[73] This was fighting the ape of Satan with his own weapons. But—this God of Paul's creation—in what, except an ultimate superiority of power, is he distinguishable from Satan and his ape? Those, who have been so quicksighted of late in the discovery of blasphemy, and so bent on punishing it,—have they ever found so clear a case as this which is before us? Would not they have begun at the more proper end, had they begun with the editors of these Epistles?
[74] For this damnation,—on the present as on so many other occasions, those who are so eager to believe, that all who differ from them on a question of evidence, will be consigned to everlasting torments, are indebted to the right reverend translators: the original says condemned. This may be understood to mean—damned in the ordinary sense of the word damned, or whatever less unpleasant result may be more agreeable.
[75] Of this child of the self-appointed Apostle's brain, it seems not altogether improbable, that, in case of need, some further use was in contemplation to be made: with the skin of this bugbear, might, upon occasion, be invested, any person, to whom, either in the character of a declared adversary, or in that of a rival, it might happen, to have become in a certain degree troublesome: a declared adversary,—that is, either a Gentile or an unbelieving Jew: a rival,—that is, one who, believing in the religion of Jesus, adhered to that edition of it, which had the Apostles of Jesus for its publishers, or followed any other edition which was not his: one of those, for example, upon whom we have seen him making such bitter war in his Epistle to his Galatians. Of the two, the believing rival would of course be much more troublesome, than the non-believing adversary, from whom, if let alone, he would not experience an annoyance. Of this rival class were they whose "unrighteousness," 2 Thess. 2:10, had recourse to "deceivableness:" for as to non-believers, no need could they have of deceivableness; to foil him, they had but to turn aside from him, and stand as they were. Those men, whose unrighteousness had recourse to deceivableness, who could they be, but the men of the same description in this respect as those, whom in chapter third of his Epistle to his Galatians, he complains of as having "bewitched" them; and that in such sort, as to have made him so far lose his temper as to call them "foolish:" and that they were rivals, is a matter altogether out of doubt. In a word, rivals were the only troublesome sort of men, who, at the writing of this Epistle, could, with the nameless monster since named Antichrist, be yet to come.
[76] As for that "helmet of faith," which, in the passage first quoted, he has been seen commanding his disciples to put on—of that faith, which is the everlasting object of his so indefatigably repeated "command," and which is always faith in Paul,—for of Jesus scarcely is so much as a word, except the name, to be found in any of his Epistles,—as to this helmet, it is the sort of cap, which a man learned how to put on, when he had made himself perfect, in what may be called the self-deceptive exercise, or in a word the exercise of faith. It is composed of two very simple operations: at the word of command, the recruit turns its face to the arguments on one side; at the word of command, it turns its back to those on the other side. The test of perfection is—its being able to hold in its embrace, for any length of time, both parts together of a self-contradictory proposition; such as, that three man's-persons,—to use the German word, or if any other sorts of persons there are three others,—are but one. When the helmet sits close enough on his head to enable him to do this, there is no fear of its falling off. Holding fast to improbabilities, how absurd and extravagant soever, is thenceforward but child's play to him:—for example, belief in the future existence of Paul's Antichrist: including, the coming on of those scenes, in which that raw-head and bloody bones is to be the principal performer.
To this, as to anything else, the mind of man is capable of being brought, by assurances of infinite enjoyment, in case of his having made himself perfect in this exercise, or of infinite torment in case of his neglecting it: of course, still more effectually, by both assurances put together; and, considering the facility of both operations, easier terms could not very easily be imagined. A capital convenience is—that, for producing faith in this way, not a particle of anything in the shape of evidence is necessary: the place of evidence is supplied by assurance:—by the intensity, real or apparent, of the persuasion, to which expression has been given, by what the preacher has said or done. The more intense the apparent assurance on the one part, the greater the apparent safety, obtained by yielding to it, on the other: and thus it is, that no absurdity can be so flagrant, that the side on which it is found may not be embraced, under the notion of its being the safe side. When Paul, with his accustomed vehemence, was preaching the world's end, so many of his Thessalonians as believed in it, believed, that believing in it was being on the safe side. On the part of the preacher, the more vehement and impudent the assurance, the greater on the part of the disciple, the apparent danger on the disbelieving, the apparent safety on the believing side.
By this means are produced the signs and wonders we read of in the Epistles of our modern missionaries; for, how conclusive soever the evidence may be, which the assertions they employ might call in for their support,—conclusive to every reasonable mind by which it was received,—assuredly it is not by the evidence, but by the unsupported assertion, that, on the occasion of those exploits of theirs,—whatever credence has place, is produced.