And this from having been educated to understand the Divine
Omnipresence in any sense rather than the alone safe and legitimate
one, the presence of all things to God!
Be it, however, that the number of such men is _comparatively_ small!
And be it (as in fact it often _is_) but a brief stage, a transitional
state, in the process of intellectual Growth! Yet among a numerous and
increasing class of the higher and middle ranks, there is an inward
withdrawing from the Life and Personal Being of God, a turning of the
thoughts exclusively to the so-called physical attributes, to the
Omnipresence in the counterfeit form of ubiquity, to the Immensity,
the Infinity, the Immutability;--the attributes of space with a notion
of Power as their _substratum_, a FATE, in short, not a Moral Creator
and Governor! Let intelligence be imagined, and wherein does the
conception of God differ essentially from that of Gravitation
(conceived as the cause of Gravity) in the understanding of those, who
represent the Deity not only as a necessary but as a _necessitated_
Being; those, for whom justice is but a scheme of general laws; and
holiness, and the divine hatred of sin, yea and sin itself, are words
without meaning or accommodations to a rude and barbarous race? Hence,
I more than fear, the prevailing taste for books of Natural Theology,
Physico-Theology, Demonstrations of God from Nature, Evidences of
Christianity, and the like. _Evidences_ of Christianity! I am weary of
the word. Make a man feel the _want_ of it; rouse him, if you can, to
the self-knowledge of his _need_ only the express declaration of
Christ himself: _No man cometh to me, unless the Father leadeth him_.
Whatever more is desirable--I speak now with reference to Christians
generally, and not to professed students of theology--may, in my
judgment, be far more safely and profitably taught, without
controversy or the supposition of infidel antagonists, in the form of
Ecclesiastical history.
The last fruit of the mechanico-corpuscular philosophy, say rather of
the mode and direction of feeling and thinking produced by it on the
educated class of society; or that result, which as more immediately
connected with my present theme I have reserved for the last--is the
habit of attaching all our conceptions and feelings, and of applying
all the words and phrases expressing reality, to the objects of the
senses: more accurately speaking, to the images and sensations by
which their presence is made known to us. Now I do not hesitate to
assert, that it was one of the great purposes of Christianity, and
included in the process of our Redemption, to rouse and emancipate the
soul from this debasing slavery to the outward senses, to awaken the
mind to the true _criteria_ of reality, namely, Permanence, Power,
Will manifested in Act, and Truth operating as Life. _My words_, said
Christ, _are spirit_: and they (that is, the spiritual powers
expressed by them) _are truth_; that is, _very_ Being. For this end
our Lord, who came from heaven to _take captivity captive_, chose the
words and names, that designate the familiar yet most important
objects of sense, the nearest and most concerning things and incidents
of corporeal nature:--Water, Flesh, Blood, Birth, Bread! But he used
them in senses, that could not without absurdity be supposed to
respect the mere _phænomena_, water, flesh, and the like, in
senses that by no possibility could apply to the colour, figure,
specific mode of touch or taste produced on ourselves, and by which we
are made aware of the presence of the things, and _understand_
them--_res, quæ sub apparitionibus istis statuendæ sunt_. And this
awful recalling of the drowsed soul from the dreams and phantom world
of sensuality to _actual_ reality,--how has it been evaded! These
words, that were Spirit! these Mysteries, which even the Apostles must
wait for the Paraclete, in order to comprehend,--these spiritual
things which can only be _spiritually_ discerned,--were mere
metaphors, figures of speech, oriental hyperboles! "All this means
_only_ Morality!" Ah! how far nearer to the truth would these men have
been, had they said that Morality means all this!
The effect, however, has been most injurious to the best interests of
our Universities, to our incomparably constituted Church, and even to
our national character. The few who have read my two Lay Sermons are
no strangers to my opinions on this head; and in my Treatise on the
Church and Churches, I shall, if Providence vouchsafe, submit them to
the Public, with their grounds and historic evidences in a more
systematic form.
I have, I am aware, in this present work furnished occasion for a
charge of having expressed myself with slight and irreverence of
celebrated Names, especially of the late Dr. Paley. O, if I were fond
and ambitious of literary honour, of public applause, how well content
should I be to excite but one third of the admiration which, in my
inmost being, I feel for the head and heart of Paley! And how gladly
would I surrender all hope of contemporary praise, could I even
approach to the incomparable grace, propriety, and persuasive facility
of his writings! But on this very account I believe myself bound in
conscience to throw the whole force of my intellect in the way of this
triumphal car, on which the tutelary genius of modern Idolatry is
borne, even at the risk of being crushed under the wheels! I have at
this moment before my eyes the eighteenth of his Posthumous
Discourses: the amount of which is briefly this,--that all the words
and passages in the New Testament which express and contain the
_peculiar_ doctrines of Christianity, the paramount objects of the
Christian Revelation, all those which speak so strongly of the value,
benefit, and efficacy, of the death of Christ, assuredly mean
_something_; but _what_ they mean, nobody, it seems can tell! But
doubtless we shall discover it, and be convinced that there is a
substantial sense belonging to these words--in a future state! Is
there an enigma, or an absurdity, in the Koran or the Vedas which
might not be defended on the same pretence? A similar impression, I
confess, was left on my mind by Dr. Magee's statement or exposition
(_ad normam Grotianam_) of the doctrine of Redemption; and deeply did
it disappoint the high expectations, sadly did it chill the fervid
sympathy, which his introductory chapter, his manly and masterly
disquisition on the sacrificial rites of Paganism, had raised in my
mind.
And yet I cannot read the pages of Paley, here referred to, aloud,
without the liveliest sense, how plausible and popular they will sound
to the great majority of readers. Thousands of sober, and in their way
pious, Christians, will echo the words, together with Magee's kindred
interpretation of the death of Christ, and adopt the doctrine for
their _Make-faith_; and why? It is feeble. And whatever is feeble is
always plausible: for it favours mental indolence. It is feeble: and
feebleness, in the disguise of confessing and condescending strength,
is always popular. It flatters the reader by removing the apprehended
distance between him and the superior author; and it flatters him
still more by enabling him to transfer to himself, and to appropriate,
this superiority; and thus to make his very weakness the mark and
evidence of his strength. Ay, quoth the _rational_ Christian--or with
a sighing, self-soothing sound between an Ay and an Ah!--_I_ am
content to think, with the great Dr. Paley, and the learned Archbishop
of Dublin----
Man of Sense! Dr. Paley _was_ a great man, and Dr. Magee _is_ a
learned and exemplary prelate; but YOU do not _think_ at all!
With regard to the convictions avowed and enforced in my own Work, I
will continue my address to the man of sense in the words of an old
philosopher:--Tu vero crassis auribus et obstinato corde respuis quæ
forsitan vere perhibeantur. Minus hercule calles, pravissimis
opinionibus _ea putari mendacia, quæ vel auditu nova, vel visu rudia,
vel certe supra captum cogitationis (extemporaneæ tuæ) ardua
videantur_: quæ si paulo accuratius exploraris, non modo compertu
evidentia, sed etiam factu facilia, senties.[165]
* * * * *
In compliance with the suggestion of a judicious friend, the
celebrated conclusion of the fourth Book of Paley's Moral and
Political Philosophy, referred to in p. 230 of this volume, is here
transprinted for the convenience of the reader:--
"Had Jesus Christ delivered no other declaration than the
following--'The hour is coming, in the which all that are in the grave
shall hear his voice, and shall come forth: they that have done good,
unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the
resurrection of damnation:'--he had pronounced a message of
inestimable importance, and well worthy of that splendid apparatus of
prophecy and miracles with which his mission was introduced and
attested: a message in which the wisest of mankind would rejoice to
find an answer to their doubts, and rest to their inquiries.--It is
idle to say, that a future state had been discovered already:--it had
been discovered as the Copernican system was;--it was one guess among
many. He alone discovers, who proves; and no man can prove this point,
but the teacher who testifies by miracles that his doctrine comes from
God."
Pædianus says of Virgil,--_Usque adeo expers invidiæ, ut siquid
erudite dictum inspiceret alterius, non minus gauderet ac si suum
esset_. My own heart assures me, that this is less than the truth:
that Virgil would have read a beautiful passage in the work of another
with a higher and purer delight than in a work of his own, because
free from the apprehension of his judgment being warped by self-love,
and without that repressive modesty akin to shame, which in a delicate
mind holds in check a man's own secret thoughts and feelings, when
they respect himself. The cordial admiration with which I peruse the
preceding passage, as _a master-piece of composition_, would, could I
convey it, serve as a measure of the vital importance I attach to the
convictions which impelled me to animadvert on the same passage as
_doctrine_.
[156] See Preliminary to Aphorisms on Spiritual Religion, &c.--ED.
[157] So in first edition, 1825.--ED.
[158] Of which our _he was made flesh_, is an inadequate
translation.--The Church of England in this as in other doctrinal
points, has preserved the golden mean between the superstitious
reverence of the Romanists, and the avowed contempt of the Sectarians,
for the writings of the Fathers, and the authority and unimpeached
traditions of the Church during the first three or four centuries. And
how, consistently with this honourable characteristic of our Church, a
minister of the same could, on the Sacramentary scheme now in fashion,
return even a plausible answer to Arnauld's great work on
Transubstantiation (not without reason the boast of the Romish
Church), exceeds my powers of conjecture.
[159] These were the afterwards published 'On the Church and State,
according to the Idea of Each,' 1830, and 'Confessions of an Inquiring
Spirit,' 1840. The latter we republish in the present volume; see p.
285.--ED.
[160] Will the reader forgive me if I attempt at once to illustrate
and relieve the subject by annexing the first stanza of the poem
composed in the same year in which I wrote the Ancient Mariner and the
first book of Christabel?
"Encinctur'd with a twine of leaves,
That leafy twine his only dress!
A lovely boy was plucking fruits
In a moonlight wilderness.[161]
The moon was bright, the air was free,
And fruits and flowers together grew
On many a shrub and many a tree:
And all put on a gentle hue,
Hanging in the shadowy air
Like a picture rich and rare.
It was a climate where, they say,
The night is more belov'd than day.
But who that beauteous boy beguil'd,
That beauteous boy to linger here?
Alone, by night, a little child,
In place so silent and so wild--
Has he no friend, no loving mother near?"