English
But oftenest by far, man, who has had a higher guide assigned him than the mere impulses of even the most amiable temperament, is not able, after letting go the higher guidance, to sustain himself by means of the lower, in a firm balance of the capacities of his mind ; but, if he is depressed by natural sorrow, he carries despondency into things heavenly; or, if doubts are presented to him, he accepts them as certainties; and especially if some strong temptation. MYSTICISM AND SCEPTICISM. 149 like a despot rising amidst anarchy, come over the nnsettled feelings of his fluctuating mind, he bows himself in sinful acqui- escence to its lawless rule; and then again, if his conscience awaken fix>m heavy sleep, he suffers unspeakable pangs of re- morse and bewilderment, like one of weak eyes unbearably scathed by lucid gleams across a shipwreck in darkness ; and perhaps at last the man struggling back to the home of certainty from which he had strayed, takes shelter in some cave of the most abject superstition, having thus passed in turns through many phases of imagination rather than of faith. For it is the sentence of eternal righteousness, that when any kind of per- versity has shrunk from even moderate constraint, it must bow itself at last to a heavier yoke. But many, not even so fortunate as we just now imagined, fall through bewilderment into mon- strous sins, and suffer accordingly a greater abandonment of Gt>d. As they do not choose to retain him in their knowledge, he gives them over to an imdistinguishing mind. Such as these are antinomians, anarchists, criminals without remorse, and, in general, they who stride on in an unblest career, ruining either their own bodies,' or families, or the countries which nurtured them, owning no other guidance than self-will, and acknow- ledging no restraint, imtil, the hand of the Eternal laying hold of them, the retribution of their sin finds them out. Yet how heavy a scourge they have carried, though unacknowledged, all along in their minds, is clear even from the restlessness of their face and gestures, as well as from that rudeness which so often creeps over their manners, as the offspring of unhappiness rather than of intention; though indeed benevolence is generally weak in such men, if it be not altogether extinct : but especially we see the heaviness of the scourge appear from the violence of death, to which such men have often had recourse, because life had become unbearable to them in a world of which they dis- dained to serve the only righteous Ruler. " I do not then myself doubt, that of the two alternatives propounded feuilier back, it suits truth and humility best to 150 CREATION AND EMANATION. consider Grod aa onr Maker, and therefore as transcending even our spiritual conceptions, rather than as a source from which we might be said to have spontaneously bubbled into light. Yet so long as any one retains the spirit of subjection suffi- ciently to acknowledge the Governor, I will not presume to agitate much this question of Maker or Source. Indeed, I had rather abstain from it, out of reverence to him of whom we reason; as well as partly from respect to my venerable friend here, who deserves a distinct consideration of his views; and partly also I cannot help observing, that very devout persons are able to acquire modes of expression, which imply a nearness and a sort of acquaintance with God, such as I can scarcely describe by any less name than kindred, and which goes far to justify men in calling the Divinity a mysterious fountain, from which Humanity is a visible stream. Only such persons do not lose, and it appears to me we must not waive, the idea of government as belonging to God. Nor again do they throw away that positiveness of belief which belongs to things on which the intellect lays hold, and without which religion cannot fill the mind of the whole man. But some arguments, which here suggest themselves, cannot have justice done to them with- out going into those historical records, the discussion of which you have waived. For with the clear positiveness which we require, there must be a regard to the facts of history. Here, if you will excuse me, I observe you are ready to remark, that the variety of claims made by discordant histories presents a difficulty. But to this the reply is obvious, that such claims are so many reasons for inquiring more diligently; since they all agree that there is something to be inquired about. " Here then perhaps we might proceed to discuss the claims of religious records. The mention, however, of devout persons leads me to consider the especial confidence with which they seem to entertain the belief of a friture life as a certainty. We have seen the instincts of mankind rather pointing to such a hope, and the purer affections unwillingly letting it go. Con- PRESENTIMENT WITH PIETY. 151 science also, though a faculty belonging to the scientific, quite as much as to the affectionate element in our mind, throws almost without hesitation its weighty vote into the same side of the Bcale; and pure intellect, without affirming that ho^je is demon- strative, encourages rather than checks the aspiration, both by the nature of its own processes and acquirements, and by the finn conviction which it is compelled to embrace of there being to the world and to our life some Author, among whose attributes must be contriving intellect, or wisdom, and who cannot be without the power of restoring what he made. But now let it be remarked, that all the above grounds of hope, either receive an important accession, or else are sublimated into a form more glorious than they naturally wear, in the experience which de- vout persons believe themselves to acquire by prayer and trust. It was not uninteresting to me to notice in the discourse of the venerable A'ch4rya, that he distinctly affirmed such hopes to become more vivid in pro}X)rtion to a man's sanctity of life. But much more, it appears to me, may devotion have a natural tendency to generate such confidence of hope, when it is directed to a personal Being whose power and goodness admit, on our hypothesis, of neither doubt nor limit, and to whose very like- ness men appear to be in a way transformed, when they are both persuaded of the goodness of his moral attributes, and endeavour by prayer or effort to partake of like qualities. For such pro- perties as righteousness, truth, and love, appear to fall away from that range of things to which accident or death can be fetal, and are in common with that Being to which we ascribe immortality. At least I suppose that in some such way, and perhaps in other ways, as for example by being brought nearer to Him who is emphatically the Life-giver, and whom nothing can approach without being quickened by His contact, but at any rate in some way, though possibly by thoughts more mysterious than I have fully apprehended, men imbibe a con- viction of their souls being destined not to pass away. Perhaps they feel, that as they have contracted a sacred friendship, and 152 BELIGION EXALTING INSTINCT. are become children of one who is alike all-mighty and all- tnithful, he will not, either as their firiend or as their father, give over to extinction those who have loved him and become akin to him. But certainly, for some reason or other, a pious confidence of everlasting life seems firom experience to spring up in men who have a knowledge of the living God. For my own part, I neither dare to speak, or even to think, over-confidently in such things; nor is it my own business to assert the suffi- ciency of pious aspirations without the warrant of some historical groundwork, such as we have not yet laid in the present dis- course. Only, I could not forbear from mentioning what is thought to be the experience of more saintly men; and I will add one more remark upon it. There is no doubt, that both individual men are happier, and also that human virtue flourishes most in communities, in proportion as the expectation of a future life is strong; so that undoubtedly men seek such a hope.