THE ENTHUSIASM OF PROPHETIC INTERPRETATION.
Disappointment is perhaps the most frequent of all the occasional causes
of insanity; but the sudden kindling of hope sometimes produces the same
lamentable effect. Yet before this emotion, congenial as it is to the
human mind, can exert so fatal an influence, the expected good must be
of immeasurable magnitude, and must appear in the light of the strongest
probability; nor must even the vagueness of a distant futurity
intervene; otherwise, tho swellings of desire and joy would be quelled,
and reason might maintain its seat. On this principle perhaps it is,
that the vast and highly exciting hope of immortal life very rarely,
even in susceptible minds, generates that kind of emotion which brings
with it the hazard of mental derangement. Religious madness, when it
occurs, is most often the madness of despondency. But if the glories of
heaven might, by any means, and in contravention of the established
order of things, be brought out from the dimness and concealment of the
unseen world, and be placed ostensibly on this side of the darkness and
coldness of death, and be linked with objects familiarly known, they
might then press so forcibly upon the passion of hope, and so inflame
excitable imaginations, that real insanity, or an approach towards it,
would probably, in frequent instances, be the consequence.
A provision against mischiefs of this kind is evidently contained in the
extreme reserve of the Scriptures on all subjects connected with the
unseen world. This reserve is so singular, and so extraordinary, seeing
that the Jewish poets, prophets and preachers, were Asiatics, that it
affords no trivial proof of the divine origination of the books: an
intelligent advocate of the Bible would choose to rest an argument
rather upon the paucity of its discoveries, than upon their plenitude.
But now a confident and dogmatical interpretation of those prophecies
that are supposed to be on the eve of fulfilment, has manifestly a
tendency thus to bring forth the wonders of the unseen world, and to
connect them in sensible contact with the familiar objects and events of
the present state. And such interpretations may be held with so full and
overwhelming a persuasion of their truth, that heaven and its splendors
may seem to stand at the door of our very homes: to-morrow, perhaps, the
hastening crisis of the nations shall lift the veil which so long has
hidden the brightness of the eternal throne from mortal eyes: each turn
of public affairs, a war, a truce, a conspiracy, a royal marriage, may
be the immediate precursor of that new era, wherein it shall no longer
be true, as heretofore, that "the things eternal are unseen."
When an opinion, or, we should rather say, a persuasion of this imposing
kind is entertained by a mind of more mobility than strength, and when
it has acquired form, and consistency, and definiteness, by being long
and incessantly the object of contemplation, it may easily gain
exclusive possession of the mind: and a state of exclusive occupation of
the thoughts by a single subject, if it be not real madness, differs
little from it; for a man can hardly be called sane who is mastered by
one set of ideas, and who has lost the will or the power to break up the
continuity of his musings.
Whether or not this explanation be just, it is matter of fact that no
species of enthusiasm has carried its victims nearer to the brink of
insanity than that which originates in the interpretation of unfulfilled
prophecy. It need not be asked whether there is not some capital error
on the side of many who have given themselves to this study; for the
indications of pitiable delusion have been of a kind not at all
ambiguous. There must be present some lurking mischief when the study of
any part of Holy Scripture issues in extravagance of conduct, and in an
offensive turgidness of language, and produces—not quietness and peace,
but a wild and quaking looking-for of impending wonders. There must be a
fault of principle, if the demeanor of Christians be such that those who
occupy the place of the unlearned are excused when they say "Ye are mad."
That some peculiar danger haunts this region of Biblical inquiry is
established by a double proof; for not only have men of exorbitant
imaginations and feeble judgment rushed towards it instinctively, and
with the eagerness of infatuation; but sometimes the soundest
understandings have lost, in these inquiries, their wonted discretion.
At several periods of church history, and again in our own times,
multitudes have drunk to intoxication of the phial of prophetic
interpretation; and, amid imagined peals of the mystic thunder, have
become deaf to the voice both of common sense and of duty. The piety of
such persons—if piety it may be called—has made them hunger and thirst,
nor for "the bread and water of life," but for the news of the political
world. In such instances it may be confidently affirmed, previously to a
hearing of the argument, that, even if the interpretation were true, it
has become entangled with some knotted thread of error.
The proper remedy for evils of this kind is not to be found in the timid
or overbearing prohibitions of those who endeavor to prevent the
mischief by interdicting inquiry; and who would make it a sin or a folly
for a Christian to ask the meaning of certain portions of Scripture.
Cautions and restrictions of this nature are incompatible with the
principle of Protestantism, as well as unnecessary, arrogant, and
unavailing. If indeed man possessed any means of intrusion upon the
mysteries of the upper world, or upon the secrets of futurity, there
might be room to reprehend the audacity of those who should attempt to
know by force or by importunity of research what has not been revealed.
But when the unseen and the future are, by the spontaneous grace of
Heaven, in part set open, and when a message which might have been
withheld, has been sent to earth, encircled with a benediction like
this—"Blessed are they that hear, and keep these words:" then it may
most safely be concluded that whatever is not marked with the seal of
prohibition, is open to scrutiny. In truth, there is something
incongruous in the notion of a _revelation_ enveloped in menace and
restriction. But be this as it may, it is certain that whoever would
shut up the Scriptures, in whole or in part, from his fellow disciples,
or who affirms it to be unsafe or unwise to study such and such
passages, is bound to show reasons of the most convincing kind for the
exclusion. "What God has joined, let not man put asunder;" but he has
connected his blessing, comprehensively, with the study of his word. It
should be left to the Romish Church to employ that faulty argument of
captious arrogance, which prohibits the use of whatever may be abused.
Unless, then, it can be shown that a divine interdiction encloses the
prophetic portions of Scripture, it must be deemed an ill-judged and
irreligious, though perhaps well-intended usurpation, in any one who
assumes to plant his little rod of obstruction across the highway of
Revelation.
Moreover, prohibitions of this kind are futile, because impossible to be
observed. Every one admits that the study of those prophecies which have
already received their accomplishment is a matter of high importance and
positive duty; "we have a sure word of prophecy, to which we do well to
take heed." But how soon, in attempting to discharge this duty, are we
entangled in a snare, if indeed the study of unfulfilled prophecy be in
itself improper; for many of the prophecies, and those especially which
are the most definite, and the most intelligible, stretch themselves
across the wide gulf of time, and rest upon points intervening between
the days of the seer and the hour when the mystery of providence shall
be finished: and these comprehensive predictions, instead of tracking
their way by equal and measured intervals through the course of ages,
traverse vast spaces unmarked: and with a sudden bound, parting from an
age now long gone by, attain at once the last period of the human
economy. These abrupt transitions create obscurities which must either
shut up the whole prophecy from inquiry, or necessitate a scrutiny of
the whole; for at a first perusal, and without the guidance of learned
investigation, who shall venture to place his finger on the syllable
which forms the boundary between the past and the future, and which
constitutes the limit between duty and presumption? A prediction which
may seem to belong to futurity, will, perhaps, on better information be
found to regard the past; or the reverse. These extensive prophecies,
and such are those of Daniel and of John, must then either be shunned
altogether from the fear of trespassing on forbidden ground, or they
must be studied entire, in dependence upon other means than voluntary
ignorance for avoiding presumption and enthusiasm. Whoever would
discharge for others the difficult office of marking, throughout the
Scriptures, the boundaries of lawful investigation, must himself first
have committed the supposed trespass upon the regions of unfulfilled
prophecy. We conclude, therefore, that a separation which no one can
effect, is not really needed.
It is surely a mistaken caution which says—of the Apocalypse, for
example—it is a dark portion of Scripture, and better let alone than
explored. Very unhappy consequences are involved in such an
interdiction. This magnificent book is introduced to the regards of the
Church as a discovery of things that must shortly come to pass. Now we
must either believe that the ἐν τάχει, was intended to indicate a period
of eighteen hundred years (perhaps a much longer term) or admit that the
initial, and probably the larger portions of the prophecy have already
received their seal of verification from history, and come therefore
fairly within the scope of even the most scrupulous rule of inquiry, and
in fact should now form part of the standing evidence of the truth of
Christianity. To think less than this seems to imply a very dangerous
inference. If a part of this prophecy be actually accomplished; and if
yet it be impracticable to assign the predictions to the events, will
not one at least of the great purposes for which, as we are taught,
prophecy was given, have been rather defeated than served? There is not
perhaps a fulfilled prophecy on the page of inspiration which learned
ingenuity might not plausibly allege to have been hitherto altogether
misunderstood, and erroneously supposed to relate to such or such
events. It is a matter of course that, when a multitude of minds
variously influenced, and too often influenced by a wish to establish a
theory upon which literary ambition may build its pretensions, are
employed in the exposition of mystic predictions, _every_ scheme to
which any appearance of probability can be given, should actually find
an advocate. And then those who wish to discourage inquiry may
vauntingly say—See how various and how opposite are the opinions of
interpreters! Meanwhile, it may be perfectly true, that among these
various interpretations there may be _one_ which, though not altogether
unexceptionable, or wholly free from difficulties, will firmly secure
the approval of every unprejudiced and intelligent inquirer.
Some very sober Christians, while endeavoring by all means to secure the
young against the mania of prophetical interpretation, seem little aware
of how far they are treading upon the very path which infidelity
frequents. To advise a diligent study of prophecy (to those who have the
leisure and learning requisite) would it not be far safer, than to shrug
the shoulders in sage alarm, and to say—Prophecy! oh, let it alone!
The ancient Church received no cautions against a too eager scrutiny of
the great prophecy left to excite its hope: on the contrary, the pious
were "divinely moved" to search what might be the purport and season of
the revelation made by the "Spirit of Christ" to the prophets; and
though these predictions did in fact give occasion to the delusions of
"many deceivers," and though they were greatly misunderstood, even by
the most pious and the best informed of the Jewish people; yet did not
the foreknowledge of these mischiefs and errors call for any such
restrictions upon the spirit of inquiry as those wherewith some persons
are now fain to hedge about the Scriptures.
To the Christian Church the second coming of Christ stands where his
first coming stood to the Jewish, namely, in the very centre of the
field of prophetic light; and a participation in the glories "then to be
revealed" is even limited to those who in every age are devoutly
"looking for him." It is true that this doctrine of the second coming of
Christ has, like that of his first, wrought strongly upon enthusiastic
minds, and been the occasion of some pernicious delusions; yet, for the
correction of these incidental evils, we must look to other means than
to any existing cautions given to the Church in the Scriptures against a
too earnest longing for the promised advent of her King. To snatch this
great promise from Scripture in hasty fear, and then to close the book
lest we should see more than it is intended we should know, is not our
part. On the contrary, it is chiefly from a diligent and comprehensive
study of the terms of the great unfulfilled prophecy of Scripture, that
a preservative against delusion is to be gathered. To check assiduous
researches by cautions which the humble may respect, but which the
presumptuous will certainly contemn, is to abandon the leading truth of
Revelation to the uncorrected wantonness of fanaticism.
* * * * *
It is often not so much the instrinsic qualities of an opinion, as the
unwarrantable confidence with which it is held, that generates
enthusiasm. Persuade the dogmatist to be modest, as every Christian
undoubtedly ought who thinks himself compelled to dissent from the
common belief of the Church; persuade him to give respectful attention
to the argument of an opponent; in a word, to surrender the topmost
point of his assurance, and presently the high temperature of his
feelings will come down near to the level of sobriety. To doubt after
hearing of sufficient evidence, and to dogmatize where proof is
confessedly imperfect, are alike the indications of infirmity of
judgment, if not of perversity of temper; and these great faults, which
never predominate in the character apart from the indulgence of unholy
passions, seem often to be judicially visited with a hopeless imbecility
of the reasoning faculties. Thus, while the sceptic becomes, in course
of time, incapable of retaining his hold even of the most certain
truths, the dogmatist, on the other hand, loses all power of suspending
for a moment his decisions; and, as a feather and a ball of lead descend
with the same velocity when dropped in a vacuum, so do all propositions,
whether loaded with a weight of evidence or not, instantly reach, in his
understanding, the firm ground of absolute assurance.
Instead, therefore, of enhancing the arrogance of the half-insane
interpreter of prophecy by inviting him to display the blazing front of
his argument, it may be better, if it can be done, to demonstrate that
even though it should appear that his opinion carries a large balance of
probability, there is still a _special_ and very peculiar impropriety in
the tone of dogmatism which, on this particular subject, he assumes; so
that the error of the general Church, if it be an error, is actually
less than the fault of him who, in this temper, may boast that he has
truth on his side. Such a case of special impropriety may, in this
instance, very clearly be made out.
* * * * *
The language of prophecy is either common or mystical. Predictions
delivered in the style of common discourse, and free from symbols as
they are little liable to diversities of explication, do not often tempt
the ingenuity of visionaries: they may, therefore, be excluded from
consideration in the present instance. Mystic prophecy, or future
history written in symbols, under guidance of the divine foreknowledge,
in being committed to the custody and perusal of mankind, must be
presumed to conform itself to the laws of that particular species of
composition to which it bears the nearest analogy. For if the Divine
Being condescends at all to hold intercourse with men, it cannot be
doubted that he will do so, not only in a language known to them, but in
a manner perfectly accordant to the rules and proprieties of the medium
he designs to employ. Now the prophecies in question not merely belong
to the general class of symbolic writing, but there is to be discerned
in them, very plainly, the specific style of the enigma, which, in early
ages, was a usual mode of embodying the most important and serious
truths. In the enigma, the principal subject is, by some ingenuity of
definition, and by some ambiguity of description, at once held forth and
concealed. The law by which it is constructed demands, that while there
is given, under a guise, some special mark which shall prevent the
possibility of doubt when once the substance signified is seen, that
substance shall be so artfully depicted that the description, though it
be a true representation, may admit of more than one explication. There
can be no genuine and fair enigma in which these conditions are not
complied with. For if no special mark be given, the true solution must
want the means of vindicating its exclusive propriety, when the
substance signified is declared; a vague riddle is none. Or if the
special mark be not disguised, if no varnishing opacity be spread over
it, the substance is manifested at once, and the enigma nullified.
Again, if the general description is not so contrived as to admit of
several plausible hypotheses, then also the whole intention of the
device is destroyed, and the special mark rendered useless; for what
need can there be of an infallible indicator which is to come in as
arbiter among a number of competing solutions, if, in fact, no room be
left for diversity of interpretation?
Whenever, therefore, among mystic enunciations we can detect the
existence of some couched and specific note of identification, we may
most certainly conclude that it is placed there to serve a future
purpose of discrimination among several admissible modes of solution; or
in other words, that the enigma is designedly so framed as to tempt and
to allow a diversity of hypothetical explanations. An enigmatical or
symbolical enunciation, conformed to these essential rules, serves the
threefold purpose of presenting a blind to the incurious, a trap to the
dogmatical, and an exercise of modesty, of patience, and of sagacity to
the wise. And this seems to be the result intended, and actually
accomplished by the symbolical prophecies of Scripture.
When the subject of enigma already stands within the range of our
knowledge, and requires only to be singled out, the process of solution
is simple. The several suppositions that seem to comport with the
ambiguous description are to be brought together; and then the special
mark must be applied to each in turn, until such a precise and
convincing correspondence is discovered as at once strips the false
solutions of all their pretensions: if the enigma be fairly constructed,
this method of induction will never fail of success. Thus, with the page
of history before us, those prophecies of Daniel, for example, which
relate to the invasion of Greece by the Persians, to the subsequent
overthrow of the Persian monarchy by the Macedonians, to the division of
the conquests of Alexander, to the spread of the Roman arms, and to the
subdivision of the Roman Empire, are interpreted without hazard of
error, and with a completeness and a speciality of coincidence, that
carries a conviction of the divine dictation of those prophecies to
every honest mind.
A course somewhat less gratifying to the eagerness of enthusiastic
spirits must be pursued, if the subject of the sacred enigma does not
actually stand within our view; if it rest in a foreign region, as, for
example, in the region of futurity. It will by no means follow that a
symbolic prediction, which remains unfulfilled, ought not to be made the
subject of investigation; for as the description doubtless contains, by
condensation, the substance of the unknown reality, and perhaps also
much of its character, it may, even when mingled with erroneous
interpretations, serve important purposes in the excitement of pious
hope. The delivery of these enigmas into the hands of the Church, and
their intricate intermixture with fulfilled prophecies, and their being
everywhere embossed with attractive lessons of piety and virtue, not to
mention the explicit invitation to read and study them, may confidently
be deemed to convey a full license of examination. Yet in these
instances the well-known laws of the peculiar style in which the
predictions are enveloped, suggest restrictions and cautions which no
humble and pious expositor can overlook. The fault of the dogmatist in
prophecy is then manifest. Is a mystic prediction averred to be
unfulfilled? then we know, that, by the essential law of its
composition, it is designedly, we might say artfully constructed, so as
to admit of several, and perhaps of many, plausible interpretations,
having nearly equal claims of probability; and we know, moreover, that
the special mark couched amid the symbols, and which in the issue is to
arbitrate among the various solutions, is drawn from some minute
peculiarity in the surface and complexion of the future substance, and
therefore cannot be available for the purpose of discrimination, until
that substance, in the shape and color of reality, starts forth into day.
The expositor, therefore, who presumptuously espouses any one of the
several interpretations of which an enigmatical prophecy is susceptible,
and who fondly claims for it a positive and exclusive preference, sins
most flagrantly against the unalterable laws of the language of which he
professes himself a master. If dogmatism on matters not fully revealed
be in all cases blameworthy, it is especially to be condemned in the
expositor of enigmatic prophecy; and that, not merely because the events
so predicted rest under the awful veil of futurity, and exist only in
the prescience of the Deity; but because the chosen style of the
communication lays a distinct claim to modesty, and demands suspension
of judgment.—The use of symbols speaks a design of concealment; and do
we suppose that what God has hidden, the sagacity of man shall discover?
In issuing the prediction, he does indeed invite the humble, inquiries
of the Church; and in employing symbols which have a conventional
meaning he gives a clew to learned research; and yet, by the combination
of these symbols in the enigmatic form, an articulate warning is
presented against all dogmatical confidence of interpretation.
The adoption of an exclusive theory of exposition will not fail to be
followed by an attempt to attach the special marks of prophecy to every
passing event; and it is this very attempt which sets enthusiasm in a
flame; for it belongs, in common, to all religious irregularities that,
though mild and harmless while roaming at large among remote or
invisible objects they assume a noxious activity the moment that they
fix their grasp upon things near and tangible. There is scarcely any
degree of sobriety of temper which can secure the mind against fanatical
restlessness when once the habit has been formed of collating, daily,
the newspaper and the prophets; and the man who, with a feeble judgment
and an excitable imagination, is constantly catching at political
intelligence—Apocalypse in hand—walks on the verge of insanity, or
worse, of infidelity. In this feverish state of the feelings, mundane
interests, under the guise of faith and hope, occupy the soul to the
exclusion of "things unseen and eternal;" meanwhile, the heart-affecting
elements of piety and virtue become vapid to the taste, and gradually
fall into forgetfulness.
The fault of the dogmatical expositor of prophecy is especially
manifested when he assumes to determine the chronology of unfulfilled
predictions. In the instance of prophetic dates, the different lines of
conduct suggested by the different styles of the communication, are
readily perceived, and cheerfully observed by judicious and modest
interpreters. We may take, for illustration, the predicted duration of
the captivity of Judah, which was made known by Jeremiah (xxix. 10) in
the intelligible terms of common and popular computation: nor could the
supposition of a symbolic sense of the words be admitted by any sober
expositor. On the authority of this unequivocal prediction, Daniel, as
the time spoken of drew near, made confession and supplication in the
full assurance of warranted faith. In this confidence there was no
presumption, for his persuasion rested, not on the assumed validity of
this or of that ingenious interpretation of symbols; but upon an
explicit declaration which needed only to be read—not expounded.
But when the beloved seer received from his celestial informant the date
of _seventy weeks_, which should fix the period of the Messiah's advent
and preparatory sufferings, the employment of symbolic terms of itself
announced the double intention of, at once, revealing the time, and of
concealing it. For, as the terms, though mythic, bore a known import,
they could not be thought to be absolutely shut up from research; yet,
as by the mode of their combination they became susceptible of a
considerable diversity of interpretation, the wise and good might, after
all their diligence, differ in opinion as to the precise moment of
accomplishment. Thus was devout inquiry at once invited and restrained;
invited, because the language of the prediction was not unknown; and
restrained, because it still asked for interpretation, and admitted a
diversity of opinion. Those pious persons, therefore, who, at the time
of the Messiah's birth, were "looking for the consolation of Israel,"
could not, unless favored with personal revelations, affirm "this is the
very year of the expected deliverance;" for the symbolic chronology
might, with an appearance of reason, bear a somewhat different sense.
Yet might such persons, though not perfectly agreed in opinion, lawfully
and safely join in an exulting hope, that the time spoken of was not far
distant, when the son of David should appear.
The same rule is applicable to the position of the church at the present
moment. No one, it may be affirmed, can have given due attention to the
questions which have been of late so much agitated, without feeling
compelled to acknowledge, that a high degree of probability supports the
belief of an approaching extraordinary development of the mystery of
providence towards Christendom, and perhaps, towards the whole family of
man. That this probability is strong, might be argued from the fact that
it has wrought a general concurrence of belief among those whose modes
of thinking on most subjects are extremely dissimilar. Christians, amid
many contrarieties of opinion, are, with a tacit or an explicit
expectation, looking for movement and progression, to be effected either
by a quickened energy of existing means, or by the sudden operation of
new causes. This probable opinion, if held in the spirit of Christian
modesty, affords, under the sanction of the coolest reason, a new and
strong excitement to religious hope. He who entertains it may
exultingly, yet calmly exclaim, "The night is far spent, the day is at
hand;" and this kindling expectation will rouse him to greater diligence
in every good work, to greater watchfulness against every defilement of
heart, and frivolity of spirit, and inconsistency of conduct: he will
strive with holy wakefulness, to live as the disciple should who is
"waiting for his Lord." Thus far he can justify the new vivacity of his
hopes upon the ground of the permanent motives of religion; for he feels
nothing more than a Christian may well always feel; and the opinion he
entertains relative to the near accomplishment of ultimate prophecy,
serves only as an incitement to a state of mind in which he would fain
be found, if called suddenly from the present scene. While giving free
admission to sentiments of this sort, he knows that though he should be
mistaken in his theoretical premises, he shall certainly be right in his
practical inference.
But if the discreet Christian is tempted or solicited to admit an
incongruous jumble of political speculations and Christian hopes; if he
is called upon to detach in any degree, his attention from immediate and
unquestionable duties, and to fix his meditations on objects that have
no connection with his personal responsibility; then he will check such
an intrusion of turbulence and distraction, the tendency of which he
feels to be pernicious, by recollecting that his opinion, how probable
soever it may seem, is, at the best, nothing more than _one hypothesis_
among the many, which offer themselves in explanation of an enigmatical
prediction. To-day this hypothesis pleases him by its plausibility;
to-morrow he may reject it on better information.
Nothing, then, can be much more precise than the line which forms the
boundary between the legitimate and an enthusiastic feeling on the
subject of prophecy. Is a prediction couched in symbol? is it entangled
among perplexing anachronisms? is it studded with points of special
reference? We then recognize the hand of Heaven in the art of its
construction; and we know that it is so moulded as to admit and invite
the manifold diversities of ingenious explication and that, therefore,
even the true explication must, until the day of solution, stand
undistinguished in a crowd of plausible errors. But for a man to
proclaim himself the champion of a particular hypothesis, and to employ
it as he might an explicit prediction, is to affront the Spirit of
prophecy by contemning the chosen style of his announcements. And what
shall be said of the audacity of one who, with no other commission in
his hand than such as any man may please to frame for himself, usurps
the awful style of the seer, pronounces the doom of nations, hurls
thunders at thrones, and worse than this, puts the credit of
Christianity at pawn in the hand of infidelity, to be lost beyond
recovery, if not redeemed on a day specified by the fanatic for the
verification of his word!
* * * * *
The agitation which has recently taken place on the subject of prophecy,
may, perhaps, ere long, subside, and the church may again acquiesce in
its old sobrieties of opinion.[3] And yet a different and a better
result of the existing controversy seems not altogether improbable; for
when enthusiasm has raved itself into exhaustion, and has received from
time the refutation of its precocious hopes; and when, on the other
side, prosing mediocrity has uttered all its saws, and has fallen back
into its own slumber of contented ignorance, then the spirit of research
and of legitimate curiosity, which no doubt has been diffused among not
a few intelligent students of Scripture, may bring on a calm, learned,
and productive discussion of the many great questions that belong to the
undeveloped destiny of man. And it may be believed that the issue of
such discussions will take its place among the means that shall concur
to usher in a brighter age of Christianity.
Not indeed as if any fundamental principle of religion remained to be
discovered; for the spiritual church has, in every age, possessed the
substance of truth, under the promised teaching of the Spirit of truth.
But, obviously, there are many subjects, more or less clearly revealed
in the Scriptures, upon which serious errors maybe entertained,
consistently with genuine, and even exalted piety: they do indeed belong
to the entire faith of a Christian, but they form no part of its basis;
they may be detached or disfigured without great peril to the stability
of the structure. Almost all opinions relating to the unseen world, and
to the future providence of God on earth, are of this extrinsic or
subordinate character; and, as a matter of fact, pious and cautious men
have, on subjects of this kind, held notions so incompatibly dissimilar,
that the one or the other must have been utterly erroneous. But the
detection of error always opens a vista of hope to the diligence of
inquiry; and with the mistakes of our predecessors before us for our
warning, and with a highly improved state of Biblical learning for our
aid, it may fairly be anticipated that a devout and industrious
reconsideration of the evidence of Scripture will yet achieve some
important improvements in the opinions of the church on these difficult
and obscure subjects.
Nevertheless, though an expectation of this kind may seem reasonable,
there is, on the other hand some ground to imagine that the
accomplishment of the inscrutable designs of the Divine Providence may
require that the pious should henceforth, as heretofore, continue to
entertain not only imperfect, but very mistaken notions of the unseen
and the future worlds. Well-founded hopes and erroneous interpretations
have been linked together in the history of the church in all ages, even
from that hour of fallacious exultation when the mother of a murderer
exclaimed—"I have gotten the man from the Lord," the man who should
"break the serpent's head." Neither the discharge of present duties, nor
the exercise of right affections, nor a substantial preparation for
taking a part in the glory that is to be revealed, is perhaps at all
necessarily connected with just anticipations of the unknown futurity.
Thus, when the infant wakes into the light of this world, every organ
presently assumes its destined function: the heaving bosom confesses the
fitness of the material it inhales to support the new style of
existence; and the senses admit the first impressions of the external
world with a sort of anticipated familiarity; and though utterly
untaught in the scenes upon which it has so suddenly entered, and
inexperienced in the orders of the place where it must ere long act its
part, yet it is truly "meet to be a partaker of the inheritance" of
life. And thus, too, a real meetness for his birth into the future life
may belong to the Christian, though he be utterly ignorant of its
circumstances and conditions. But the functions of that new life have
been long in a hidden play of preparation for full activity. He has
waited in the coil of mortality only for the moment when he should
inspire the ether of the upper world, and behold the light of eternal
day, and hear the voices of new companions, and taste of the immortal
fruit, and drink of the river of life; and then, after perhaps a short
season of nursing in the arms of the elder members of the family above,
he will take his place in the service and orders of the heavenly house;
nor ever have room to regret the ignorances of his mortal state.
The study of those parts of Scripture which relate to futurity should
therefore be undertaken with zeal, inspired by a reasonable hope of
successful research; and at the same time with the modesty and
resignation which must spring from a not unreasonable supposition that
all such researches may be fruitless. So long as this modesty is
preserved, there will be no danger of enthusiastic excitements, whatever
may be the opinions which we are led to entertain.
It must be evident to every calm mind, that the discussion of questions
confessedly so obscure, and upon which the evidence of Scripture is
limited and of uncertain explication, is ordinarily improper to the
pulpit. The several points of the catholic faith afford themes enough
for public instruction. But matters of learned debate are extraneous to
that faith: they are no ingredients in the bread of life, which is the
only article committed to the hands of the teacher for distribution
among the multitude. What are the private and hypothetical opinions of a
public functionary to those whom he is to teach the principles of the
common Christianity? And if these doubtful opinions implicate inquiries
which the unlearned can never prosecute, a species of imposition is
implied in the attempt to urge them upon simple hearers. It is truly a
sorry triumph that he obtains who wins by declamation and violence the
voices of a crowd in favor of opinions which men of learning and modesty
neither defend nor impugn but with diffidence. The press is the proper
organ of abstruse controversy.
[3] Written in 1828.