APHORISM XXIII.--Less on my own account, than in the hope of
fore-arming my youthful friends, I add one other transcript from
Bishop Taylor, as from a writer to whose name no taint or suspicion of
Calvinistic or schismatical tenets can attach, and for the purpose of
softening the offence which, I cannot but foresee, will be taken at
the positions asserted in paragraph the first of Aphorism VII., and
the documental proofs of the same in the next pages; and this by a
formidable party composed of men ostensibly of the most dissimilar
creeds, _regular_ Church-divines, voted orthodox by a great majority
of suffrages, and the so-called Free-thinking Christians, and
Unitarian divines. It is the _former_ class alone that I wish to
conciliate: so far at least as it may be done by removing the
aggravation of _novelty_ from the offensive article. And surely the
simple re-assertion of one of "the two great things," which Bishop
Taylor could assert as a fact,--which, he took for granted, that no
Christian would think of controverting,--should at least be
controverted without bitterness by his successors in the Church. That
which was perfectly safe and orthodox in 1657, in the judgment of a
devoted Royalist and Episcopalian, ought to be at most but a venial
heterodoxy in 1825. For the rest, I am prepared to hear in
answer--what has already been so often, and with such theatrical
effect dropped, as an _extinguisher_, on my arguments--the famous
concluding period of one of the chapters in Paley's Moral and
Political Philosophy, declared by Dr. Parr to be the _finest_ prose
passage in English literature.[139] Be it so. I bow to so great an
authority. But if the learned Doctor would impose it on me as the
_truest_ as well as the finest, or expect me to admire the logic
equally with the rhetoric--αφισταμαι--I start off! As I have been
_un-English_ enough to find in Pope's tomb-epigram on Sir Isaac Newton
nothing better than a gross and wrongful falsehood, conveyed in an
enormous and irreverent hyperbole; so with regard to this passage in
question, free as it is from all faults of taste, I have yet the
hardihood to confess, that in the sense in which the words _discover_
and _prove_, are here used and intended, I am not convinced of the
truth of the principle, (that he alone discovers who proves), and I
question the correctness of the particular case, brought as instance
and confirmation. I _doubt_ the validity of the assertion as a
_general_ rule; and I _deny_ it, as applied to matters of _faith_, to
the verities of religion, in the belief of which there must always be
somewhat of moral election, "an act of the _Will_ in it as well as of
the Understanding, as much _love_ in it as discursive power. True
Christian Faith must have in it something of in-evidence, something
that must be made up by duty and by obedience."[140] But most readily
do I admit, and most fervently do I contend, that the miracles worked
by Christ, both as miracles and as fulfilments of prophecy, both as
signs and as wonders, made plain discovery, and gave unquestionable
proof, of his divine character and authority; that they were to the
whole Jewish nation true and appropriate evidences, that HE was indeed
come who had promised and declared to their forefathers, _Behold your
God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense_. _He will
come and save you._[141] I receive them as proofs, therefore, of the
truth of every word, which he taught who was himself THE WORD: and as
sure evidences of the final victory over death and of the life to
come, in that they were manifestations of HIM, who said: _I am the
resurrection and the Life!_
The obvious inference from the passage in question, if not its express
import, is: _Miracula experimenta crucis esse, quibus solis probandum
erat, homines non, pecudum instar, omnino perituros esse_. Now this
doctrine I hold to be altogether alien from the _spirit_, and without
authority in the _letter_, of Scripture. I can recall nothing in the
history of human belief, that should induce me, I find nothing in my
own moral being that enables me, to understand it. I can, however,
perfectly well understand, the readiness of _those_ divines in _hoc
Paleii dictum ore pleno jurare, qui nihil aliud in toto Evangelio
invenire posse profitentur_. The most unqualified admiration of this
superlative passage I find perfectly in character for those, who while
Socinianism and Ultra-Socinianism are spreading like the roots of an
elm, on and just below the surface, through the whole land, and _here
and there_ at least have even dipped under the garden-fence of the
Church, and blunted the edge of the labourer's spade in the gayest
_parterres_ of our Baal-hamon, who,--while heresies, to which the
framers and compilers of our Liturgy, Homilies, and Articles would
have refused the very name of Christianity, meet their eyes on the
list of religious denominations for every city and large town
throughout the kingdom--can yet congratulate themselves with Dr.
Paley, in his book on the Evidences, that _the rent has not reached
the foundation_[142]--that is, that the corruption of man's will; that
the responsibility of man in any sense in which it is not equally
predicable of dogs and horses; that the divinity of our Lord, and even
his pre-existence; that sin, and redemption through the merits of
Christ; and grace; and the especial aids of the Spirit; and the
efficacy of prayer; and the subsistency of the Holy Ghost; may all be
extruded without breach or rent in the essentials of Christian
Faith;--that a man may deny and renounce them all, and remain a
_fundamental_ Christian, notwithstanding. But there are many who
cannot keep up with Latitudinarians of such a stride; and I trust that
the majority of serious believers are in this predicament. Now for all
these it would seem more in character to be of Bishop Taylor's
opinion, that the belief in question is _presupposed_ in a convert to
the Truth in Christ--but at all events not to circulate in the great
whispering gallery of the religious public suspicions and hard
thoughts of those who, like myself, are of this opinion; who do not
dare decry the religious instincts of humanity as a baseless dream;
who hold, that to excavate the ground under the faith of all mankind,
is a very questionable method of building up our faith, as Christians;
who fear, that instead of adding to, they should detract from, the
honour of the Incarnate Word by disparaging the light of the Word,
that was in the beginning, and which lighteth _every_ man; and who,
under these convictions, can tranquilly leave it to be disputed, in
some new Dialogues in the shades, between the fathers of the Unitarian
Church on the one side, and Maimonides, Moses Mendelssohn, and Lessing
on the other, whether the famous passage in Paley does or does not
contain the three dialectic flaws, _petitio principii_, _argumentum in
circulo_, and _argumentum contra rem a premisso rem ipsam includente_.
Yes! fervently do I contend, that to satisfy the understanding, that
there is a future state, was not the _specific_ Object of the
Christian Dispensation; and that neither the belief of a future state,
nor the _rationality_ of this belief, is the _exclusive_ attribute of
the Christian religion. An _essential_, a _fundamental_, article of
_all_ religion it is, and therefore of the Christian; but otherwise
than as in connexion with the salvation of mankind from the _terrors_
of that state among the essential articles _peculiar_ to the Gospel
Creed (those, for instance, by which it is _contra_-distinguished from
the creed of a religious Jew) I do not place it. And before sentence
is passed against me, as heterodox, on this ground, let not my judges
forget, who it was that assured us, that if a man did not believe in a
state of retribution after death, previously and on other grounds,
_neither would he believe, though a man should be raised from the
dead_.
Again, I am questioned as to my _proofs_ of a future state by men who
are so far, and _only_ so far, professed believers, that they admit a
God, and the existence of a Law from God: I give them: and the
questioners turn from me with a scoff or incredulous smile. Now should
others of a less scanty Creed infer the weakness of the reasons
assigned by me from their failure in convincing _these_ men; may I not
remind them, WHO it was, to whom a similar question was proposed by
men of the same class? But at all events it will be enough for my own
support to remember it; and to know that HE held such questioners, who
could not find a sufficing proof of this great all-concerning verity
in the words, _The God of Abraham_, _the God of Isaac_, _and the God
of Jacob_ unworthy of any other answer--men not to be satisfied by
_any_ proof--by any such proofs, at least, as are compatible with the
ends and purposes of all religious conviction; by any proofs, that
would not destroy the faith they were intended to confirm, and reverse
the whole character and quality of its effects and influences. But if,
notwithstanding all here offered in defence of my opinion, I must
still be adjudged heterodox and in error,--what can I say, but that
_malo cum Platone errare_, and take refuge behind the ample shield of
BISHOP JEREMY TAYLOR.