Mystics. 33. Among the theological writers of the Roman church, and in a less degree among protestants, there has always been a class not inconsiderable for numbers or for influence, generally denominated mystics, or, when their language has been more unmeasured, enthusiasts and fanatics. These may be distinguished into two kinds, though it must readily be understood that they may often run much into one another; the first believing that the soul, by immediate communion with the Deity, receives a peculiar illumination and knowledge of truths, not cognisable by the understanding; the second less solicitous about intellectual than moral light, and aiming at such pure contemplation of the attributes of God, and such an intimate perception of spiritual life as may end in a sort of absorption into the divine essence. |Fenelon.| But I should not probably have alluded to any writings of this description, if the two most conspicuous luminaries of the French church, Bossuet and Fenelon, had not clashed with each other in that famous controversy of Quietism, to which the enthusiastic writings of Madame Guyon gave birth. The “Maximes des Saints” of Fenelon I have never seen: the editions of his entire works as they affect to be, do not include what the church has condemned; and the original book has probably become scarce. Fenelon appears to have been treated by his friend, shall we call him? or rival, with remarkable harshness. Bossuet might have felt some jealousy at the rapid elevation of the archbishop of Cambray: but we need not have recourse to this; the rigour of orthodoxy in a temper like his will account for all. There could be little doubt but that many saints honoured by the church had uttered things quite as strong as any that Fenelon’s work contained. Bossuet however succeeded in obtaining its condemnation at Rome. Fenelon was of the second class above-mentioned among the mystics, and seems to have been absolutely free from such pretences to illumination as we find in Behmen or Barclay. The pure disinterested love of God was the main spring of his religious theory. The Divine Œconomy of Poiret, 1686, and the writings of a German quietist, Spener, do not require any particular mention.[741]
[741] Bibl. Universelle, v., 412; xvi., 224.
Change in the character of theological literature. 34. This later period of the seventeenth century was marked by an increasing boldness in religious inquiry; we find more disregard of authority, more disposition to question received tenets, a more suspicious criticism, both as to the genuineness and the credibility of ancient writings, a more ardent love of truth, that is, of perceiving and understanding what is true, instead of presuming that we possess it without any understanding at all. Much of this was associated, no doubt, with the other revolutions in literary opinion; with the philosophy of Bacon, Descartes, Gassendi, Hobbes, Bayle, and Locke, with the spirit which a slightly learned, yet acute generation of men rather conversant with the world than with libraries, to whom the appeal in modern languages must be made, was sure to breathe, with that incessant reference to proof which the physical sciences taught mankind to demand. Hence, quotations are comparatively rare in the theological writings of this age; they are better reduced to their due office of testimony as to fact, sometimes of illustration or better statement of an argument, but not so much alledged as argument or authority in themselves. Even those who combated on the side of established doctrines were compelled to argue more from themselves, lest the public, their umpire, should reject, with an opposite prejudice, what had enslaved the prejudices of their fathers.
Freedom of many writings. 35. It is well known that a disbelief in Christianity became very frequent about this time. Several books more or less appear to indicate this spirit, but the charge has often been made with no sufficient reason. Of Hobbes, enough has been already said, and Spinosa’s place as a metaphysician will be in the next chapter. His Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, published anonymously at Amsterdam, with the false date of Hamburg, in 1670, contains many observations on the Old Testament, which, though they do not really affect its general authenticity and truth, clashed with the commonly received opinion of its absolute inspiration. Some of these remarks were, if not borrowed, at least repeated in a book of more celebrity, Sentimens de quelques Theologiens d’Hollande sur l’Histoire Critique du Père Simon. This work is written by Le Clerc, but it has been doubted whether he is the author of some acute, but hardy, remarks on the inspiration of scripture which it contains. These, however, must be presumed to coincide for the most part with his own opinion; but he has afterwards declared his dissent from the hypothesis contained in these volumes, that Moses was not the author of the Pentateuch. The Archæologia Philosophica of Thomas Burnet is intended to question the literal history of the creation and fall. But few will pretend that either Le Clerc or Burnet were disbelievers in revelation.
Thoughts of Pascal. 36. Among those who sustained the truth of Christianity by argument rather than authority, the first place both in order of time and of excellence is due to Pascal, though his Thoughts were not published till 1670, some years after his death, and, in the first edition, not without suppressions. They have been supposed to be fragments of a more systematic work that he had planned, or perhaps only reflections committed to paper, with no design of publication in their actual form. But, as is generally the case with works of genius we do not easily persuade ourselves that they could have been improved by any such alteration as would have destroyed their type. They are at present bound together by a real coherence through the predominant character of the reasonings and sentiments, and give us everything that we could desire in a more regular treatise without the tedious verbosity which regularity is apt to produce. The style is not so polished as in the Provincial Letters, and the sentences are sometimes ill constructed and elliptical. Passages almost transcribed from Montaigne have been published by careless editors as Pascal’s.
37. But the Thoughts of Pascal are to be ranked, as a monument of his genius, above the Provincial Letters, though some have asserted the contrary. They burn with an intense light; condensed in expression, sublime, energetic, rapid, they hurry away the reader till he is scarcely able or willing to distinguish the sophisms from the truth they contain. For that many of them are incapable of bearing a calm scrutiny is very manifest to those who apply such a test. The notes of Voltaire, though always intended to detract, are sometimes unanswerable; but the splendour of Pascal’s eloquence absolutely annihilates, in effect on the general reader, even this antagonist.
38. Pascal had probably not read very largely, which has given an ampler sweep to his genius. Except the Bible and the writings of Augustin, the book that seems most to have attracted him was the Essays of Montaigne. Yet no men could be more unlike in personal dispositions and in the cast of their intellect. But Pascal, though abhorring the religious and moral carelessness of Montaigne, found much that fell in with his own reflections in the contempt of human opinions, the perpetual humbling of human reason, which runs through the bold and original work of his predecessor. He quotes no book so frequently; and, indeed, except Epictetus, and once or twice Descartes, he hardly quotes any other at all. Pascal was too acute a geometer, and too sincere a lover of truth to countenance the sophisms of mere Pyrrhonism; but, like many theological writers, in exalting faith he does not always give reason her value, and furnishes weapons which the sceptic might employ against himself. It has been said that he denies the validity of the proofs of natural religion. This seems to be in some measure an error, founded on mistaking the objections he puts in the mouths of unbelievers for his own. But it must, I think, be admitted that his arguments for the being of a God are too often à tutiori, that it is the safer side to take.
39. The Thoughts of Pascal on miracles abound in proofs of his acuteness and originality; an originality much more striking when we recollect that the subject had not been discussed as it has since, but with an intermixture of some sophistical and questionable positions. Several of them have a secret reference to the famous cure of his niece, Mademoiselle Perier, by the holy thorn. But he is embarrassed with the difficult question whether miraculous events are sure tests of the doctrine they support, and is not wholly consistent in his reasoning, or satisfactory in his distinctions. I am unable to pronounce whether Pascal’s other observations on the rational proofs of Christianity are as original as they are frequently ingenious and powerful.
40. But the leading principle of Pascal’s theology, that from which he deduces the necessary truth of revelation, is the fallen nature of mankind; dwelling less upon scriptural proofs, which he takes for granted, than on the evidence which he supposes man himself to supply. Nothing, however, can be more dissimilar than his beautiful visions to the vulgar Calvinism of the pulpit. It is not the sordid, groveling, degraded, Caliban of that school, but the ruined archangel that he delights to paint. Man is so great, that his greatness is manifest, even in his knowledge of his own misery. A tree does not know itself to be miserable. It is true that to know we are miserable is misery; but still it is greatness to know it. All his misery proves his greatness; it is the misery of a great lord, of a king, dispossessed of their own. Man is the feeblest branch of nature, but it is a branch that thinks. He requires not the universe to crush him. He may be killed by a vapour, by a drop of water. But if the whole universe should crush him, he would be nobler than that which causes his death, because he knows that he is dying, and the universe would not know its power over him. This is very evidently sophistical and declamatory; but it is the sophistry of a fine imagination. It would be easy, however, to find better passages. The dominant idea recurs in almost every page of Pascal. His melancholy genius plays in wild and rapid flashes, like lightning round the scathed oak, about the fallen greatness of man. He perceives every characteristic quality of his nature under these conditions. They are the solution of every problem, the clearing up of every inconsistency that perplexes us. “Man,” he says very finely, “has a secret instinct that leads him to seek diversion and employment from without; which springs from the sense of his continual misery. And he has another secret instinct, remaining from the greatness of his original nature, which teaches him that happiness can only exist in repose. And from these two contrary instincts there arises in him an obscure propensity, concealed in his soul, which prompts him to seek repose through agitation, and even to fancy that the contentment he does not enjoy will be found, if by struggling yet a little longer he can open a door to rest.”[742]
[742] Œuvres de Pascal, vol. i., p. 121.