The Eclipse of Faith; Or, A Visit to a Religious Sceptic. Henry Thomas Rogers

The Eclipse of Faith; Or, A Visit to a Religious Sceptic - Henry Thomas Rogers


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truths which were, many of them, transcendental to the human intellect and conscience, and which when revealed were very distasteful (and not least to you); but the assertion of a spiritual monopoly would assuredly sound rather odd in one who professes, if I understand you, that has given to man (for it is no discovery of any individual) an internal and universal revelation! But of your possible limitations of your universal spiritual revelation—which all men 'naturally' possess, but which the 'natural man' receiveth not—we will talk after. Sceptic as I am, I am not a sceptic who is reconciled to scepticism. Meantime, you reject the Bible in toto, as an external revelation of God, if I understand you."

      "In toto; and I believe that it has received in this age its death-blow."

      "Ay, that is what the infidel has been always promising us; meantime, they somehow perish, and it laughs at them. You remember, perhaps, the words of old Woolston, so many fragments of whose criticism, as those of many others, have been incorporated by Strauss. He had, as he elegantly expresses it, 'cut out such a piece of work for the Boylean lectures as should hold them tug as long as the ministry of the letter should last'; for he too, you see, masked his infidelity by a distinction between the 'letter' and the 'spirit,' though he applied the convenient terms in a totally different sense. Poor soul! The fundamental principles of his infidelity are surrendered by Strauss himself. Similarly, a score of assailants of the Bible have appeared and vanished since his day; each proclaiming, just as he himself went to the bottom, that he had given the Bible its death-blow! Somehow, however, that singular book continues to flourish, to Propagate itself, to speak all languages, to intermingle more and more with the literature of all civilized nations; while mankind will not accept, slaves as they are, the intellectual freedom you offer them. It is really very provoking; of what use is it to destroy the Bible so often, when it lives the next minute? I have little doubt your new attempts will end just like the labors of the Rationalists of the Paulus school, so graphically described by the German writer whom I have already referred to. 'It is sad, no doubt,' says he, or something to the same effect, 'that, after fifty years' exegetical grubbing, weeding, and pruning at 'the mighty primitive forest of the Bible, the next generation should persist in saying that the Rationalist had destroyed the forest only in his own addled imagination, and that it is just as it was.'"

      "Yes; but the new weapons will not be so easily evaded as those of a past age."

      "Will they not? We shall see. You must not prophesy; in that, you know, you do not believe."

      "No; but nevertheless we shall see so-called sacred dogma and history exploded, for Mr. Newman—"

      "Thinks so, of course; and he must be right, because he has never been known to be wrong in any of his judgments, or even to vary in them. But we have had enough, I think, of these subjects this evening, and it is too bad to give you only a controversial welcome. I want to have some conversation with you about very different things, and more pleasant just now. We shall have plenty of opportunity to discuss theological points."

      To this Fellowes assented: they resumed general conversation, and

       I finished my letters.

      ——

      July 3. We were all sitting, as on the previous day, in the library.

      "Book-faith!" I heard Harrington say, laughing; "why, as to that I must needs acknowledge that the whole school of Deism, 'rational' or 'spiritual,' have the least reason in the world to indulge in sneers at book-faith; for, upon my word, their faith has consisted in little else. Their systems are parchment religions, my friend, all of them;—books, books, for ever, from Lord Herbert's time downwards, are all they have yet given to the world. They have ever been boastful and loud-tongued, but have done nothing; there are no great social efforts, no organizations, no practical projects, whether successful or futile, to which they can point. The old 'book-faiths' which you venture to ridicule have been something at all events; and, in truth, I can find no other 'faith' than what is somehow or other attached to a 'book,' which has been any thing influential. The Vedas, the Koran, the Old Testament Scriptures—those of the New—over how many millions have these all reigned! Whether their supremacy be right or wrong, their doctrine true or false, is another question; but your faith, which has been book-faith and lip-service par excellence, has done nothing that I can discover. One after another of your infidel Reformers passes away, and leaves no trace behind, except a quantity of crumbling 'book-faith.' You have always been just on the eve of extinguishing supernatural fables, dogmas, and superstitions—and then regenerating the world! Alas! the meanest superstition that crawls laughs at you; and, false as it may be, is still stronger than you."

      "And your sect," retorted Fellowes, rather warmly, "if you come to that, is it not the smallest of all? Is that likely to find favor in the eyes of mankind?"

      "Why, no," said Harrington, with provoking coolness; "but then it makes no pretensions to any thing of the kind. It were strange if it did; for as the sceptic doubts if any truth can be certainly attained by man on those subjects on which the 'rational' or the 'spiritual' deist dogmatizes, it of course professes to be incapable of constructing any thing."

      "And does construct nothing," retorted Fellowes.

      "Very true," said Harrington, "and therein keeps its word; which is more, I fear, than can be said with your more ambitious spiritualists, who profess to construct, and do not."

      "But you must give the school of spiritualism time: it is only just born. You seem to me to be confounding the school of the old, dry, logical deism with the young, fresh, vigorous, earnest school' which appeals to 'insight' and 'intuition.'"

      "No," said Harrington, "I think I do not confound. The first and the best of our English deists derived his system as immediately from intuitions as Mr. Parker or you. You know how it sped—or, if you do not, you may easily discover—with his successors: they continually disputed about it, curtailed it, added to it, altered it, agreed in nothing but the author's rejection of Christianity, and forgot more and more the decency of his style. So will it be with your Mr. Newman and his successors. They will acquiesce in his rejection Christianity; depend upon it, in nothing more. He may get his admirers to abandon the Bible, but they will have naught to do with the 'loves, and joys, and sorrows, and raptures, which he describes in the 'Soul'; they would just as soon read the 'Canticles.'"

      "I really cannot admit," said Fellowes, "that we modern spiritualists are to be confounded with Lord Herbert."

      "Not confounded with him, certainly," replied Harrington, "but identified with him you may be; except to be sure, that he was convinced of the immortality of man as one of the few articles of all religion; while many of you deny, or doubt it. The doctrines—"

      "Call them sentiments, rather; I like that term better."

      "O, certainly, if you prefer it; only be pleased to observe that a sentiment felt is a fact, and a fact is a truth, and a truth may surely be expressed in a proposition. That is all I am anxious about at present. If so far, at least, we may not patch up the divorce which Mr. Newman has pronounced between the 'intellect and the 'soul,' it is of no use for us to talk about the matter. I say that Lord Herbert's articles—"

      "There again, 'articles,'" said Fellowes; "I hate the word; I could almost imagine that you were going to recite the formidable Thirty-nine."

      "Rather, from your outcry, one would suppose I was about to inflict the forty save one: but do not be alarmed. The articles neither of Lord Herbert's creed nor of your own, I suspect, are thirty-nine, or any thing like it. The catalogue will be soon exhausted."

      "Here again, 'creed': I detest the word. We have no creed. Your very language chills me. It reminds me of the dry orthodoxy of the 'letter,' 'logical processes,' 'intellectual propositions,' and so forth. Speak of 'spiritual truths' and 'sentiments,' which are the product of immediate 'insight,' of 'an insight into God,' a 'spontaneous impression on the gazing soul,' to adopt Mr. Newman's beautiful expressions, and I shall understand you."

      "I am afraid I shall hardly understand myself then," cried Harrington. "But let us not be scared by mere words, nor go into hysterics at the sound of 'logic' and 'creed,' lest 'sentimental spirituality' be found, like some other 'sentimental' things,


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