manner: rejecting, on the one hand, the dualism by which Descartes had
opposed mind and matter, he regarded each as a different mode of the same
primitive substance, and, on the other, the limited idea of the divine
Being, he conceived that the mind of man realizes the notion of Him as
unlimited. There are three different opinions in reference to our capacity
of knowing the infinity of God. Either our knowledge of Him is only
negative and relative; we know only what He is not, and our positive
notions of His nature are drawn from the analogy of human personality; or,
secondly, we have an intuition of His infinity, but so bare of attributes,
that while it guarantees the reality of our apprehensions of Him, we are
dependent on experience for its development into a conception; or,
thirdly, the human mind can apprehend His infinity positively, antecedent
to the application of limitations to it.(337) The last of these three
views belonged to Spinoza, along with the ancient Eleatics, the
Neo-Platonists of the early ages, and the principal schools of modern
German philosophy. Accordingly he tried to work out with mathematical
rigour in geometrical form a philosophy of existence, conceiving that the
mind grasps the idea of God as infinite substance, and understands its
development under two modes; viz. extension and thought: the former the
objective act of Deity, the latter the subjective.(338) The universe
therefore is nothing but the manifestation of God: God is the sum total of
it; the unity in its variety; the infinite comprehending its finity. Cause
and effect are identical; the _natura naturans_, and _natura naturata_.
Causation is change; but it is nothing but substance assuming attributes,
and attributes assuming modes. Phenomena are only the bubbles which arise
on the bosom of the ocean and disappear, absorbed in its vastness. The
universe is bound in one vast chain of fatalism, one grand and perfect
whole. Man’s perfection is to know by contemplation the universe in which
he has his being.
Such a system has been called atheistic, because it is silent about the
presence of a personal first Cause. It might be more truly denominated
Pantheistic, not in the vague sense in which that term is applied to
denote the belief in a Deity as an _anima mundi_, like that explained in
reference to the Averroists,(339) but to imply that the sum total of all
things, the universe, is Deity. Its influence on the question of revealed
religion will be obvious. It admits that the phenomena which we attribute
to miracle in the process of revelation are facts, but it denies their
miraculous character.(340) They are the mere manifestation of some
previously unknown law, turning up accidentally at the particular moment,
some previously unknown mode in which the all-embracing substance
manifests itself. In this view all religions become various expressions of
the great moral and spiritual truths which they embody, and true piety
consists in rising beyond them to the vision of the higher truths which
they typify, and the practice of the principles which they enjoin as
rules. “Dico,” wrote Spinoza, “ad salutem non esse omnino necesse,
Christum secundum carnem noscere; sed de æterno illo filio Dei, hoc est,
Dei æternâ sapientiâ quæ sese in omnibus rebus, et maxime in mente humana
et omnium maxime in Christo Jesu manifestavit, longe aliter
sentiendum.”(341)
Spinoza, though a Jew, had examined the claims of Christianity. Indeed the
discussions, half political, half religious, of the Dutch theology, would
have compelled the investigation of it, independently of his own largeness
of sympathy with the philosophical history of human religion.(342) His
philosophy of revealed religion is contained in his _Tractatus
Theologico-Politicus_.(343) This work was called forth by the disputes of
the age, and had the political object of defending liberty of thought as
necessary to the safety both of the state and of religion. The question of
predestination had rent the Dutch church shortly before this time; and
when the victory remained with the Calvinistic party, the opinions of the
liberal Remonstrants were treated as crimes. Spinoza proposed in this work
a plan, perhaps suggested by the perusal of Hobbes, for curing these
dissensions. The book is a critical essay, in which he surveys the Jewish
and Christian religions, and ends in the conclusion that certainty on the
subject of a revelation is impossible; accordingly that the remedy for
theological acrimony must be sought in a return to what he regards to be
the simple doctrine which Christ taught, the love of God and one’s
neighbour; that philosophy and theology ought to be severed; the one
aiming at truth and resting on universal ideas, the other at obedience and
piety and resting on historic authority and special revelation. Hence,
while uniformity of religious worship and practice was to be prescribed,
he claimed that unlimited liberty of speculation ought to be
tolerated.(344)
It is in the survey of Judaism and Christianity in the earlier part of
this work that he exhibits the views in which he has anticipated many of
the speculations of rationalism. He examines first into the grounds which
Revelation puts forward for its claim to authority, viz. prophecy, the
Jewish polity, and miracles;(345) next the principles of interpretation,
and the canon of the two Testaments;(346) lastly, the nature of the divine
teaching(347) endeavouring to show that the fundamental articles of faith
are given in natural religion. In this way he exhibits his views on those
branches which are now denominated the evidences, exegesis, and doctrines.
In the discussion of prophecy he analyses the nature of prophetic
foresight into vividness of imagination; and exhibits the human feeling
and sentiment intertwined with it.(348) He regards the Hebrew idea of
election as merely the theocratic mode of representing their own good
success in that region of circumstances which was not in human power.(349)
His explanation of miracles has been already stated: the course of nature
seems to him to be fixed and immutable; and he argues that interference
with its course is not a greater proof of Providence than a perpetual
unchanging administration.(350)
As his philosophy is seen in the treatment of the evidences, so his
criticism appears in the discussion of the canon. He examines the several
books of scripture, and concludes from supposed marks of editorship that
the Pentateuch and historical books were all composed by one historian,
who was, he thinks, probably Ezra, Deuteronomy being the first
composed.(351) The prophetic books he resolves into a collection of
fragments. His opinions on this department would be rejected as immature
by modern rationalist critics; yet they have an historic interest as
marking the rise of the searching investigations into the sources and
construction of the Hebrew sacred literature, which have been pursued in
an instructive manner in modern times. His view respecting the nature of
scriptural doctrines,(352) that they can be reduced to the teaching of
natural reason, is a corollary from his philosophy, which cannot admit
that any religious truth is obligatory which is not self-evident, and is
analogous to the doctrine which a short time previously had been stated by
Lord Herbert of Cherbury.(353)
These remarks will suffice in explanation of the criticism exhibited in
this work. The book marks an epoch, a new era in the critical and
philosophical investigation of religion. Spinoza’s ideas are as it were
the head waters from which flows the current which is afterwards parted
into separate streams. If viewed merely as a specimen of criticism, they
are in many respects very defective. For this branch was new in Spinoza’s
time. Learning had been directed since the Renaissance rather to the
acquisition of stores of information concerning ancient literature than
reflective examination of the authenticity and critical value of the
sources. Yet Spinoza’s sagacity is so great, that the book is suggestive
of information, and fertile in hints of instruction to readers who dissent
most widely from his inferences.(354) In Spinoza’s own times the work met
with unbounded indignation. Indeed hardly any age could have been less
prepared for its reception. So rigorous a theory of verbal inspiration was
then held, that the question of the date of the introduction of the Hebrew
vowel points was discussed under the idea that inspiration would be
overthrown, if the admission was made that they were introduced after the
time of the closing of the canon.(355) The tone of fairness in Spinoza’s
manner, which compels most modern readers to believe in his honesty, and
which presents so striking a contrast to the profaneness of subsequent
scepticism, was then regarded as latent irony. The work on its appearance
was suppressed by public authority; but it was frequently reprinted; and
probably no work of free thought has ever had more influence, both on
friends and foes, except the memorable work of Strauss in the present age.
Not only have freethinkers been moulded by it, but it has produced lasting
effects on those who have loved the faith of Christ. For Spinoza’s work,
if it did not create, gave expression to the tendency of which slight
traces are perceptible elsewhere,(356) to recognize a large class of facts
relating to the personal peculiarities of the inspired writers, and to the
“human element,” as it has been frequently called(357) in scripture, for
which orthodox criticism has always subsequently had to find a place in a
theory of inspiration; facts which first shook the mechanical or verbal
theory, which, however piously intended, really had the effect of
degrading the sacred writers almost into automatons, and regarded them as
the pens instead of the penmen of the inspiring Spirit.(358) Indirectly
the effect of Spinoza’s thought was seen even in the English church. The
difficulties which, through means of the English deists, it brought before
the notice of the great apologetic writers of our own country, created the
free, but perhaps not irreverent theory of revelation manifested in the
churchmen of the last century,(359) which restricted the miraculous
assistance of inspiration to the specific subject of the revealed
communication, the religious element of scripture, and did not regard it
as comprehending also the allusions, scientific or historic, extraneous to
religion.
Nor is it merely in respect of criticism that Spinoza’s views have
affected subsequent thought. The central principle of his philosophy, the
pantheistic disbelief of miraculous interposition which has subsequently
entered into so many systems, was first clearly applied to theology by
him. Wherever the disbelief in the supernatural has arisen from _à priori_
considerations, and expressed itself, not with allegations of conscious
fraud against the devotees of religion, nor with attempts to explain it
away as merely mental realism, but with assertions that miracles are
impossible, and nature an unchanging whole; this disbelief, whether
insinuating itself into the defence of Christianity, or marking the attack
on it, has been a reproduction of Spinoza.
In taking a retrospect of the long period over which we have travelled in
this lecture, embracing the twofold crisis of free thought in the middle
ages and the inauguration of the modern era, we cannot fail to be
impressed with the grand idea of the permanent victory of truth, and the
exquisite order according to which the fatherly providence of God makes
all things conduce together for good. When the course of history is viewed
in its true perspective, we perceive that Almighty love ruleth. The period
has comprised most of the great movements, political or intellectual,
which have occurred in European history since the Christian era. The fall
of the Roman empire, the gradual reconstruction of society, the revival of
learning, the invention of printing, the discovery of a new geographical
world, the creation of modern philosophy, embraced in it, include the
mention of almost every great event, with the exception of the French
revolution, which has modified the character of the human mind, or
affected the destiny of Christianity. At times it seemed as if
Christianity was on the point of being extinguished by unbelief; at other
times, the church seemed to lend itself to the extermination of all
freedom of investigation. Yet Christianity has lasted through all these
dangers, throwing off, like a healthy system, the errors which from time
to time insinuated themselves into it, and diffusing its blessings of
eternal truth into every region of life and thought. The past is the
pledge of hope for the future.
Look forth!—that stream behold,
That stream upon whose bosom we have passed
Floating at ease, while nations have effaced
Nations, and death has gathered to his fold
Long lines of mighty kings:—look forth, my soul
(Nor in this vision be thou slow to trust)
The living waters, less and less by guilt
Stained and polluted, brighten as they roll,
Till they have reached the eternal city—built
For the perfected spirits of the just.(360)
LECTURE IV. DEISM IN ENGLAND PREVIOUS TO A.D. 1760.
ISAIAH lix. 19.
_When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord
shall lift up a standard against him._
The forms assumed by free thought in the fourth great crisis of the
Christian faith, which commenced with the rise of modern philosophy, and
has continued with slight intervals to the present time, have been already
stated(361) to be chiefly three, corresponding with the three nations in
which they have been manifested.
In this lecture we shall sketch the history of one of these forms—English
Deism—by which name the form of unbelief is denominated which existed
during the close of the seventeenth and the first half of the eighteenth
century. If the dates be marked by corresponding political history, its
rise may be placed as early as the reign of Charles I; its maturity in the
period from the revolution of 1688 to the invasion of the Pretender in
1745; its decay in the close of the reign of George II, and the early part
of that of George III.(362)
This long period was marked by those great events in intellectual and
social history which were calculated to awaken the spirit of free inquiry.
It witnessed the dethronement of constituted authorities—intellectual,
ecclesiastical, and political; the constant struggle of religious
factions; and on two occasions civil war and revolution. It was affected
by the rise of the philosophy of Bacon, and the positive advances of
natural science under Newton and his coadjutors. It comprehended moments
marked by the outburst of native genius, and others influenced by contact
with the continental literature, both with the speculative theology of
Holland and the dramatic and critical literature of France.(363) Above all
it was illumined by the presence of such an array of great minds in all
departments of intellectual activity as can rarely be matched in a single
period. If, when the human mind in the middle ages was warmed into life
after the winter of its long torpor, under the genial influence of the
revival of literature, the renewal of its power was marked by a
disposition to throw off the trammels which had bound it in the night of
its darkness, how much more might such a result be expected when it was
basking under the sunshine of meridian brightness, and exulting in the
consciousness of strength.
A special peculiarity of this period likely to produce effects on religion
has been already mentioned. The philosophy of this age compared with
former ones was essentially a discussion of method. The two rival
philosophies which now arose are generally placed in opposition to each
other, as physical and mental respectively, that of Bacon being conversant
with nature, that of Descartes with man.(364) But in truth in one respect
both were united. Each was analytical; each strove to lay down a general
method for investigating the sphere of inquiry which it selected. Both
were reactions against the dogmatic assumptions of former systems; both
assumed the indispensable necessity of an entire revolution in the method
of attaining knowledge. Accordingly, though differing widely in appealing
to the external senses or the internal intuitions respectively, they both
built philosophy in the criticism of first principles. Hence,
independently of any particular corollaries from special parts of their
systems, the influence of their spirit was to beget a critical,
subjective, and analytical study of any topic. When applied to religion,
this is the feature which subsequently characterizes alike the unbelief
and the discussion of the evidences. Difficulties and the answers to
difficulties are found in an appeal to the functions and capacities of the
interpreting mind. This appeal to reason was denominated rationalism in
the seventeenth century, prior to the present application of the term in a
more limited and obnoxious sense. The specific doctrine arrived at by this
process, which allows the existence of a Deity, and of the religion of the
moral conscience, but denies the specific revelation which Christianity
asserts, was called _theism_ or _deism_. (21)
In the period which we have mentioned as marking the first stage of deism,
extending from its commencement to the close of the seventeenth century,
the peculiarity which characterized the inquiry was the political aspect
which it bore. The relation of religion to political toleration(365) gave
occasion for examining the sphere of truth which may form the subject of
political interference.
Two writers of opposite schools are usually regarded as marking the rise
of deism, both of whom belonged to this phase of it, Lord Herbert of
Cherbury, and Hobbes. Both formed their systems in the reign of Charles
I.(366) The one rejected revelation by making religion a matter of
individual intuition, the other by making it a matter of political
convenience.
Lord Herbert,(367) the elder brother of the saintly poet, if looked at as
a philosopher, must be classed with Descartes rather than with Bacon,
though chronology forbids the idea that he can have learned anything from
Descartes. It is probable that while on his early embassy in France he
came under the same intellectual influences which suggested to Descartes
his views. Fragments of knowledge and partial solutions derived from older
philosophies exist before a great thinker like Descartes embodies them in
a system. Herbert may have been led by the indirect effect of such
influences to a theory of innate ideas, independently of Descartes; or he
may have arrived at it by reaction against the Pyrrhonism of some of the
French writers of the preceding age, such as Montaigne, with whose
writings he was familiar.
His works furnish his views on knowledge and on religion, both natural,
heathen, and Christian. They include a treatise on truth, which suggested
another on the cause of errors. The views on religion therein named,
further suggested one on the religion which could be expected in a layman,
and this again a critique on heathen creeds, written to show the
universality of the beliefs so described.(368)
In discussing truth(369) he surveys the powers of the human mind, and
places the ultimate test of it in the natural instincts or axiomatic
beliefs. These accordingly become the test of a religion. The true
religion must therefore be a universal one; that is, one of which the
evidence commends itself to the universal mind of man, and finds its
attestation in truth intuitively perceived. Of such truths he enumerates
five:(370)—the existence of one supreme God; the duty of worship; piety
and virtue as the means thereof; the efficacy of repentance; the existence
of rewards and punishments both here and hereafter. These he regards as
the fundamental pillars of universal religion; and distinguishes from
these realities the doctrines of what he calls particular religions, one
of which is Christianity, as being uncertain, because not self-evident;
and accordingly considers that no assent can be expected in a layman, save
to the above-named self-evident truths. His view however of revelation is
not very clear. Sometimes he seems to admit it, sometimes proscribes it as
uncertain. His object seems not to have been primarily destructive, but
merely the result of attempts to discover truth amid the jarring opinions
of the churches of his day.(371)
The ideas which his writings contributed to deist speculation are two;
viz., the examination of the universal principles of religion, and the
appeal to an internal illuminating influence superior to revelation, “the
inward light,” as the test of religious truth. This was a phrase not
uncommon in the seventeenth century. It was used by the Puritans to mark
the appeal to the spiritual instincts, the heaven-taught feelings; and
later by mystics, like the founder of the Quakers, to imply an appeal to
an internal sense.(372) But in Herbert it differs from these in being
universal, not restricted to a few persons, and in being intellectual
rather than emotional or spiritual. It was not analysed so as to separate
intuitional from reflective elements, and seems to have been analogous to
Descartes’ ultimate appeal to the natural reason, the self-evidencing
force of the mental axioms.(373)
If it was the anxiety to find certainty in controversies concerning
theological dogmas, which suggested Herbert’s inquiries, it was the
struggle of ecclesiastical parties in connexion with political movements
which excited those of Hobbes.(374)
In his philosophical views he belonged to an opposite school to Herbert. A
disciple of Bacon, he was the first to apply his master’s method to
morals, and to place the basis of ethical and political obligation in
experience; and in the application of these philosophical principles to
religion, he also represented the contrary tendency to Herbert, state
interference in contradistinction from private liberty, political religion
as opposed to personal. The contest of individualism against multitudinism
is the parallel in politics to that of private judgment against authority
in religion. While some of the Puritans were urging unlimited license in
the matter of religion, Hobbes wrote to prove the necessity of state
control, and the importance of a fulcrum on which individual opinion might
repose, external to itself; and referring the development of society to
the necessity for restraining the natural selfishness of man, and
resolving right into expedience as embodied in the sovereign head, he
ended with crushing the rights of the individual spirit, and defending
absolute government.
The effect of the application of such a sensational and materialist theory
to religion will be anticipated. He traced(375) the genesis of it in the
individual, and its expression in society; finding the origin of it in
selfish fear of the supernatural. The same reason which led him to assign
supremacy to government in other departments induced him to give it
supreme control over religion. Society being the check on man’s
selfishness, and supreme, deciding all questions on grounds of general
expedience; the authority of the commonwealth became the authority of the
church.(376) Though he had occasion to discuss revelation and the
canon(377) as a rule of faith, yet it is hard to fix on any point that was
actual unbelief.
The amount of thought contributed by him to deism was small; for his
influence on his successors was unimportant. The religious instincts of
the heart were too strong to be permanently influenced by the cold
materialist tone which reduced religion to state craft. With the exception
of Coward,(378) a materialist who doubted immortality about the end of the
century, the succeeding deists more generally followed Herbert, in wishing
to elevate religion to a spiritual sphere, than Hobbes, who degraded it to
political expedience. A slight additional interest however belongs to his
speculations, from the circumstance that his ideas, together with those of
Herbert, most probably suggested some parts of the system of Spinoza.(379)
The two writers of whom we have now been treating, lived prior to or
during the Commonwealth. From the date of the Restoration the existence of
doubt may be accepted as an established fact. During the reaction,
political and ecclesiastical, which ensued in the early part of the reign
of Charles II, it is not surprising that doubt concealed itself in
retirement; but the frequent allusions to it under the name of
atheism,(380) in contemporary sermons and theological books, proves its
existence. Indeed the reaction contained the very elements which were
likely to foster unbelief among undiscerning minds. The court set a sad
example of impurity; and the excessive claims of the churchmen, alien to
the spirit of political and religious liberty, were calculated to generate
an antipathy to the clergy and to religion.