well-known fact, that this story of Michael and the Devil is one of the
standing traditions of the Jewish people; the invention of a remote
antiquity; and repeated ever since by a multitude of Rabbinical writers.
A specimen of the legend may be found by the curious in the section of
Michaelis, from which I have quoted the foregoing passage. With respect
to the reception which we must give to such an alleged fact, the same
author observes—“It lies without the circle of human experience; and
therefore it cannot be attested by any man, unless he has either divine
inspiration, or has intercourse with beings of a superior order.
Consequently, whoever was the author of the apocryphal book, from which
the quotation was made, his account cannot possibly command
assent.”[596] This remark evidently applies, not only to the story of
Michael, but to the tradition of the Fallen Angels; which, there is
every reason to believe, must have been derived from a like apocryphal
source; especially as we have the express assurance of Tertullian, that
the Book of Enoch treated of the nature, offices, and fate of fallen
Beings.[597]
This author, then, has unquestionably “made use of Jewish materials,
which have no existence but in apocryphal books,”[598] and therefore no
claim on our belief. “I know of no other method of vindicating the
quotation,” says Michaelis, “than by supposing that St. Jude considered
the whole story, not as a real fact, which either he himself believed,
or which he required his readers to believe, but merely as an
instructive fable, which served to illustrate the doctrine which he
himself inculcated, that we ought not to speak evil of dignities.”[599]
Hug resorts to an explanation of this kind; and conceives that St. Jude
employs apocryphal weapons of persuasion, as best adapted to confound
the Heretics whom he assailed.[600] It may be so: but if his
illustrations and examples from the supernatural world be thus destitute
of intrinsic authority and truth, and _we must be heretics before we can
feel their force_, what becomes of the _orthodox doctrine_ of fallen
Angels?
------------------------------------
Footnotes for Lecture XI.
Footnote 542:
See Note A.
Footnote 543:
Genesis iii. 1.
Footnote 544:
Genesis iii. 14, 15.
Footnote 545:
Jos. Ant. lib. i. c. 1.
Footnote 546:
The first trace of this fiction presents itself in the Apocryphal book
of the Wisdom of Solomon, ii. 24; “Nevertheless, through envy of the
Devil, came death into the world.” How difficult it appeared, even to
the learned and imaginative Origen, to establish this interpretation
on any sound scriptural authority, may be seen in the fact, that he
can quote in its behalf nothing better than an unknown Jewish work in
the Greek language, entitled Ἀνάληψις τοῦ Μωσέως. In Rufinus’s version
of Origen’s “Principles,” occurs the following passage: “In Genesi
serpens Evam seduxisse describitur; de quo in Ascensione Möysi, cujus
libelli meminit in epistolâ suâ Apostolus Judas, Michaël archangelus
cum Diabolo disputans de corpore Möysi, ait, _a Diabolo inspiratum
serpentem_, causam exstitisse prævaricationis Adæ et Evæ.”—De Princip.
lib. iii. c. 2. Though the learned Father does not hesitate to cite
this book, for a theological purpose, he does not inform us of the
grounds on which he was satisfied to invest it with divine authority.
Footnote 547:
Genesis iii. 16-19.
Footnote 548:
Rom. v. 12-20; 1 Cor. xv. 21, 22; 1 Tim. ii. 14.
Footnote 549:
Paraphrase on Romans. Note on v. 12. See also Whitby in loc., to whom
Mr. Locke refers.
Footnote 550:
See Rom. i. 16; ii. 29; and iii. 9-23.
Footnote 551:
Genesis iii. 15.
Footnote 552:
Dr. T. Sherlock’s Six Discourses on Prophecy, p. 80; as quoted in Mr.
Wellbeloved’s excellent note on the passage.
Footnote 553:
See Note B.
Footnote 554:
1 Samuel xxix. 4.
Footnote 555:
1 Kings xi. 25.
Footnote 556:
Numb. xxii. 22.
Footnote 557:
1 Tim. i. 20.
Footnote 558:
שׁטן (1.) _adversarius_; in antiquiori Hebraismo homo, ut in 1 Sam.
xxix. 4; 2 Sam. xix. 23; 1 Reg. v. 4; xi. 14; xxiii. 25: in sequiori,
post exilium Babylonicum, angelus malus sive _diabolus_, qui κατ’
ἐξοχὴν _Satan_ vocatur, Ps. cix. 6; Zach. iii. 1, 2; 1 Chron. xxi. 1.
(2.) _circuitor_, qui civium motus observat; secundum quosdam, Hiob.
i. 6, 8; ii. 1.”—_Joh. Simonis Lex. Hebr. in verb._
In Ps. cix. 6, and Zach. iii. 1, 2, there is, however, no reason to
suppose that the word is used as a proper name. The former of the two
passages is best rendered, “Let _an accuser_ stand at his right hand:”
and in explanation of the latter, Archbishop Newcome cites the
following note from Dr. Blayney; “It appears to me most probable, that
by Satan, or the Adversary, is here meant the adversaries of the
Jewish nation in a body, or perhaps some leading person among them,
Sanballat for instance, who strenuously opposed the rebuilding of the
temple, and of course the restoration of the service of the sanctuary,
and the reestablishment of Joshua in the exercise of his sacerdotal
ministry.”—_Newcome’s Minor Prophets, in loc._
Footnote 559:
1 Chron. xxi. 1.
Footnote 560:
2 Sam. xxiv. 1.
Footnote 561:
Wisd. ii. 24; Tobit iii. 8.
Footnote 562:
On entering the creed of the Jews, this doctrine underwent another
change, of which many traces are to be found in all their subsequent
writings, and which throws light on several passages of the New
Testament. It is thus stated by Dr. D. F. Strauss: “When that Satan
who appears in the Persian religion as a wicked being inimical to
mankind, passed into the Jewish faith, his character was accommodated
to the Hebrew peculiarity, which confined to the people of Israel all
that is good and worthy of humanity; and he was regarded as at once
the special enemy of their nation, and the Lord of their Gentile foes.
The interests of the Jewish people becoming concentrated in the person
of the Messiah, it was natural that the Satan should be conceived of
as the personal opponent of the Messiah.” “Accordingly,” adds this
writer, “in the New Testament the idea of Jesus as the Messiah
everywhere involves that of Satan as the adversary of his person and
work.”[b] We may well object to the unqualified generalization
comprised in this last remark, and therefore to many of the author’s
particular applications of it; and especially we must regard as
unsuccessful his attempt to destroy the historical character of the
narrative of our Lord’s temptation; but no judicious interpreter will
wholly neglect the suggestion which the passage contains.
Footnote b:
Das Leben Jesu kritisch bearbeitet, § 55.
Footnote 563:
Jude 6; 2 Pet. ii. 4.
Footnote 564:
See Note C.
Footnote 565:
Mr. Stowell, in his Lecture on the Personality and Agency of Satan
(pp. 703, 704), intimates that probably no visible form presented
itself to Jesus: and though strongly, and as it appears to me
reasonably, objecting to the interpretation which resolves the whole
temptation into a _vision_, he supposes, with more latitude than
consistency of explanation, that the Devil “showed” to our Lord all
the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them,—not really and
objectively,—but by means of “a glowing though _scenical
representation_.” The Lecturer does not state whether he conceives the
solicitations of Satan to have been conveyed by the method of real and
organic _talking_: but if, in the peculiar style of this narrative,
the Tempter can be described as “_showing_” things without the
presence of any visible objects, he may be described as “_saying_”
things without the presence of any audible sounds. English orthodoxy,
in conformity with the gross and hard materialism which pervades it,
seems to have encouraged the idea, that all preternatural
communications, whether diabolic or divine, with the human mind, must
be made by articulate noises or sensible images; that the action of
spirit on spirit is inconceivable; and a _revelation in silence and
darkness a thing impossible_. Adverting to this prejudice, the
admirable Barclay says, “We must not think his” (Abraham’s) “faith was
built upon his outward senses, but proceeded from the secret
persuasion of God’s spirit in his heart;”—“by which many times faith
is begotten and strengthened without any of these outward and visible
helps; as we may observe in many passages of the Holy Scriptures,
where it is only mentioned, ‘_And God said_,’ &c., ‘_And the word of
the Lord came_’ unto such and such, ‘_saying_,’ &c. But if any one
should pertinaciously affirm, _that this did import an outward audible
voice to the carnal ear_, I would gladly know, what other argument
such an one could bring, for this his affirmation, saving his own
simple conjecture. It is said indeed, ‘_The Spirit witnesseth with our
spirit_;’ but not to our outward ears, Rom. viii. 16. And seeing the
Spirit of God is within us, and not without us only, it speaks to our
spiritual, and not to our bodily ear. Therefore I see no reason, where
it’s so often said in Scripture, ‘_The Spirit said_,’ ‘_moved_,’
‘_hindered_,’ ‘_called_,’ such or such a one, to _do_ or _forbear_
such or such a thing, that any have to conclude, that this was not an
inward voice to the ear of the soul, rather than an outward voice to
the bodily ear. If any be otherwise minded, let them, if they can,
produce their arguments, and we may further consider of
them.”—_Barclay’s Apology for the true Christian Divinity, Prop. II._
Footnote 566:
Mr. Stowell’s Lecture, p. 713.
Footnote 567:
Ibid. p. 695.
Footnote 568:
John viii. 42, 47.
Footnote 569:
John x. 14, 27.
Footnote 570:
John vi. 44.
Footnote 571:
Οἱ δὲ νομίζουσι Διὶ μὲν, ἐπὶ τὰ ὑψηλότατα τῶν οὐρέων ἀναβαίνοντες,
θυσίας ἔρδειν, τὸν κύκλον πάντα τοῦ οὐρανοῦ Δία καλέοντες. i. 131.
Footnote 572:
De Iside et Osiride, § 46, 47.
Footnote 573:
See his Treatise, Über die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier: an
abstract of which, with a translation of the portions relating to the
dualistic system, will be found in Dr. Prichard’s Analysis of the
Egyptian Mythology, Book III.
Footnote 574:
We allude to Ritter (Geschichte der Philosophie), who (i. p. 159-173)
has weighed all the arguments which have been alleged in behalf of
this opinion with an even hand.
Footnote 575:
Thirlwall’s History of Greece, Vol. II. pp. 130, 131.
Footnote 576:
Vol. II. pp. 134, 135.
Footnote 577:
Dr. Prichard’s Translation. Egyp. Myth. pp. 242, 243.
Footnote 578:
Bochart’s Hierozoicon. P. I. lib. ii. p. 640. seqq. Herod. II. 46.
Footnote 579:
Elleh Haddebarim rabba, fol. 302. 2. ap. D. L. Bertholdt’s
Christologia Judæorum Jesu Apostolorumque ætate. § 36.
Footnote 580:
Vajikra rabba, fol. 151. col. 1. ap. Bertholdt. _loc. cit._
Footnote 581:
Targum in Eccles. i. 12. ap. Joh. Buxtorf. Lex. Chald. Talm. & Rabb.
in v. אשמדי.
Footnote 582:
Aruch ex Rabboth. ap. Lightfoot’s Hebr. and Talmud. Exercitations on
Matt. xii. 24. See also on Luke xi. 15.
Footnote 583:
Lex. Chald. _loc. cit._
Footnote 584:
Christologia, _loc. cit._
Footnote 585:
Credibility of the Gospel History. Supplement, ch. xxi.
Footnote 586:
“It seems very unlikely that St. Jude should write so similar an
epistle, if he had seen St. Peter’s. In that case, St. Jude would not
have thought it needful for him to write at all. If he had formed a
design of writing, and had met with an epistle of one of the apostles,
very suitable to his own thoughts and intentions, I think he would
have forborne to write.”—Cred. _loc. cit._
Footnote 587:
Michaelis’ Introd. to the N. T. ch. xxix. sec. 2.
Footnote 588:
Eichhorn’s Einleitung in das neue Testament, viii. 3.
Footnote 589:
Dr. J. L. Hug’s Introduction to the New Testament: translated by Dr.
Wait. Sec. 169, 170.
Footnote 590:
Marsh’s Michaelis, ch. xxviii. sec. 1; ch. xxix. sec. 2, 5.
Footnote 591:
Einleitung in d. N. T. viii. 3.
Footnote 592:
Marsh’s Michaelis, ch. xxix. sec. 4.
Footnote 593:
For a sufficient refutation of Lardner’s interpretation, see the
last-cited section of Marsh’s Michaelis.
Footnote 594:
Hug’s Introduction, sec. 175.
Footnote 595:
Marsh’s Michaelis, ch. xxix. sec. 4.
Footnote 596:
Marsh’s Mich. _loc. cit._
Footnote 597:
De habitu mulier. c. 3. De Idolat. c. 4. et 15. De cultu fœminar. c.
10, as cited by Hug, sec. 175.
Footnote 598:
Eichhorn’s Einl. viii. 4. § 296.
Footnote 599:
_loc. cit._ Michaelis adds a hint, which may perhaps be as appropriate
in England as in Germany: “To the doctrine, which St. Jude inculcates
by this quotation, that we ought not to speak evil of dignities, not
even of the fallen angels, but that we should leave judgment to God, I
have no objection. And I really think, that they transgress the bounds
of propriety, who make it their business, either in the pulpit or in
their writings, to represent the devil as an object of detestation;
since, notwithstanding his fall, he is still a being of a superior
order. This reminds me of a certain oriental sect, which Niebuhr met
with in the neighbourhood of the river Zab, in Assyria, and which, for
the same reason as that which I have just assigned, will not suffer
any one to speak evil of the devil.”
Footnote 600:
_loc. cit._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
LECTURE XII.
THE CHRISTIAN VIEW OF RETRIBUTION HEREAFTER.
BY REV. HENRY GILES.
“AND GOD SAID TO JONAH, DOEST THOU WELL TO BE ANGRY FOR THE GOURD? AND
HE SAID, I DO WELL TO BE ANGRY, EVEN UNTO DEATH. THEN SAID THE LORD,
THOU HAST PITY ON THE GOURD FOR WHICH THOU HAST NOT LABOURED, NEITHER
MADEST IT GROW; WHICH CAME UP IN A NIGHT AND PERISHED IN A NIGHT. AND
SHOULD NOT I SPARE NINEVEH, THAT GREAT CITY, WHEREIN ARE MORE THAN
SIX SCORE THOUSAND PERSONS THAT CANNOT DISCERN BETWEEN THEIR RIGHT
HAND AND THEIR LEFT?”—_Jonah_ iv. 9, 10, 11.
Pain affects us, as it comes near to us. The war or famine, or any other
calamity that afflicts a nation afar off, is but a vague report or a
distant rumour; it may not pass unheard, but comparatively it is unfelt.
It requires that grief shall touch and sting us in our selfishness; that
we may know fully and truly what it inflicts on others. And it is thus
that God at once rebukes and cures our insensibility, by bringing loss
and sorrow home to our own souls: the withered gourd wrung tears from
the surly and unamiable prophet: but the prospect of Nineveh with her
mighty population in ashes had nothing with which to touch the fountains
of his sorrows.
Admitting as I thus do that there is much of selfishness in our nature,
yet persuaded that there is also much of sympathy and mercy in it,
taking either the character of God, or that of man as a criterion, I
have long regarded the belief of eternal punishment as one of those
moral paradoxes which you cannot deny, and for which you cannot account.
Most of human creatures, so far as they accord with their humanity,
shrink from inflicting or beholding pain; and when they can inflict it
wantonly, or behold it without compassion, we can pronounce on them no
sentence of deeper reprobation than to call them _inhuman_. We tread not
knowingly on the crawling worm; we hear not insensibly the inarticulate
voice of the sick and dumb animal: and yet many of us who would not look
unmoved on the last spasms of an expiring dog, can believe that God
regards with ruthless sternness the eternal tortures of numberless
eternal spirits. We cannot gaze without compassion on the tear in the
infant’s speechless eye, and yet some of us can believe that God has
created such beings to look up through all eternity from hopeless
torture. We cannot think on the racks by which tyrant-man has tortured
his brother-man—on the dungeons in which he has imprisoned him, and shut
out from him the sun of heaven and the breath of nature, without a
feeling of repugnance and a sentiment of indignation, and yet Christians
can believe that God, whom they call “the good, the merciful,” has
constructed for his creatures means of undying anguish and dungeons of
boundless darkness, where the smile of hope never gleams, where the
light of mercy never comes. We lament war, and yet, if orthodox, we
believe that God maintains in his dominions regions of everlasting
warfare; we lament the madness and abuse of passion, and yet, if
orthodox, we must believe that God allows that madness and abuse to be
eternalized in all their extreme malignity. We lament physical and
mental suffering; except on the visitation of mercy none of us would
desire to go through the lazar house, where despair and anguish lie low
together, where the head is heavy and the pulse is fevered; or through
those asylums which give refuge to humanity in its last calamity, and
its worst; and yet, if orthodox, we can believe that God perpetuates
throughout everlasting ages the worst evils of the body, the fiercest
passions, and the most awful madness of the soul. And yet this great,
this glorious universe is his—is his workmanship—it came not up in a
night, it is not to perish in a night—the earth is long to be green, and
the heavens are to be bright. Throughout the space that has no limit,
throughout the time that has no end, the stars are to shine, and systems
are to move onward in their unmeasured and their trackless glory. And
yet, if orthodox, we must believe there is an endless hell whose smoke
of torment must ascend for ever against their brightness. These, the
works of God’s hands, are marred—the majesty of his power
defeated—Paradise is made a wilderness, and hell is made populous. If we
think of the world with any degree of realising truth, we shall feel
this result to be most tremendous, and we shall wonder that God with
infinite power should have created such a lovely universe to be defaced;
that he should have peopled it with such capacities for good, to be
exercised for ever only in the production of evil; that he should have
given them immense and eternal capacities only to be immense and eternal
capacities for misery. This, if true, is the greatest miracle and the
greatest mystery unquestionably in the divine government.
This subject committed to my charge I feel to be truly solemn and awful.
Next to the idea of a God, that of a future state is the most important.
The character we ascribe to God operates on our own, or is created by
it; and so our conceptions of the future life reacts on human conduct,
and human sentiments. We may see this painfully in the mistakes and
abuses with which harsh views of the future life have clouded the
Christian church, and poisoned the heart of Christendom. These gloomy
sentiments from many robbed religion of solace, and the breast of peace.
I have seen beings maddened and convulsed by visions of Calvinism. I
have heard them long for annihilation as a consummation most
desirable—not in the remorse of sin, but in the tortures of
superstition.—I have seen them look forward with pleasure to the
church-yard turf under which they were to rest for ever from their
troubles, and sleep in peace their “eternal sleep.” This sombre belief
has at once desolated and darkened earth. Faith it has turned to a
boundless fear; the dread of the future it makes the bitterness of the
present, and is equally the parent of stern self-infliction, or of
remorseless intolerance. It was this that in older days drove the
ascetic to the desert; that made nature and the face of his fellow
hateful to him; that filled his ferocious solitude with unearthly
terrors; that trained, instead of a saint, a theological savage: it was
this which aroused religious wars; which infused into these wars a
spirit of fury; that demonised humanity; that made a most merciful
nature a stranger to mercy: it was this which brought man in nearest
resemblance to that vile and wicked being whom his worst and blackest
passions had formed: it was this belief that tore out the heart of flesh
and put in its place the heart of stone—a heart which no appeal could
soften, and which no appeal could move. It was not until there was a
hell without hope, that there was a heart without mercy. I believe it to
be quite capable of proof, that no mere worldly wickedness has ever
cursed mankind with so many sufferings as the belief of this doctrine;
that has ever heaped on them so many cruelties, and made them agents of
cruelties in return. Why have wars for religion ever been the worst? The
reason is obvious: the soldiers of religion are not soldiers of flesh;
the soldiers of religion enter into no earthly service; they enlist
under the god of battles and of vengeance. It is against the hated, and
the vile, and the accursed, and the lost, they carry destruction; they
are but the executioners of the righteous decrees of God, and theirs are
the championship of piety, and the chivalry of heaven. When the weak
contend with the weak, mutual need begets mutual mercy: but when the
natural ferocity of passion assumes the authority of God, and clothes
itself with the armour of the skies, the gulf in which all charity is
buried, is broad and unfathomable as that which is commonly placed
between heaven and hell. This belief was one of the main causes of the
most horrible religious persecutions. It was not until the generous and
gentle sensibility of the religious nature was debased by coarse
picturings of physical tortures and of endless miseries, that the
sacerdotal arm became terrible as death, and the sacerdotal spirit was
drenched in wrath as dire and unrelenting as that which they fashioned
beyond the grave. Before priestly and popular imaginations God became an
awful punisher. They created in heaven a throne of inexorable judgment,
and from that throne the word of fate went forth which could but once be
spoken, and cut off hope for ever. They freed themselves from human
compunctions, and emulated the stern despotism which they preached or
believed. Fear is the parent of cruelty—and in religion, as in
character, the slavish spirit is ever the most unfeeling. The truth is,
that whether in idea or in act, familiarity with torture stupifies the
heart and indurates the senses. That frequent contemplation of pain
destroys sympathy, and that pain, when once it can be carelessly seen,
can be easily inflicted, are facts which observation has placed beyond
the need of argument, and experience beyond the reach of contradiction.
In this Lecture I propose two objects:—First, to state my views on moral
retribution, which in essentials I apprehend are those of Unitarians in
general: Secondly, to examine the arguments which are advanced in favour
of eternal torture, and to state my reasons for not believing them. I
shall try to the utmost of my power to condense what I have to say, but
I hope for your indulgence in return, if on a subject of such compass—on
which so many volumes have been written—there should be some omissions.
The end of this or any other lecture can never be to expound an
important topic in all its completeness, so much as to suggest and
excite inquiry concerning it.
I. I shall, in the first place, enter on the positive section of my
lecture; and on this point, I am sorry to say that the frequent
re-assertion of mistakes regarding our doctrines will put me to the
painful necessity of much repetition.