You reply to the conclusion of my Letter: "What have we to do with
_routiniers_? _Quid mihi cum homunculis putata putide reputantibus?_
Let nothings count for nothing, and the dead bury the dead! Who but
such ever understood the Tenet in this sense?"--
In what sense then, I rejoin, do others understand it? If, with
exception of the passages already excepted, namely, the recorded words
of God--concerning which no Christian can have doubt or scruple,--the
Tenet in this sense be inapplicable to the Scripture, destructive of
its noblest purposes, and contradictory to its own express
declarations,--again and again I ask:--What am I to substitute? What
other sense is conceivable that does not destroy the doctrine which it
professes to interpret--that does not convert it into its own
negative? As if a geometrician should name a sugar loaf an ellipse,
adding--"By which term I here mean a cone;"--and then justify the
misnomer on the pretext that the ellipse is among the conic sections!
And yet--notwithstanding the repugnancy of the Doctrine, in its
unqualified sense, to Scripture, Reason, and Common Sense
theoretically, while to all practical uses it is intractable,
unmalleable, and altogether unprofitable--notwithstanding its
irrationality, and in the face of your expostulation, grounded on the
palpableness of its irrationality,--I must still avow my belief that,
however flittingly and unsteadily, as through a mist, it _is_ the
Doctrine which the generality of our popular divines receive as
orthodox, and this the sense which they attach to the words.
For on what other ground can I account for the whimsical
_subintelligiturs_ of our numerous harmonists,--for the curiously
inferred facts, the inventive circumstantial detail, the complemental
and supplemental history which, in the utter silence of all historians
and absence of all historical documents, they bring to light by mere
force of logic?--And all to do away some half score apparent
discrepancies in the chronicles and memoirs of the Old and New
Testaments;--discrepancies so analogous to what is found in all other
narratives of the same story by several narrators,--so analogous to
what is found in all other known and trusted histories by contemporary
historians, when they are collated with each other (nay, not seldom
when either historian is compared with himself), as to form in the
eyes of all competent judges a characteristic mark of the genuineness,
independency, and (if I may apply the word to a book,) the
veraciousness of each several document; a mark the absence of which
would warrant a suspicion of collusion, invention, or at best of
servile transcription;--discrepancies so trifling in circumstance and
import, that, although in some instances it is highly probable, and in
all instances, perhaps, possible that they are only apparent and
reconcilable, no wise man would care a straw whether they were real or
apparent, reconciled or left in harmless and friendly variance. What,
I ask, could have induced learned and intelligent divines to adopt or
sanction subterfuges, which, neutralizing the ordinary _criteria_ of
full or defective evidence in historical documents, would, taken as a
general rule, render all collation and cross-examination of written
records ineffective, and obliterate the main character by which
authentic histories are distinguished from those traditional tales,
which each successive reporter enlarges and fashions to his own fancy
and purpose, and every different edition, of which more or less
contradicts the other? Allow me to create chasms _ad libitum_, and _ad
libitum_ to fill them up with imagined facts and incidents, and I
would almost undertake to harmonise Falstaff's account of the rogues
in buckram into a coherent and consistent narrative. What, I say,
could have tempted grave and pious men thus to disturb the foundation
of the Temple, in order to repair a petty breach or rat-hole in the
wall, or fasten a loose stone or two in the outer court, if not an
assumed necessity arising out of the peculiar character of Bible
history?
The substance of the syllogism, by which their procedure was justified
to their own minds, can be no other than this. That, without which two
assertions--both of which _must_ be alike true and correct--would
contradict each other, and consequently be, one or both, false or
incorrect, must itself be true. But every word and syllable existing
in the original text of the Canonical Books, from the _Cherethi_ and
_Phelethi_[177] of David to the name in the copy of a family register,
the site of a town, or the course of a river, were dictated to the
sacred _amanuensis_ by an infallible Intelligence. Here there can be
neither more or less. Important or unimportant gives no ground of
difference; and the number of the writers as little. The secretaries
may have been many,--the historian was one and the same, and he
infallible. This is the _minor_ of the syllogism; and if it could be
proved, the conclusion would be at least plausible; and there would be
but one objection to the procedure, namely, its uselessness. For if it
have been proved already, what need of proving it over again, and by
means--the removal, namely, of apparent contradictions--which the
infallible Author did not think good to employ? But if it have not
been proved, what becomes of the argument which derives its whole
force and legitimacy from the assumption?
In fact, it is clear that the harmonists and their admirers held and
understood the Doctrine literally. And must not that divine likewise
have so understood it, who, in answer to a question concerning the
transcendant blessedness of Jael, and the righteousness of the act, in
which she inhospitably, treacherously, perfidiously, murdered sleep,
the confiding sleep, closed the controversy by observing that he
wanted no better morality than that of the Bible, and no other proof
of an action's being praiseworthy than that the Bible had declared it
worthy to be praised?--an observation, as applied in this instance, so
slanderous to the morality and moral spirit of the Bible as to be
inexplicable, except as a consequence of the Doctrine in dispute.--But
let a man be once fully persuaded that there is no difference between
the two positions--"The Bible contains the religion revealed by
God"--and "Whatever is contained in the Bible is religion, and was
revealed by God,"--and that whatever can be said of the Bible,
collectively taken, may and must be said of each and every sentence of
the Bible, taken for and by itself,--and I no longer wonder at these
paradoxes. I only object to the inconsistency of those who profess the
same belief, and yet affect to look down with a contemptuous or
compassionate smile on John Wesley for rejecting the Copernican system
as incompatible therewith; or who exclaim "Wonderful!" when they hear
that Sir Matthew Hale sent a crazy old woman to the gallows in honour
of the Witch of Endor.[178] In the latter instance it might, I admit,
have been an erroneous (though even at this day the all but
universally received) interpretation of the word, which we have
rendered by _witch_;--but I challenge these divines and their
adherents to establish the compatibility of a belief in the modern
astronomy and natural philosophy with their and Wesley's doctrine
respecting the inspired Scriptures, without reducing the Doctrine
itself to a plaything of wax;--or rather to a half-inflated bladder,
which, when the contents are rarefied in the heat of rhetorical
generalities, swells out round, and without a crease or wrinkle; but
bring it into the cool temperature of particulars, and you may press,
and as it were except, what part you like--so it be but one part at a
time--between your thumb and finger.
Now, I pray you, which is the more honest, nay, which the more
reverential, proceeding,--to play at fast and loose in this way; or to
say at once, "See here in these several writings one and the same Holy
Spirit, now sanctifying a chosen vessel, and fitting it for the
reception of heavenly truths proceeding immediately from the mouth of
God, and elsewhere working in frail and fallible men like ourselves,
and like ourselves instructed by God's word and laws"?--The first
Christian martyr had the form and features of an ordinary man, nor are
we taught to believe that these features were miraculously
transfigured into superhuman symmetry; but _he being filled with the
Holy Ghost, they that looked steadfastly on him, saw his face as it
had been the face of an angel_. Even so has it ever been, and so it
ever will be, with all who with humble hearts and a rightly disposed
spirit scan the Sacred Volume. And they who read it with _an evil
heart of unbelief_, and an alien spirit--what boots for them the
assertion that every sentence was miraculously communicated to the
nominal author by God himself? Will it not rather present additional
temptations to the unhappy scoffers, and furnish them with a pretext
of self-justification?
When, in my third Letter, I first echoed the question, "Why should I
not?"--the answers came crowding on my mind. I am well content,
however, to have merely suggested the main points, in proof of the
positive harm which, both historically and spiritually, our religion
sustains from this Doctrine. Of minor importance, yet not to be
overlooked, are the forced and fantastic interpretations, the
arbitrary allegories and mystic expansions of proper names, to which
this indiscriminate Bibliolatry furnished fuel, spark, and wind. A
still greater evil, and less attributable to the visionary humour and
weak judgment of the individual expositors, is the literal rendering
of Scripture in passages, which the number and variety of images
employed in different places, to express one and the same verity,
plainly mark out for figurative. And, lastly, add to all these the
strange--in all other writings unexampled--practice of bringing
together into logical dependency detached sentences from books
composed at the distance of centuries, nay, sometimes a _millennium_,
from each other, under different dispensations, and for different
objects. Accommodations of elder Scriptural phrases--that favourite
ornament and garnish of Jewish eloquence--incidental allusions to
popular notions, traditions, apologues--(for example, the dispute
between the Devil and the Archangel Michael about the body of Moses.
_Jude_ 9),--fancies and anachronisms imported from the synagogue of
Alexandria into Palestine by, or together with, the Septuagint
Version, and applied as mere _argumenta ad homines_--(for example, the
delivery of the Law by the disposition of Angels, _Acts_ vii. 53, Gal.
iii. 19, Heb. ii. 2)--these, detached from their context, and,
contrary to the intention of the sacred writer, first raised into
independent _theses_, and then brought together to produce or sanction
some new _credendum_, for which neither separately could have
furnished a pretence! By this strange mosaic, Scripture texts have
been worked up into passable likenesses of Purgatory, Popery, the
Inquisition, and other monstrous abuses. But would you have a
Protestant instance of the superstitious use of Scripture arising out
of this dogma? Passing by the Cabbala of the Hutchinsonian School as
the dotage of a few weak-minded individuals, I refer you to Bishop
Hacket's Sermons on the Incarnation. And if you have read the same
author's Life of Archbishop Williams, and have seen and felt (as every
reader of this latter work must see and feel,) his talent, learning,
acuteness, and robust good sense, you will have no difficulty in
determining the quality and character of a dogma, which could engraft
such fruits on such a tree.[179]
It will perhaps appear a paradox, if, after all these reasons, I
should avow that they weigh less in my mind against the Doctrine, than
the motives usually assigned for maintaining and enjoining it. Such,
for instance, are the arguments drawn from the anticipated loss and
damage that would result from its abandonment; as that it would
deprive the Christian world of its only infallible arbiter in
questions of Faith and Duty, suppress the only common and inappellable
tribunal; that the Bible is the only religious bond of union and
ground of unity among Protestants, and the like. For the confutation
of this whole reasoning it might be sufficient to ask:--Has it
produced these effects? Would not the contrary statement be nearer to
the fact? What did the Churches of the first four centuries hold on
this point? To what did they attribute the rise and multiplication of
heresies? Can any learned and candid Protestant affirm that there
existed and exists no ground for the charges of Bossuet and other
eminent Romish divines? It is no easy matter to know how to handle a
party maxim, so framed that, with the exception of a single word, it
expresses an important truth, but which by means of that word is made
to convey a most dangerous error.
The Bible is the appointed conservatory, an indispensable criterion,
and a continual source and support of true Belief. But that the Bible
is the sole source; that it not only contains, but constitutes, the
Christian Religion; that it is, in short, a Creed, consisting wholly
of articles of Faith; that consequently we need no rule, help, or
guide, spiritual or historical, to teach us what parts are and what
are not articles of Faith--all being such,--and the difference between
the Bible and the Creed being this, that the clauses of the latter are
all unconditionally necessary to salvation, but those of the former
conditionally so, that is, as soon as the words are known to exist in
any one of the canonical Books; and that, under this limitation, the
belief is of the same necessity in both, and not at all affected by
the greater or lesser importance of the matter to be believed;--this
scheme differs widely from the preceding, though its adherents often
make use of the same words in expressing their belief. And this latter
scheme, I assert, was brought into currency by and in favour of those
by whom the operation of grace, the aids of the Spirit, the necessity
of regeneration, the corruption of our nature, in short, all the
peculiar and spiritual mysteries of the Gospel were explained and
diluted away.
And how have these men treated this very Bible?--I, who indeed prize
and reverence this sacred library, as of all outward means and
conservatives of Christian faith and practice the surest and the most
reflective of the inward Word;--I, who hold that the Bible contains
the religion of Christians, but who dare not say that whatever is
contained in the Bible is the Christian religion, and who shrink from
all question respecting the comparative worth and efficacy of the
written Word as weighed against the preaching of the Gospel, the
discipline of the Churches, the continued succession of the Ministry,
and the communion of Saints, lest by comparing I should seem to detach
them;--I tremble at the processes, which the Grotian divines without
scruple carry on in their treatment of the sacred Writers, as soon as
any texts declaring the peculiar tenets of our Faith are cited against
them,--even tenets and mysteries which the believer at his baptism
receives as the title-writ and bosom-roll of his adoption; and which,
according to my scheme, every Christian born in Church-membership
ought to bring with him to the study of the sacred Scriptures as the
master-key of interpretation. Whatever the doctrine of infallible
dictation may be in itself, in _their_ hands it is to the last degree
nugatory, and to be paralleled only by the Romish tenet of
Infallibility,--in the existence of which all agree, but where, and in
whom, it exists _stat adhuc sub lite_. Every sentence found in a
canonical Book, rightly interpreted, contains the _dictum_ of an
infallible Mind;--but what the right interpretation is,--or whether
the very words now extant are corrupt or genuine--must be determined
by the industry and understanding of fallible, and alas! more or less
prejudiced theologians.
And yet I am told that this Doctrine must not be resisted or called in
question, because of its fitness to preserve unity of faith, and for
the prevention of schism and sectarian byways!--Let the man who holds
this language trace the history of Protestantism, and the growth of
sectarian divisions, ending with Dr. Hawker's _ultra_-Calvinistic
Tracts, and Mr. Belsham's New Version of the Testament. And then let
him tell me that for the prevention of an evil which already exists,
and which the boasted preventive itself might rather seem to have
occasioned, I must submit to be silenced by the first learned infidel,
who throws in my face the blessing of Deborah, or the cursings of
David, or the Grecisms and heavier difficulties in the biographical
chapters of the Book of Daniel, or the hydrography and natural
philosophy of the Patriarchal ages.--I must forego the means of
silencing, and the prospect of convincing, an alienated brother,
because I must not thus answer:--"My Brother! What has all this to do
with the truth and the worth of Christianity? If you reject _à priori_
all communion with the Holy Spirit, there is indeed a chasm between
us, over which we cannot even make our voices intelligible to each
other. But if--though but with the faith of a Seneca or an
Antonine--you admit the co-operation of a divine Spirit in souls
desirous of good, even as the breath of heaven works variously in each
several plant according to its kind, character, period of growth, and
circumstance of soil, clime, and aspect;--on what ground can you
assume that its presence is incompatible with all imperfection in the
subject,--even with such imperfection as is the natural accompaniment
of the unripe season? If you call your gardener or husbandman to
account for the plants or crops he is raising, would you not regard
the special purpose in each, and judge of each by that which it was
tending to? Thorns are not flowers, nor is the husk serviceable. But
it was not for its thorns, but for its sweet and medicinal flowers
that the rose was cultivated; and he who cannot separate the husk from
the grain, wants the power because sloth or malice has prevented the
will. I demand for the Bible only the justice which you grant to other
books of grave authority, and to other proved and acknowledged
benefactors of mankind. Will you deny a spirit of wisdom in Lord
Bacon, because in particular facts he did not possess perfect science,
or an entire immunity from the positive errors which result from
imperfect insight? A Davy will not so judge his great predecessor. For
he recognizes the spirit that is now working in himself, and which
under similar defects of light and obstacles of error had been his
guide and guardian in the morning twilight of his own genius. Must not
the kindly warmth awaken and vivify the seed, in order that the stem
may spring up and rejoice in the light? As the genial warmth to the
informing light, even so is the predisposing Spirit to the revealing
Word."
If I should reason thus--but why do I say _if_?--I have reasoned thus
with more than one serious and well-disposed Sceptic; and what was the
answer?--"_You_ speak rationally, but seem to forget the subject. I
have frequently attended meetings of the British and Foreign Bible
Society, where I have heard speakers of every denomination, Calvinist
and Arminian, Quaker and Methodist, Dissenting Ministers and
Clergymen, nay, dignitaries of the Established Church,--and still
have I heard the same doctrine,--that the Bible was not to be regarded
or reasoned about in the way that other good books are or may
be;--that the Bible was different in kind, and stood by itself. By
some indeed this doctrine was rather implied than expressed,but yet
evidently implied. But by far the greater number of the speakers it
was asserted in the strongest and most unqualified words that
language could supply. What is more, their principal arguments were
grounded on the position, that the Bible throughout was dictated by
Omniscience, and therefore in all its parts infallibly true and
obligatory, and that the men, whose names are prefixed to the several
books or chapters, were in fact but as different pens in the hand of
one and the same Writer, and the words the words of God himself;--and
that on this account all notes and comments were superfluous, nay,
presumptuous,--a profane mixing of human with divine, the notions of
fallible creatures with the oracles of Infallibility,--as if God's
meaning could be so clearly or fitly expressed in man's as in God's
own words! But how often you yourself must have heard the same
language from the pulpit!--"
What could I reply to this?--I could neither deny the fact, nor evade
the conclusion,--namely, that such is at present the popular belief.
Yes--I at length rejoined--I have heard this language from the pulpit,
and more than once from men who in any other place would explain it
away into something so very different from the literal sense of their
words as closely to resemble the contrary. And this, indeed, is the
peculiar character of the doctrine, that you cannot diminish or
qualify but you reverse it. I have heard this language from men, who
knew as well as myself that the best and most orthodox divines have in
effect disclaimed the doctrine, inasmuch as they confess it cannot be
extended to the words of the sacred Writers, or the particular
import,--that therefore the Doctrine does not mean all that the usual
wording of it expresses, though what it does mean, and why they
continue to sanction this hyperbolical wording, I have sought to learn
from them in vain. But let a thousand orators blazon it at public
meetings, and let as many pulpits echo it, surely it behoves you to
inquire whether you cannot be a Christian on your own faith; and it
cannot but be beneath a wise man to be an Infidel on the score of what
other men think fit to include in their Christianity!
Now suppose--and, believe me, the supposition will vary little from
the fact--that in consequence of these views the Sceptic's mind had
gradually opened to the reception of all the truths enumerated in my
first Letter. Suppose that the Scriptures themselves from this time
had continued to rise in his esteem and affection--the better
understood, the more dear; as in the countenance of one, whom through
a cloud of prejudices we have at least learned to love and value above
all others, new beauties dawn on us from day to day, till at length we
wonder how we could at any time have thought it other than most
beautiful. Studying the sacred volume in the light and in the freedom
of a faith already secured, at every fresh meeting my Sceptic friend
has to tell me of some new passage, formerly viewed by him as a dry
stick on a rotten branch, which has _budded_ and, like the rod of
Aaron, _brought forth buds and bloomed blossoms, and yielded almonds_.
Let these results, I say, be supposed,--and shall I still be told that
my friend is nevertheless an alien in the household of Faith?
Scrupulously orthodox as I know you to be, will you tell me that I
ought to have left this Sceptic as I found him, rather than attempt
his conversion by such means; or that I was deceiving him, when I said
to him:--
"Friend! The truth revealed through Christ has its evidence in itself,
and the proof of its divine authority in its fitness to our nature and
needs;--the clearness and cogency of this proof being proportionate to
the degree of self-knowledge in each individual hearer. Christianity
has likewise its historical evidences, and these as strong as is
compatible with the nature of history, and with the aims and objects
of a religious dispensation. And to all these Christianity itself, as
an existing Power in the world, and Christendom as an existing Fact,
with the no less evident fact of a progressive expansion, give a force
of moral demonstration that almost supersedes particular testimony.
These proofs and evidences would remain unshaken, even though the sum
of our religion were to be drawn from the theologians of each
successive century, on the principle of receiving that only as divine
which should be found in all,--_quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab
omnibus_. Be only, my Friend! as orthodox a believer as you would have
abundant reason to be, though from some accident of birth, country, or
education, the precious boon of the Bible, with its additional
evidence, had up to this moment been concealed from you;--and then
read its contents with only the same piety which you freely accord on
other occasions to the writings of men, considered the best and wisest
of their several ages! What you find therein coincident with your
pre-established convictions, you will of course recognize as the
Revealed Word, while, as you read the recorded workings of the Word
and the Spirit in the minds, lives, and hearts of spiritual men, the
influence of the same Spirit on your own being, and the conflicts of
grace and infirmity in your own soul, will enable you to discern and
to know in and by what spirit they spake and acted,--as far at least
as shall be needful for you, and in the times of your need.
"Thenceforward, therefore, your doubts will be confined to such parts
or passages of the received Canon, as seem to you irreconcilable with
known truths, and at variance with the tests given in the Scriptures
themselves, and as shall continue so to appear after you have examined
each in reference to the circumstances of the Writer or Speaker, the
dispensation under which he lived, the purpose of the particular
passage, and the intent and object of the Scriptures at large.
Respecting these, decide for yourself: and fear not for the result. I
venture to tell it you beforehand. The result will be, a confidence in
the judgment and fidelity of the compilers of the Canon increased by
the apparent exceptions. For they will be found neither more nor
greater than may well be supposed requisite, on the one hand, to
prevent us from sinking into a habit of slothful, undiscriminating
acquiescence, and on the other to provide a check against those
presumptuous fanatics, who would rend the _Urim and Thummim from the
breastplate of judgment_, and frame oracles by private divination from
each letter of each disjointed gem, uninterpreted by the Priest, and
deserted by the Spirit, which shines in the parts only as it pervades
and irradiates the whole."
Such is the language in which I have addressed a halting
friend,--halting, yet with his face toward the right path. If I have
erred, enable me to see my error. Correct, me, or confirm me.
Farewell.
[177] 2 Sam. xx. 23; 1 Chron. xviii. 17.--H. N. C.
[178] He sent two; nor does it appear that the poor creatures were at
all crazy. Rose Cullender and Amy Duny, widows, of Lowestoft, Suffolk,
were tried for witchcraft, on the 10th of March, 1665, at Bury St.
Edmunds. Sir M. Hale told the jury, "that he would not repeat the
evidence unto them, lest by so doing he should wrong the evidence on
the one side or on the other. Only this [he] acquainted them, that
they had two things to enquire after: first, whether or no these
children were bewitched; secondly, whether the prisoners at the bar
were guilty of it. _That there were such creatures as witches, he
made no doubt at all. For, first, the Scriptures had affirmed so much.
Secondly, the wisdom of all nations had provided laws against such
persons, which is an argument of their confidence of such a crime._
And such hath been the judgment of this kingdom, as appears by that
Act of Parliament, which hath provided punishments proportionable to
the quality of the offence. And desired them strictly to observe their
evidence; and desired the great God of heaven to direct their hearts
in the weighty thing they had in hand. For to condemn the innocent,
and to let the guilty go free were both an abomination to the Lord."
They were found guilty on thirteen indictments. The bewitched got well
of all their pains "within less than half an hour" after the
conviction (so "Mr. Pacy did affirm"--Mr. Pacy being the father of one
of the bewitched); "only Susan Chandler felt a pain like pricking of
pins in her stomach.... The Judge and all the Court were fully
satisfied with the verdict, and thereupon gave judgment against the
witches that they should be hanged. They were much urged to confess,
but would not.... They were executed on Monday, the 17th of March
following, but they confessed nothing."--_State Trials_, vi. p.
700.--H. N. C.
[179] "Did not the life of Archbishop Williams prove otherwise, I
should have inferred from these Sermons that Hacket from his first
boyhood had been used to make themes, epigrams, copies of verses, and
the like on all the Sunday feasts and festivals of the Church; had
found abundant nourishment for this humour of points, quirks, and
quiddities, in the study of the Fathers and glossers; and remained a
_junior soph_ all his life long." ... "Let any competent judge read
Hacket's Life of Archbishop Williams, and then these Sermons, and so
measure the stultifying, nugifying effect of a blind and uncritical
study of the Fathers, and the exclusive prepossession in favour of
their authority in the minds of many of our Church dignitaries in the
reign of Charles I."--_Lit. Remains_, III. pp. 175 and 183, [_Notes on
the Life of Bishop Hacket._]--H. N. C.--[See also the 'Aids,' ante,
pp. 99 and 107.--ED.]