Απιστ᾽ ἄπιστα, καινὰ χαινὰ δέρκομαι.
Ἔτερα δ᾽ εφ ἑτερῶν
Κακὰ κακῶν κυρεῖ.[[133]]
Every effort that has been made to find a purely natural and human cause for religion has failed. The wide study of religion which modern scepticism has unweariedly pursued always results in perplexing it the more. Volney went to Palestine to disprove the ancient prophecies, and his book shows their literal and startling fulfilment. Fichte used to open his lectures upon God with the blasphemous remark, “Gentlemen, to-day let us construct the Supreme Being,” but all attempts at such construction have only brought out more clearly the immemorial belief of his creatures in his existence. The permanency of the original traditions of the human family is so remarkable a phenomenon, in view of the perishableness of merely human records, that the most sceptical minds have been struck with fear and amazement. It is like the living proof of the Psalmist’s words: “If I go up into heaven, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and flee to the outermost ends of the earth, thou art there!” Even the pantheism of Brahminism is something entirely distinct from the confusion and chaos of the Religion of Humanity.
Strauss, in his last book, The Old and the New Faith, asks if the modern world is as religious as the ancient world was, and he appears to derive satisfaction from his conclusion that there is a vast falling off in religion. But as he does not deign to define what he means by religion, we are left in the dark. One loses patience with the perverse stupidity of the British and American public, that have always their ears erect for what Strauss will say, and sceptics will complacently assure you that there are arguments in Strauss that have left Christianity in a deplorable plight; whereas the fact is, Strauss’ Life of Christ is familiarly cited in the schools of Germany as an illustration of the futility of an argument against well-authenticated human testimony. Whately wrote a book to prove that such a person as Napoleon Bonaparte never existed, and Strauss wrote a book to prove that Christ never existed, both with equal success.
The true animus of Comte, Strauss, Renan, and the other heads of this school is demoniac hatred of Christ. Why are they for ever attacking him, if, as they claim, all religions are preparative of the advent of this Religion of Humanity? Why can they go into hysterics of admiration over Socrates, Voltaire, and Shakspere, yet foam with fury at the name of Jesus? They will not even credit our Saviour with effecting the slightest moral good in the world, but refer to his blessed religion as a darkness and blight on the human intellect. Surely no true measure for the elevation of humanity would throw aside Christianity. But it is clear that these men have no true love for man. It is only their insufferable pride that will not bend the knee before Christ, or bend it in mockery like Renan and the author of Ecce Homo. They cry out, “Son of David, what have we to do with you?” and their cry is that of lost souls. All the infidel literature about Christ that has appeared so abundantly in the past score of years bears traces of this humanitarian spirit. They fain would make out Christ to be a mere man, but they are in this quandary: that he had no “humanitarian” notions. He came to do the will of his Father. He said nothing about the Sublime Humanity, the greatness and glory of this world, the god-like intellect of man, the progress of vast ideas, the universal diffusion of knowledge, the infinite progressiveness of the species, the force of cosmic influences, and the gorgeous future that will dawn for woman. Therefore, worse than paganism, the Religion of Humanity will not erect a statue to him.
Comte, desirous of giving hierarchical form to positivism, invented a worship and a calendar in which were commemorated three hundred and sixty-five “eminent servitors of humanity” in place of the saints of the Catholic Church. He began with Moses and ended with himself. Among the saints were Bichat, Condillac, Gutenberg, and Frederick II. of Prussia. He also invented a public service, a hymnal, and a certain form of worshipping the Sublime Humanity, by which he probably meant himself. He himself adored the Sublime Humanity as embodied and idealized in a very commonplace lady. Guizot says of him that he made repeated attempts to commit suicide, and in his review of positivism seems to think the insanity of its founder a sufficient refutation of his strange opinions. He admits, however, that long before Comte’s death his religion had made considerable progress in France and in England, where it was enthusiastically embraced by two men who, one would suppose, would be the last to adopt a fantastic creed—J. S. Mill and Wm. Hartpole Lecky, the historian of rationalism.
Toning down the sublimities of the irrepressible Comte, and not deigning to admit his hierarchy or his saints—which, to say the truth, smacked too much of Catholicity—the positivists of England and America contented themselves with a denial of all supernatural religion, and announced with a flourish of trumpets the infinite perfectibility of the human race, the glory of humanity, the cosmic emotion which is the deepest religious feeling of humanity, and the superiority of aggregate immortality to a private or personal existence after death. Man, very much in the abstract, was exalted to the throne of the Deity. All this blatant puffing of modern progress, development, and evolution is kept up by these man-worshippers. The spirit is the spirit of pride. But it must in justice be said of Mr. Frothingham that he is not so enthusiastic in the cause of humanity as he might be. His book on the subject is quite tame when contrasted, say, with Comte’s Woman and Priest. He does not gush enough, and he has not the irreverent boldness of his master, Theodore Parker. Mr. Frothingham is not by any means an emotional man, and this is fatal to his humanitarian progress. Nor is he a deeply-read man even in his own theology, though, to be sure, no sane man would blame him for that defect.
The doctrine of the infinite progressiveness of man is another of those high-sounding phrases that no logic will tolerate. There can be no internal progress in religion. All the scientific discoveries that may be made to the end of time will not have the slightest influence upon one jot or one tittle of revealed truth. Nor will they have any essential or related power over the truths of natural theology, or what is generally known as such. The relations of man to God, the coming of Christ, the establishment and conservation of his church, are truths and facts that can never be changed. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but the word of God shall not pass. This is why the church is so calm when all Protestantism is in a ferment about science. The two spheres of truth, divine and human, supernatural and natural, can never collide. Man may progress in many things, but religion, the Everlasting Yea, as Carlyle calls it, cannot from its very nature change, transform, advance, increase, or diminish. The humanitarians long for the day when there will be no sects and no religious differences. Then the best plan is for all the sects to enter the Catholic Church. They want a religion for man, and surely that religion is the best which God himself made for man.
There is a great deal of speciousness in this cry of progress, culture, and modern enlightenment, and even Catholics are deceived by the spirit of pride, for man from the beginning loved to consider himself a god knowing good from evil. Humanitarianism gains adherents in Catholic countries who would roar with laughter at the idea of turning Protestants. France never forgets those delusive words, liberty, fraternity, and equality, and this religion of humanity has blazoned them over the world. The restlessness under church government, the rational submission which the faith exacts, the lessons of mortification, and the stern portrayal of man which Christianity presents are all influences that tend to the progress of humanitarianism. No man likes to hear the dread truth regarding his slavery to the devil, the necessity of grace, the duty of confessing, and his unutterable weakness. It is these that are the unpalatable truths which spoil the teaching of the Ideal Man, as they call our Saviour. Comte would not suffer him to be enrolled among his saints, perhaps for the reason that St. Frederick the Great of Prussia used to refer to our Lord as L’Infame. If there is one truth most saliently brought out in the Gospel, it is that without Christ we can do nothing, and this would never suit the apostles of the infinite progressiveness of the human race.