CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

MAN WILL WORSHIP--HE WILL BECOME ASSIMILATED TO THE CHARACTER OF THE OBJECT THAT HE WORSHIPS--CHARACTER OF HEATHEN DEITIES DEFECTIVE AND UNHOLY--FROM THIS CORRUPTING WORSHIP MAN HAS NO POWER TO EXTRICATE HIMSELF.

There are three facts, each of them fully developed in the experience of the human family, a consideration of which will prepare the mind for the investigation which follows. When considered in their relation to each other, and in their bearing upon the moral interests of mankind, they will be seen to be of exceeding importance. We will adduce these facts, in connection with the statements and principles upon which they rest, and show how vital are the interests which depend upon them.

THE FIRST FACT STATED.

There is in the nature of man, or in the circumstances in which he is conditioned, something which leads him to recognise and worship a superior being. What that _something_ is, is not important in our present inquiry:--whether it be a constitutional instinct inwrought by the Maker--whether it be a deduction of universal reason, inferring a first cause from the things that are made--whether it be the effect of tradition, descending from the first worshippers, through all the tribes of the human family--whether any or all of these be the cause, the fact is the same--_Man is a religious being: HE WILL WORSHIP._

In view of this propension of human nature, philosophers, in seeking a generic appellation for man, have denominated him a "religious animal." The characteristic is true of him in whatever part of the world he may be found, and in whatever condition; and it has been true of him in all ages of which we have any record, either fabulous or authentic.

Navigators have, in a few instances, reported that isolated tribes of men, whom they visited, recognised the existence of no superior being: subsequent researches, however, have generally corrected the error; and, in all cases, when it has been supposed that a tribe of men was found believing in no god, the fact has been stated as an evidence of their degradation below the mass of their species, and of their approximation to the confines of brute nature. Of the whole family of man, existing in all ages, and scattered over the four quarters of the globe, and in the isles of the sea, there is scarcely one well-authenticated exception to the fact, that, moved by an impulse of nature, or the force of circumstances, man worships something which he believes to be endowed with the attributes of a superior being.

THE SECOND FACT STATED.

The second fact, connected as it is, by the nature of things, with the preceding, assumes the highest degree of importance. It may be stated in the following terms:--_Man_, by worshipping, _becomes assimilated to the moral character of the object which he worships_. This is an invariable principle, operating with the certainty of cause and effect. The worshipper looks upon the character of the object which he worships as the standard of perfection. He therefore condemns everything in himself which is unlike, and approves of everything which is like that character. The tendency of this is to lead him to abandon everything in himself, and in his course of life, which is condemned by the character and precepts of his god, and to conform himself to that standard which is approved by the same criterion. The worshipper desires the favour of the object worshipped, and this, reason dictates, can be obtained only by conformity to the will and the character of that object. To become assimilated to the image of the object worshipped must be the end of desire with the worshipper. His aspirations, therefore, every time he worships, do, from the nature of the case, assimilate his character more and more to the model of the object that receives his homage.

To this fact the whole history of the idolatrous world bears testimony. Without an exception, the character of every nation and tribe of the human family has been formed and modified, in a great degree, by the character attributed to their gods.

From the history of idolatrous nations we will cite a number of familiar cases, confirmatory of the foregoing statement, that man becomes like the object of his worship.

A most striking instance is that of the Scythians, and other tribes of the Northmen, who subdued and finally annihilated the Roman power. Odin, Thor, and others of their supposed deities, were ideas of hero-kings, bloodthirsty and cruel, clothed with the attributes of deity, and worshipped. Their worship turned the milk of human kindness into gall in the bosoms of their votaries, and they seemed, like bloodhounds, to be possessed of a horrid delight when they were revelling in scenes of blood and slaughter. It being believed that one of their hero-gods, after destroying great numbers of the human race, destroyed himself, it hence became disreputable to die in bed, and those who did not meet death in battle frequently committed suicide, supposing that to die a natural death might exclude them from favour in the hall of Valhalla.

Among the gods of the Greeks and Romans there were some names, in the early ages of their history, to which some virtuous attributes were attached; but the conduct and character generally attributed to their gods were marked deeply with such traits as heroism, vengeance, caprice, and lust. In the later history of these nations, their idolatry degenerated in character, and became a system of most debasing tendency.

The heroism fostered by idolatry was its least injurious influence. Pope's couplet, had he thrown a ray or two of light across the background of the dark picture, would have been a correct delineation of the character of pagan idols--

'Gods partial, changeful, passionate, unjust; Whose attributes were rage, revenge, and lust.'

In some cases the most corrupt attributes of human nature, and even of brute nature, were attributed to objects of worship, and while men bowed down to them, they sank themselves to the lowest depths of vice. The Egyptians might be named as an instance. The first patrons of the arts and sciences were brute-worshippers; and it is testified of them that bestiality, the lowest vice to which human nature can descend, was common amongst them. The paintings and sculpture of their divinities, in the mummy catacombs, are for the most part clusters of beasts, birds, reptiles, and flies, grouped together in the most disgusting and unnatural relations; a true indication that the minds of the worshippers were filled with ideas the most vile and unnatural.

The ancient Venus, as worshipped by almost all the elder nations of antiquity, was a personification of lust. The deeds required to be done at her polluting fane, as acts of homage, ought not to be named.

In the best days of Corinth--'Corinth, the eye of Greece'--the most sacred persons in the city were prostitutes, consecrated to the worship of Venus. From this source she derived a large portion of her revenues. The consequence was, that her inhabitants became proverbial for dissoluteness and treachery.

To the heathen divinities, especially those placed at the head of the catalogue as the superior gods, what theologians have called the physical attributes of deity--omnipotent and omnipresent power--were generally ascribed; but their moral character was always defective, and generally criminal. As one of the best instances in the whole mythology of the ancients, the Roman Jupiter might be cited. Had a medal been struck delineating the character of this best of the gods, on one side might have been engraved _Almightiness_, _Omnipresence_, _Justice_; and on the reverse, _Caprice_, _Vengeance_, _Lust_. Thus men clothed depraved or bestial deities with almighty power, and they became cruel, or corrupt, or bestial in their affections, by the reaction of the character worshipped upon the character of the worshipper. In the strong language of a recent writer, 'They clothed beasts and depraved beings with the attribute of almightiness, and in effect they worshipped almighty beasts and devils.' And the more they worshipped, the more they resembled them.

These testimonies concerning the influence of idolatrous worship, and the character of the idols worshipped, are maintained by authorities which render doubt in relation to their credibility impossible. Upon this subject the wiser men among the Greeks and Romans have borne unequivocal testimony. Plato, in the second book of the Republic, speaks of the pernicious influence of the conduct attributed to the gods, and suggests that such histories should not be rehearsed in public, lest they should influence the youth to the commission of crimes. Aristotle advises that statues and paintings of the gods should exhibit no indecent scenes, except in the temples of such divinities as, according to common opinion, preside over sensuality.[1] What an affecting testimony of the most discriminating mind among the heathen, asserting not only the turpitude of the prevailing idolatry, but sanctioning the sensuality of their debauched worship!

[1] Aristot. Politica, vii. 18, ed. Schneider.

As Rome and Greece grew older, the infection of idolatry festered, until the body politic became one mass of moral disease. The state of things, in the later ages of these nations, is well stated by a late writer of the first authority.[2] 'We should naturally suppose,' says this writer, 'that among so great a variety of gods, of religious actions, of sacred vows, at least some better feeling of the heart must have been excited; that at least some truly pious sentiment would have been awakened. But when we consider the character of this superstition, and the testimony of contemporaneous writers, such does not appear to have been the fact. Petronius' history of that period furnishes evidence that temples were frequented, altars crowned, and prayers offered to the gods, in order that they might render nights of unnatural lust agreeable; that they might favour acts of poisoning; that they might cause robberies and other crimes to prosper.' In view of the abominations prevailing at this period, the moral Seneca exclaimed--'How great now is the madness of men! they lisp the most abominable prayers; and if a man is found listening they are silent. What a man ought not to hear, they do not blush to relate to the gods.' Again, says he, 'If any one considers what things they do, and to what things they subject themselves, instead of decency he will find indecency; instead of the honourable, the unworthy; instead of the rational, the insane.' Such was heathenism and its influence in the most enlightened ages, according to the testimony of the best men of those times.

[2] Tholuck on the Influence of Heathenism.

In relation to modern idolatry, the world is full of living witnesses of its corrupting tendency. We will cite, in illustration, a single case or two. The following is extracted from a public document, laid before Parliament by H. Oakley, Esq., a magistrate in Lower Bengal. Speaking of the influence of idolatry in India, he says of the worship of Kalé, one of the most popular idols, 'The murderer, the robber, and the prostitute, all aim to propitiate a being whose worship is obscenity, and who delights in the blood of man and beast; and without imploring whose aid no act of wickedness is committed. The worship of Kalé must harden the hearts of her followers; and to them scenes of blood and crime must become familiar.'

In China, according to Medhurst, the priests of Buddha understand and teach the doctrine of the assimilation of the worshipper to the object worshipped. They say--'Think of Buddha and you will be transformed into Buddha. If men pray to Buddha and do not become Buddha, it is because the mouth prays, and not the mind.'[3]

[3] For a succinct statement of the universal prevalence of false religions, and their corrupting influence, see Ryan on the Effect of Religion upon Mankind, _passim_.

Two facts, then, are philosophically and historically true: First--Man is a religious animal, and will worship something as a superior being. Second--By worshipping he becomes assimilated to the moral character of the object which he worships. And (the God of the Bible out of view for the present) those objects have always had a defective and unholy character.

Here, then, is one great source which has developed the corruption of the family of man. We inquire not in this place concerning the origin of idolatry; whatever or wherever was its origin, its influence has been uniformly the same. As no object of idolatrous worship was ever conceived to be perfectly just and benevolent, but most of them no better than the apotheosis of heroes, or the deification of the imperfect faculties and impure passions of human or brute nature, the result followed, with a certainty as unerring as cause and effect, that man, by following his instinct to worship, would becloud his intellect and corrupt his heart. Notice how inevitable, from the circumstances of the case, was the corruption of man's powers:--He was led to worship by an instinct over which he had no control:--The objects of his worship were, whether he originated them or not, all of them of a character that corrupted his heart; thus the gratification of his instinctive propensities inevitably strengthened the corruption of his nature.

Now it is not our design to inquire whether, or how far, man was guilty in producing this evil condition of things. In considering the facts in the case, the inquiry which forces itself upon the mind is--Were there any resources in human nature, or any means of any kind, of which man could avail himself, by which he might save himself from the debasing influence of idolatrous worship? In reply,

THE THIRD FACT IS STATED.

_There were no means within the reach of human power or wisdom, by which man could extricate himself from the evil of idolatry, either by an immediate or by a progressive series of efforts._

This fact is maintained from the history of idolatry, the testimony of the heathen philosophers, and the nature of man.

1. Instead of man acquiring the power or the disposition, as the race became older, to destroy idolatry--idolatry, from its first entrance into the world, gained power to destroy him. Amid all the mutations of society, from barbarous to civilised, and amid all the conflicts of nations, and the changes of dynasties and forms of government, from the first historic notices which we have of the human family down to the era of Christ, idolatry constantly became more evil in its character and more extended in its influence. It is well ascertained that the first objects of idolatrous homage were few and simple, and the worship of the earliest ages comparatively pure. Man fell into this moral debasement but one step at a time. The sun, moon, stars, and other conspicuous objects of creative power and wisdom received the first idolatrous homage. Afterwards a divinity was supposed to reside in other objects, especially in those men, and beasts, and things which were instrumental in conferring particular benefits on tribes or nations of men. And finally, images of those objects were formed and worshipped. Images, which subsequently became innumerable, were not so in the earliest historic ages. In some nations, they were not allowed until after the era of the foundation of Rome.[4] As the nations grew older, images, which were at the first but few and clothed with drapery, became more numerous, and were presented before the worshippers in a state of nudity, and in most obscene attitudes. And, as has been before stated, their character, from being comparatively innoxious, became, without exception, demoralising in the extreme.

[4] Plutarch says that Numa forbade the Romans to make statues of their gods.

2. During the Augustan age of Rome, and the age of Pericles and Alcibiades in Greece--those periods when the mind had attained the highest elevation ever known among heathen nations--the mass of the people were more idolatrous in their habits, and consequently more corrupt in their hearts, than ever before. The abominations of idol-worship, of the mysteries, and of lewdness, in forms too vile to name, were rife throughout the country and the villages, and had their foci in the capitals of Greece and Rome. Jahn says, in relation to this period, 'Deities increased in number, and the apotheosis of vicious emperors was not unfrequent. Their philosophers, indeed, disputed with much subtlety respecting the architect of the universe, but they knew nothing about the Creator, the holy and almighty Judge of men.'

Some of the more intelligent of the philosophers, perceiving the evil of the prevailing idolatry, desired to refine the grossness of the popular faith. They taught that the facts believed concerning the gods were allegories. Some endeavoured to identify the character of some of their deities with the natural virtues; while many of them became sceptical concerning the existence of the gods and of a future state. Those were, however, but isolated exceptions to the mass of mankind; and had their views been adopted by others, they would only have modified, not remedied the evil. But a contemporary writer shows how entirely unavailing, even to modify the evil, was the teaching of the philosophers. Dionysius of Halicarnassus says, 'There are only a few who have become masters of this philosophy. On the other hand, the great and unphilosophic mass are accustomed to receive these narratives rather in their worst sense, and to learn one of these two things, either to despise the gods as beings who wallow in the grossest licentiousness, or not to restrain themselves even from what is most abominable and abandoned, when they see that the gods do the same.' Cicero, in one sentence, as given by Tholuck, notices both the evil and its cause; confirming, in direct language, the preceding views. 'Instead,' says he, 'of the transfer to man of that which is divine, they transferred human sins to the gods, and then experienced again the necessary reaction.' Such, then, is the testimony of the philosophers in relation to the idolatry of their times. A few gifted individuals obtained sufficient light to see the moral evil in which men were involved, but they had neither wisdom to devise a remedy, nor power to arrest the progress of the moral pestilence that was corrupting the noble faculties of the human soul.

3. It was impossible, from the nature of man, that he should extricate himself from the corrupting influence of idolatry. In this place we wish to state a principle which should be kept in view throughout the following discussion: _If man were ever redeemed from idolatrous worship, his redemption would have to be accomplished by means and instrumentalities adapted to his nature and the circumstances in which he existed._ If the faculties of his nature were changed, he would not be man. If his temporal condition were changed, different means would be necessary; if, therefore, man, as man, in his present condition, were to be recovered, the means of recovery, whether instituted by God or man, must be adapted to his nature and his circumstances.

The only way, then, in which relief was possible for man was, that an object of worship should be placed before the mind directly opposite in moral character to those he had before adored. If his heart was ever purified, it must be by tearing his affections from his gods, and fixing them upon a righteous and holy being as the proper object of his homage. But for man to form such an object was plainly impossible. He could not transfer a better character to his gods than he himself possessed. Man could not 'bring a pure thing out of an impure.' The effect could not rise higher in moral purity than the cause. Human nature, in the maturity of its faculties, all agree, is imperfect and selfish; and, for an imperfect and selfish being to originate a perfect and holy character, deify it, and worship it, is to suppose what is contrary to the nature of things. The thought of the eloquent and philosophic Cicero expresses all that man could do. He could transfer his own imperfect attributes to the gods, and, by worshipping a being characterized by these imperfections, he would receive in himself the reaction of his own depravity.

But if some men had had the power and the disposition to form for the world a perfectly holy object of worship, still the great difficulty, as we have seen in the case of the philosophers, would have remained, that is, a want of the necessary power to arrest the progress of idolatry and substitute the better worship. To doubt the truth of the prevailing idolatry was all that men, at the highest intellectual attainment ever acquired in heathen countries, could do. And if they had had power to convey their doubts to all minds in all the world, it would only have been to place mankind in the chaotic darkness of atheism, and leave them to be led again by their instincts into the abominations of imperfect and impure worship.

The testimony, then, is conclusive, from the history of idolatry, that the evil became greater every age--from the statement of the wisest of the heathen, that they had no power to arrest its progress--and from the nature of man, that it was not possible for him to relieve himself from the corrupting influence of idolatry, in which he had become involved.

From the foregoing facts and reasonings it is plain that the high-born faculties of the human soul must have been blighted for ever, by a corrupting worship, unless two things were accomplished, neither of which it was in the power of human nature to effect; and yet both of which were essentially necessary to accomplish the elevation of man from the pit into which he had fallen.

The first thing necessary to be accomplished was, that _a pure object of worship should be placed before the eye of the soul_. Purity of heart and conscience would be necessary in the object of worship, otherwise the heart and conscience of the worshipper would not be purified. But if an object were presented, whose nature was infinitely opposed to sin--to all defilement, both physical and spiritual--and who revealed, in his example, and by his precepts, a perfect standard to govern the life of man under the circumstances in which he was placed, then man's mind would be enlightened, his conscience rectified, and the hard and corrupt feelings of his heart softened and purified, by assimilation to the object of his worship.--As, according to the nature of things, an unholy object of worship would necessarily degrade and corrupt the human soul; so, on the contrary, a holy object worshipped would necessarily elevate and purify the nature of man.

The second necessary thing in order to man's redemption was, _that when a holy object of worship was revealed, the revelation should be accompanied with sufficient power to influence men to forsake their former worship, and to worship the holy object made known to them_. The presentation of a new and pure object would not cause men to turn from their former opinions and practices, and become directly opposed in heart to what they had formerly loved. A display of power would be necessary, sufficient to overcome their former faith and their present fears, and to detach their affections from idols, and fix them upon the proper object of human homage.

It follows, then, that man must remain a corrupt idolater for ever, unless God interpose in his behalf. The question whether he would thus interpose, in the only way possible, to save the race from moral death, depends entirely upon the benevolence of his nature. The question whether he has done so may be answered by inquiring whether any system of means has been instituted in this world, characterized by sufficient power to destroy idolatry--revealing at the same time a holy object of worship--and this revelation being accompanied by means and influences so adapted to man's nature as to secure the result.

To this inquiry the future pages of this volume will be devoted. The inquiry is not primarily concerning the truth of the Bible; but concerning the only religion possible for mankind, and the only means by which such religion could be given consistently with man's nature and circumstances.