarded by its seal of secrecy. And in this respect
lies the distinctive peculiarity of the relation subsisting between the
supreme authority in the state and God, which, however, refers
pre-eminently to His attribute of _justice_. And here it is no mere
remote analogy and weak resemblance, dependent on the principle of human
weakness and imperfection; but it is a true and real vicegerency,
publicly admitted and recognized, and exercising consequently a great
public influence. And therefore it is, that among the divers elements or
branches of the supreme political authority (which, however,
fundamentally and in its essence is one and indivisible), a special
sanctity is, as I have already remarked, ascribed to its judicial
functions. In a word, the earthly head of the state is the dispenser of
the divine justice, the vicegerent of the Judge of the world; he is a
divine functionary, and, so to say, the supreme judge in the world’s
tribunal. And this is the point of view from which all matters and
questions connected with this subject may most fully be answered and
most correctly determined. But that this exalted dignity of the earthly
ruler may not be interpreted too literally, I must here observe, that
the divine Judge is one who allows mercy to take the place of justice,
not merely occasionally, and by way of exception, but always and
invariably; so long, at least, as it is in any way possible. And here
comes in the application of the principle which we previously
advanced:--That God is in nowise absolute, but that on the contrary His
justice is in every case limited by His love and grace; while the latter
again is restricted and modified by His justice, and both, indeed,
reciprocally by each other. Whoever has formed in his heart the least
vivid notion of God will not entertain the slightest doubt of this union
of justice and of mercy in the divine essence.
When, however, we speak of kings being the dispensers of divine justice,
we mean it in quite a different sense from that in which, during the
great immigration of the northern hordes of Asia, the barbarian
conqueror proclaimed himself the scourge of God. By assuming this title
he merely meant to terrify his adversaries by the thought of having to
encounter in himself a fearful and destructive power of evil, whom, in
order to chastise a degenerate world, the Almighty had permitted to do
as he pleased and to let loose his fury on the nations of the earth. And
phenomena of this kind are not confined to the period of the great
migration; for the true notion of the representation of the divine Judge
of the world by the supreme power in the state combines together with
the sternest severity of justice, which in this respect is both
wholesome and necessary, the greatest clemency--for where is there, or
can there be, a clemency greater than the divine? But most especially
does this idea imply that which is here pre-eminently requisite, and
insists with a prominence proportionate to its great importance on the
strictest conscientiousness in the discharge of the duties of this
vicegerency. But the superior excellence of this idea over many other
explanations of a similar kind, but laboring under the defect of extreme
vagueness, consists even in this, that it comprises and inseparably
combines those two important conditions, both that the supreme governor
is responsible to God alone, and, as following therefrom, that he is
unquestionably responsible to Him, and that it also determines in what
sense and in what way he is so.
Every great and remarkable event which marks an epoch in the political
history of nations and the world, may, perhaps, be regarded as a
dispensation of justice. If, then, such an event, however partial and
confined to a single people or empire, or at most extending to an entire
age, may be looked upon as a sign of judgment already commencing, or at
least of a retribution threatening, but mercifully suspended, the same
mode of consideration may, with as good reason, be applied to every
resolution of the political world on the grave questions of peace and
war: for the power of making war and peace is, at all events, the
peculiar and characteristic prerogative of the supreme authority in the
state. Now, the simplest standard, perhaps, of judging of the justice of
either is, if we may so speak, to ask, Is the proclamation of war or the
treaty of peace so entirely founded on truth, so perfectly correspondent
to the righteous and judicial character of God, that man need not fear
to lay them before the Judge of the whole world for His ratification? If
such be the case, then most assuredly are they right and righteous,
whatever be their consequences, or whatever be the judgment that men
may pass upon them. But, otherwise, if the manifesto of war contain
nothing but shallow and specious pretexts painfully raked together, or
of fine-colorable phrases which even the eye of the world can see
through, if a light touch of truth be only thrown over it in the hope of
concealing the conqueror’s lust of aggrandizement, or the equally
destructive principle of an old national feud or jealousy--if, in the
pacification, under ambiguous terms and cunningly-devised phrases, the
seeds of a future war be carefully sown, and thus the worst disease of
the political world be propagated and multiplied from generation to
generation, then most assuredly the guardian eye of Eternal Justice has
not watched over its completion, and bestowed on it His blessing, but
another and a very different coadjutor has had his hand in the game--the
spirit of untruth, viz., and of corruption, of strife and ruin, whom no
name so exactly describes as that of a “liar from the beginning.”
Now, as not only the annihilation of the race of giants in the universal
deluge, with which our sacred history opens, and to which the ancient
traditions of almost every people allude, more or less directly, but
also the partial overthrow of a single nation, the tragical closing
catastrophe of particular ages, is, as it were, a prelude of the final
judgment of all nations and peoples of the earth at the end of time; so,
on the other hand, the original corruption of the primal lie is
propagated as an hereditary evil from millennium to millennium, and from
century to century. For even now, may many a fertile spot, the seat of a
happy and united community in the midst of prosperous times, and of
peace unbroken at home or abroad, be considered, if not a garden of
innocence, still the blissful dwelling of peace and quiet. But into
these happy precincts the evil spirit of untruth and discontent ever and
anon steals, to repeat over again in the history of the human race the
same scene of temptation which marked its commencement. Upward and
downward, and in a twofold direction, does the lying spirit of strife
ply his seductive arts. Now, on the one side, he whispers in the ear of
the rising generation, “That is the true knowledge and the real science
which men are most anxious to withhold from you; but seek first of all
to be free--shake off this unworthy spirit of slavish obedience, then
shall all that is noble and intellectually great be at once yours. In
this way, and thus only, was it attained by the great and good in
ancient times.” But, on the other hand, he directs himself to the
individual invested with authority; and if the potentate be unrighteous,
his ear is already more than half open--and even if he be upright,
still, as a man, he is not always inaccessible to such whisperings.
“Why,” he insidiously asks, “dost thou draw back so fearfully before
that which the people call their rights? These are nothing but childish
notions which the school-boy may do well to declaim about, but
practically they are worthless and unreal; no one means them
seriously--the whole world puts no faith in this comedy. Rule your
subjects with an iron hand, that is all they know how to respect; nay,
they even admire the bold spirit that defies them, and they will
suppliantly reverence thy greatness of mind and strength of character
if, betraying no infirmness of purpose, you boldly and sternly encroach
upon or disregard all their pretended rights and privileges. If only
your sovereignty be solidly established from within, and well rounded
from without, then, besides a great name with posterity, you will also
secure to yourself the present enjoyment of very great and solid
advantages.”
In this wise, from the original source of the one lie, is the
inheritance of the old evil transmitted from generation to generation in
the political world, in the two opposite forms of popular anarchy, and
the despotic lust of power and aggrandizement. These two forms of evil
are more closely allied than at the first look they appear to be in
reality; but history, the great teacher of truth, gives its sure witness
to their affinity. Nothing is more common in great republics, than for
the discord of the citizens to be put an end to by some victorious
general, whom all parties, weary of their dissensions, hail as the
benefactor of the whole community. But how seldom is the pacificator
content with the glorious title of the restorer of domestic peace, and
does not go a step farther, and become the scheming tyrant and the
aggressive conqueror. The whole history of the world is, in short,
little more than the continuous struggle between the purifying fire of
the divine retribution and this spirit of political lying, which is ever
renewing itself in these twofold forms of anarchy and despotism.
Moreover, while we acknowledge the divine authority invested in the
supreme ruler of the state, we must take heed how we mix up with our
conceptions on this head the notion, so highly dangerous and so pregnant
with fatal errors, of the absolute and unconditional, which, as we have
already remarked, can not be applied even to the Godhead without giving
rise to misconceptions. If, therefore, in any country a party--for
now-a-days even justice is made a party matter--if any where a party of
otherwise well-disposed men call themselves “absolutists,” such a
designation is of itself sufficient to excite our apprehension, lest,
with so absolute a way of thinking, some spark of evil be slumbering
beneath the ashes; inasmuch as one absolute, _i.e._, one unconditional
element of destruction invariably calls forth another.
Absolute, if this pernicious term must be used, the supreme power of the
legitimate sovereign of a state may indeed be called in so far as he is
responsible to God alone. For were the supreme ruler responsible to man,
then the only difference would be, that instead of one, the many to whom
he is answerable would be absolute. But in another sense, it is
impossible to call the supreme power, wherever lodged, absolute or
unlimited; for it is limited in many ways. Its exercise is checked and
controlled by the treaties subsisting between it and other powers--by
the laws which it finds in existence from the times of his predecessors,
and which are still in force by the family laws of succession, and all
matters pertaining to or connected therewith. If he who is invested with
the highest power in the state, is determined to interfere with all
these institutions, and violently to subvert existing customs and
compacts, then is there, in such a case, no one really justified or
entitled either to make objections to his measures or to oppose them. By
such arbitrary and violent proceedings, however, he is himself
undermining the very foundation of his own power. And a regard to and
consideration of the possible consequences of such injustice will in
most instances furnish the necessary and salutary check. Lastly, if we
look a moment from the right itself to its actual exercise and
influence, how often and how greatly are the latter limited by adverse
circumstances and evil times. Nothing, in short, is more at issue with
and opposed to nature and to life, than the very notion of unlimited
power, and generally all that is absolute or destructive.
But there is yet another side on which the supreme political power is
essentially checked and controlled. It is bound to consider and pay
respect to the principles of religious society, which rests no less than
itself on a divine authority. For the church, although very different in
its nature, and flowing from a wholly different origin from that of the
state, is, nevertheless, equally inviolable. If, however, the civil and
political ruler, not content with a co-ordinate jurisdiction and the
revision of ecclesiastical affairs--with a joint authority and
influence, should attempt to make the religious polity also entirely
subject to his own arbitrary will, no one perhaps will be able to oppose
force to force, and probably no one would be justified in so doing. But
by such an attempt, as indeed by every act of religious oppression, the
supreme civil power would most fatally undermine the very basis of its
own authority. If, for instance, the ruler of a great nation places the
third estate in the painful alternative of making, what in any case must
be most pernicious, a choice between divine and human authority--or,
rather, to speak more correctly, between two claims to its allegiance
equally divine, he does but smooth the road which must lead at last to
his own ruin.
And here, too, in the spiritual community of the faith, in the same way
as in the political body, man’s patrimony of original evil branches out
into two directions. In the one it turns longingly back toward the past,
and in the other it tends restlessly forward into the indefinite future.
Both of these aberrations are wholly independent of the outer form as
well as of the subject-matter of belief. They are consequently to be
found in the old covenant, as the first grade of divine revelation, no
less than in the second. The first of these hereditary faults of man’s
nature is deadness, or, in a somewhat different phase,
lukewarmness--manifesting itself outwardly in a close and literal
adherence to the old in its mere external forms. In a word, it is
spiritual death. For though in the abundance of His love, God may have
made a revelation of His will to man, and even died to make an atonement
for him, still it is left to the free will of the individual to receive
it or not; and its retention and observance is the trial of his
goodness, and, consequently, in this point, as in others, his hereditary
and inborn spiritual death strongly manifests itself. The second of
these hereditary faults, or, rather, the same in a different form, is
the spirit of innovation, or a false semblance of life, by which, in
fact, this inner death is merely propagated.
On both these faults and erroneous ways of thinking on religious
matters, Revelation expresses itself equally in the tone of stern
reprobation, though perhaps its language with regard to the former is
even still more severe. As regards the spirit of innovation, all
changes in this domain, which are merely human, and not visibly and
manifestly of a divine spirit and origin, must simply on that account be
opposed and condemned. Now, in both the parties into which the faith is
unhappily divided, there are many who are captivated and led away by
this spirit of change. For among those who were originally seduced by it
not a few are now animated with a sincere and profound respect for
whatever is old and sterling, while of the innovation-mongers of our
days, many are to be found in the ranks of those who originally strove
to stem the tide of alteration and change. Oh that all who are pervaded
by this evil spirit, and are ever casting their views forward into the
future, would only advance a little farther still in their thoughts, so
as to take in the end and conclusion of all. In the knowledge of the
final judgment of the world (and what is this philosophy of revelation
but such a reminiscence of death and the end--in which light philosophy
was even in olden times explained--not, indeed, in a narrow-minded
limitation to ourselves, but in a far wider sense, embracing in its
universal sympathy the final catastrophe of the whole human race), in
the warnings and allusions to this last day of account, so long and so
often given, men will find all the information that they seek, and will
no longer need any human innovations, since by this key all that is old
and eternal shall receive a trebly-exalted significance and a doubly-new
life.
But besides the political body and the religious community, the world of
letters forms a third society. Though numerically smaller, yet in its
effects on the minds of men, whether it moves freely and diffuses itself
without the rigid restraints of form, or is narrowly confined to the
formalism of the school, it is, perhaps, as great as either. Spiritual
in its matter and in its dissemination, it either renounces a divine
sanction, and stands under the protection and supervision of the
state--such, at least, is the predominant relation in recent times--or,
as was formerly the case, it grows and flourishes beneath the shelter
and through the fostering care of ecclesiastical institutions. Holding
an intermediate place between the two other bodies of human society--in
its subject-matter more akin to the one, but deriving from the other its
external support--it is also of a mixed nature and partakes of both. But
the inborn and original sin of science is exactly similar to that which
infects political life. Manifesting itself in a twofold aberration, it
either assumes, in the spirit of anarchy, an hostile position toward all
that exists from without, or is given to men from above, or, perhaps,
comes forward in a predominant love of system or scientific
sectarianism, which not unfrequently is as fanatical as the political
party-spirit with which, moreover, it is often very nearly and closely
allied.
The nature of the divine order which rules the history of the world, and
its stern, retributive law, must, in all essential points, be now
apparent from the preceding remarks. It is an all-pervading alternation
between the purifying fire of God’s punitive justice and the inheritance
of the old evil, which breaks out, now in anarchy, now in despotism--at
one time in spiritual deadness and lukewarmness of faith--at another in
the pernicious lust of innovation and change. This purifying fire, it
must also be clear, while, confining its immediate operation to single
nations or to marked and distinct epochs of history, it gives them a new
shape and form, invariably gains for itself a wider extension, so as, at
last, to embrace the whole world. Moreover, every one must feel that, in
investigating the fiery track of this judging spirit in its stern course
through centuries, we must reverently follow at a respectful distance to
learn from it what it is and how it manifests itself, and take good heed
how we presume to confine it within any narrow law, or reduce it to any
precise and rigorous definition. We can not be too carefully on our
guard against ascribing to Providence in its guidance of mankind many
and subtile designs, which, after all, perhaps, are nothing but the mere
fancies and conceits of man. In general, however, it may safely be said
that the subordinate views and higher ends which are visible in the
leading catastrophes of nations and empires, or even of entire ages,
have especial reference to that gradation in the divine revelation which
I explained to you in the previous Lecture as having a regard to, and
comprising the whole human race in, its comprehensive design. By way of
exemplification, and as an instance of the right application of the
ideas here advanced, I will now, in conclusion, add a few words on those
events and catastrophes of universal history, which, in this respect,
seem the most important.
The universal deluge, of which the whole surface of our globe presents
so many and so great traces and proofs, forms a partition-wall, sternly
separating the earliest races of men from the subsequent generations. Of
the former it is only probable that they were very different from the
latter, not only in their manner of life, but also in their physical and
intellectual powers and endowments, and likewise, perhaps, in the nature
and mode of their moral corruption and depravity. My remarks, therefore,
may well be confined to this side of that great partition-wall. The next
great catastrophe, which is both expressly given out as a divine
retribution (and, as such, can be proved from profane history as much,
though not so universally, as the former), is the so-called Babylonian
confusion of tongues and the dispersion of nations. This, and that which
is so inseparably connected with it, the confusion of mythical ideas and
legends, is rather hinted at than fully and clearly detailed. The time,
too, is not given, though the locality is expressly mentioned. It is the
same one which, according to all other historical statements, was the
very spot of Western Central Asia, where that contagious malady of the
lust of conquest first arose, or, if we may be allowed the expression,
where this unhappy _invention_ was first made. This dispersion of
nations, however, was its natural punishment, since every unity which is
either politically false or intellectually untrue, must terminate in
chaotic dissolution. This historical fact is distinctly traceable in the
world of the ancients among the West Asiatic, South European, and North
African nations which dwell around the shores of the Mediterranean. Here
we can scarcely find our way out of the labyrinth of traces of
reciprocal relationship which abound, in their medley of cognate
languages and their chaos of legends, so remarkably agreeing, and yet
frequently so inconsistent in their ideas of nature, their far-reaching
theogonies, and the divine origination of their heroic families. These
chaotic contradictions, however, in which the poetry of heathendom
indulged without restraint, gradually undermined the old popular belief,
and led, consequently, at a later period, to a very favorable result.
For by this means the Greeks--to whom our present remarks apply
especially and pre-eminently--gained free space for the unshackled
development of a philosophy which, though it may have run and wandered
through many systems of error, yet in so far as it was an honest and
sincere search after truth and certainty, served and deserves to be
considered as a preparation and introduction to a higher knowledge and
the adoption of revelation. For because of this intellectual development
(and the fact serves to prove that a pure sensibility to the beautiful,
and a clear and pregnant thought on human life and on nature, is ever
highly pleasing to God), the Greeks were chosen as the second people of
the world, to be the medium and the instruments of the further diffusion
of revelation in the course of the development of humanity.
In political life, the erroneous tendency of the Greek mind was to the
abuse of liberty and to anarchy. When this evil had been carried to its
wildest extreme, it was overtaken by its natural penalty (which inwardly
follows close upon its track), in the armed supremacy of Macedon (which,
however, was only a brief paroxysm), and the final subjugation of Greece
to the Roman yoke. Among the Romans both forms of political evil met
together, and were closely connected with each other. To escape from
domestic anarchy, they entered on a victorious career of foreign
conquest and aggrandizement; and when intestine dissension had reached
its greatest height, a perfect despotism was established, both at home
and in the provinces.
We recently remarked that the whole of that mixture of ideas, confusion
of legends and traditions, and that continual alternation between
anarchy and despotism, which in the olden times of heathendom ran
through its whole course of development, from the first dispersion of
nations to the establishment of the Roman empire over the world,
immediately applies to and is only to be understood of the West Asiatic
and South European races. In the East of Asia, two great nations or
empires, which together make up a third, if not the half, nearly, of the
population of the whole earth, have remained in a great measure free
from and uninfluenced by it. It would almost seem as if the Almighty,
with some special design, had kept and reserved them unto these last
times. For three if not four thousand years India has preserved
unchanged its institution of castes, and all its essential customs and
laws. The very fact that this ancient empire, so extensive, so abundant
in riches, and so singular in its nature, and with a civilized
population equal to that of the whole of Europe put together, should be
now conquered and held in subjection by the sea-ruling isles of Britain,
which the ancients named the Cassiterides, or Tin Islands, and described
as the ultimate limits of the habitable world, is one of the most
remarkable signs of our days. That in such great historical events, and
such singular juxtapositions, there rules some grand and mysterious
design of the Mind which regulates the course of human affairs, we can
not but feel; only we shall greatly err if we precipitately determine
its particular nature. The wiser and the safer course is to look forward
with attentive expectation to its further development. Already has this
remarkable approximation of the extreme East and West led to important
consequences. The enlargement of our historical information, by the
sources discovered in the East, has alone been so considerable as to
give greater coherence and consistency to our knowledge of the earlier,
and, indeed, of the very earliest times, and of the origin of mankind,
and to have afforded a growing testimony and a strong confirmation of
the truth of the sacred narrative.
The Celestial Empire too, with its monosyllabic language, remained until
very recently within its walls separate from and never mixing with the
rest of the world. Although China has been several times subjugated by
northern conquerors, it has, nevertheless, continued in all essential
respects the same. But now, in these modern times of universal ferment
and of change throughout the political world, China, too, has been set
in movement, and has become so far a conquering power, that she who in
the earlier centuries of Christianity was only known by name, through
fable, has become the immediate neighbor of two great European powers.
The close of the ancient history of the Eastern world, in its westerly
regions, is formed by the tragic overthrow of the Jewish people and the
fearful destruction of Jerusalem; events which are properly described,
as also they were long previously announced, as a partial judgment on an
individual nation. And in this light and in similar colors they are,
moreover, depicted even by heathen writers. Few things in the whole
course of history furnish so singular and striking a phenomenon as this
total dissolution of the Jewish nation. The dispersion over all parts of
the earth, for so many centuries, of a people that has exercised so
great and so decisive an influence on the progress of ideas and the
higher cultivation of the human mind, both naturally and scientifically,
makes a sad and melancholy impression on our minds. With so much the
more of reason, then, may we regard it as a sign of the times, and one,
too, full of good promise and of bright and cheerful hope, if this long
and cruelly-oppressed people seems suddenly to be aroused again or
awakened from its degradation, and in manifold ways evincing an
intellectual, moral, and social activity, begins to partake of a more
liberal development and culture. And on one account the fact appears
still more consolatory. Such a reawakening of this long ill-treated and
degraded race is, in their oldest prophecies, fixed for the last
decisive days of the world’s history.
In the medieval period of modern history we meet with all the elements
of the Christian state. The idea of a pure monarchy also was here
carried far higher toward perfection, and much more manifoldly developed
than in heathen antiquity. But the civil and spiritual powers soon came
into collision, and in their mutual conflict were alike guilty of
despotic encroachments on each other. In this sad dissension the whole
state of things fell more and more into a new kind of anarchy. And in
the same way, in our own times, after a great part of the Christian
world had, in sentiment at least, reverted to heathenism, then as a
natural consequence of the ruling tone of thought and opinion, there was
a great relapse into the double evil of a wild and fatal popular
anarchy, and of a still more destructive military despotism. And the
whole history of the old heathen world is nothing but one continual
alternation between these two evils.
In the Christian West, indeed, both now and in the middle ages, the
predominant tendency to error inclined toward the side of anarchy. Among
the Mohammedan nations, on the contrary, from the very earliest days of
their religion, the despotic lust of conquest has been, as it were, an
inborn and homebred hereditary failing. It was indeed fed and encouraged
by their national creed. But here also the greatest changes have taken
place. The largest and most powerful of all the Mohammedan empires,
that, viz., in India, is entirely overthrown, and scarcely a vestige of
it remains in these times. By a natural revolution of things, the first
irresistible conquerors are now themselves conquered and brought under
the yoke of others. And so, too, on the other and western side of their
once wide rule, they who formerly threatened the existence of civilized
Europe are now dependent upon, essentially mixed up with, and owe their
political existence to, European policy and the balance of power. This
total change of the relative position of the Mohammedan states in
general belongs undoubtedly to the characteristic signs which so
peculiarly mark and distinguish our own age.
In the three centuries of modern history which fill up the interval
between the middle ages and the revolutionary epoch of our own days, the
moral constitution of the monarchy has been far more fully and clearly
developed than in any previous era. But the most striking event of this
period of history is furnished by the sad and melancholy phenomenon of
the religious wars. These were the lamentable consequence of the schism
in the faith, not indeed by any indispensable and necessary law, nor
even as its natural, but still its perfectly explicable, result. In
those lands where, as in England and France, there existed a weaker
party of either side, which had either been fully conquered or was kept
under by oppressive civil disabilities, this unhappy phenomenon assumed
the most revolting appearance. But the same state of things took a very
different turn in Germany. Here the religious disputes terminated in a
higher and a nobler result. In a long and fruitless struggle of thirty
years, which wasted and consumed the best energies of the nation, the
two contending parties were taught, that with so nicely-balanced
strength, no decisive result either way was to be expected. Coming at
length to a wiser mind, they acknowledged their respective rights, and
by a peaceable compromise they agreed to live together in the same
social community. This great and famous religious peace, which,
considered merely in the light of a treaty of general pacification, is a
master-piece of policy, without equal or parallel, and serving for the
basis for all subsequent treaties and questions of peace, is become for
Germany a species of inborn national necessity, and, as it were, a
second national character. She finds in it a full and perfect
compensation for many disadvantages she labors under as compared with
other lands, while she has acquired from it a great and important
position in the world of the future. Considered with regard to the whole
world, one can not well avoid ascribing to this indestructible religious
peace in Germany a still higher importance, however little it is
commonly understood or regarded in this light. Indeed, we can not but
look upon it as the precursor, with hopeful promises, of a far greater
and completer religious peace--a peace, I mean, which shall reconcile
not only all differences in the faith, but also that more universal and
more pervading dissension between faith and unbelief; the quarrel
between science and faith being first adjusted, and unity restored
thereby between them, and, consequently, also to life. But to effect
this object, God, who wills nothing but peace and unity, must take the
upper hand and be stronger than man, who loves and desires strife, or,
at least, without loving and seeking it, is still ever relapsing into
it.
In such or some similar way a religious view of universal history, and
of the divine order therein, admits of being developed; which, however,
can not be truly done with too much of scientific rigor, or by violently
introducing into its plans any arbitrary and, consequently, false
designs and purposes.
My prescribed limits compel me to confine myself to these few hints, and
in these I have wished principally to call attention to their reference
to our own age, and to exhibit them in the light in which they appear of
universal interest and to possess an eminent and remarkable destination.
Comprised, then, in one result, the following are the characteristic
signs of the present age: the two greatest heathen nations, which for
thousands of years stood by themselves apart from the rest of the world,
have lately come into the closest contact with Europe--the Mohammedan
empires are every where falling into decay, more rapidly than men had
been led to expect their fall--the Hebrew race is beginning to rise from
its long degradation--in Christian states and communities there is here
and there visible a strong inclination to the old evil of anarchy--and
if the great human peace, which has now lasted twelve years, appears in
some points insecure, or at least endangered from within, it is only
because it is devoid of a firm foundation of the internal sentiment of
men. What event, then, could be more happy for our age, what better turn
could the present posture of affairs take, than by bringing about such a
triple divine peace as we have already sketched, to give a new
foundation and a firmer basis to the external peace of society? May not
this, in God’s good purpose, be the theme which is to occupy the next
era of the world?