CHAPTER IX.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF ERROR.

"Unless you understand a man's ignorance, you are certainly ignorant of his understanding."-COLERidge.

THE very terribleness of the received doctrine of the divine penalty is often made an argument for its truth. How have men come to fear eternal misery, if there be no such thing? How can the delusion, if it be such, be accounted for? Would the God of all truth thus deceive men? They may lie for Him, but we know that He will not lie for them. Would Satan put such a cheat upon us? Why should he fray away from him, with infinite terrors those whom he would fain seduce and destroy? Have men, then, deceived themselves? Why should they, though ever so fond of delusion, affright themselves with such gloomy forebodings? Are they in love with misery? Why have they "thus ever tortured themselves for nought? Why have they indulged in those terrific inventions of fancy, handing down, from age to age, and from generation to generation, a useless, yet most tormenting anxiety?"1

These are pertinent questions; and they are not fully answered by referring to the great precedents of error in the history of mankind. None of the old corruptions of heathenism, nor of the protested errors of Romanism, are like the doctrine of eternal and escapeless woe as the destiny of the majority of men. The notions of infant damnation and of torment by literal fire, now discarded by almost all Protestants, are indeed cogent examples of what exploits of terrible error man can achieve. But either of these may be deemed mere aggravations

1 Tayler Lewis, Plato and the Atheists, p. 322.

of a terror that is real, - the blackened shadows of a substantial truth. And it is not enough to say that malignity has disposed men to believe one another liable to eternal woe; for kind men have feared this for themselves. Nor is it enough to say that superstition accounts for the doctrine; for the most Christian communities and the largest and most fearless minds have cherished it. Yet a most eminent divine has ventured the remark that "even now, after eighteen centuries of Christianity, we may be involved in some enormous error, of which the Christianity of the future will make us ashamed;"1 and we think the terrible doctrine in question may be explained as an error; and that its derivation from the workings of a fallen nature may even illustrate the saying, that "the laws of disease are as beautiful as the laws of health."

§ 1. THE REFLEX INFLUENCE OF THEODICY.

None of the theories of divine justice which we have examined, could, indeed, create the original error. Their office has been to justify and sustain an existing doctrine. But the support they have rendered might establish the opinion in the minds of the wavering, and even persuade the faith of the sceptical. Some of the theodicies are, moreover, expressions of sentiments lying deep in our common nature, which have contributed, we think, to produce the doctrine. These will be noted as we proceed.

In the combination of the two theories of man's dignity is illustrated the nature of philosophy, as distinct from faith in the continuous power and goodness of God. A "nature of things" seems nearer to man, than God is; and he is prone, at whatever hazards, to rest his hopes upon it. The creation which is derived from God is also separated from Him. Projected into

1 Vinet, Personal Profession of Religious Conviction.

being, it subsists without Him. His continued care and power seems needless for it, if not burdensome to Him. He may leave all various things to their various laws. Our confidence in these is flattered by our own power of self-action, the autonomy of our personal being. We no longer live, and move, and have our being, in God; we might even survive Him.

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This mingled reliance on Nature, and distrust of its Author, vitiates our proper philosophy. That ceases to be a conception of things possible; we must conceive many things as necessary. The must be seems to us more reliable than the may tiny is better, if not grander, than privilege. So we turn God's laws the free methods of His constant love-into fetters for His hands. If He promises eternal life, there must be an immortality somewhere, that binds the promise together; and to the forces of nature on this side of God, we add such things as we can imagine on the other side of God; and with our bark thus undergirded and overgirded, we can trust immortal hopes, and immortal fears, too, upon it. This extravagance and perversion of philosophy, we think, explains many such expressions as this: "We have before us life and death; and while God ever invites every man to choose the good, the immutability of His counsel forbids Him to change the laws against which we may dash ourselves into every wreck of self-conscious misery, if we determine to create for ourselves evil." It is illustrated, also, in those theodicies which find in the soul itself a law of eternal sinfulness or eternal sorrow.

§ 3.

THE TEMPORAL AND THE ETERNAL.

Men are prone either to overlook the infinite difference between these, or to reason from one to the other. The first error is illustrated in the common use of the word "everlasting" in a limited sense, and in the careless use of the word "infinite." Thus we often meet such phrases as "infinite stupidity and ingratitude," "infinite perverseness," "infinitely sorry and ashamed," "infinitely suitable," -excusable as hyperboles, but producing utter confusion when employed in theological discus

sion. And because the difference between time and eternity is forgotten, most of those who have debated the question of the origin of evil have not touched the difficulties of its eternity. They have rarely thought that the temporal might be also, and significantly, temporary.

And very often it is expressly argued that if sin exists at all, it may, by parity of reasoning, exist forever. For time, it is said, is a part of eternity; both are subject to the same laws; a moment's space and infinite duration are the same in kind; what may be done in the one may be done in the other.

This view rests partly on the assumption before named, that continued existence lies in the nature of things, and not in the divine good pleasure. It follows that temporal evil may be eternal evil in a natural course, if not terminated by the arbitrary will of the creature, or cut off by a miracle of the Creator. And both views are apparent in the same theodicies.

§ 4. THE UNSEEN WORLD.

Man is prone to regard the immaterial and invisible, as immortal and eternal. They elude his grasp. His power can not arrest them; why should he presume to limit the duration of their being? But in the unseen world are evil spirits,—fallen angels; is not evil eternal in them, and in all who shall prove to be like them?

The existence and agency of evil spirits, which has furnished the great occasion for popular superstition, has encouraged not a few of the theological errors we have noted. "If they have survived their fall temporarily, why may they not do so eternally? If they are permitted to tempt men temporarily, why may they not tempt some or other of God's creatures eternally? Does not God preserve them in being for such a purpose?" Thus the difficulties created by the delay of the divine judgment are taken to show that evil is part of the divine economy. And the false theology is confirmed by a philosophy forgetful of the case of brute souls, and by an exegesis forgetful of the destruction that awaits Satan and his works. It is forgotten that evil angels and

dæmons have not yet received their final doom. If, in terror of this, the dæmons are spoken of by one evangelist as crying out: "Art thou come to destroy us?" and by another, "Art thou come to torment us before the time?"-the varying expressions are made into an argument of eternal indestructibility and torment without end. The recorded fact offered as the great example of the destiny of all evil, the vengeance of eternal fire visited upon Sodom and Gomorrah, is transferred to an unseen world, and erected into a dominion of eternal evil.

This has given similar, if not greater, occasion for the belief of its perpetuity. The inexplicable is even more alarming than the invisible. Hence we are told that "it is absurd to limit the scope of an unknown cause. But the present existence of evil is a mystery no human intellect has ever sounded." The abyss seems like an infinite depth. And indeed, sin, baffling all explanation, does observe no law; it defies all control; it knows no limit save the compulsion of a higher power or its own selfexhaustion. Especially as a mystery does it affect all that is fearful in darkness. As blackness is the symbol of its guilt, so darkness is its covert, the hiding of its power. It comes like a thief- no one knows when or how. We dread its encounter, as of a deadly foe at midnight. With all the armor of righteousness, we know not where to strike the Adversary, but, having done all, can only stand against his wiles. The course of evil is capricious. It can not be met in open field, nor watched with spies. It is ever false and deceitful. It may seem asleep or dead; but only again to surprise and alarm mankind, until it is finally destroyed.

The mystery of Evil gives it a certain mock divinity. The black art expresses something of its meaning and power. The evil eye--the magic spell - the incantation - whatever seems

to produce effects unmeasured by a cause, is a type of it. And here it has been well remarked, "The old saying that Satan is an ape of God, has its most significant truth. It is the pre