Part 8

A course somewhat less gratifying to the eagerness of enthusiastic spirits must be pursued, if the subject of the sacred enigma does not actually stand within our view; if it rest in a foreign region, as, for example, in the region of futurity. It will by no means follow that a symbolic prediction, which remains unfulfilled, ought not to be made the subject of investigation; for as the description doubtless contains, by condensation, the substance of the unknown reality, and perhaps also much of its character, it may, even when mingled with erroneous interpretations, serve important purposes in the excitement of pious hope. The delivery of these enigmas into the hands of the Church, and their intricate intermixture with fulfilled prophecies, and their being everywhere embossed with attractive lessons of piety and virtue, not to mention the explicit invitation to read and study them, may confidently be deemed to convey a full license of examination. Yet in these instances the well-known laws of the peculiar style in which the predictions are enveloped, suggest restrictions and cautions which no humble and pious expositor can overlook. The fault of the dogmatist in prophecy is then manifest. Is a mystic prediction averred to be unfulfilled? then we know, that, by the essential law of its composition, it is designedly, we might say artfully constructed, so as to admit of several, and perhaps of many, plausible interpretations, having nearly equal claims of probability; and we know, moreover, that the special mark couched amid the symbols, and which in the issue is to arbitrate among the various solutions, is drawn from some minute peculiarity in the surface and complexion of the future substance, and therefore cannot be available for the purpose of discrimination, until that substance, in the shape and color of reality, starts forth into day.

The expositor, therefore, who presumptuously espouses any one of the several interpretations of which an enigmatical prophecy is susceptible, and who fondly claims for it a positive and exclusive preference, sins most flagrantly against the unalterable laws of the language of which he professes himself a master. If dogmatism on matters not fully revealed be in all cases blameworthy, it is especially to be condemned in the expositor of enigmatic prophecy; and that, not merely because the events so predicted rest under the awful veil of futurity, and exist only in the prescience of the Deity; but because the chosen style of the communication lays a distinct claim to modesty, and demands suspension of judgment.—The use of symbols speaks a design of concealment; and do we suppose that what God has hidden, the sagacity of man shall discover? In issuing the prediction, he does indeed invite the humble, inquiries of the Church; and in employing symbols which have a conventional meaning he gives a clew to learned research; and yet, by the combination of these symbols in the enigmatic form, an articulate warning is presented against all dogmatical confidence of interpretation.

The adoption of an exclusive theory of exposition will not fail to be followed by an attempt to attach the special marks of prophecy to every passing event; and it is this very attempt which sets enthusiasm in a flame; for it belongs, in common, to all religious irregularities that, though mild and harmless while roaming at large among remote or invisible objects they assume a noxious activity the moment that they fix their grasp upon things near and tangible. There is scarcely any degree of sobriety of temper which can secure the mind against fanatical restlessness when once the habit has been formed of collating, daily, the newspaper and the prophets; and the man who, with a feeble judgment and an excitable imagination, is constantly catching at political intelligence—Apocalypse in hand—walks on the verge of insanity, or worse, of infidelity. In this feverish state of the feelings, mundane interests, under the guise of faith and hope, occupy the soul to the exclusion of "things unseen and eternal;" meanwhile, the heart-affecting elements of piety and virtue become vapid to the taste, and gradually fall into forgetfulness.

The fault of the dogmatical expositor of prophecy is especially manifested when he assumes to determine the chronology of unfulfilled predictions. In the instance of prophetic dates, the different lines of conduct suggested by the different styles of the communication, are readily perceived, and cheerfully observed by judicious and modest interpreters. We may take, for illustration, the predicted duration of the captivity of Judah, which was made known by Jeremiah (xxix. 10) in the intelligible terms of common and popular computation: nor could the supposition of a symbolic sense of the words be admitted by any sober expositor. On the authority of this unequivocal prediction, Daniel, as the time spoken of drew near, made confession and supplication in the full assurance of warranted faith. In this confidence there was no presumption, for his persuasion rested, not on the assumed validity of this or of that ingenious interpretation of symbols; but upon an explicit declaration which needed only to be read—not expounded.

But when the beloved seer received from his celestial informant the date of _seventy weeks_, which should fix the period of the Messiah's advent and preparatory sufferings, the employment of symbolic terms of itself announced the double intention of, at once, revealing the time, and of concealing it. For, as the terms, though mythic, bore a known import, they could not be thought to be absolutely shut up from research; yet, as by the mode of their combination they became susceptible of a considerable diversity of interpretation, the wise and good might, after all their diligence, differ in opinion as to the precise moment of accomplishment. Thus was devout inquiry at once invited and restrained; invited, because the language of the prediction was not unknown; and restrained, because it still asked for interpretation, and admitted a diversity of opinion. Those pious persons, therefore, who, at the time of the Messiah's birth, were "looking for the consolation of Israel," could not, unless favored with personal revelations, affirm "this is the very year of the expected deliverance;" for the symbolic chronology might, with an appearance of reason, bear a somewhat different sense. Yet might such persons, though not perfectly agreed in opinion, lawfully and safely join in an exulting hope, that the time spoken of was not far distant, when the son of David should appear.

The same rule is applicable to the position of the church at the present moment. No one, it may be affirmed, can have given due attention to the questions which have been of late so much agitated, without feeling compelled to acknowledge, that a high degree of probability supports the belief of an approaching extraordinary development of the mystery of providence towards Christendom, and perhaps, towards the whole family of man. That this probability is strong, might be argued from the fact that it has wrought a general concurrence of belief among those whose modes of thinking on most subjects are extremely dissimilar. Christians, amid many contrarieties of opinion, are, with a tacit or an explicit expectation, looking for movement and progression, to be effected either by a quickened energy of existing means, or by the sudden operation of new causes. This probable opinion, if held in the spirit of Christian modesty, affords, under the sanction of the coolest reason, a new and strong excitement to religious hope. He who entertains it may exultingly, yet calmly exclaim, "The night is far spent, the day is at hand;" and this kindling expectation will rouse him to greater diligence in every good work, to greater watchfulness against every defilement of heart, and frivolity of spirit, and inconsistency of conduct: he will strive with holy wakefulness, to live as the disciple should who is "waiting for his Lord." Thus far he can justify the new vivacity of his hopes upon the ground of the permanent motives of religion; for he feels nothing more than a Christian may well always feel; and the opinion he entertains relative to the near accomplishment of ultimate prophecy, serves only as an incitement to a state of mind in which he would fain be found, if called suddenly from the present scene. While giving free admission to sentiments of this sort, he knows that though he should be mistaken in his theoretical premises, he shall certainly be right in his practical inference.

But if the discreet Christian is tempted or solicited to admit an incongruous jumble of political speculations and Christian hopes; if he is called upon to detach in any degree, his attention from immediate and unquestionable duties, and to fix his meditations on objects that have no connection with his personal responsibility; then he will check such an intrusion of turbulence and distraction, the tendency of which he feels to be pernicious, by recollecting that his opinion, how probable soever it may seem, is, at the best, nothing more than _one hypothesis_ among the many, which offer themselves in explanation of an enigmatical prediction. To-day this hypothesis pleases him by its plausibility; to-morrow he may reject it on better information.

Nothing, then, can be much more precise than the line which forms the boundary between the legitimate and an enthusiastic feeling on the subject of prophecy. Is a prediction couched in symbol? is it entangled among perplexing anachronisms? is it studded with points of special reference? We then recognize the hand of Heaven in the art of its construction; and we know that it is so moulded as to admit and invite the manifold diversities of ingenious explication and that, therefore, even the true explication must, until the day of solution, stand undistinguished in a crowd of plausible errors. But for a man to proclaim himself the champion of a particular hypothesis, and to employ it as he might an explicit prediction, is to affront the Spirit of prophecy by contemning the chosen style of his announcements. And what shall be said of the audacity of one who, with no other commission in his hand than such as any man may please to frame for himself, usurps the awful style of the seer, pronounces the doom of nations, hurls thunders at thrones, and worse than this, puts the credit of Christianity at pawn in the hand of infidelity, to be lost beyond recovery, if not redeemed on a day specified by the fanatic for the verification of his word!

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The agitation which has recently taken place on the subject of prophecy, may, perhaps, ere long, subside, and the church may again acquiesce in its old sobrieties of opinion.[3] And yet a different and a better result of the existing controversy seems not altogether improbable; for when enthusiasm has raved itself into exhaustion, and has received from time the refutation of its precocious hopes; and when, on the other side, prosing mediocrity has uttered all its saws, and has fallen back into its own slumber of contented ignorance, then the spirit of research and of legitimate curiosity, which no doubt has been diffused among not a few intelligent students of Scripture, may bring on a calm, learned, and productive discussion of the many great questions that belong to the undeveloped destiny of man. And it may be believed that the issue of such discussions will take its place among the means that shall concur to usher in a brighter age of Christianity.

Not indeed as if any fundamental principle of religion remained to be discovered; for the spiritual church has, in every age, possessed the substance of truth, under the promised teaching of the Spirit of truth. But, obviously, there are many subjects, more or less clearly revealed in the Scriptures, upon which serious errors maybe entertained, consistently with genuine, and even exalted piety: they do indeed belong to the entire faith of a Christian, but they form no part of its basis; they may be detached or disfigured without great peril to the stability of the structure. Almost all opinions relating to the unseen world, and to the future providence of God on earth, are of this extrinsic or subordinate character; and, as a matter of fact, pious and cautious men have, on subjects of this kind, held notions so incompatibly dissimilar, that the one or the other must have been utterly erroneous. But the detection of error always opens a vista of hope to the diligence of inquiry; and with the mistakes of our predecessors before us for our warning, and with a highly improved state of Biblical learning for our aid, it may fairly be anticipated that a devout and industrious reconsideration of the evidence of Scripture will yet achieve some important improvements in the opinions of the church on these difficult and obscure subjects.

Nevertheless, though an expectation of this kind may seem reasonable, there is, on the other hand some ground to imagine that the accomplishment of the inscrutable designs of the Divine Providence may require that the pious should henceforth, as heretofore, continue to entertain not only imperfect, but very mistaken notions of the unseen and the future worlds. Well-founded hopes and erroneous interpretations have been linked together in the history of the church in all ages, even from that hour of fallacious exultation when the mother of a murderer exclaimed—"I have gotten the man from the Lord," the man who should "break the serpent's head." Neither the discharge of present duties, nor the exercise of right affections, nor a substantial preparation for taking a part in the glory that is to be revealed, is perhaps at all necessarily connected with just anticipations of the unknown futurity. Thus, when the infant wakes into the light of this world, every organ presently assumes its destined function: the heaving bosom confesses the fitness of the material it inhales to support the new style of existence; and the senses admit the first impressions of the external world with a sort of anticipated familiarity; and though utterly untaught in the scenes upon which it has so suddenly entered, and inexperienced in the orders of the place where it must ere long act its part, yet it is truly "meet to be a partaker of the inheritance" of life. And thus, too, a real meetness for his birth into the future life may belong to the Christian, though he be utterly ignorant of its circumstances and conditions. But the functions of that new life have been long in a hidden play of preparation for full activity. He has waited in the coil of mortality only for the moment when he should inspire the ether of the upper world, and behold the light of eternal day, and hear the voices of new companions, and taste of the immortal fruit, and drink of the river of life; and then, after perhaps a short season of nursing in the arms of the elder members of the family above, he will take his place in the service and orders of the heavenly house; nor ever have room to regret the ignorances of his mortal state.

The study of those parts of Scripture which relate to futurity should therefore be undertaken with zeal, inspired by a reasonable hope of successful research; and at the same time with the modesty and resignation which must spring from a not unreasonable supposition that all such researches may be fruitless. So long as this modesty is preserved, there will be no danger of enthusiastic excitements, whatever may be the opinions which we are led to entertain.

It must be evident to every calm mind, that the discussion of questions confessedly so obscure, and upon which the evidence of Scripture is limited and of uncertain explication, is ordinarily improper to the pulpit. The several points of the catholic faith afford themes enough for public instruction. But matters of learned debate are extraneous to that faith: they are no ingredients in the bread of life, which is the only article committed to the hands of the teacher for distribution among the multitude. What are the private and hypothetical opinions of a public functionary to those whom he is to teach the principles of the common Christianity? And if these doubtful opinions implicate inquiries which the unlearned can never prosecute, a species of imposition is implied in the attempt to urge them upon simple hearers. It is truly a sorry triumph that he obtains who wins by declamation and violence the voices of a crowd in favor of opinions which men of learning and modesty neither defend nor impugn but with diffidence. The press is the proper organ of abstruse controversy.

[3] Written in 1828.

SECTION VI.

ENTHUSIASTIC PERVERSIONS OF THE DOCTRINE OF A PARTICULAR PROVIDENCE.

No species of enthusiasm, perhaps, is more extensively prevalent, and certainly none clings more tenaciously to the mind that has once entertained it, and none produces more practical mischief, than that which is founded on an abuse of the doctrine of a particular Providence. It is by the fortuities of life that the religious enthusiast is deluded. Chance, under a guise stolen from piety, is his divinity. He believes, and he believes justly, that every seeming fortuity is under the absolute control of the divine hand; but in virtue of the peculiar interest he supposes himself to have on high, he is tempted to think that these contingencies are very much at his command. This belief naturally inclines him to pay more regard to the unusual, than to the common course of events. In contemplating God as the disposer of chances, he becomes forgetful of him who is the governor of the world by known and permanent laws. All the honor which he does to one of the divine attributes, is in fact stolen from the reverence due to another; but he should remember that "the Lord abhorreth robbery for offering."

A propensity to look more to chance than to probability is known invariably to debilitate the reasoning faculty, as well as to vitiate the moral sentiments; and these constant effects are more often aggravated than mitigated by the accession of religious sentiments. The illusions of hope then assume a tone of authority which effectually silences the whispers of common sense; and the imagination, more highly stimulated than when it fed only on things of earth, boldly makes a prey of the divine power and goodness, to the utter subversion of humble piety. A sanguine temper, quickened by perverted notions of religion, easily impels a man to believe that he is privileged or skilled to penetrate the intentions of Providence towards himself; and the anticipations he forms on this ground acquire so much consistency by being perpetually handled, that he deems them to form a much more certain rule of conduct than he could derive from the forecastings of prudence, or even from the dictates of morality.

Delusions of this kind are the real sources of many of those sad delinquencies which so often bring reproach upon a profession of religion. The world loves to call the offender a villain; but in fact he was not worse than an enthusiast. He who, in conducting the daily affairs of life, has acquired the settled habit of calculating rather upon what is possible than upon what is probable, naturally slides into the mischievous error of paying court to Fortune, rather than to Virtue; nor will his integrity or his principles of honor be at all strengthened by the mere metonymy of calling Fortune—Providence. It is easy to fix the eye upon the clouds in expectation of help front above with so much intentness that the tables of right and wrong, which stand before us, shall scarcely be seen. This very expectation is a contempt of prudence; and it is not often seen that those who slight Prudence, pay much regard to her sister—Probity.

Or if consequences so serious do not follow from the notion that the fortuities of life are an available fund at the disposal of the favorite of heaven, yet this belief can hardly fail to spread an infection of sloth and presumption through the character. The enthusiast will certainly be remiss and dilatory in arduous and laborious duties. Hope, which is the incentive to exertion in well-ordered and energetic minds, slackens every effort if the understanding be crazed. The wheel of toil stands still while the devotee implores assistance from above. Or if he possesses more of activity, the same false principle prompts him to engage in enterprises from which, if the expected contingent to be furnished by "Providence," be deducted, scarcely a shred of fair probability remains to recommend the scheme.

If the course of events in human life were as constant and uniform as the phenomena of the material world, none but madmen would build their hopes upon the irregularities by which it is diversified. Nor would the enthusiast do so if he gave heed to the principles that impose order upon the apparent chaos of fortuities from which the many-colored line of human life is spun. To expose, then, the error of those who, on pretext of faith in providence, build presumptuous expectations upon the throws of fortune, we must analyse the confused mass of contingences to which human life is liable. This analysis leaves the folly and impropriety of the enthusiast without excuse.

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Any one who recalls to his recollection the incidents, great and small, that have filled up the days of a year past, will find it easy to divide them into two classes, of which the first, and the larger, comprises those events which common sense and experience might have enabled him to anticipate, and which, if he were wise, he did actually anticipate, so far as was necessary for the regulation of his conduct. The ground of such calculations of futurity is nothing else than the uniform course of events in the material world, and the permanent principles of human nature, and the established order of the social system: for all these, though confessedly liable to many interruptions, are yet so far constant as to afford, on the whole, a safe rule of calculation. If there were no such uniformity in the course of events, the active and reasoning faculties of man would be of no avail to him; for the exercise of them might as probably be ruinous as serviceable. In the whirl of such a supposed anarchy of nature, an intelligent agent must refrain from every movement, and resign himself to be borne along by the eddies of confusion. But this is not the character of the world we inhabit: the connection of physical causes and effects is known and calculable, so that the results of human labor are liable to only a small deduction on account of occasional irregularities. We plant and sow, and lay up stores, and build, and construct machines in tranquil hope of the expected benefit; and indeed, if the variations and irregularities of nature were much greater and more frequent than they are, or even if disappointment were as common as success, the part of wisdom would still be the same; for the laws of nature, though never so much broken in upon by incalculable accidents, would still afford _some_ ground of expectation; and an intelligent agent will always prefer to act on even the slenderest hope which reason approves, rather than to lie supine in the ruinous wheel-way of chance.