Theological Essays and Other Papers Volume I Part 2

_Phil.,_ then, we all understand, is not going to traverse the vast field of Protestant opinions as they are distributed through our many sects; _that_ would be endless; and he ill.u.s.trates the mazy character of the wilderness over which these sects are wandering,

--'ubi pa.s.sim Palantes error recto de tramite pellit,'

by the four cases of--1, the Calvinist; 2, the Newmanite; 3, the Romanist;[Footnote: What, amongst Protestant sects? Ay, even so.

It's _Phil.'s_ mistake, not mine. He will endeavor to doctor the case, by pleading that he was speaking universally of Christian error; but the position of the clause forbids this plea. Not only in relation to what immediately precedes, the pa.s.sage must be supposed to contemplate _Protestant_ error; but the immediate inference from it, viz., that 'the world may well be excused for doubting whether there is, after all, so much to be gained by that liberty of private judgment, which is the essential characteristic of Protestantism; whether it be not, after all, merely a liberty to fall into error,' nails _Phil_. to that construction--argues too strongly that it is an oversight of indolence. _Phil._ was sleeping for the moment, which is excusable enough towards the end of a book, but hardly in section I. P.S.--I have since observed (which _not_ to have observed is excused, perhaps, by the too complex machinery of hooks and eyes between the text and the notes involving a double reference--first, to the section; second, to the particular clause of the section) that _Phil._ has not here committed an inadvertency; or, if he _has,_ is determined to fight himself through his inadvertency, rather than break up his quaternion of cases. 'In speaking of Romanism as arising from a misapplication of Protestant principles; we refer, not to those who were born, but to those who have become members of the Church of Rome.' What is the name of those people? And where do they live? I have heard of many who think (and there _are_ cases in which most of us, that meddle with philosophy, are apt to think) occasional principles of Protestantism available for the defence of certain Roman Catholic mysteries too indiscriminately a.s.saulted by the Protestant zealot; but, with this exception, I am not aware of any parties professing to derive their Popish learnings _from_ Protestantism; it is _in spite of_ Protestantism, as seeming to _them_ not strong enough, or through principles omitted by Protestantism, which therefore seems to _them_ not careful enough or not impartial enough, that Protestants have lapsed to Popery. Protestants have certainly been known to become Papists, not through Popish arguments, but simply through their own Protestant books; yet never, that I heard of, through an _affirmative_ process, as though any Protestant argument involved the rudiments of Popery, but by a _negative_ process, as fancying the Protestant reasons, though lying in the right direction, not going far enough; or, again, though right partially, yet defective as a whole. _Phil._ therefore, seems to me absolutely caught in a sort of _Furcae Caudinae_, unless he has a dodge in reserve to puzzle us all. In a different point, I, that hold myself a _doctor seraphicus_, and also _inexpugnabilis_ upon quillets of logic, justify _Phil._, whilst also I blame him. He defends himself rightly for distinguis.h.i.+ng between the Romanist and Newmanite on the one hand, between the Calvinist and the Evangelican man on the other, though perhaps a young gentleman, commencing his studies on the _Organon_, will fancy that here he has _Phil._ in a trap, for these distinctions, he will say, do not entirely exclude to each other as they ought to do. The cla.s.s calling itself Evangelical, for instance, may also be Calvinistic; the Newmanite is not, _therefore_, anti-Romanish. True, says _Phil_.; I am quite aware of it. But to be aware of an objection is not to answer it. The fact seems to be, that the actual combinations of life, not conforming to the truth of abstractions, compel us to seeming breaches of logic. It would be right practically to distinguish the Radical from the Whig; and yet it might shock _Duns_ or _Lombardus_, the _magister sententiarum_, when he came to understand that partially the principles of Radicals and Whigs coincide. But, for all that, the logic which distinguishes them is right; and the apparent error must be sought in the fact, that all cases (political or religious) being cases of life, are _concretes_, which never conform to the exquisite truth of abstractions. Practically, the Radical _is_ opposed to the Whig, though casually the two are in conjunction continually; for, as _acting_ partisans, they work _from_ different centres, and finally, _for_ different results.] 4, the Evangelical enthusiast--as holding systems of doctrine, 'no one of which is capable of recommending itself to the favorable opinion of an impartial judge.' Impartial! but what Christian _can_ be impartial? To be free from all bias, and to begin his review of sects in that temper, he must begin by being an infidel. Vainly a man endeavors to reserve in a state of neutrality any preconceptions that he may have formed for himself, or prepossessions that he may have inherited from 'mamma;' he cannot do it any more than he can dismiss his own shadow. And it is strange to contemplate the weakness of strong minds in fancying that they can. Calvin, whilst amiably engaged in hunting Servetus to death, and writing daily letters to his friends, in which he expresses his hope that the executive power would not think of burning the poor man, since really justice would be quite satisfied by cutting his head off, meets with some correspondents who conceive (idiots that they were!) even that little amputation not indispensable. But Calvin soon settles _their_ scruples. You don't perceive, he tells them, what this man has been about. When a writer attacks Popery, it's very wrong in the Papists to cut his head off; and why? Because he has only been attacking error. But here lies the difference in this case; Servetus had been attacking the TRUTH. Do you see the distinction, my friends?

Consider it, and I am sure you will be sensible that this quite alters the case. It is shocking, it is perfectly ridiculous, that the Bishop of Rome should touch a hair of any man's head for contradicting _him;_ and why? Because, do you see? _he_ is wrong. On the other hand, it is evidently agreeable to philosophy, that I, John Calvin, should shave off the hair, and, indeed, the head itself (as I heartily hope[Footnote: The reader may imagine that, in thus abstracting Calvin's epistolary sentiments, I am a little improving them. Certainly they would bear improvement, but that is not my business. What the reader sees here is but the result of bringing scattered pa.s.sages into closer juxtaposition; whilst, as to the strongest (viz., the most sanguinary) sentiments here ascribed to him, it will be a sufficient evidence of my fidelity to the literal truth, if I cite three separate sentences. Writing to Farrel, he says, '_Spero_ capitale saltern fore judicium.'

Sentence of the court, he _hopes_, will, at any rate, reach the life of Servetus. Die he must, and die he shall. But why should he die a cruel death? "Paenoe vero atrocitatem remitti cupio."

To the same purpose, when writing to Sultzer, he expresses his satisfaction in being able to a.s.sure him that a princ.i.p.al civic officer of Geneva was, in this case, entirely upright, and animated by the most virtuous sentiments. Indeed! what an interesting character! and in what way now might this good man show thia beautiful tenderness of conscience? Why; by a fixed resolve that Servetus should not in any case escape the catastrophe which I, John Calvin, am longing for, ('ut saltem exitum, _quem optamus_, noa fugiat.') Finally, writing to the same Sultzer, he remarks that--when we see the Papists such avenging champions of their own superst.i.tious fables as not to falter in shedding innocent blood, 'pudeat Christianos magistratus [as if the Roman Catholic magistrates were not Christians] in tuenda _certa_ veritate nihil prorsus habere animi'--'Christian magistrates ought to be ashamed of themselves for manifesting no energy at all in the vindication of truth undeniable;' yet really since these magistrates had at that time the full design, which design not many days after they executed, of maintaining truth by fire and f.a.ggot, one does not see the call upon them for blushes so very deep as Calvin requires. Hands so crimson with blood might compensate the absence of crimson cheeks.]

will be done in this present case) of any man presumptuous enough to contradict _me;_ but then, why? For a reason that makes all the difference in the world, and which, one would think, idiocy itself could not overlook, viz., that I, John Calvin, am right--right, through three degrees of comparison--right, righter, or more right, rightest, or most right. Calvin fancied that he could demonstrate his own impartiality.

The self-sufficingness of the Bible, and the right of private judgment--here, then, are the two great charters in which Protestantism commences; these are the bulwarks behind which it intrenches itself against Rome. And it is remarkable that these two great preliminary laws, which soon diverge into fields so different, at the first are virtually one and the same law. The refusal of an oracle alien to the Bible, extrinsic to the Bible, and claiming the sole interpretation of the Bible; the refusal of an oracle that reduced the Bible to a hollow masque, underneath which fraudulently introducing itself any earthly voice could mimic a heavenly voice, was in effect to refuse the coercion of this false oracle over each man's conscientious judgment; to make the Bible independent of the Pope, was to make man independent of all religious controllers. The _self-sufficingness of Scripture_, its independency of any external interpreter, pa.s.sed in one moment into the other great Protestant doctrine of _Toleration_. It was but the same triumphal monument under a new angle of sight, the golden and silver faces of the same heraldic s.h.i.+eld. The very same act which denies the right of interpretation to a mysterious Papal phoenix, renewed from generation to generation, having the antiquity and the incomprehensible omniscience of the Simorg in Southey, transferred this right of mere necessity to the individuals of the whole human race. For where else could it have been lodged? Any attempt in any other direction was but to restore the Papal power in a new impersonation. Every man, therefore, suddenly obtained the right of interpreting the Bible for himself.

But the word '_right_' obtained a new sense. Every man has the right, under the Queen's Bench, of publis.h.i.+ng an unlimited number of metaphysical systems; and, under favor of the same indulgent Bench, we all enjoy the unlimited right of laughing at him. But not the whole race of man has a right to _coerce_, in the exercise of his intellectual rights, the humblest of individuals. The rights of men are thus unspeakably elevated; for, being now freed from all anxiety, being sacred as merely _legal_ rights, they suddenly rise into a new mode of responsibility as _intellectual_ rights. As a Protestant, every mature man has the same dignified right over his own opinions and profession of faith that he has over his own hearth. But his hearth can rarely be abused; whereas his religious system, being a vast kingdom, opening by immeasurable gates upon worlds of light and worlds of darkness, now brings him within a new amenability--called upon to answer new impeachments, and to seek for new a.s.sistances. Formerly another was answerable for his belief; if that were wrong, it was no fault of his. Now he has new rights, but these have burthened him with new obligations.

Now he is crowned with the glory and the palms of an intellectual creature, but he is alarmed by the certainty of corresponding struggles. Protestantism it is that has created him into this child and heir of liberty; Protestantism it is that has invested him with these unbounded privileges of private judgment, giving him in one moment the sublime powers of a Pope within his own conscience; but Protestantism it is that has introduced him to the most dreadful of responsibilities.

I repeat that the twin maxims, the columns of Hercules through which Protestantism entered the great sea of human activities, were originally but two aspects of one law: to deny the Papal control over men's conscience being to affirm man's self-control, was, therefore, to affirm man's universal right to toleration, which again implied a corresponding _duty_ of toleration. Under this bi-fronted law, generated by Protestantism, but in its turn regulating Protestantism, _Phil._ undertakes to develope all the principles that belong to a Protestant church. The _seasonableness_ of such an investigation--its critical application to an evil now spreading like a fever through Europe--he perceives fully, and in the following terms he expresses this perception:--

'That we stand on the brink of a great theological crisis, that the problem must soon be solved, how far orthodox Christianity is possible for those who are not behind their age in scholars.h.i.+p and science; this is a solemn fact, which may be ignored by the partisans of short-sighted bigotry, but which is felt by all, and confessed by most of those who are capable of appreciating its reality and importance. The deep Sibylline vaticinations of Coleridge's philosophical mind, the practical working of Arnold's religious sentimentalism, and the open acknowledgment of many divines who are living examples of the spirit of the age, have all, in different ways, foretold the advent of a Church of the Future.'

This is from the preface, p. ix., where the phrase, _Church of the Future_, points to the Prussian minister's (Bunsen's) _Kirche der Zukunft;_ but in the body of the work, and not far from its close, (p. 114,) he recurs to this crisis, and more circ.u.mstantially.

_Phil._ embarra.s.ses himself and his readers in this development of Protestant principles. His own view of the task before him requires that he should separate himself from the consideration of any particular church, and lay aside all partisans.h.i.+p--plausible or not plausible. It is his own overture that warrants us in expecting this. And yet, before we have travelled three measured inches, he is found entangling himself with Church of Englandism.

Let me not be misunderstood, as though, borrowing a Bentham word, I were therefore a Jerry Benthamite: I, that may describe myself generally as _Philo-Phil._, am not less a son of the 'Reformed Anglican Church' than _Phil._ Consequently, it is not likely that, in any vindication of that church, simply _as_ such, and separately for itself, I should be the man to find grounds of exception. Loving most of what _Phil._ loves, loving _Phil._ himself, and hating (I grieve to say), with a theological hatred, whatever _Phil._ hates, why should I demur at this particular point to a course of argument that travels in the line of my own partialities? And yet I _do_ demur. Having been promised a philosophic defence of the principles concerned in the great European schism of the sixteenth century, suddenly we find ourselves collapsing from that alt.i.tude of speculation into a defence of one individual church. n.o.body would complain of _Phil._ if, _after_ having deduced philosophically the principles upon which all Protestant separation from Rome should revolve, he had gone forward to show, that in some one of the Protestant churches, more than in others, these principles had been a.s.serted with peculiar strength, or carried through with special consistency, or a.s.sociated pre-eminently with the other graces of a Christian church, such as a ritual more impressive to the heart of man, or a polity more symmetrical with the structure of English society.

Once having unfolded from philosophic grounds the primary conditions of a pure scriptural church, _Phil._ might then, without blame, have turned sharp round upon us, saying, such being the conditions under which the great idea of a true Christian church must be _constructed_, I now go on to show that the Church of England has conformed to those conditions more faithfully than any other.

But to entangle the pure outlines of the idealizing mind with the practical forms of any militant church, embarra.s.sed (as we know all churches to have been) by preoccupations of judgment, derived from feuds too local and interests too political, moving too (as we know all churches to have moved) in a spirit of compromise, occasionally from mere necessities of position; this is in the result to injure the object of the writer doubly: first, as leaving an impression of partisans.h.i.+p the reader is mistrustful from the first, as against a judge that, in reality, is an advocate; second, without reference to the effect upon the reader, directly to _Phil._ it is injurious, by fettering the freedom of his speculations, or, if leaving their freedom undisturbed, by narrowing their compa.s.s.

And, if _Phil._, as to the general movement of his Protestant pleadings, modulates too little in the transcendental key, sometimes he does so too much. For instance, at p. 69, sec. 35, we find him half calling upon Protestantism to account for her belief in G.o.d; how then? Is this belief special to Protestants? Are Roman Catholics, are those of the Greek, the Armenian, and other Christian churches, atheistically given? We used to be told that there is no royal road to geometry. I don't know whether there is or not; but I am sure there is no Protestant by-road, no Reformation short-cut, to the demonstration of Deity. It is true that _Phil._ exonerates his philosophic scholar, when throwing himself in Protestant freedom upon pure intellectual aids, from the vain labor of such an effort.

He consigns him, however philosophic, to the evidence of 'inevitable a.s.sumptions, upon axiomatic postulates, which the reflecting mind is compelled to accept, and which no more admit of doubt and cavil than of establishment by formal proof.' I am not sure whether I understand _Phil._ in this section. Apparently he is glancing at Kant. Kant was the first person, and perhaps the last, that ever undertook formally to demonstrate the indemonstrability of G.o.d.

He showed that the three great arguments for the existence of the Deity were virtually one, inasmuch as the two weaker borrowed their value and _vis apodeictica_ from the more rigorous metaphysical argument. The physico-theological argument he forced to back, as it were, into the cosmological, and _that_ into the ontological.

After this reluctant _regressus_ of the three into one, shutting up like a spying-gla.s.s, which (with the iron hand of Hercules forcing Cerberus up to daylight) the stern man of Koenigsberg resolutely dragged to the front of the arena, nothing remained, now that he had this pet scholastic argument driven up into a corner, than to break its neck--which he did. Kant took the conceit out of all the three arguments; but, if this is what _Phil._ alludes to, he should have added, that these three, after all, were only the arguments of speculating or _theoretic_ reason. To this faculty Kant peremptorily denied the power of demonstrating the Deity; but then that same _apodeixis_, which he had thus inexorably torn from reason under one manifestation, Kant himself restored to the reason in another (the _praktische vernunft_.) G.o.d he a.s.serts to be a postulate of the human reason, as speaking through the conscience and will, not proved _ostensively_, but indirectly proved as being _wanted_ indispensably, and presupposed in other necessities of our human nature. This, probably, is what _Phil._ means by his short-hand expression of 'axiomatic postulates.' But then it should not have been said that the case does not 'admit of formal proof,' since the proof is as 'formal'

and rigorous by this new method of Kant as by the old obsolete methods of Sam. Clarke and the schoolmen.[Footnote: The method of Des Cartes was altogether separate and peculiar to himself; it is a mere conjuror's juggle; and yet, what is strange, like some other audacious sophisms, it is capable of being so stated as most of all to baffle the subtle dialectician; and Kant himself, though not cheated, was never so much perplexed in his life as in the effort to make its hollowness apparent.]

But it is not the too high or the too low--the two much or the too little--of what one might call by a.n.a.logy the _transcendental_ course, which I charge upon _Phil._ It is, that he is too desultory--too eclectic. And the secret purpose, which seems to me predominant throughout his work, is, not so much the defence of Protestantism, or even of the Anglican Church, as a report of the latest novelties that have found a roosting-place in the English Church, amongst the most temperate of those churchmen who keep pace with modern philosophy; in short, it is a selection from the cla.s.sical doctrines of religion, exhibited under their newest revision; or, generally, it is an attempt to show, from what is going on amongst the most moving orders in the English Church, how far it is possible that strict orthodoxy should bend, on the one side, to new impulses, derived from an advancing philosophy, and yet, on the other side, should reconcile itself, both verbally and in spirit, with ancient standards. But if _Phil._ is eclectic, then _I_ will be eclectic; if _Phil._ has a right to be desultory, then _I_ have a right. _Phil._ is my leader.

I can't, in reason, be expected to be better than _he_ is.

If I'm wrong, _Phil._ ought to set me a better example. And here, before this honorable audience of the public, I charge all my errors (whatever they may be, past or coming) upon _Phil.'s_ misconduct.

Having thus established my patent of vagrancy, and my license for picking and choosing, I choose out these three articles to toy with:--first, Bibliolatry; second, Development applied to the Bible and Christianity; third, Philology, as the particular resource against false philosophy, relied on by _Phil._

_Bibliolatry._--We Protestants charge upon the Ponteficii, as the more learned of our fathers always called the Roman Catholics, _Mariolatry_; they pay undue honors, say we, to the Virgin.

They in return charge upon us, _Bibliolatry_, or a superst.i.tious allegiance--an idolatrous homage--to the words, syllables, and punctuation of the Bible. They, according to _us_, deify a woman; and we, according to _them_, deify an arrangement of printer's types. As to _their_ error, we need not mind _that:_ let us attend to our own. And to this extent it is evident at a glance that Bibliolatrists _must_ be wrong, viz., because, as a pun vanishes on being translated into another language, even so would, and must melt away, like ice in a hot-house, a large majority of those conceits which every Christian nation is apt to ground upon the verbal text of the Scriptures in its own separate vernacular version. But once aware that much of their Bibliolatry depends upon ignorance of Hebrew and Greek, and often upon peculiarity of idiom or structures in their mother dialect, cautious people begin to suspect the whole. Here arises a very interesting, startling, and perplexing situation for all who venerate the Bible; one which must always have existed for prying, inquisitive people, but which has been incalculably sharpened for the apprehension of these days by the extraordinary advances made and making in Oriental and Greek philology. It is a situation of public scandal even to the deep reverencers of the Bible; but a situation of much more than scandal, of real grief, to the profound and sincere amongst religious people.

On the one hand, viewing the Bible as the word of G.o.d, and not merely so in the sense of its containing most salutary counsels, but, in the highest sense, of its containing a revelation of the most awful secrets, they cannot for a moment listen to the pretence that the Bible has benefited by G.o.d's inspiration only as other good books may be said to have done. They are confident that, in a much higher sense, and in a sense incommunicable to other books, it is inspired. Yet, on the other hand, as they will not tell lies, or countenance lies, even in what seems the service of religion, they cannot hide from themselves that the materials of this imperishable book are perishable, frail, liable to crumble, and actually _have_ crumbled to some extent, in various instances. There is, therefore, lying broadly before us, something like what Kant called an antinomy--a case where two laws equally binding on the mind are, or seem to be, in collision. Such cases occur in morals--cases which are carried out of the general rule, and the jurisdiction of that rule, by peculiar deflexions; and from the word _case_ we derive the word _casuistry_, as a general science dealing with such anomalous cases. There is a casuistry, also, for the speculative understanding, as well as for the moral (which is the _practical_) understanding. And this question, as to the inspiration of the Bible, with its apparent conflict of forces, repelling it and yet affirming it, is one of its most perplexing and most momentous problems.

My own solution of the problem would reconcile all that is urged against an inspiration with all that the internal necessity of the case would plead in behalf of an inspiration. So would _Phil.'s_.

His distinction, like mine, would substantially come down to this--that the grandeur and extent of religious truth is not of a nature to be affected by verbal changes such as _can_ be made by time, or accident, or without treacherous design. It is like lightning, which could not be mutilated, or truncated, or polluted.

But it may be well to rehea.r.s.e a little more in detail, both _Phil.'s_ view and my own. Let my princ.i.p.al go first; make way, I desire, for my leader: let _Phil._ have precedency, as, in all reason, it is my duty to see that he has.

Whilst rejecting altogether any inspiration as attaching to the separate words and phrases of the Scriptures, _Phil._ insists (sect. 25, p. 49) upon such an inspiration as attaching to the spiritual truths and doctrines delivered in these Scriptures. And he places this theory in a striking light, equally for what it affirms and for what it denies, by these two arguments--first (in affirmation of the real spiritual inspiration), that a series of more than thirty writers, speaking in succession along a vast line of time, and absolutely without means of concert, yet all combine unconsciously to one end--lock like parts of a great machine into one system--conspire to the unity of a very elaborate scheme, without being at all aware of what was to come after. Here, for instance, is one, living nearly one thousand six hundred years before the last in the series, who lays a foundation (in reference to man's ruin, to G.o.d's promises and plan for human restoration), which is built upon and carried forward by all, without exception, that follow. Here come a mult.i.tude that prepare each for his successor--that unconsciously integrate each other--that, finally, when reviewed, make up a total drama, of which each writer's separate share would have been utterly imperfect without corresponding parts that he could not have foreseen. At length all is finished. A profound piece of music, a vast oratorio, perfect and of elaborate unity, has resulted from a long succession of strains, each for itself fragmentary. On such a final creation resulting from such a distraction of parts, it is indispensable to suppose an overruling inspiration, in order at all to account for the final result of a most elaborate harmony.

Besides, which would argue some inconceivable magic, if we did not a.s.sume a providential inspiration watching over the coherencies, tendencies, and intertessellations (to use a learned word) of the whole,--it happens that, in many instances, typical things are recorded--things ceremonial, that could have no meaning to the person recording--prospective words, that were reported and transmitted in a spirit of confiding faith, but that could have little meaning to the reporting parties for many hundreds of years. Briefly, a great mysterious _word_ is spelt as it were by the whole sum of the scriptural books--every separate book forming a letter or syllable in that secret and that unfinished word, as it was for so many ages. This cooperation of ages, not able to communicate or concert arrangements with each other, is neither more nor less an argument of an overruling inspiration, than if the separation of the contributing parties were by s.p.a.ce, and not by time. As if, for example, every island at the same moment were to send its contribution, without previous concert, to a sentence or chapter of a book; in which case the result, if full of meaning, much more if full of awful and profound meaning, could not be explained rationally without the a.s.sumption of a supernatural overruling of these unconscious co-operators to a common result. So far on behalf of inspiration. Yet, on the other hand, as an argument in denial of any blind mechanic inspiration cleaving to words and syllables, _Phil._ notices this consequence as resulting from such an a.s.sumption, viz., that if you adopt any one gospel, St. John's suppose, or any one narrative of a particular transaction, as inspired in this minute and pedantic sense, then for every other report, which, adhering to the spiritual _value_ of the circ.u.mstances, and virtually the same, should differ in the least of the details, there would instantly arise a solemn degradation.

All parts of Scripture, in fact, would thus be made active and operative in degrading each other.

Such is _Phil._'s way of explaining ?e?p?e?st?a[Footnote: I must point out to _Phil_. an oversight of his as to this word at p. 45; he there describes the doctrine of _theopneustia_ as being that of 'plenary and _verbal_ inspiration,' But this he cannot mean, for obviously this word _theopneustia_ comprehends equally the verbal inspiration which he is denouncing, and the inspiration of power or spiritual virtue which he is subst.i.tuting.

Neither _Phil_., nor any one of his school, is to be understood as rejecting _theopneustia_, but as rejecting that particular mode of _theopneustia_ which appeals to the eye by mouldering symbols, in favor of that other mode which appeals to the heart by incorruptible radiations of inner truth.] (_theopneustia_), or divine prompting, so as to reconcile the doctrine affirming a _virtual_ inspiration, an inspiration as to the truths revealed, with a peremptory denial of any inspiration at all, as to the mere verbal vehicle of those revelations. He is evidently as sincere in regard to the inspiration which he upholds as in regard to that which he denies. _Phil._ is honest, and _Phil._ is able.

Now comes _my_ turn. I rise to support my leader, and shall attempt to wrench this notion of a verbal inspiration from the hands of its champions by a _reductio ad absurdum_, viz., by showing the monstrous consequences to which it leads--which form of logic _Phil._ also has employed briefly in the last paragraph of last month's paper; but mine is different and more elaborate.

Yet, first of all, let me frankly confess to the reader, that some people allege a point-blank a.s.sertion by Scripture itself of its own verbal inspiration; which a.s.sertion, if it really _had_ any existence, would summarily put down all cavils of human dialectics.

_That_ makes it necessary to review this a.s.sertion. This famous pa.s.sage of Scripture, this _locus cla.s.sicus_, or prerogative text, pleaded for the _verbatim et literatim_ inspiration of the Bible, is the following; and I will so exhibit its very words as that the reader, even if no Grecian, may understand the point in litigation. The pa.s.sage is this: ?asa ??af? ?e?p?e?st??

?a? ?fe????, &c., taken from St. Paul, (2 Tim.

iii. 16.) Let us construe it literally, expressing the Greek by Latin characters: _Pasa graphe_, all written lore (or every writing)--_theopneustos_, G.o.d-breathed, or, G.o.d-prompted--_kai_, and (or, also)--_ophelimos_, serviceable--_pros_, towards, _didaskalian_, doctrinal truth. Now this sentence, when thus rendered into English according to the rigor of the Grecian letter, wants something to complete its sense--it wants an _is_. There is a subject, as the logicians say, and there is a predicate (or, something affirmed of that subject), but there is no _copula_ to connect them--we miss the _is_. This omission is common in Greek, but cannot be allowed in English. The _is_ must be supplied; but _where_ must it be supplied? That's the very question, for there is a choice between two places; and, according to the choice, will the word _theopneustos_ become part of the subject, or part of the predicate; which will make a world of difference. Let us try it both ways:--

1. All writing inspired by G.o.d (_i.e._ being inspired by G.o.d, supposing it inspired, which makes _theopneustos_ part of the subject) _is_ also profitable for teaching, &c.

2. All writing _is_ inspired by G.o.d, and profitable, &c. (which makes _theopneustos_ part of the predicate.)

Now, in this last way of construing the text, which is the way adopted by our authorized version, one objection strikes everybody at a glance, viz., that St. Paul could not possibly mean to say of all writing, indiscriminately, that it was divinely inspired, this being so revoltingly opposed to the truth. It follows, therefore, that, on this way of interpolating the _is_, we must understand the Apostle to use the word _graphe_, writing, in a restricted sense, not for writing generally, but for sacred writing, or (as our English phrase runs) '_Holy Writ;_' upon which will arise three separate demurs--_first_, one already stated by _Phil._, viz., that, when _graphe_ is used in this sense, it is accompanied by the article; the phrase is either ???af?, 'the writing,' or else (as in St. Luke) ?? ??afa?, 'the writings,' just as in English it is said, 'the Scripture,'

or 'the Scriptures.' _Secondly_, that, according to the Greek usage, this would not be the natural place for introducing the _is_. _Thirdly_--which disarms the whole objection from this text, _howsoever_ construed--that, after all, it leaves the dispute with the bibliolaters wholly untouched. We also, the anti-bibliolaters, say that all Scripture is inspired, though we may not therefore suppose the Apostle to be here insisting on that doctrine. But no matter whether he is or not, in relation to this dispute. Both parties are contending for the inspiration--so far they are agreed; the question between them arises upon quite another point, viz., as to the _mode_ of that inspiration, whether incarnating its golden light in the corruptibilities of peris.h.i.+ng syllables, or in the sanct.i.ties of indefeasible, word-transcending ideas. Now, upon that question, the apostolic words, torture them how you please, say nothing at all.

There is, then, no such dogma (or, to speak _Germanice_, no such _macht-spruch_) in behalf of verbal inspiration as has been ascribed to St. Paul, and I pa.s.s to my own argument against it.

This argument turns upon the self-confounding tendency of the common form ascribed to ?e?p?e?st?a, or divine inspiration. When translated from its true and lofty sense of an inspiration--brooding, with outstretched wings, over the mighty abyss of _secret_ truth--to the vulgar sense of an inspiration, burrowing, like a rabbit or a worm, in grammatical quillets and syllables, mark how it comes down to nothing at all; mark how a stream, pretending to derive itself from a heavenly fountain, is finally lost and confounded in a mora.s.s of human perplexities.

First of all, at starting, we have the inspiration (No. 1) to the original composers of the sacred books. _That_ I grant, though distinguis.h.i.+ng as to its nature.

Next, we want another inspiration (No. 2) for the countless _translators_ of the Bible. Of what use is it to a German, to a Swiss, or to a Scotsman, that, three thousand years before the Reformation, the author of the Pentateuch was kept from erring by a divine restraint over his words, if the authors of this Reformation--Luther, suppose, Zwingle, John Knox--either making translations themselves, or relying upon translations made by others under no such verbal restraint, have been left free to bias his mind, pretty nearly as much as if the original Hebrew writer had been resigned to his own human discretion?

Thirdly, even if we adopt the inspiration No. 2, _that_ will not avail us; because many _different_ translators exist. Does the very earliest translation of the Law and the Prophets, viz., the Greek translation of the Septuagint, always agree verbally with the Hebrew? Or the Samaritan Pentateuch always with the Hebrew?

Or do the earliest Latin versions of the entire Bible agree _verbally_ with modern Latin versions? Jerome's Latin version, for instance, memorable as being that adopted by the Romish Church, and known under the name of the _Vulgate_, does it agree verbally with the Latin versions of the Bible or parts of the Bible made since the Reformation? In the English, again, if we begin with the translation still sleeping in MS., made five centuries ago, and pa.s.sing from that to the first _printed_ translation (which was, I think, Coverdale's, in 1535), if we thence travel down to our own day, so as to include all that have confined themselves to separate versions of some one book, or even of some one cardinal text, the versions that differ--and to the idolater of words all differences are important--may be described as countless. Here, then, on that doctrine of inspiration which ascribes so much to the power of _verbal_ accuracy, we shall want a fourth inspiration, No. 4, for the guidance of each separate Christian applying himself to the Scriptures in his mother tongue; he will have to select not one (where is the one that has been uniformly correct?) but a mult.i.tude; else the same error will again rush in by torrents through the license of interpretation a.s.sumed by these many adverse translators.

Fourthly, as these differences of version arise often tinder the _same_ reading of the original text; but as, in the meantime, there are many _different_ readings, here a fifth source of possible error calls for a fifth inspiration overruling us to the proper choice amongst various readings. What may be called a 'textual'

inspiration for _selecting_ the right reading is requisite for the very same reason, neither more nor less, which supposes any verbal inspiration originally requisite for _const.i.tuting_ a right reading. It matters not in which stage of the Bible's progress the error commences; first stage and last stage are all alike in the sight of G.o.d. There was, reader, as perhaps you know, about six score years ago, another _Phil._, not the same as this _Phil._ now before us (who would be quite vexed if you fancied him as old as all _that_ comes to--oh dear, no! he's not near as old)--well, that earlier _Phil._ was Bentley, who wrote (under the name of _Phileleutheros Lipsiansis_) a pamphlet connected with this very subject, partly against an English infidel of that day. In that pamphlet, _Phil._ the first pauses to consider and value this very objection from textual variation to the validity of Scripture: for the infidel (as is usual with infidels) being no great scholar, had argued as though it were impossible to urge anything whatever for the word of G.o.d, since so vast a variety in the readings rendered it impossible to know what _was_ the word of G.o.d. Bentley, though rather rough, from having too often to deal with shallow c.o.xcombs, was really and unaffectedly a pious man. He was shocked at this argument, and set himself seriously to consider it. Now, as all the various readings were Greek, and as Bentley happened to be the first of Grecians, his deliberate review of this argument is ent.i.tled to great attention. There were, at that moment when Bentley spoke, something more (as I recollect) than ten thousand varieties of reading in the text of the New Testament; so many had been collected in the early part of Queen Anne's reign by Wetstein, the Dutchman, who was then at the head of the collators.

Mill, the Englishman, was at that very time making further collations.

How many he added, I cannot tell without consulting books--a thing which I very seldom do. But since that day, and long after Bentley and Mill were in their graves, Griesbach, the German, has risen to the top of the tree, by towering above them all in the accuracy of his collations. Yet, as the harvest comes before the gleanings, we may be sure that Wetstein's barn housed the very wealth of all this variety. Of this it was, then, that Bentley spoke. And what _was_ it that he spoke? Why, he, the great scholar, p.r.o.nounced, as with the authority of a Chancery decree, that the vast majority of various readings made no difference at all in the sense. In the _sense_, observe; but many things _might_ make a difference in the sense which would still leave the doctrine undisturbed. For instance, in the pa.s.sage about a camel going through the eye of a needle, it will make a difference in the sense, whether you read in the Greek word for _camel_ the oriental animal of that name, or a s.h.i.+p's cable; but no difference at all arises in the spiritual doctrine. Or, ill.u.s.trating the case out of Shakspeare, it makes no difference as to the result, whether you read in Hamlet 'to take arms against a _sea_ of troubles,' or (as has been suggested), 'against a _siege_ of troubles;' but it makes a difference as to the integrity of the image.[Footnote: _'Integrity of the metaphor_.'--One of the best notes ever written by Warburton was in justification of the old reading, _sea_. It was true, that against a _sea_ it would be idle to take _arms_. We, that have lived since Warburton's day, have learned by the solemn example of Mrs. Partington, (which, it is to be hoped, none of us will ever forget,) how useless, how vain it is to take up a mop against the Atlantic Ocean. Great is the mop, great is Mrs. Partington, but greater is the Atlantic. Yet, though all arms must be idle against the sea considered literally, and ?ata t?? fa?tas?a?

under that image, Warburton contended justly that all images, much employed, _evanesce_ into the ideas which they represent.

A _sea_ of troubles comes to mean only a _mult.i.tude_ of troubles.

No image of the _sea_ is suggested; and arms, incongruous in relation to the literal sea, is not so in relation to a mult.i.tude; besides, that the image _arms_ itself, evanesces for the same reason into _resistance_. For this one note, which I cite from boyish remembrance, I have always admired the subtlety of Warburton.] What has a sea to do with arms? What has a camel,[Footnote: Meantime, though using this case as an ill.u.s.tration, I believe that _camel_ is, after all, the true translation; first, on account of the undoubted proverb in the East about the _elephant_ going through the needle's eye; the relation is that of _contrast_ as to magnitude; and the same relation holds as to the camel and the needle's eye; secondly, because the proper word for a cable, it has been alleged, is not 'cam_e_lus,'

but 'cam_i_lus.'] the quadruped, to do with a needle? A prodigious minority, therefore, there is of such various readings as slightly affect the _sense;_ but this minority becomes next to nothing, when we inquire for such as affect any _doctrine_.

This was Bentley's opinion upon the possible disturbance offered to the Christian by various readings in the New Testament. You thought that the carelessness, or, at times, even the treachery of men, through so many centuries, must have ended in corrupting the original truth; yet, after all, you see the light burns as brightly and steadily as ever. We, now, that are not bibliolatrists, no more believe that, from the disturbance of a few words here or there, any evangelical truth can have suffered a wound or mutilation, than we believe that the burning of a wood, or even of a forest, which happens in our vast American possessions, sometimes from natural causes (lightning, or spontaneous combustion), sometimes from an Indian's carelessness, can seriously have injured botany. But for _him_, who conceives an inviolable sanct.i.ty to have settled upon each word and particle of the original record, there _should_ have been strictly required an inspiration (No. 5) to prevent the possibility of various readings arising. It is too late, however, to pray for _that_; the various readings _have_ arisen; here they are; and what's to be done now? The only resource for the bibliolatrist is--to invoke a new inspiration (No.4) for helping him out of his difficulty, by guiding his choice. We, anti-bibliolaters, are not so foolish as to believe that G.o.d having once sent a deep message of truth to man, would suffer it to lie at the mercy of a careless or a wicked copyist. Treasures so vast would not be left at the mercy of accidents so vile. Very little more than two hundred years ago, a London compositor, not wicked at all, but simply drunk, in printing Deuteronomy, left out the most critical of words; the seventh commandment he exhibited thus-'Thou _shalt_ commit adultery;' in which form the sheet was struck off. And though in those days no practical mischief could arise from this singular _erratum,_ which English Griesbachs will hardly enter upon the roll of various readings, yet, harmless as it was, it met with punishment. 'Scandalous!' said Laud, 'shocking! to tell men in the seventeenth century, as a biblical rule, that they positively must commit adultery!' The brother compositors of this drunken biblical reviser, being too honorable to betray the individual delinquent, the Star Chamber fined the whole 'chapel.' Now, the copyists of MSS. were as certain to be sometimes drunk as this compositor--famous by his act--utterly forgotten in his person--whose crime is remembered--the record of whose name has perished. We therefore hold, that it never was in the power, or placed within the discretion, of any copyist, whether writer or printer, to injure the sacred oracles. But the bibliolatrist cannot say _that_; because, if he does, then he is formally unsaying the very principle which is meant by bibliolatry. He therefore must require another supplementary inspiration, viz., No. 4, to direct him in his choice of the true reading amongst so many as continually offer themselves.[Footnote: [Footnote: I recollect no variation in the test of Scripture which makes any startling change, even to the amount of an eddy in its own circ.u.mjacent waters, except that famous pa.s.sage about the three witnesses--'_There are three that bare record in heaven_,' &c. This has been denounced with perfect fury as an interpolation; and it is impossible to sum up the quart bottles of ink, black and blue, that have been shed in the dreadful skirmish. Person even, the all-accomplished Grecian, in his letters to Archdeacon Travis, took a conspicuous part in the controversy; his wish was, that men should think of him as a second Bentley tilting against Phalaris; and he stung like a hornet. To be a Cambridge man in those days was to be a hater of all Establishments in England; things and persons were hated alike. I hope the same thing may not be true at present. It may chance that on this subject Master Porson will get stung through his coffin, before he is many years deader. However, if this particular variation troubles the waters just around itself (for it would desolate a Popish village to withdraw its local saint), yet carrying one's eye from this Epistle to the whole domains of the New Testament--yet, looking away from that defrauded village to universal Christendom, we must exclaim--What does one miss? Surely Christendom is not disturbed because a village suffers wrong; the sea is not roused because an eddy in a corner is boiling; the doctrine of the Trinity is not in danger because Mr. Porson is in a pa.s.sion.]

Fifthly, as all words cover ideas, and many a word covers a choice of ideas, and very many ideas split into a variety of modifications, we shall, even after a fourth inspiration has qualified us for selecting the true reading, still be at a loss how, upon this right reading, to fix the right acceptation. So _there,_ at that fifth stage, in rushes the total deluge of human theological controversies. One church, or one sect, insists upon one sense; another, and another, 'to the end of time,' insists upon a different sense. Babel is upon us; and, to get rid of Babel, we shall need a fifth inspiration. No. 5 is clamorously called for.[Footnote: One does not wish to be tedious; or, if one _has_ a gift in that way, naturally one does not wish to bestow it _all_ upon a perfect stranger, as 'the reader' usually is, but to reserve a part for the fireside, and the use of one's most beloved friends; else I could torment the reader by a longer succession of numbers, and perhaps drive him to despair. But one more of the series, viz., No. 6, as a parting _gage d' amitie_, he must positively permit me to drop into his pocket. Supposing, then, that No. 5 were surmounted, and that, supernaturally, you knew the value to a hair's breadth, of every separate word (or, perhaps, composite phrase made up from a constellation of words)--ah, poor traveller in trackless forests, still you are lost again--for, oftentimes, and especially in St. Paul, the words may be known, their sense may be known, but their _logical relation_ is still doubtful.

The word X and the word Y are separately clear; but has Y the dependency of a consequence upon X, or no dependency at all? Is the clause which stands eleventh in the series a direct prolongation of that which stands tenth? or is the tenth wholly independent and insulated? or does it occupy the place of a parenthesis, so as to modify the ninth clause? People that have pracised composition as much, and with as vigilant an eye as myself, know also, by thousands of cases, how infinite is the disturbance caused in the logic of a thought by the mere position of a word as despicable as the word _even_. A mote, that is itself invisible, shall darken the august faculty of sight in a human eye--the heavens shall be hidden by a wretched atom that dares not show itself--and the station of a syllable shall cloud the judgment of a council. Nay, even an ambiguous emphasis falling to the right-hand word, or the left-hand word, shall confound a system.] But we all know, each knows by his own experience, that No. 5 is not forthcoming; and, in the absence of _that,_ what avail for _us_ the others? 'Man overboard!'

is the cry upon deck; but what avails it for the poor drowning creature that a rope being thrown to him is thoroughly secured at one end to the s.h.i.+p, if the other end floats wide of his grasp? We are in prison: we descend from our prison-roof, that seems high as the clouds, by knotting together all the prison bed-clothes, and all the aids from friends outside. But all is too short: after swarming down the line, in middle air, we find ourselves hanging: sixty feet of line are still wanting. To reascend--_that_ is impossible: to drop boldly--alas! _that_ is to die.

Meantime, what need of this eternal machinery, that eternally is breaking like ropes of sand? Or of this earth resting on an elephant, that rests on a tortoise, that, when all is done, must still consent to rest on the common atmosphere of G.o.d? These chains of inspiration are needless. The great ideas of the Bible protect themselves. The heavenly truths, by their own imperishableness, defeat the mortality of languages with which for a moment they are a.s.sociated. Is the lightning enfeebled or dimmed, because for thousands of years it has blended with the tarnish of earth and the steams of earthly graves? Or light, which so long has travelled in the chambers of our sickly air, and searched the haunts of impurity--is that less pure than it was in the first chapter of Genesis? Or that more holy light of truth--the truth, suppose, written from his creation upon the tablets of man's heart--which truth never was imprisoned in any Hebrew or Greek, but has ranged for ever through courts and camps, deserts and cities, the original lesson of justice to man and piety to G.o.d--has that become tainted by intercourse with flesh? or has it become hard to decipher, because the very heart, that human heart where it is inscribed, is so often blotted with falsehoods? You are aware, perhaps, reader, that in the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Asia Minor (and, indeed, elsewhere), through the very middle of the salt-sea billows, rise up, in s.h.i.+ning columns, fountains of fresh water.[Footnote: See Mr. Yates's 'Annotations upon Fellowes's Researches in Anatolia,' as _one_ authority for this singular phenomenon.] In the desert of the sea are found Arabian fountains of Ishmael and Isaac! Are these fountains poisoned for the poor victim of fever, because they have to travel through a contagion of waters not potable? Oh, no! They bound upwards like arrows, cleaving the seas above with as much projectile force as the glittering water-works of Versailles cleave the air, and rising as sweet to the lip as ever mountain torrent that comforted the hunted deer.

It is impossible to suppose that any truth, launched by G.o.d upon the agitations of things so unsettled as languages, _can_ perish. The very frailty of languages is the strongest proof of this; because it is impossible to suppose that anything so great can have been committed to the fidelity of anything so treacherous.

There is laughter in heaven when it is told of man, that he fancies his earthly jargons, which, to heavenly ears, must sound like the chucklings of poultry, equal to the task of hiding or distorting any light of revelation. Had _words_ possessed any authority or restraint over scriptural truth, a much worse danger would have threatened it than any malice in the human will, suborning false copyists, or surrept.i.tiously favoring depraved copies. Even a general conspiracy of the human race for such a purpose would avail against the Bible only as a general conspiracy to commit suicide might avail against the drama of G.o.d's providence. Either conspiracy would first become dangerous when first either became possible.

But a real danger seems to lie in the insensible corruption going on for ever within all languages, by means of which they are eternally dying away from their own vital powers; and that is a danger which is travelling fast after all the wisdom and the wit, the eloquence and the poetry of this earth, like a mountainous wave, and will finally overtake them--their very vehicles being lost and confounded to human sensibilities. But such a wave will break harmlessly against scriptural truth; and not merely because that truth will for ever evade such a shock by its eternal transfer from language to language--from languages dying out to languages in vernal bloom--but also because, if it could _not_ evade the shock, supreme truth would surmount it for a profounder reason. A danger a.n.a.logous to this once existed in a different form. The languages into which the New Testament was first translated offered an apparent obstacle to the translation that seemed insurmountable.

The Latin, for instance, did not present the spiritual words which such a translation demanded; and how _should_ it, when the corresponding ideas had no existence amongst the Romans? Yet, if not spiritual, the language of Rome was intellectual; it was the language of a cultivated and n.o.ble race. But what shall be done if the New Testament wishes to drive a tunnel through a rude forest race, having an undeveloped language, and understanding nothing but war? Four centuries after Christ, the Gothic Bishop Ulphilas set about translating the Gospels for his countrymen. He had no words for expressing spiritual relations or spiritual operations.