It is worthy of a passing notice, that from the origin of the Assyrian empire down to the Christian era, the sway, over the whole Pagan world, of the Oriental doctrines, embodied in the Sabian, Magian, Brahminical, Lamaist, Boodhist, and other systems, laid the foundation and prepared the way for the rise and spread of the Mohammedan imposture, after those doctrines had, by the propagation of Christianity, been in some degree intercepted and modified within, and in some directions beyond, the limits of the Roman empire. The theory of the system of Mohammed, like that ascribed to Zoroaster, which aimed to unite the Sabians, who worshipped images, and the Magians, who refused them, with the Jews of Babylon and its provinces after they had renounced idolatry and the doctrine of mediation, involved a union of the same school of Jews in the seventh century, with the nominal but already apostate churches (churches characterized by Gnostic heresies and Pagan corruptions) of Babylonia, Syria, Asia Minor, Egypt, Northern Africa, Spain, &c.
Hence the first and, with respect to the Divine Being, the only article of the Mohammedan faith is that of the Unity. For this, the Jews, the judaizing professors of Christianity, the Cerinthians, Arians, &c., were prepared; and in like manner for the exclusion of the doctrine of mediation and the consequent proscription of images and sacrificial offerings.
Who that considers the character and mission of Mohammed, as depicted Rev. ix. 1-12, and illustrated by the histories of his time, can fail to regard him as, in the hands of the great Adversary, one of the most extraordinary visible agents of his antagonism. With no preliminary indications, like a meteor fallen to the earth, he suddenly appears on the scene. He receives the key and opens the abyss of darkness. The blinding smoke of the pit ascends, and generates a locust army with the power of scorpions, led on by Satan as their king, “whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek, the Destroyer.” As visible head of the apostate faction, he subdues, and with enduring chains of mental darkness manacles and holds fast the Eastern empire: while, in the Western, essentially the like results, under the same leadership, are accomplished by the head of the Papal hierarchy.
These great systems of influence and control, by which, in the Eastern world, the Arch-deceiver held the human mind in bondage, required and depended on implicit, unquestioning faith. Thus, throughout the Roman empire prior to the Advent, and subsequently in the eastern division, under the Mohammedan, and in the western, under the Popish faith.
The shock of the Reformation awaked and roused up the mind of western Europe, and brought new antagonist influences into operation, which, by recalling attention to the Scriptures as the only rule of faith, by giving prominence to the cardinal doctrines of redemption, and by a revival of learning, threatened wholly to subvert the dominion of Popish superstition and imposture.
This aspect of his affairs required a new course of tactics on the part of the great Adversary, by which the tendencies, intellectual, speculative, philosophical, scientific, which were rising and spreading, might be so perverted as to counteract the objects of the Reformation, and, in place of the former outward and vulgar superstition, to give sway to infidelity; a course of tactics adapted to the intellects of men, stimulated to inquiry and earnest in the pursuit of knowledge; a course by which the peculiar doctrines of the Scriptures and of the Reformation, and the reality of inspiration and of miracles, might be explained away, and by which, in effect, the arrogations of the Arch-deceiver and the Pope, of lordship over men’s minds, and over the province of theological dogma, together with an ascendency of influence in the seats of intellectual and physical science, might be imputed and transferred to Human Reason.
Reason, thus deified and installed as in a pontifical chair, progressively developed its hierarchs and suffragans in the seats of learning, secular and sacred, in every part of the Protestant world. Witness the rise, progress and results of this course of tactics in Germany itself. Witness the infidel and atheistic fruits of this homage of reason, in the departments of German metaphysics, theology, criticism, physical science, &c. Witness the stealthy, insidious, infectious inculcation and progress of this infidelity, in the same departments, on this side of the Atlantic,—in some universities and colleges under cover of the principles and discoveries of natural science; in some theological schools, in the name of the science of criticism, interpretation, &c. in lyceums and halls of popular resort, by scientific lectures; and at the doors and in the face of all, by the ceaseless issues of the press.
Can any observer within the precincts of Protestantism account, upon any other view of the subject, for the progress and effects of this infection, with its intuitional, conceptional, subjective and transcendental cant; for its fascinating and transforming power over men previously trained in schools of an opposite character; for its leavenous working in scientific and ecclesiastical fraternities, or its popular effects as administered orally and by the press? Must we not suppose a subtle and powerful agency behind the scenes, as truly as in the case of Gnosticism, Mohammedanism, Romanism, Mormonism? Has not experience shown that a teacher from the pulpit or from a theological or literary chair, who, notwithstanding his knowledge of the Scriptures and of their peculiar doctrines, begins to exhibit signs of his conversion to German rationalism in any respect; to pantheism, idealism, neology, infidelity under any of its designations; soon becomes confident, pertinacious, progressive, and at length is recognized as having ceased to be restrained either by his former principles and professions, or by the authority of the sacred oracles? In short, if the Evil One is still abroad, seeking whom he may devour; if he is what the Scriptures represent him to be; and if, through the great organisms and mediums of domination above referred to, he still carries on his warfare, we must needs conclude, from its nature and results, that he is equally the prime mover and the actuating power of this rationalistic system, deceiver of the educated through their idolatry of reason; as of the ignorant through the imposing forms of superstition and the arts of priestcraft.