A Discourse of Matters Pertaining to Religion

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Preface

TO THE FIRST EDITION.

The following pages contain the substance of a series of five lectures delivered in Boston, during the last autumn, at the request of several gentlemen. In preparing the work for the press I have enlarged on many subjects, which could be but slightly touched in a brief lecture. It was with much diffidence that I then gave my opinions to the public in that form ; but considering the state of theological learning amongst us, and the frequent abuse of the name of Religion, I can no longer withhold my humble mite.

o It is the design of this work to recall men from the transient shows of time, to the permanent substance of Religion ; from a worship of Creeds and empty Belief, to a

worship in the Spirit and in Life. If it satisfy ,the doubting soul, and help the serious inquirer to true views of God, Man, the Relation between them, and the Duties which come of that relation ; if it make Religion appear more congenial and attractive, and a Divine Life more beautiful and sweet than heretofore — ^my end is answered.

^ I have not sought to pull down, but to build up ; to remove the rubbish of human inventions from the fair temple of Divine Truth, that men may enter its shining gates and be blessed now and for ever.

I have found it necessary, though painful, to speak of many popular delusions, and expose their fallacy and dan-

o gerous character, but have not, I trust, been blind to '^ the soul of goodness in things evil,^' though I have taken no great pains to speak smooth things, or say Peace, Peace, -when there was no peace. The subject of Book IV. might seem to require a greater space than I have allowed it, but a cursory examination of many points there hinted at ivi31384Ll

PREFACE.

would require a volume, and I did not wish to repeat what is said elsewhere, and therefore have referred to an " Introduction to the Old Testament on the basis of De Wette,^' which is now in the press, and will probably come before the public in a few months. Some of thQ thoughts here set forth have also appeared in the Dial for 1840 — 1842. I can only wish that the Errors of this book may find no favour, but perish speedily, and that the Truths it humbly aims to set forth may do their good and beautiful work.

"West Boxbuby, Mass 7th May, 1842.

PREFACE

TO THE rOUETH EDITION.

It is now fourteen years since I prepared the first edition of this volume. In that time laborious Germans, some of them men of great genius, have investigated the history of the first and second centuries of the Christian Era with an amount of learning, patience, sagacity, and freedom of thought never before directed to that inquiry. Partly by their help, and partly by my own investigations, I have been led to conclude that the fourth Gospel is not the work of John the Disciple of Jesus, but belongs to a later period, and is of small historical value. This conclusion and its consequences will appear in some alterations made in this volume, which I have carefully revised in the light of the theological science of the present day. I know there are Truths in the Book which must prevail; the Errors connected therewith I invite men to expose and leave them to perish, that the Truths may the more readily do their work. I commit both to the Justice of Mankind.

Contents

PAOB

The Introduction ... ... ... ..'. ... u

Book I. Op Beuoion In General : Or A Discourse Op The Religious Ele*

MENT AMD ITS MANIFESTATIONS.

Chap. I^ An Examination of the Eeligious Element in Man^ and

the Existence of its Object ... ... ... 1

n. Of the Sentiment, Idea, and Conception of Gk)d ... 7

III. Power of the Religious Element ... ... ... 13

IV. The Idea of Religion connected with Science and Life 23 Y. The three great Historical Forms of Religion ... 28

VI. Of certain Doctrines connected with Religion. I. Of the Primitive State of Mankind. II. Of the Immortality

VII. The Influence of the Religious Element on Life ... 84

BOOK n.

tHE RELATION OP THE RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT TO GOD, OR A DISCOURSE

OP INSPIRATION.

CiTAP. I. The Idea and Conception of God ... ... ... 103

II. The Relation of Nature to God ... ... ... 110

III. Statement of the Analogy drawn from God's Relation to

IV. The General Relation of Supply to Want ... ... 118

V. Statement of the Analogy from this Relation ... 122

VI. The Rationalistic View, or Naturalism ... ... 126

VII. The Anti-rationalistic View, or Supematuralism ... 133

VIII. The Natural-Religious View, or Spiritualism ... 138

CONTENl'S.

BOOK m.

THE RELATION OF THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT TO JESUS OP NAZARETH,

OR A DISCOURSE OF CHRISTLAJJITY.

PAOB

Chap. I. Statement of the Question and the Method of Inquiry 163 II. Removal of some Difficulties. Character of the Christian

TIL The Main Features of Christianity ... ... ... 163

IV. The Authority of Jesus, its Real and Pretended Source 172

V. The E*ssential Excellence of the Christian Religion ... 187 VI. The Moral and Religious Character of Jesus of Naza-

Vn. Mistakes about Jesus— his Reception and Influence ... 198

BOOK IV.

THE RELATION OP THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT TO THE GREATEST OP

BOOKS, OR A DISCOURSE OP THE BIBLE.

Chap. I. Position of the Bible — Claims made for it — Statement of

II. An Examination of the Claim's of the Old Testament to be

a Divine, Miraculous, or Infallible Composition ... 218

III. An Examination of the Claims of the New Testament to

be a Divine, Miraculous, or Infallible Composition ... 234

IV. The Absolute Religion independent of Historical Docu-

ments — The Bible as it is ... ... ... 242

V. Cause of the False and the Real Veneration for the Bible 245

BOOK V.

•the RELATION OP THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT TO THE GREATEST OP HUMAN INSTITUTIONS, OR A DISCOURSE OP THE CHURCH.

Chap. I. Claims of the Christian Church ... ... ... 253

II. The Gradual Eormation of the Christian Church ... 258

III. The Fundamental and Distinctive Idea of the Christian

Church — Division of the Christian Sects ... ... 269

rV. The Catholic Party ... ... ... ... 271

V. The Protestant Party ... ... 289

VI. Of the Party that are neither Catholics nor Protestants 316

VII. The Final Answer to the Question 319

THE INTRODUCTION.

"To false Religion we are Indebted for persecutors, «ealots, and bigots ; and perhaps human depravity has assumed no forms, at once more odious and despicable, than those in which it has appeared in such men. I will say nothing of persecution ; it has passed away, I trust, for ever ; and torture will be no more inflicted, and murder no more committed, under pretence of extending the spirit and influence of Christianity. But the temper which produced it still remains; its parent bigotry is still in existence j and what is there more adapted to excite thorough disgust, than the disposition, the feelings, the motives, the kind of intellect and degree of knowledge, discovered by some of those, who are pretending to be the sole defenders and patrons of religious truth in this unhappy world, and the true and exclusive heirs of all the mercy of Crod ? It is a particular misfortune, that when gros4 errors in religion prevail, the vices of which I speak show themselves esi)ecially iu cbe clergy ; and that we find them ignorant, narrow-minded, presumptuous, and, as far as they have it in their power, oppressive and imperious. The disgust which this character iu those who appear as ministers of religion naturally produces, is often transferred to Christianity itself. It ought to ba associated only with that form of religion by which those vices are occasioned.**— Anpsews Nobton, Thoughts on true and false Religion, second edition, p. 15, 16.

THE INTRODUCTIOK

' The history of the world shows clearly that Rehgion is the highest of all human concerns. Yet the greatest good is often subject to the worst abuse. The doctrines and ceremonies tiiat represent the popular rehgion at this time, offer a strange mingling of truth and error. Theology is often confounded with Religion ; men exhaust their strength in believing, and so have Ettle Reason to inquire with, or solid Piety to live by. It requires no prophet to see that what is popularly taught and accepted as Religion is no very divine thing ; not fitted to make the world purer,

o and men more worthy to live in it. In the popular belief of the present, as of all time, there is something mutable and fleeting ; something also which is eternally the same. The former lies on the surface, and all can see it ; the latter lies deep, and often escapes observation. Our popular theology is mainly based on the superficial and transient element. It stands by the forbearance of the sceptic. They who rely on it, are always in danger and always in dread. A doubt strongly put, shakes the pulpits of New England, and wakens the thunder of the churches ; the more reasonable the doubt the greater the alarm. Do men fear lest the mountains fall : Tradition is always uncertain. '' Perhaps yes, perhaps no,^' is all we can say of it. Yet it is made the basis of Religion. Authority is taken for Truth, and not Truth for Authority. Belief is made the Substance of Religion, as Authority its Sanction and Tradition its Ground. The name of Infidel is applied to the best of men ; the wisest^ the most spiritual and heavenly

THE INTRODUCTION.

of our brothers. The bad and the foolish naturally ask^ If the name be deserved, what is the use of Religion, as good men and wise men can be good and wise, heavenly and spiritual, without it ? The answer is plain — ^but not to the blind.

Practical Religion implies both a Sentiment and a Life, o We honour a phantom which is neither life nor sentiment, o Yes, we have two Spectres that often take the place of Religion with us. The one is a Shadow of the Sentiment ; that is our creed, belief, theology, by whatever name we call it. The other is the Ghost of Life ; this is our ceremonies, forms, devout practices. The two Spectres by turns act the part of Religion, and we are called Christians because we assist at the show. Real Piety is expected of but few. He is called a Christian that bows to the Idol of his Tribe, and sets up also a lesser, but orthodox Idol in his own Den. One word of the Prophet is true of our religion — ^Its voice is not heard in the streets. Our theology is full of confusion. They who admit Reason to look upon o it confound the matter still more, for a great revolution of thought can set affairs right.

Religion is separated from Life ; divorced from bed and board. We think to be religious without love for men, and pious with none for God ; or, which is the same thing, that we can love our neighbour without helping him, and God without having an idea of Him. The prevailing theology represents God as a being whofn a good 'man must hate ; Religion is something alien to our nature, which can only rise as Reason falls. A despair of Man pervades our Theology. Pious men mourn at the famine in our churches ; we do not believe in the inspiration of goodness now ; only in the tradition of goodness long ago. For all theological purposes, God might have been buried after the ascension of Jesus. We dare not approach the Infinite One face to face ; we whine and whimper in our brother's name, as if we could only appear before the Omnipresent by Attorney.

Our reverence for the Past is just in proportion to our ignorance of it. We think God was once everywhere in the World and in the Soul ; but has now crept into a corner, as good as dead ; that the Bible was his last word. Instead of the Father of All for our God, we have two

THB INTEODUCTIOK.

Idols ; the Bible, a record of men^s words aaid works ; and Jesus of Nazareth, a man who Uved divinely some centuries ago. These are the Idols of the religious ; our standard of truth; the gods in whom we trust. Mammon, the great Idol of men not reUgious — ^who overtops them both, and has the sincerest worshippers — ^need not now be named. His votaries Tmow they are idolaters ; the other worship in ignorance, their faith fixed meanly on transient things.

I know there are exceptions to this rule. Saints never fail from the earth. Reason will claim some deserted niche in every church. But wise men grieve over our notions of Religion — so poor, so alien to Reason. Pious men weep over our practice of Rehgion — so far from o Christianity. What passes for Christianity in our times is not reasonable ; no man pretends it. It can only be defended by forbidding a reasonable man to open his mouth. We go from the street to the church. What a change ! o Reason and good sense and manly energy, which do their work in the world, have here little to do ; their voice is not heard. The morality, however, is the same in both places ; it has only laid off its working dress, smoothed its face, put on its Sunday clothes.

The popular theology is hostile to man ; teUs us he is an outcast ; not a child of God, but a spurious issue of the devil. He must not even pray in his own name. His duty is an impossible thing. No man can do it. He deserves nothing but damnation. Theology tells him that is all he is sure of. It teaches the doctrine of immortality ; but in such guise that, if true, it is a misfortune to mankind. Its Heaven is a place no man has a right to. Would a good man willingly accept what is not his ? Pray for it ? This theology rests on a lie. Men have made it out of assumptions. The conclusions came from the premises; o but the premises were made for the sake of the conclusions. Each vouches for the other's truth. But what else will vouch for either ? The historical basis of popular doctrines, such as Depravity, Redemption, Resurrection, the Incarnation — ^is it formed of Facts or of No-Facts ? Who shall tell us ? Do not the wise men look after these things ? One must needs blush for the patience of mankind.

THB INTRODUCTION.

But has Religion only the bubble of Tradition to rest on ; no other sanction than Authority ; no substance but Belief f They know little of the matter who say it. Did Bicligion begin with what we call Christianity? Were there no saints before Peter ? ReUgion is the first spiritual o thing man learned ; the last thing he will abandon. There is but one ReKgion, as one Ocean ; though we call it Faith c> iu our church, and Infidehty out of our church.

It is my design in these pages to recall men from the o transient Form to the eternal Substance; from outward and false Belief to real and Inward Life ; from this partial Theology and its Idols of human device, to that universal Religion and its ever-living Infinite God ; from the temples of human Folly and Sin, which every day crumble and fall, to the inner Sanctuary of the Heart, where the still small voice will never cease to speak. I would show men Religion as she is — ^most fair of all God's fairest children. If I fail in this, it is the head that is weak, not the heart that is wanting.

BOOK I.

" Who is there almost that has not opinions planted in him by education time out of mind ; which by that means came to be as the mmiicipal laws of the country, which must not be questioned, but are then looked on with reverence, as the standard of right and wrong, truth and falsehood, when perhaps these so sacred opinions are but the oracles of the nursery, or the traditional grave talk of those who pretend to inform our childhood ; who «(Hvi tl em from hand to hand without ever eiamining them ? .... These ancient pre-occupations of our minds, these several and almost sacred opinions, are to be examined if we will make way for truth, and put our minds in that freedom which belongs and is necessary to them. A mistake is not the less so, and will never grow into a truth, because we have believed it a long time, though perhaps it be the harder to part with; and an error is not the less dangerous, nor the less contrary to truth, because it is cried up and had in veneration by any party.**— Locke, t» King's Lif^ qfhinit second edition, Vol. I. p. 188, 193.

BOOK !•

OF RELIGION IN GENERAL: OR A DISCOURSE OF THB RELIGIOUS ELEMENT AND ITS MANIFESTATIONS.