ONE is almost ashamed to repeat so trite an aphorism as the well-worn
saying that "history repeats itself." But in studying the course taken
by the advocates of what is called "revealed religion," in seeing their
disdain of "mere nature," their scornful repudiation of the idea that
any poor natural product can come into competition with their special
article, hall-stamped by heaven itself, I feel irresistibly compelled
to glance backwards down the long vista of history, and there I see
the conflict of the present day raging fierce and long. I see the same
serried ranks of orthodoxy marshalled by bishops and priests, arrayed
in all the splendour of prescriptive right, armed with mighty weapons
of authority and thunderbolts of Church anathemas. Their war-cry is the
same as that which rings in our ears to-day; "revelation" is inscribed
on their banners and "infallible authority" is the watchword of their
camp. The Church is facing nature for the first time, and is setting her
revealed science against natural science. "Mere Nature" is temporarily
getting the worst of it, and Galileo, Nature's champion, is sorely
pressed by "revealed truth." I hear scornful taunts at his presumption
in attacking revealed science by his pretended natural facts. Had they
not God's Own account of His creation, and did he pretend to know more
about the matter than God Himself? Was he present when God created the
world, that he spoke so positively about its shape? Could he declare, of
his own personal knowledge, that it was sent hurtling through space in
the ridiculous manner he talked about, and could he, by the evidence of
his own eye-sight, declare that God was mistaken when He revealed to man
how He "laid the foundation of the earth that it never should move at
anytime?" But if he was only reasoning from the wee bit of earth he
knew, was he not speaking of things he had not seen, being vainly
puffed-up in his fleshly mind? Was it probable, _a priori_, that
God would allow mankind to be deceived for thousands of years on so
important a matter; would in fact--God forgive it!--deceive man Himself
by revealing through His holy prophets an account of His creation
which was utterly untrue; nay, further, would carry on the delusion for
century after century, by working miracles in support of it--for what
but a miracle could make men unconscious of the fact that they were
being hurried through space at so tremendous a rate? Surely very little
reverence, or rather no reverence at all, was needed to allow that God
the Holy Ghost, who inspired the Bible, knew better than we did how
He made the world. But, the theologian proceeds, he must remind his
audience that, under the specious pretext of investigating the creation,
this man, this pseudo-scientist, was in reality blaspheming the Creator,
by contradicting His revealed word, and thus "making Him a liar." It
was all very well to talk about _natural_ science; but he would ask this
presuming speculator, what was the use of God revealing science to us if
man's natural faculties were sufficient to discover it for himself? They
had sufficient proofs of the absurdities of science into which reason,
unenlightened by revelation, had betrayed men in past ages. The idea of
the Hindoo, that the world rested on an elephant and the elephant on
a tortoise, was a sad proof of the incapacity of the acutest natural
intellect to discover scientific truth without the aid of revelation.
Reason had its place, and a very noble placer in science; but it must
always bow before revelation, and not presume to set its puny guesses
against a "thus sayeth the Lord." Let reason, then, pursue its way with
belief not unbelief, for its guide. What could reason, with all its
vaunted powers, tell us of the long-past creation of the world? Eye hath
not seen those things of ages past, but God hath revealed them to us by
His Spirit. A darkness that might be felt would enshroud the origin of
the world were it not for the magnificent revelation of Moses, that "in
six days God created the heaven and the earth." He might urge how our
conceptions of God were enlarged and elevated, and what a deep awe
filled the adoring heart on contemplating the revealed truth, that this
wonderful earth with its varied beauty, and the heavens above with their
countless stars, were all called forth out of nothing within the space
of one short week by the creative fiat of the Almighty. What could this
pseudo-science give them in exchange for such a revelation as that? Was
it probable, further, that God would have become incarnate for the sake
of a world that was only one out of many revolving round the sun? How
irreverent to regard the theatre of that awful sacrifice as aught less
than the centre of the universe, the cynosure of angelic eyes, gazing
from their thrones in the heaven above! Galileo might say that his
heresy does not affect the primary truths of our holy faith; but this is
only one of the evasions natural to evildoers--and it is unnecessary
to remark that intellectual error is invariably the offspring of moral
guilt--for consider how much is involved in his theory. The inspiration
of Scripture receives its death-blow; for if fallible in one point, we
have no reason to conclude it to be infallible in others. If there is
one fact revealed to us more clearly than another in Holy Scripture, it
is this one of the steadfastness of our world, which we are distinctly
told, "cannot be moved." It is plainly revealed to us that the earth was
created and fixed firmly on its foundations; that then there was formed
over it the vast vault of heaven, in which were set the stars, and in
this vault was prepared "the course" for the sun, spoken of, as you will
remember, in the 19th Psalm, where holy David reveals to us that in the
heavens God has made a tabernacle for the sun, which "goeth forth from
the uttermost part of the heaven, and runneth about unto the end of
it again." Language has no definiteness of meaning if this inspired
declaration can be translated into a statement that the sun remains
stationary and is encircled by a revolving earth. This great revealed
truth cannot be contradicted by any true science. God's works
cannot contradict His word; and if for a moment they appear mutually
irreconcileable, we may be sure that our ignorance is to blame, and that
a deeper knowledge will ultimately remove the apparent inconsistency.
But it is yet more important to observe that some of the cardinal
doctrines of the Church are assailed by this novel teaching. How could
our blessed Redeemer, after accomplishing the work of our salvation,
ascend from a revolving earth? Whither did He go? North, south, east, or
west? For, if I understand aright this new heresy, the space above us
at one time is below us at another, and thus Jesus might be actually
descending at His glorious Ascension. Where, too, is that Right Hand of
God to which He went, in this new universe without top or bottom? How
can we hope to rise and meet Him in the air at His return, according to
the most sure promise given to us through the blessed Paul, if He comes
we know not from what direction? How can the lightning of His coming
shine at once all round a globe to herald His approach, or how can the
people at the other side of the world see the sign of the Son of Man in
the heavens? But I cannot bring myself to accumulate these blasphemies;
all must see that the most glorious truths of the Bible are bound up
with its science, and must stand or fall together. And if this is so,
and this so-called natural science is to be allowed to undermine the
revealed science, what have we got to rely upon in this world or in the
next? With the absolute truth of the Bible stands or falls our faith in
God and our hope of immortality; on the truth of revelation hinges all
morality, and they who deny to-day the truth of revealed science
will tamper tomorrow with the truth of revealed history, of revealed
morality, of revealed religion. Shall we, then, condescend to accept
natural science instead of revealed; shall we, the teachers of
revelation, condescend to abandon revealed science, and become the mere
teachers of nature?
Thunders of applause greeted the right reverend theologian as he
concluded--he happened to be a bishop, the direct ancestor in regular
apostolical succession of a late prelate who inherited among other
valuable qualities the very argument which closed the speech above
quoted--and Galileo, the foolish believer in facts and the heretical
student of mere nature, turned away with a sigh from trying to convince
them, and contented himself with the fact he knew, and which must surely
announce itself in the long run. _E pur si muove!_ Fear not, noble
martyr of science: facts alter not to suit theologies: many a one may
fall crushed and vanquished before the Juggernaut-car of the Church, but
"God does not die with His children, nor truth with its martyrs;" the
natural is the divine, for Nature is only "God in a mask." So, looking
down at that first great battle-field between nature and revelation I
see the serried ranks break up and fly, and the excommunicated student
become the prophet of the future, Galileo the seer, the revealer of the
truth of God.
It is eternally true that nature must triumph in the long run.
Theories are very imposing, doubtless, but when they are erected on a
misconception the inexorable fact is sure to assert itself sooner or
later, and with pitiless serenity level the magnificent fabric with
the dust. It is this which gives to scientific men so grave and calm an
attitude; theologians wrangle fiercely and bitterly because they wrangle
about _opinions_, and one man's say is as good as another's where both
deal in intangibles; but the man of science, when absolutely sure of his
ground, _can afford to wait_, because the fact he has discovered remains
unshaken, however it be assailed, and it will, in time, assert itself.
When nature and revelation then come into contact, revelation must go to
the wall; no outcry can save it; it is doomed; as well try and dam the
rising Thames with a feather, as seek to bolster up a theology whose
main dogmas are being slowly undermined by natural science. Of course
no one nowadays (at least among educated people, for Zadkiel's Almanac
I believe still protests on Biblical grounds against the heresy of the
motion of the earth) dreams of maintaining Bible, _i e_., revealed,
science against natural science; it is agreed on all hands that on
points where science speaks with certainty the words of the _Bible must
be explained so as to accord with the dictum of nature_; _i e._, it
is allowed--though the admission is wrapped up in thick folds of
circumlocution--that science must mould revelation, and not revelation
science. The desperate attempts to force the first chapter of Genesis
into some faint resemblance to the ascertained results of geological
investigations are a powerful testimony to the conscious weakness of
revealed science and to the feeling on the part of all intelligent
theologians that the testimony graven with an iron pen on the rocks
cannot be contradicted or refuted. In fact so successfully has science
asserted its own preeminence in its own domain that many defenders of
the Bible assert loudly, to cover their strategic movement to the rear,
that revelation was not intended to teach science, and that scientific
mistakes were only to be expected in a book given to mankind by the
great Origin of all scientific law. They are freely welcome to find
out any reasons they like for the errors in revealed science; all
that concerns us is that their revelation should get out of the way of
advancing science, and should no longer interpose its puny anathemas
to silence inquiry into facts, or to fetter free research and free
discussion.
But I challenge revelation further than this, and assert that when the
dictates of natural_ religion_ are in opposition to those of revealed
_religion_ then the natural must again triumph over the revealed.
Christianity has so long successfully impressed on human hearts the
revelation that natural impulses are in themselves sinful, that in "the
flesh dwelleth no good thing," that man is a fallen creature, thoroughly
corrupt and instinctively evil, that it has come to-pass that even those
who would be liberal if they dared, shrink back when it comes to casting
away their revelation-crutches, and ask wildly _what_ they can trust
to if they give up the Bible. Their teachers tell them that if they let
this go they will wander compassless on the waves of a pathless ocean;
and so determinedly do they fix their eyes on the foaming waters,
striving to discern there the trace of a pathway and only seeing the
broken reflections of the waving torches in their hands, that they do
not raise their heads and gaze upwards at the everlasting stars, the
silent natural guides of the bewildered mariner. "Trust to mere nature!"
exclaim the priesthood, and their flocks fall back aghast, clutching
their revelation to their bosom and crying out: "What indeed is there to
rely on if this be taken from us?" Only God. "Mere" God indeed, who is
a very feeble support after the bolstering up of creeds and dogmas,
of Churches and Bibles. As the sunshine dazzles eyes accustomed to the
darkness, as the fresh wind makes shiver an invalid from a heated room,
so does the light of God dazzle those who live amid the candles of the
Churches, and the breath of His inspiration blows cold on feeble souls.
But the light and the air invigorate and strengthen, and nature is a
surer medicine than the nostrums of the quack physician.
"Mere" God is, in very truth, all that we Theists have to offer the
world in exchange for the certainties of its Bibles, Korans, Vedas, and
all other revelations whatsoever. On points where they each speak with
certainty, our lips are dumb. About much they assert, we confess our
ignorance. Where they know, we only think or hope. Where they possess
all the clearness of a sign-post, our eyes can only study the mistiness
of a valley before the rising sun has dispelled the wreathing clouds.
They proclaim immortality, and are quite _au fait_ as to the particulars
of our future life. They differ in details, it is true, as to whether
we live in a jewelled city, where the dust is gold-dust and the gates
pearls, and spend our time in attending Sacred Harmonic Societies with
an archangelic Costa directing perpetual oratorios, or whether we lie in
rose-embowered arbours with delights unlimited, albeit unintellectual;
but if we take them one at a time they are most satisfactory in the
absolute information afforded by each. But we, we can only, whisper--and
the lips of some of us quiver too much to speak--"I believe in the life
everlasting." We do not pretend to _know_ anything about it; the belief
is intuitive, but is not demonstrable; it is a hope and a trust, not an
absolute knowledge. We entertain a reasonable hope of immortality; we
argue its likelihood from considerations of the justice and the love
which, as we believe, rule the universe; we, many of us--as I freely
confess I do myself--believe in it with a firmness of conviction
absolutely immovable; but challenged to _prove_ it, we cannot answer.
"Here," the revelationists triumphantly exclaim, "is our advantage; we
foretell with absolute certainty a future life, and can give you all
particulars about it." Then follows a confused jumble of harps and
houris, of pasture-field and hunting-grounds; we seek for certainty
and find none. All that they agree in, _i e_., a future life, we find
imprinted on our own hearts, a dictate of natural religion; all they
differ in is contained in their several revelations, and as they all
contradict each other about the revealed details, we gain nothing from
them. Nature whispers to us that there is a life to come; revelation
babbles a number of contradictory particulars, marring the majesty of
the simple promise, and adding nothing reliable to the sum of human
knowledge. And the subject of immortality is a fair specimen of what is
taught respectively by nature and by revelation; what is common to all
creeds is natural, what is different in each is revealed. It is so with
respect to God. The idea of God belongs to all creeds alike; it is the
foundation-stone of natural religion; confusion begins when revelation
steps in to change the musical whisper of Nature into a categorical
description worthy of "Mangnall's Questions." Triune, solitary, dual,
numberless, whatever He is revealed to be in the world's varied sacred
books, His nature is understood, catalogued, dogmatised on; each
revelation claims to be His own account of Himself; but each contradicts
its fellows; on one point only they all agree, and that is the point
confessed by natural religion--"God is."
From these facts I deduce two conclusions: first, that revelation does
not come to us with such a certainty of its truth as to enable us to
trust it fearlessly and without reserve; second, that revelation is
quite superfluous, since natural religion gives us every thing we need.
I. Revelation gives an uncertain sound. There are certain books in the
world which claim to stand on a higher ground than all others. They
claim to be special revelations of the will of God and the destiny of
man. Now surely one of the first requisites of a Divine revelation is
that it should be undoubtedly of Divine origin. But about all these
books, except the Koran of Mahomet, hangs much obscurity both as regards
their origin and their authorship. "Believers" urge that were the proofs
undoubted there would be no room for faith and no merit in believing.
They conceive it, then, to be a worthy employment for the Supreme
Intelligence to set traps for His creatures; and, there being certain
facts of the greatest importance, undis-coverable by their natural
faculties, He proceeds to reveal these facts, but envelopes them in
such wrappings of mystery, such garments of absurdity, that those of
His creatures whom he has dowered with intellects and gifted with subtle
brains, are forced to reject the whole as incredible and unreasonable.
That God should give a revelation, but should not substantiate it, that
He should speak, but in tones unintelligible, that His noblest gifts of
reason should prove an insuperable bar to accepting his manifestation,
are surely statements incredible, are surely statements utterly
irreconcileable with all reverent ideas of the love and wisdom of
Almighty God. Further, the believers in the various revelations all
claim for their several oracles the supreme position of the exponent of
the Will of God, and each rejects the sacred books of other nations as
spurious productions, without any Divine authority. As these revelations
are mutually destructive, it is evident that only one of them, at the
most can be Divine, and the next point of the inquiry is to distinguish
which this is. We, of the Western nations, at once put aside the Hindoo
Vedas, or the Zendavesta, on certain solid grounds; we reject their
claims to be inspired books because they contain error; their mistaken
science, their legendary history, their miraculous stories, stamp them,
in our impartial eyes, as the work of fallible men; the nineteenth
century looks down on thee ancient writings as the instructed and
cultured man smiles at the crude fancies and imaginative conceits of the
child. But when the generality of Christians turn to the Bible they lay
aside all ordinary criticism and all common-sense. Its science may be
absurd; but excuses are found for it. Its history may be false, but
it is twisted into truth. Its supernatural marvels may be flagrantly
absurd; but they are nevertheless believed in. Men who laugh at the
visions of the "blessed Margaret" of Paray-le-Monial assent to the
devil-drowning of the swine of Gadara; and those who would scorn to
investigate the tale of the miraculous spring at Lourdes, find
no difficulty in believing the story of the angel-moved waters of
Bethesda's pool. A book which contains miracles is usually put aside as
unreliable. There is no good reason for excepting the Bible from this
general rule. Miracles are absolutely incredible, and discredit at once
any book in which they occur. They are found in all revelations, but
never in nature, they are plentiful in man's writings, but they never
deface the orderly pages of the great book of God, written by His own
Hand on the earth, and the stars, and the sun. Powers? Yes, beyond our
grasping, but Powers moving in stately order and changeless consistency.
Marvels? Yes, beyond our imagining, but marvels evolved by immutable
laws. Revelation is incredible, not only because it fails to bring proof
of its truth, but because the proofs abound of its falsehood; it claims
to be Divine, and we reject it because we test it by what we know of
His undoubted works, for men can write books of Him and call them His
revelations, but the frame of nature can only be the work of that mighty
Power which man calls God. Revelation depicts Him as changeable, nature
as immutable; revelation tells us of perfection marred, nature of
imperfection improving; revelation speaks of a Trinity, nature of one
mighty central Force; revelation relates interferences, miracles, nature
unbroken sequences, inviolable law. If we accept revelation we must
believe in a God Who made man upright but could not keep him so; Who
heard in his far-off heaven the wailing of His earth and came down to
see if things were as bad as was reported; Who had a face which brought
death, but Whose hinder parts were visible to man; Who commanded and
accepted human sacrifice; Who was jealous, revengeful, capricious, vain;
Who tempted one king and then punished him for yielding, hardened the
heart of another and then punished him for not yielding, deceived a
third and thereby drew him to his death. But nature does not so outrage
our morality and trample on our hearts; only we learn of a power and
wisdom unspeakable, "mightily and sweetly ordering all things," and
our hearts tell of a Father and a Friend, infinitely loving, and
trustworthy, and good. The God of Nature and the God of Revelation are
as opposed as Ormuzd and Ahriman, as darkness and light; the Bible and
the universe are not writ by the same hand.
II. Revelation then being so utterly untrustworthy, it is satisfactory
to discover, secondly, that it is perfectly superfluous.
All man needs for his guidance in this world he can gain through the use
of his natural faculties, and the right guidance of his conduct in this
world must, in all reasonableness, be the best preparation for whatever
lies beyond the grave. Revelationists assure us that without their books
we should have no rules of morality, and that without the Bible man's
moral obligations would be unknown. Their theory is that only through
revelation can man know right from wrong. Using the word "revelation"
in a different sense most Theists would agree with them, and would
allow that man's perception of duty is a ray which falls on him from the
Righteousness of God, and that man's morality is due to the illumination
of the inspiring Father of Light. Personally, I believe that God
does teach morality to man, and is, in very deed, the Inspirer of all
gracious and noble thoughts and acts. I believe that the source of all
morality in man is the Universal Spirit dwelling in the spirits He has
formed, and moving them to righteousness, and, as they answer to His
whispers by active well-doing--speaking ever in louder and clearer
accents. I believe also that the most obedient followers of that inner
voice gain clearer and loftier views of duty and of the Holiest,
and thus become true prophets of God, revealers of His will to their
fellows. And this is revelation in a very real sense; it is God
revealing Himself by the natural working of moral laws, even as all
science is a true revelation, and is God revealing Himself by the
natural working of physical laws. For laws are modes of action, and
modes of action reveal the nature and character of the actor, so that
every law, physical and moral, which is discovered by truth-seekers and
proclaimed to the world is a direct and trustworthy revelation of God
Himself. But when Theists speak thus of "revelation" using the word as
rightfully applicable to all discoveries and all nobly written religious
or scientific books, it is manifest that the word has entirely changed
its signification, and is applied to "natural" and not "supernatural"
results. We believe in God working through natural faculties in a
natural way, while the revelationists believe in some non-natural
communication, made no one knows how, no one knows where, no one knows
to whom.
Where opposing theories are concerned an ounce of fact outweighs pounds
of assertion; and so against the statement of Christians, that morality
is derived only from the Bible and is undiscoverable by "man's natural
faculties," I quote the morality of natural religion, unassisted by what
they claim as their special "revelation."
Buddha, as he lived 700 years before Christ, can hardly be said to
have drawn his morality from that of Jesus or even to have derived any
indirect benefit from Christian teaching, and yet I have been gravely
told by a Church of England clergyman--who ought to have known
better--that forgiveness of injuries and charity were purely Christian
virtues. This heathen Buddha, lighted only by natural reason and a pure
heart, teaches: "a man who foolishly does me wrong I will return to him
the protection of my ungrudging love; the more evil comes from him the
more good shall go from me;" among principal virtues are: "to repress
lust and banish desire; to be strong without being rash; to bear insult
without anger; to move in the world without setting the heart on it; to
investigate a matter to the very bottom; to save men by converting them;
to be the same in heart and life." "Let a man overcome evil by good,
anger by love, the greedy by liberality, the liar by truth. For hatred
does not cease by hatred at any time; hatred ceases by love; this is an
old rule." He inculcates purity, charity, self-sacrifice, courtesy, and
earnestly recommends personal search after truth: "do not
believe in guesses"--in assuming something at hap-hazard as a
starting-point--reckoning your two and your three and your four before
you have fixed your number one. Do not believe in the truth of that to
which you have become attached by habit, as every nation believes in the
superiority of its own dress and ornaments and language. Do not believe
merely because you have heard, but when of your own consciousness you
know a thing to be evil abstain from it. Methinks these sayings of
Buddha are unsurpassed by any revealed teaching, and contain quite as
noble and lofty a morality as the Sermon on the Mount, "natural" as they
are.
Plato, also, teaches a noble morality and soars into ideas about the
Divine Nature as pure and elevated as any which are to be found in the
Bible. The summary of his teaching, quoted by Mr. Lake in a pamphlet
of Mr. Scott's series, is a glorious testimony to the worth of natural
religion. "It is better to die than to sin. It is better to suffer wrong
than to do it. The true happiness of man consists in being united to
God, and his only misery in being separated from Him. There is one God,
and we ought to love and serve Him, and to endeavour to resemble Him
in holiness and righteousness." Plato saw also the great truth that
suffering is not the result of an evil power, but is a necessary
training to good, and he anticipates the very words of Paul--if indeed
Paul does not quote from Plato--that "to the just man all things work
together for good, whether in life or death." Plato lived 400 years
before Christ, and yet in the face of such teaching as his and
Buddha's,--and they are only two out of many--Christians fling at us the
taunt that we, rejectors of the Bible, draw all our morality from
it, and that without this one revelation the world would lie in moral
darkness, ignorant of truth and righteousness and God. But the light
of God's revealing shines still upon the world, even as the sunlight
streams upon it steadfastly as of old; "it is not given to a few men in
the infancy of mankind to monopolise inspiration and to bar God out of
the soul.... Wherever a heart beats with love, where Faith and Reason
utter their oracles, there also is God, as formerly in the heart of
seers and prophets."*
* Theodore Tarker.
It is a favourite threat of the priesthood to any inquiring spirit: "If
you give up Christianity you give up all certainty; rationalism speaks
with no certain sound; no two rationalists think alike; the word
rationalism covers everything outside Christianity, from Unitarianism to
the blankest atheism;" and many a timid soul starts back, feeling that
if this is true it is better to rest where it is, and inquire no more.
To such--and I meet many such--I would suggest one very simple thought:
does "Christianity" give any more certainty than rationalism? Just
try asking your mentor, "_whose_ Christianity am I to accept?" He will
stammer out, "Oh, the teaching of the Bible, of course." But persevere:
"As explained by whom? for all claim to found their Christianity on
the Bible: am I to accept the defined logical Christianity of Pius IX.,
defiant of history, of science, of common sense, or shall I sit under
Spurgeon, the denunciator, and flee from the scarlet woman and the cup
of her fascinations: shall I believe the Christianity of Dean Stanley,
instinct with his own gracious, kindly spirit, cultured and polished,
pure and loving, or shall I fly from it as a sweet but insidious poison,
as I am exhorted to do by Dr. Pusey, who rails at his 'variegated
language which destroys all definiteness of meaning.' For pity's sake,
good father, label for me the various bottles of Christian medicine,
that I may know which is healing to the soul, which may be touched with
caution, as for external application, and which are rank poison."
All the priest will find to answer is, that "under sad diversities
of opinion there are certain saving truths common to all forms of
Christianity," but he will object to particularise what they are, and
at this stage will wax angry and refuse to argue with anyone who shows
a spirit so carping and so conceited. There is the same diversity in
rationalism as in Christianity, because human nature is diverse, but
there is also one bond between all freethinkers, one "great saving
truth" of rationalism, one article of faith, and that is, that "free
inquiry is the right of every human soul;" diverse in much, we all agree
in this, and so strong is this bond that we readily welcome any thinker,
however we disagree with his thoughts, provided only that he think them
honestly and allow to all the liberty of holding their own opinions
also. We are bound together in one common hatred of Dogmatism, one
common love of liberty of thought and speech.
It is probably a puzzle to good and unlearned Christians whence men,
unenlightened by revelation, drew and still draw their morality. We
answer, "from mere Nature, and that because Nature and not revelation is
the true basis of all morality." We have seen the untrustworthiness of
all so-called revelations; but when we fall back on Nature we are
on firm ground. Theists start in their search after God from their
well-known axiom: "If there be a God at all He must be at least as
good as His highest creature;" and they argue that what is highest and
noblest and most lovable in man _must_ be below, but cannot be above,
the height and the nobleness and the loveableness of God. "Of all
impossible thing, the most impossible must surely be that a man should
dream something of the Good and the Noble, and that it should prove
at last that his Creator was less good and less noble than he had
dreamed."* "The ground on which our belief in God rests is Man. Man,
parent of Bibles and Churches, inspirer of all good thoughts and good
deeds. Man, the master-piece of God's work on earth. Man, the text-book
of all spiritual knowledge. Neither miraculous or infallible, Man is
nevertheless the only trustworthy record of the Divine mind in things
pertaining to God. Man's reason, conscience, and affections are the only
true revelation of his Maker,"** And as we believe that we may glean
some hints of the Glory and Beauty of our Creator from the glory and
beauty of human excellence, so we believe that to each man, as he lives
up to the highest he can perceive, will surely be unveiled fresh heights
of righteousness, fresh possibilities of moral growth.
* Frances Power Cobbe.
** Rev. Charles Voysey.
To all men alike, good and evil, is laid open Nature's revelation of
morality, as exemplified in the highest human lives; and these noble
lives receive ever the heavenly hall-mark by the instinctive response
from every human breast that they "are very good." To those only
who live up to the good they see, does God give the further inner
revelation, which leads them higher and higher in morality, quickening
their moral faculties, and making more sensitive and delicate their
moral susceptibilities. We cannot, as revelationists do, chalk out
all the whole range of moral perfection: we "walk by faith and not by
sight:" step by step only is the path unveiled to us, and only as we
surmount one peak do we gain sight of the peak beyond: the distant
prospect is shrouded from our gaze, and we are too fully occupied in
doing the work which is given us to do in this world, to be for ever
peering into and brooding over the world beyond the grave. We have light
enough to do our Father's work here; when he calls us yonder it will be
time enough to ask Him to unveil our new sphere of labour and to
cause His sun to rise on it. Wayward children fret after some fancied
happiness and miss the work and the pleasure lying at their feet, and
so petulant men and women cry out that "man that is born of woman... is
full of misery," and wail for a revelation to ensure some happier life:
they seem to forget that if this world is full of misery _they_ are put
here to mend it and not to cry over it, and that it is our shame and our
condemnation that in God's fair world so much sin and unhappiness are
found. If men would try to read nature instead of revelation, if they
would study natural laws and leave revealed laws, if they would follow
human morality instead of ecclesiastical morality, then there might be
some chance of real improvement for the race, and some hope that the
Divine Voice in Nature might be heard above the babble of the Churches.
And Nature is enough for us, gives us all the light we want and all that
we, as yet, are fitted to receive. Were it possible that God should now
reveal Himself to us as He is, the Being of Whose Nature we can form
no conception, I believe that we should remain as ignorant as we are
at present, from the want of faculties to receive that revelation:
the Divine language might sound in our ears, but it would be as
unintelligible as the roar of the thunder-clap, or the moan of the
earthquake, or the whisper of the wind to the leaves of the cedar-tree.
God is slowly revealing Himself by His works, by the course of events,
by the progress of Humanity: if He has never spoken from Heaven in human
language, He is daily speaking in the world around us to all who have
ears to hear, and as Nature in its varied forms is His only revelation
of Himself, so the mind and the heart alone can perceive His presence
and catch the whispers ot His mysterious voice.
Never yet has been broken
The silence eternal:
Never yet has been spoken
In accents supernal
God's Thought of Himself.
We are groping in blindness
Who yearn to behold Him:
But in wisdom and kindness
In darkness He folds Him
Till the soul learns to see.
So the veil is unriven
That hides the All-Holy,
And no token is given
That satisfies wholly
The cravings of man.
But, unhasting, advances
The march of the ages,
To truth-seekers' glances
Unrolling the pages
Of God's revelation.
Impatience unheeding,
Time, slowly revolving;
Unresting, unspeeding,
Is ever evolving
Fresh truths about God.
Human speech has not broken
The stillness supernal:
Yet ever is spoken
Through silence eternal,
With growing distinctness
God's Thought of Himself.