Were these valiant and intelligent champions of the faith of Jesus not adopted and accredited as such in the churches to which they belong; did the Church of Rome furnish ground for thinking her essentially hostile to the fundamental principles and rights of modern society, and that she only tolerates them as Moses tolerated divorce amongst the Jews, "because of the hardness of their heart"; and, on the other hand, did the rejectors of the Supernatural, of the Inspiration of the Scriptures, and of the Divinity of Jesus Christ, predominate in the bosom of Protestantism; and finally, did the latter then become nought but a hesitating system of philosophy; if all these deplorable things were to be realised, I am far from thinking that, owing to such faults, such disasters, the religion of Christ would vanish from the world and definitively withdraw from men its light and its support: the destinies of religion are far above human errors; but still, beyond all doubt, for mankind to be turned back from them, and for the light to return to their soul and harmony to modern society, there would have again to burst out in the human soul and in society one of those immense troubles, one of those revolutionary whirlwinds, whose evils man is compelled actually to undergo before he can derive benefit from its lessons.
On the point of addressing myself to questions more profound and of a less transitory nature, I content myself with having merely indicated what I think of the crisis that agitates Christendom at the present day, as also of its main cause, its perils, and the chances, good or bad, that it holds out for the future. In the work of which the first part is now before the public, I omit all the circumstantial facts and details as well as the discussions that grow out of them, and it is only with the Christian Religion as it is in itself, with its fundamental belief and its reasonableness, that I occupy myself; it has been my purpose to illustrate the truth of Christianity by contrasting it with the systems and the doubts that men set in array against it. It is my intention to avoid all direct and personal polemics; express reference to individuals embarrasses and envenoms all questions in controversy, and gives rise to ill-judged deference or unjust invective, two descriptions of falsity for which alike I feel no sympathy: let me have then for adversaries ideas alone; and whatever these may be, I admit beforehand the possibility of sincerity on the part of those that prefer them. Without this admission all serious discussion is out of the question; and neither the intellectual enormity of the error, nor its awful practical consequences, positively precludes sincerity on the part of him that promulgates it. The mind of man is still more easily led astray than his heart, and is still more egotistical; after having once conceived and expressed an idea, it attaches itself to it as to its own offspring, takes a pride in imprisoning itself in it, as if it were so taking possession of the pure and entire truth.
These Meditations will be divided into four series. In the first, which forms this volume, I explain and establish what constitutes, in my opinion, the essence of the Christian religion; that is to say, what those natural problems are, that correspond with the fundamental dogmas that offer their solution, the supernatural facts upon which these same dogmas repose—Creation, Revelation, the Inspiration of the Scriptures, God according to the Biblical account, and Jesus according to the Gospel narrative. Next to the Essence of the Christian religion comes its history; and this will be the subject of a second series of Meditations, in which I shall examine the authenticity of the Scriptures, the primary causes of the foundation of Christianity, Christian Faith, as it has always existed throughout its different ages and in spite of all its vicissitudes; the great religious crisis in the sixteenth century which divided the Church and Europe between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism; finally those different anti-Christian crises, which at different epochs and in different countries have set in question and imperilled Christianity itself, but which dangers it has ever surmounted. The third Meditation will be consecrated to the study of the actual state of the Christian religion, its internal and external condition: I shall retrace the regeneration of Christianity which occurred amongst us at the commencement of the nineteenth century, both in the Church of Rome and in the Protestant churches; the impulse imparted to it at the same epoch by the Spiritualistic Philosophy that then began again to flourish, and the movement in the contrary direction which showed itself very remarkably soon afterwards in the resurrection of Materialism, of Pantheism, of Scepticism, and in works of historical criticism. I shall attempt to determine the idea, and consequently, in my opinion, the fundamental error of these different systems, the avowed and active enemies of Christianity. Finally, in the fourth series of these Meditations I shall endeavour to discriminate and to characterise the future destiny of the Christian religion, and to indicate by what course it is called upon to conquer completely and to sway morally this little corner of the universe termed by us our earth, in which unfold themselves the designs and power of God, just as, doubtless, they do in an infinity of worlds unknown to us.
I have passed thirty-five years of my life in struggling, on a bustling arena, for the establishment of political liberty and the maintenance of order as established by law. I have learnt, in the labours and trials of this struggle, the real worth of Christian Faith and of Christian Liberty. God permits me, in the repose of my retreat, to consecrate to their cause what remains to me of life and of strength. It is the most salutary favour and the greatest honour that I can receive from His goodness.
Guizot.
Val-Richer, June, 1864.
Meditations
On The Essence Of
The Christian Religion.
First Meditation.
Natural Problems.
From the very origin of the human race, wherever man has existed, or still exists, certain questions have peculiarly and irresistibly fixed his attention, and they continue to do so at the present hour. This arises not alone from a feeling of natural curiosity, or the ardent thirst for knowledge, but from a deeper and more powerful motive: the destiny of man is intimately involved in these questions; they contain the secret not only of all that he sees around him, but of his own being; and when he aspires to solve them, it is not merely because he desires to understand the spectacle of which he is a beholder, but because he feels, and is conscious of being himself an actor in the great drama of existence, and because he seeks to ascertain his own part there, and comprehend his own destiny. His present conduct and his future lot are as much at issue as the satisfaction of his thought. These great problems are, for man, not questions of science, but questions of life: in considering them he feels himself compelled to say, with Hamlet, "To be or not to be, that is the question."