[CHRISTIAN REVELATION.— of God, is founded on human ideas of Deity, and is much inferior to the love of virtue for its own sake, or for the good done to mankind. (The motive, "that ye may be the children of your Father," is not included in this remark, being one of the purest and highest in the New Testament.) And, notably, there is a pervading tone of falseness given to the morality of Jesus and his apostles, by the grand error under which they lay that the end of the world was at hand, and consequently that it was not worth while to regard the temporal concerns so speedily to vanish away. XXVII. The Atonement is altogether contrary to natural morality. When we go on to consider the morality of Christianity as developed in the Epistles, where the atoning sacrifice of Christ begins to be regarded as the only means of reconciliation with God, our natural sense of what is just and right is much more shocked, or rather is altogether confounded :-not, indeed, that the whole tremendous doctrine of human depravity, of election and reprobation, with eternal torments as the meed of the greater portion of the race for Adam's single transgression, and all its logical concatenation of dogmas consistent in their inconsistency with human nature,-not that all these were fully developed in the mind of Paul, though his creative genius laid the germs of them, or rather moulded them out of already formed notions of the efficacy of sacrifice held both by Jews and Heathens.* It is hardly needful to expose the unmoral nature of this doctrine, since its manifest effect is to make its believers undervalue morality. With them necessarily grace is beyond and above works; and the idea, so gross and so perverted, that righteousness can be imputed, is to such a degree opposed to all natural sense of justice, as to make any right perception of true morality impossible so long as it remains a film upon the eye of the mind, a clog upon the action of conscience. If, as has been urged, the idea of forgiveness at all is contrary to nature, much more obviously the doctrine of forgiveness on account of the merits and for the sake of another, is totally at variance with the principle of right implanted within us, and purely theological and artificial. It rests upon the assumption—which seems the result of an impatience for explanation of those deficiencies which the intelligent consciousness of man, as soon as ever it was awakened, made him perceive in himself, in common with the outward world, and which rightly ought only to urge him on to conquer them, that man is not as God made him, since God must have wished his creature to be perfect at once, as man himself wishes it; that God, like himself, must be displeased, disappointed, with his imperfection,-nay, as crouching superstition whispers, must be angry with the poor incompetent creature that he has made: whence, to this undisciplined mode of thinking, * See Mackay's Progress of the Intellect, as exemplified in the religious development of the Greeks and Hebrews. Vol. II. -INTERNAL EVIDENCE.] But the only true good is within. In this outward universe, magnificent as it is, in the bright day and the starry night, in the earth and the skies, we can discover nothing so vast as thought, so strong as the unconquerable purpose of duty, so sublime as the spirit of disinterestedness and self-sacrifice. A mind which withstands all the powers of the outward universe, all the pains which fire and sword and storm can inflict, rather than swerve from uprightness, is nobler than the universe. Why will we not learn the glory of the soul? We are seeking a foreign good. But we all possess within us what is of more worth than the external creation. For this outward system is the product of Mind. All its harmony, beauty, and beneficent influences, are the fruits and manifestations of Thought and Love; and is it not nobler and happier, to be enriched with these energies, from which the universe springs, and to which it owes its magnificence, than to possess the universe itself? It is not what we have, but what we are, which constitutes our glory and felicity. Philosophers teach us, that the mind creates the beauty which it enjoys in nature; and we all know that, when abandoned to evil passions, it can blot out this beauty, and spread over the fairest scenes the gloom of a dungeon. . . . The true friend and Saviour, is not he who acts for us abroad, but who acts within, who sets the soul free, touches the springs of thought and affection, binds us to God, and by assimilating us to the Creator, brings us into harmony with the creation. Thus the end which we have ascribed to Christ, is the most glorious and beneficent which can be accomplished by any power on earth or in heaven.”* XXVII. "It is clearly contrary to all our notions of government, as well as to what is, in fact, the general constitution of nature, to suppose, that doing well for the future should, in all cases, prevent all the judicial bad consequences of having done evil, or all the punishment annexed to disobedience. . And though the efficacy of repentance itself alone, to prevent what mankind had rendered themselves obnoxious to, and recover what they had forfeited, is now insisted upon, in opposition to Christianity; yet by the general prevalence of propitiatory sacrifices over the heathen world, this notion of repentance alone being sufficient to expiate guilt, appears to be contrary to the general sense of mankind. Upon the whole then: had the laws, the general laws of God's government been permitted to operate, without any interposition in our belief, the future punishment, for aught we know to the contrary, or have any reason to think, must inevitably have followed, notwithstanding any thing we could have done to prevent it. Now: In this darkness, or this light of nature, call it which you please, revelation comes in; confirms every doubting fear, which could enter into the heart of man, concerning the future unprevented .consequence of wickedness: supposes the world to be in a state of ruin (a supposition which seems the very ground of the * Channing's Works, pp. 362, 360. The great purpose of Christianity. [CHRISTIAN REVELATION.— it seemed the shortest, surest road to the desired perfection,—or rather to the supposed fruits of it, an evasion devised by a superstition the counterpart of the former,-that God should effect it by his own easy act of gracious Will; an idea which thence blended itself with the sublime one of Voluntary Self-Sacrifice. XXVIII. The character of Christ is not a model for us. Besides its moral precepts, Christianity is said to offer us a perfect model of human virtue in the character of Christ. But if Christ was a Divine Being, or even merely a specially inspired and providentially attended human being, he is manifestly beyond our power of imitation. If the common Christian view be so far departed from, as to say, that his power and knowledge may both be limited, yet that his character is perfect: still, even this supposes him a miraculously gifted being, and therefore above our sphere. Nor in his circumstances any more than in his supposed nature, could he be made a model by ordinary men. As a prophet, as the Messiah, he can be revered, not imitated. Of his private life, where his example would be useful, almost all we know is that he abjured all domestic ties. All we can learn of him gives the conviction that his character was great and good in the highest degree; but this we gather more from the impression he left upon his disciples than from any means of forming our own judgment. In some points the panegyric heaped upon him appears strained and inappropriate, as with regard to his humility and self-devotion. Setting aside the orthodox view, in which he had nothing to do with any human virtue,—and it must be remembered that it was in this view that his humility was praised by the apostles, the humility of a superangelic being in condescending to be made flesh :there was no sign of humility in believing himself to be the chosen One of God, whether it were a true intuition, or a fanatical delusion; neither was it a sacrifice of self in the highest sense, to bear the trials of disappointment, isolation, and personal deprivation, incident to the life of a public reformer, for a few years, and the pangs of crucifixion for a few hours, with the prospect of reigning through the ages of eternity at the right hand of God, the Judge and worshipped Saviour of the world.* * See the chapters on the Character, views, and doctrine of Jesus in Hennell's Origin of Christianity, and on The moral perfection of Jesus in Newman's Phases of Faith. -INTERNAL EVIDENCE.] Christian dispensation, and which, if not provable by reason, yet is in no wise contrary to it); teaches us too, that the rules of the divine government are such, as not to admit of pardon immediately and directly upon repentance, or by the sole efficacy of it: but then teaches at the same time, what nature might justly have hoped, that the moral government of the universe was not so rigid, but that there was room for an interposition, to avert the fatal consequences of vice: which therefore, by this means, does admit of pardon. Revelation teaches us, that the unknown laws of God's more general government, no less than the particular laws by which we experience he governs us at present, are compassionate, as well as good in the more general notion of goodness: and that he hath mercifully provided, that there should be an interposition to prevent the destruction of human kind; whatever that destruction unprevented would have been. 'God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him',-not, to be sure in a speculative, but in a practical sense,-'should not perish': gave his Son in the same way of goodness to the world, as he affords particular persons the friendly assistance of their fellow creatures: when without it, their temporal ruin would be the certain consequence of their follies: though in a transcendent and infinitely higher degree. And the Son of God loved us... and interposed in such a manner as was necessary and effectual to prevent that execution of justice upon sinners, which God had appointed should otherwise have been executed upon them; or in such a manner, as to prevent that punishment from actually following, which, according to the general laws of divine government, must have followed the sins of the world, had it not been for such interposition."* XXVIII. "Jesus Christ has declared' God to Man, not as a prophet merely, but as (what Paul calls him in the Epistle to the Colossians) 'the Image of the invisible God ;"-not merely by announcing the divine will, but by manifesting, as far as our feeble capacities will permit, the divine glory, and shadowing forth the attributes of the invisible and unsearchable God. And this for two purposes most important to mankind; 1st, by a softened and endearing, as well as impressive manifestation of the Deity, to aid and exalt our piety, engaging our affections in the cause of religion; and 2dly, by a bright example of superhuman virtue, seconded by the promise of spiritual aid, to instruct and encourage us in our duty-to illuminate and direct our Christian course-to purify and to elevate our nature. The one purpose, in short, may be said to have been, to bring down God to Man; the other, to lift up Man towards God." "Many, it is true, of the qualities which our Lord displayed, such as his patience under provocation, and fortitude against pain and danger, are such as can belong to Him in his human nature alone, and can present us but a very faint shadow of the attributes of God, considered as such; but still these are attributes of one and the * Butler's Analogy. Part II. chap. v. sec. IV. V. p. 214. XXIX. Christianity is of a revelation Immortality only to rude minds. [CHRISTIAN REVELATION.— It is also alleged as a main object of the Christian revelation to bring life and immortality to light, and to proclaim a future righteous retribution. It must be repeated that the evidence on behalf of the resurrection of Christ, (which is the grand sanction and confirmation offered by Christianity to a doctrine, be it remembered, already firmly believed by the Pharisaic Jews, before the appearance of Christ,) is so unsatisfactory when faithfully examined, as to lead enlightened men in general to fall back upon the natural proofs of immortality as after all the strongest and most reliable: and this is not only for the critical doubts respecting it, but also on such grounds as, that-the resurrection of Christ as a divinely-appointed, or much more as a divine being, is no proof of ours;-his rising again with the same mortal body, whereas we know that ours are dispersed to atoms, makes his resurrection of a quite different kind from what ours must be ;-and the fact of its being a special miracle that was required to raise Jesus, tends to show that in the natural order of things as laid down for ordinary men there would be no resurrection at all. Therefore the Jewish notions perpetuated in the "apostolic narrative, in fact weaken the belief in immortality to thoughtful men of the present age. It is only upon minds of a ruder stamp, which feel rather than think, that the strong energetic belief of the apostles acts with sympathetic force, and by its own vehement assurance makes them believe too. Hence,-and it is important to note this moral effect of the doctrine,-the belief in a future life has acquired an overbalanced character from the reports of the resurrection of Christ : it has attained an influence greater than it would have had in reason, and therefore an unsound, exaggerated, and unwholesome influence. Being an unnatural belief,—that is, at all events, unnatural in this degree of positive assurance,—it has a perverting effect, leading in some to hypocrisy and a pretence of regard to a world to come, while all the real interest is in the present; and in others, where it is genuine, to all sorts of superstitious notions, and practically to a too small estimate of the duties as well as the enjoyments of this life. The idea of a Day of Judgment, gross and material as it is, has led in an untold variety of ways to the neglect of justice here below in the dealings of Christians with their fellow men. And for the accompanying doctrine of the eternity of hell-torments, which if not strictly expressed in Scripture, has been derived from it, it is so manifestly horrible as to need no exposure. It is one of those monstrosities which betray the proper nature of superstition, and have no existence apart from it. It shows that the Jewish savageness of disposition was not all softened away by Christian benevolence; that love for the brethren was not yet enlarged into a love for mankind. -The equal admission of Gentiles with Jews to the benefits of the Christian salvation, chiefly attributable to Paul, was, indeed, a great advance upon the previous Jewish exclusive |