ideas which have since occupied the world, we find the first clear trace
of the doctrine of two original causes, one good, the other evil, of the
order and disorder of the universe.[542] Amid the almost universal
pantheism, which gave the sanction of philosophy to a corrupting
mythology, one or two great thinkers seized on the true conception of an
intelligent, eternal, infinite Mind; not mixed up in indissoluble
oneness with the universe, like the principle of life with an animal or
vegetable organism, but wholly external to matter, capable of acting
objectively upon it, of moulding it into form, of assigning to it laws,
of disposing it into uniform arrangements, and subordinating it to the
production of beauty, the reception of life and soul, and the ends of
benevolence. With the absolute perfection, intellectual and moral, of
the creative spirit, there was nothing to interfere; he called into
existence only what is good,—light, life, happiness, wisdom, harmony,
virtue. All else was to be ascribed to the imperfect materials from
which the universe was constructed. Of these he was not supposed to be
the author; no conception was entertained of creation out of nothing by
the volition of the divine and solitary Spirit. Co-eternally with him,
matter was thought to have existed, inert, and dark and formless,—the
boundless and unworked quarry, whence the great Artist of earth and
skies moulded the orbs of heaven, and furnished his mansions of space
with magnificence and beauty. The materials thus provided to his hand,
did not afford unlimited facilities for the execution of his good
designs; they had the inherent and obstinate properties of all matter,
of which skill might variously avail itself, but which Omnipotence could
not utterly subdue. They for ever dragged down every being towards the
passiveness and chaos of the primeval state, and established a universal
gravitation towards nonentity. Hence a ceaseless tendency in all things
to descend from the higher to the lower states of existence, and to slip
from the divine into the inert: on the soul of man were forces impelling
it into the grosser animal life; in the animal life, a propensity
towards disease and death; and, in lifeless organisms, a law of
corruption and return to atoms. In this unconquerable sluggishness of
matter, and not in the intention of the Creator, was to be found the
source of all evil, natural and moral. The supreme Spirit had called
into being whatever is fair and blessed and pure; and that there is no
more good, was due to the resistance which his materials offered to his
will, and which had made his execution finite, while his desires were
infinite.
In this system, all faults and imperfections are attributed to the
opposition of a passive and evil principle, co-existent with the First
Cause, and restraining him within certain limits in working out the
problem of creation. The essential idea of the scheme is, that the
actual frame of the universe is the result of a struggle between two
conflicting energies, both primitive and eternal, to the one of which is
to be referred all that is good, to the other whatever is evil. Make
then a slight and superficial change in this scheme; throw aside its
abstract and philosophical dress; _personify_ this impracticable
material principle which stands in the way of the Creator’s glorious
designs: call it, instead of inert, obstinate; instead of the residence
of death, the destroyer of life; instead of a weight on the Divinity, a
force against him; in short, treat it, not as negative, but as positive;
not as impervious to light, but as the power of darkness; not as a
physical obstruction, but as in real antipathy to God: and by such
assumption of personality, this hostile energy becomes an active
principle of evil, a malignant and antagonist God, busy in frustrating
the purposes of Providential goodness, and spreading ruin, disorder, and
guilt over the fair regions of nature and the soul.
This doctrine of a good and evil spirit, engaged in perpetual conflict
on the theatre of the universe, is then only the popular and mythical
form of the philosophical speculations on matter and Deity which I have
described. It is commonly known under the name of the Manichean heresy.
It was from very early times the characteristic idea of the Persian
theology; and thence, as I shall show, by admixture with Judaism, has
given rise to the prevailing belief in a devil.
To this scheme, considered as a metaphysical theory of the divine
perfections, and a solution of the perplexities respecting natural and
moral evil, objections of insurmountable force will occur to every one.
It preserves the infinite benevolence by sacrificing the omnipotence of
God. It sets up a rival to his government, from whose malignity he can
only imperfectly protect us; so that his Providence becomes precarious,
and we feel ourselves the sport of a conflict the most awful, beset by
pure, unmitigated, indestructible evils, which, however beaten off in
the end, must win against us many a dreadful success. A believer in this
doctrine may indeed presume, that a Being, omniscient and benign as God,
would never have called a world into existence unless assured, by his
foreknowledge, that he could prevailingly protect it from the powers
which obstructed him, and render life to every creature on it a blessing
on the whole. Under any other conditions, his goodness would have
restrained him from the act of creation. Still the blessed Ruler sways
his works under constant check; and all limitations on his power must be
proportionate deductions from our peace. This theory, then, fails to
afford us the desired relief. It does not reconcile the God of our
conscience with the God of our understanding: it simply adheres to the
former, and rejects the latter; assuring us that, as our secret hearts
had said, the great Father hates evil as his enemy; not, as our logic
had insinuated, wields it as his instrument.
(2.) We turn, then, to the second attempt to extricate our thoughts from
this perplexity; which is found, in a consistent form, only in the
system of philosophical necessity. This scheme assumes the absolute,
unlimited monarchy of God; represents him as originally alone, and
without either universe or materials for its construction; teaches that
he willed all things into existence; conceiving the plan, speaking the
word, beholding the birth, sustaining the order, decreeing the means,
ordaining the end. The compass of his design is all-embracing; all
causes and effects, all enjoyment and misery, all excellence and guilt,
lie within its circuit; nor can “there be evil in a city,” or in a
world, “and the Lord hath not done it.” We are assured, that in fact it
is impossible to distribute to separate authors the blessing and the
curse which appear to mingle in creation; for the same law which brings
the one introduces the other; the tempest which blasts the field and
flock purifies the air of pestilence; the necessities of the body are
the incentives of labour and the stimulants of the mind; and industry
and art, commerce and wealth, the whole structure even of society and
civilization, rest on the ultimate basis of hunger. Nor is it possible
to separate suffering, even in conception, from a scene in which great
virtues are to be born, and the diviner forms of character to be
trained. Evil is _the resistance_, by its conquest over which moral
force can alone be measured and manifested; without which, conscience
and fidelity would have no field of victory, benevolence no place for
glorious toil, faith and wisdom no consciousness of power. In the sickly
seductions of pleasure, are seen the health and simplicity of holiness;
amid the temptations of selfishness, we discern and venerate the spirit
of self-oblivious love; beneath the arm of tyranny, and amid examples of
hypocrisy, we learn how calm the front of uprightness, and how noble the
magnanimity of truth. Pain is never _the whole_ of suffering; which
spreads in moral influence beyond itself and its hour, and administers
some of our noblest discipline. The anguish of one human being is
usually the pity of many; even the guilt of one may be the forbearance,
the warning, the affectionate and healing grief, of many. Scarcely can
any ill be found that is not so linked with visible benefits, so
entangled with arrangements in which we recognize indisputable
blessings, that one only author can be assigned to all; if he has had
foresight of any thing, he must have had foresight of all; if he has
devised a part, he must have devised the whole. Even such free-will as
the human mind possesses is a power of his own deliberate bestowal; and
the whole extent of its disastrous mistakes, its deluded estimates, its
degrading preferences, its faithless abuse of liberty, must be
considered as ordained and introduced by him for some ultimate and
transcendent good. At present, and for a long future yet, the sufferings
are great which sin must entail upon all who come within its range; but
even its saddest victim is yet a child of God, and must at last
(benevolence requires no less) be enabled to pronounce his existence a
boon. And hence we must believe the penalties of guilt to be remedial;
subduing the stubborn soul, and leading it back to seek its peace in
God; working out their own remission, because their victim’s
restoration; till the wail of despair shall be softened into the sob of
repentance, and this into the sigh of self-distrustful hope, falling
into the silence of deep resolve; leading to the energy of a new
fidelity, warmed by the refreshment of a returning love, and bursting at
length into grateful chorus with the song of the redeemed.
The essential idea of this system evidently is, that evil is a result of
God’s will, his temporary instrument for everlasting ends. This
characteristic remaining, it is wholly unimportant whether he is
regarded as producing it immediately or mediately; distributively or
collectively; by detailed volitions of his own, or by the agency of a
being commissioned to this department of his government. As the
blessings, scattered by the activity of good minds of every order in the
universe, are no less his, than if there were no creature but himself to
shed them forth, so the woes, which any dependent spirits of evil may
diffuse, belong as truly to his providence, as if they were the personal
inflictions of his will. Hence the doctrine of wicked angels, and of a
created Prince of darkness, is the very same with the system which I
have just described; simply, its popular and mythological form,
gathering up the abstract conception of evil into a person; but still
representing it, in this living dress, as a creature intentionally
formed by the Omniscient and predetermining God. I regard the belief in
the existence of Satan, not as opposed to the prevailing Unitarian views
of Providence, but, _so far as it is consistently held_, as in all
essential particulars, identical with them. Its relation to the
character of God is the same; and the sole difference between the two is
in the question of personality; a question of great consequence, when
the existence of a _divine_ person, as the Holy Spirit, is suspended on
the decision; but of small moment when, as in this case, a mere
_creature_ more or less is to be given to the invisible world. What does
it matter to us whether there be any, or a myriad, of interposing agents
between the ills that touch us and our God? Surely it is with the
_effects_,—with the evils themselves,—that our practice and duty are
concerned, and about their _original cause_ that our faith is anxious;
and, on both these points, the Necessarian and the Satanic schemes seem
to be agreed. Both refer our thoughts back to a time when no evil
existed, and say that none could have come into existence, had the
creative activity of God never been exercised. Both make the same
estimate of the actual sins and sorrows and temptations which are in
contact with our life; and whichever view be adopted, these are neither
increased nor diminished, their complexion is neither brightened nor
darkened, their insidiousness and their treatment continue the same.
They come out of the dark upon us; and no more concern us till they
strike upon our experience, than a line of light affects us, till its
end impinges on our eye. Hence I cannot feel much interest in the mere
question respecting the existence of a Devil; and must be excused for
treating it as only an insignificant part of a subject vast and
terrible.
Does, then, this second system resolve our difficulties, and altogether
harmonize the perfections of God? Alas! the success is no greater than
before. Why this circuitous method of producing a happy universe? Evil
is called into being, as an instrument of good, in this world; and then
is annihilated, by the addition of more evil, in another. If it be the
great object of Providence to get rid of suffering and sin, if his
government be an educative discipline for purifying the guilt,
illuminating the ignorance, and destroying the misery of souls, must we
not ask, why then were these things created? If God’s providence be thus
_against_ them, why was it ever _for_ them? And how are we to think of
those agencies, as the work of his own hands, on which his whole
administration is said to be aggressive? No answer can be given, except
that the temporary operation of natural and moral evil was
unavoidable,—the essential and only means of accomplishing results which
all admit to be beneficent, especially the development and progress of
mind, and the probationary discipline of character. It may be so; but,
in this explanation, the benignity of God is again saved at the expense
of his Omnipotence. If no other means were open to him than those which
he has actually employed, his range of possibilities was mysteriously
limited, his choice incomprehensibly narrowed; and he solved the problem
of Creation under some restraining conditions. And no theory, which
leaves this shadow of necessity lingering behind the throne of God,
justifies its pretensions as the vindicator of his Power.
Scarcely does this system seem to be reconcileable with the Holiness of
God. I confess myself unable to understand how a Being, who is held to
be the prime cause of all the moral evil which the universe contains,
can be regarded as morally perfect; or to imagine, if this be consistent
with infinite purity, what phenomena would be inconsistent. It is not
enough to say, that the evil is produced, by no means for its own sake,
but for ultimate good. Often, at least, does a human being do wrong on
no other pretext; and the very plea admits, that God subordinates moral
distinctions to some other good, and esteems some foreign benefit worth
purchasing by the deed of sin. Is it urged, that the foreknowledge and
infallible certainty of the Divine mind justify this, and that it is
only because man wants the requisite discernment, that he is forbidden
in his blindness to do evil, that good may come? Then it would seem that
moral distinctions are intended only for the ignorant; and are, to an
immeasurable extent, delusions of intellectual infancy, designed to
vanish, or undergo unimaginable transformations, as our mental vision is
enlarged. And if this be so, none of our ideas of obligation are
applicable to God, and he passes beyond the range of our moral
apprehension, reverence, and love. No; the language of piety becomes
unmeaning, and the sanctity of religion is in danger of utter ruin,
unless the divine sentiments of right and wrong are perceived to be akin
to our own, recognising the same immutable differences, and
spontaneously observing the same laws. Not even can we admit that he has
created, and could change, the relations of right and wrong; that his
will is the source of obligation, and by a command could make into a
binding duty that which in itself is sin. Moral excellence is no
creature of mere power, which he has created; for he is, and ever was,
excellent himself, rendered venerable by intrinsic and unoriginated
perfections; by holy sentiments, whose outward action, indeed, must be
dated from the beginning of created things, but whose consciousness has
been from everlasting. I dare not think, that the Providence of God
largely consists in doing that, which would be guilt in man.
From this scheme then, not less than from the former, we fail to obtain
satisfaction. It does not reconcile the faith of the conscience with the
faith of the understanding; but simply prefers the latter, to the injury
of the former, compromising God’s abhorrence of evil; and, for the sake
of maintaining his sovereignty, making it his instrument. In fine,
philosophy must make confession of its ignorance, and talk no more so
exceeding proudly. This question of ages is too much for all its
subtlety. Let us pass on to the doctrinal search of Scripture. Does it
either reveal any new view of our subject, or determine our choice to
either of the schemes we have reviewed?
II. Trinitarian theologians maintain, that the Bible reveals to us the
existence of a created spirit of evil, with a host of subordinate
associates in guilt; who seduced our first parents, and so introduced
both the spiritual depravity and the mortality of our race; who has
since tormented the bodies of men with divers diseases, afflicted their
minds with some species of insanity, and corrupted their conscience with
every variety of horrible and guilty thought; and who especially
assailed the person, and withstood the kingdom of Christ, knowing that
the Messiah’s power would finally overthrow his own. In opposition to
this statement, I submit, that in neither the Mosaic nor the Christian
dispensation have we any revelation of the existence of such a being, or
any doctrinal solution of the problem respecting the origin of evil. Let
me not, however, be supposed to say, that no such beings as Satan, the
fallen Angels, and demons, are named in Scripture. I do not pretend to
fritter all these away into personifications and figures of speech. I
have no doubt that some of the sacred authors believed in the real
existence and agency of such beings; I have just as little doubt that
others did not; and that the Hebrew conceptions on this subject
underwent a regular development in the course of their history, no part
of them having any origin in supernatural revelation, but the whole
being either the result of natural speculation or a gift from foreign
tribes. This will be thought very shocking by those who, maintaining the
plenary inspiration of the Bible, cannot imagine that it contains any
traces of the notions and sentiments of its various times; and cannot
think of admitting even an incidental allusion that is not an infallible
oracle. But until it can be shown, that a person inspired is unable to
form an opinion of his own; that he has no ideas from education and
position, no prepossessions in common with his age; that, from Moses to
the John of Patmos, every scriptural author is an unerring authority,
not merely in faith and morals, but in cosmogony and physics, in geology
and astronomy, in natural history, physiology, metaphysics and medicine;
we may venture to maintain, on the ground of historical evidence, that
the belief in witchcraft and charms, in angels and devils with Chaldee
names, in demoniacal possession and Satanic inflictions, may be no
result of revelation, but one of the natural traces of time and locality
with which the Scriptures abound. There prevails, however, great
misapprehension respecting the ideas of the Scripture writers on these
subjects; and especially, the conception of a Devil is thought to
pervade the whole Bible in one unvarying form. With a view to rectify
this mistake, I will briefly notice the chief passages of the Hebrew and
Greek Scriptures relating to this topic; adverting, in succession, to
the history of the fall; to the growth of the belief both in Satan and
exorcism; and to the temptation of Christ.
(1.) It is impossible to conceive of a greater outrage upon an author’s
meaning, than is the common representation of the Fall, on the account
of that event in the Book of Genesis. Not a trace, even of the faintest
kind, does the original narrative contain of all that theologians tell
us respecting the tempter, the curse, the recovery. The tempter was not
an evil spirit, but a serpent, to whose natural and instinctive cunning,
and not to any diabolical instigation, the seducing thought is
attributed: for “The serpent,” it is said, “was more subtle than all the
beasts of the field.”[543] The writer, indeed, had not apparently any
idea of such a being as Satan; for, throughout his five books, there is
not a word in allusion to such a personage; though he records, I
believe, more temptations, more trials of faith and duty, which it is
thought the office of the evil one to administer, than all the rest of
the Scriptures together. It is nothing to the purpose to say that,
without preternatural possession, it is absurd to suppose that the
serpent could speak, and become an agent in the transaction at all; for,
on any view of the passage, the author ascribes to the creature the
power both of speech and of walking: and to imagine that the Devil would
betray himself by assuming so improbable a vehicle, and making a dumb
reptile talk, is surely little consonant with the character of so subtle
a diplomatist. The record affirms that, by way of punishment, the
serpent was reduced to the reptile state, and compelled to crawl instead
of walk;[544] and an author, whose imagination had reconciled itself to
this conception, would feel no additional improbability in supposing the
same occasion to have condemned the animal to silence. This has always
been the interpretation of those Hebrew writers, who have received the
account as literal history. Josephus, a man of learning and a priest,
states, that “all animals at that period partook of the gift of speech
with man;” that “the serpent lived on familiar terms with Adam and his
wife;” and “from a malicious intention of his own, persuaded the woman
to taste of the tree of knowledge;” that, in consequence, “God deprived
the creature of speech and of the use of his feet.”[545] If the account
be considered as historical, this is its plain meaning; and the
insertion in it of a powerful malignant spirit, is a mere fiction of
later times.[546]
Nor is the usual description of the results of the Fall, a less
extravagant perversion of Scripture. The necessities of toil to the man,
the pangs of travail to the woman, and to both a consequent abbreviation
of the term of life, are all the effects of which the original speaks,
and to which Josephus refers.[547] St. Paul adds to these the
introduction of mortality; but neither in his writings, nor in any more
authoritative place than the invention of modern divines, do we find the
least hint of any moral corruption entailed by the fall on the human
constitution, or any penal woes prepared for our lapsed nature after
death. Throughout the whole subsequent Scriptures, there are only three
places in which the effects of the first transgression are
mentioned:[548] all of these are in the epistles of Paul; two, out of
the three, are mere passing allusions, not occupying a line; and in the
remaining one, as well as in the others, _natural death_ alone is said
to have passed on the descendants of Adam; “not” (as Mr. Locke justly
remarks) “either actual or imputed sin,” which, he says, “is evidently
contrary to St. Paul’s design here.”[549] Between the guilt of men, and
the fall of their progenitor, there did not exist the slightest
connexion in the Apostle’s mind; they are never once mentioned together.
When he draws his fearful pictures of the depravity of both Jews and
Gentiles, he is wholly silent respecting the fall, describing all this
corruption not as constitutional but as actual, not as the growth of a
foul and incapable nature, but rather as the abuse and insult of one
inherently noble.[550] And when again he speaks of the fall and its
issues, he is silent about moral depravity, and dwells only on physical
death. Never was there a writer more barbarously tortured, more
ingeniously forced to speak in a spirit which he loved to withstand,
than this glorious Apostle. Out of his own writings, by incredible
perversion, his generous conceptions are condemned as heresies, and his
favourite sentiments denounced as blasphemies.
“I will put enmity,” says the book of Genesis, “between thee and the
woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and
thou shalt bruise his heel.”[551] Considered as a description of the
mutual hostility and injuries of the race of venomous reptiles and the
human species,—man naturally attacking the head of the creature, and the
animal, especially among the naked feet of oriental climes, finding
nothing in man so vulnerable as the heel,—a more vivid sentence can
scarcely be conceived. Considered as a prophecy of Christ, ingenuity
could construct nothing more obscure. And, accordingly, it is never once
appealed to, as a prediction, either by the Messiah himself, or by any
of the New Testament writers; and before the Advent, it had certainly
failed to produce the proper effect of prophecy, and had not aided in
preparing the minds of the Hebrews for the event. It is indeed
acknowledged by “a strenuous advocate for this application of the
passage,” “that the expressions here used do not necessarily imply the
sense thus attributed to them; and that there is no appearance of our
first parents’ having understood them in this sense, or that God
intended they should so understand them.”[552] If, then, this prophetic
signification escaped the persons to whom the announcement was made, and
the nation before whose eye it lay for ages, and the Christ himself of
whom it spake, and the Evangelists and Apostles who proclaimed him to
the world, our doubt of its reality can scarcely be deemed
unwarrantable.