Complete Works of Edward Young, page 108
Man is the most noble study of man. Let him circle the globe, let him traverse the skies, and then, for something more worthy his notice and admiration, return to himself. To himself he is a theatre immense: and was reputed such, when that theatre had much less to exhibit than at present it can boast, and when it was but faintly illuminated with the glimmering beams of far more feeble lights. The so-renowned “Know thyself,” was nothing but a precept enjoining a close inspection and survey of this theatre; yet (hat precept, as to its author, was held divine, and, as to its practice, the supreme wisdom of man. That precept is now exalted into an awful command from Heaven, and that theatre is consecrated into a venerable temple, a temple of the Holy Spirit.
As in some pieces of perspective, by the pressure of the eye, so in this temple, by the pressure or perseverance of thought, the magnificent prospect is opened and aggrandized still more and more; and, opening, discovers the full Dignity of Man. In what does that consist? In the marvellous things the Almighty has done and designed for him. And if so, this survey gives at once the greatest virtue and the greatest blessing of life. For who can see those marvellous things without an ardent love of God, which is the supreme virtue of man? And who can reflect on such indulgence past, without an absolute trust in such a friend for the fixture, which of man is the supreme blessing?
But this blessing and this virtue, this glory and comfort of life, is lost to those to whom this temple is shut. And it is shut to the careless and ignorant, to the slothful and unawakened, in the most illustrious theory of the Christian religion. If, therefore, such men in what has been advanced shall find any thing like a key to this yet unopened temple, and shall enter its sacred and surprising recesses, and read the wonders of Divine Love in it, that is, in themselves, in their own condition and prospects; — if they shall see and contemplate the three Persons of the Godhead before creation assuming, and through time’s whole length exercising, their separate parts and provinces of philanthropy; — and shall behold an innumerable flight of angels for ever on the wing to receive their commands, and speed away, on various dispatches, for the temporal and eternal welfare of man: — how should I rejoice? For such a key would be next in value to the key of heaven. It opens the porch, the preliminary scene to it. Therefore have I kept it on the anvil so long; and yet how unfinished at last! May some master-hand accomplish, and multitudes open, the yet absolutely unknown scene of their own nature and blessed destination with it!
And now, my friend, tell me, how must his love of glory fail, how must his ambition creep, who, after the strong inspiration of such a view as this, miserably confines it beneath the sun? Consider this view, and see how high human nature may soar; then look down on the centaur, and see (if thou canst bear the sight) how low the sons of heaven may fall! Shall a being whose interests spread so wide as to take in both ends of the creation; shall a being deeply concerned in what was done in the days of Adam, and more deeply still in what shall be done in the great day of consummation; shall such an expansive and far-interested being, with the most sordid and despicable self-denial, and the most inconceivably criminal poverty of spirit, imprison his stifled thought, and nail down his little heart to the narrow span of this present life? God forbid? If there is the least sense of dignity, or fear of shame, the least spark of man alive, let us consider that we are not only the favourites, but the sons too, of heaven, and obey in this our voyage of human life, as Æneas in his from Troy, the Delian oracle, —
Antiquam exquirite matrem. — Virg.
But our overwhelming shame and almost incurable misery is, that we are so carnalized by our lusts, that our heavenly mother, (Gal iv. 26,) in our esteem, has no blessing for us; that a spiritual Paradise is no Paradise; that it is a Paradise we wish lost; one from which we desire to fall, and to wallow, Epicuri de grege porci, in our beloved mire. And yet what is this spot of earth which so swallows us up, and in its gulf of obscenities extinguishes our love of heaven? Its enchantment is very short. A few days, a few hours, may make us as wise as Solomon. For, rest assured, earth’s rankest idolater, who now, perhaps, in our flourishing school of infidelity, thinks a wiser than Solomon is here, will, at the close of life, in his aching heart, ask Solomons pardon for not believing him before.
I believe that wise and experienced prince, whose wisdom and experience was designed to spare future ages their own fatal experience in folly, and, closing with his last sentiment, the sum of his Divine philosophy, I affirm, that many a philosopher may justly be reputed a fool; that as there is but one God, one trial, one great tribunal, one salvation, so there is but one wisdom; that all which, devoid of that, assumes the name, is but folly of different colours and degrees, — gay, grave, wealthy, lettered, domestic, political, civil, military, recluse, ostentatious, humble, or triumphant; and is so called in the language of angels, in the sole-authentic and unalterable style of eternity.
That awful word inspires, and awakens ideas that slept before; it points to heaven, and shows me where I fail. — Though studious to do it justice, I have wronged my theme; and wronged it much. Somewhat more is wanting to consummate and crown the Dignity of Man. What have? advanced? “That man is near to the blessed angels?” Is he not more? Yes, most adorable Jesus! man is more, much more. O whither dost Thou call me? Whither dost Thou transport astonished human thought? I scarce dare look up to the summit of such stupendous love. Leave I not cherubim and seraphim below? Ye first-born of light! ye thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers! what do I behold? How awed and how raptured! with what prostration of heart, what elevation of joy, from this remote region, this lowest vale of the creation, this land of darkness and shadow of death, look I up through incumbent clouds of misery and sin, and behold — a man in heaven! in the highest heaven! in union with the Most High! in union with your most adored and eternal King! and so throned in authority, to you so superior in power, as to make ceaseless intercession for the rest of mankind; not for those whose fall left seats empty in heaven! O aid me with your language, with words more than human, to praise Him! that Advocate unwearied for his relations, (proud language!) for his earth-born relations and friends below.
Is not this almost too much for human modesty to mention, for human frailty to credit, for human corruption to admit? But is it not also far too much for human gratitude to leave unproclaimed, unresounded, unadored? “I go to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” What heart-subduing, thought-overwhelming, man-exalting, words are these! What an amazing, I had almost said levelling, condescension of the Deity! What an amazing, I had almost said what a deifying, sublimation of man!
O blessed revelation, that opens such wonders! O dreadful revelation, if it opens them in vain! And are there those with whom they go for nought? Strange men! in possession of a blessing, the bare hopes of which supported the spirits of the wise for four thousand years, under all the calamities of life and terrors of death: and know they not that it is in their hands? or, knowing, cast it away as of no value? a blessing, the very shadow of which made the body of the patriarchal and Jewish religion! a blessing, after which the whole earth panted, as the hart for the water-brooks! a blessing, on which the heavenly host were sent to congratulate mankind, and sing the glad tidings into their transported hearts! a blessing, which was more than an equivalent for Paradise lost! And is this blessing declined, rejected, exploded, despised, ridiculed? O unhappy men! The frailty of man is almost as incomprehensible as the mercies of God.
Who, then, can inculcate too much the Dignity of Man? For, what equally to a due sense of it can inspire a contempt of the world, a fondness for which occasions the madness I deplore? Indeed, a due sense of it evidently includes the whole of our duty. It inspires high veneration and great gratitude to God who gave it; it inspires a reverence for ourselves, which is of utmost moment to our character and peace; and it inspires a proper regard for all mankind, as equal sharers in it; which regard would prevent infinite mischief, and banish half the miseries of life.
This, its universal use, its nature so pregnant of good effects, determined me to the choice of this too-much-neglected subject. And perhaps I have now set it in the strongest light. But if not, its importance is such that it should be set in all lights, and, from every point that imagination can suggest and reason authorize, strike, if possible, the degenerate, deeply-sunk, and ever-grovelling human heart. He that looks not on man in the light above, or some light similar and equivalent, knows not himself, is a perfect stranger at home: his heart wanders an exile from his destined felicity; he deprives himself of the powerful impulse which he so much wants; and which nature denies, and which revelation designed him, for his more vigorous advance in virtue here, and his more sublime ascent in glory hereafter: which two are the whole of his happiness: all the rest is extrinsic, precarious, transient, and inevitably mortal.
And who will dare say, that he who declines or falls from the noble and elevating object of contemplation above-mentioned, and the glorious hopes it inspires, into the barren field of amusement and trifle, or into the bestial abyss of a few years’ debauch for his portion, — who will dare affirm, that such a wretch differs not as much in reason and happiness from the true Christian, as a quadruped differs in form from a man? It is not form, but manners, which make humanity. The mould in which we are cast only says what we should be: nothing but our conduct tells us what we are. What wretches are they who contradict their figure, and accuse nature of having set a wrong stamp on their lying clay! The most despicable and deplorable being under heaven is a Pagan in a Christian land. He is like a rank growth of poison in Paradise. He confines that thought which should set out at the creation, and travel down with wonder and adoration at every step, through the countless mercies and miracles of God for man, into nature’s final dissolution, and thence launch for a never-ending voyage in a blessed eternity, — to the nothing of threescore years, and the wretched means of annihilating that nothing, of contracting that span: lust exhausts, luxury overwhelms, and, by heaping-on fuel, quite puts out the fire.
Where is that dignity which reason exacts, and which revelation exalts, in man? In what I have said on that subject, I have, I think, done more to our purpose than he who measures the heavens and numbers the stars. I have taken (as I conceive) the true measure of man. That extensive measure rising above the skies, which the centaur dwarfs down to the scanty span of the brute creation, to the bestia triumphanti, and, making (might I so speak) a dunghill of our condition, with the cock in the fable, for a grain of sensuality spurns the jewel away; — the powers angelic, the radiant beams of the divinity, in the real man.
But while I contemplate his grandeur, (so mixed our nature, so great and little is man,) I feel his weakness: in mind and body, I feel his infirmities. Pain this instant stops my pen; stops it short of what I had proposed to Bay. It bids me take, while I may, my leave of him I love. I take a solemn, because perhaps a final, leave. It is, at least, possible we may meet no more; no more in this foreign land, in this gloomy apartment of the boundless universe of God.
O thou, the last and strongest hold that earth has on me, my friend in Jesus Christ, my rival in immortal hope, and my companion, I trust, for eternity, come to my bosom! Though so far remote, I take thee to my heart. Souls suffer no separation from obstruction of matter, or distance of place: oceans may roll between us, and climate interpose, in vain. The whole material creation is no bar to the winged mind? Farewell! Through boundless ages, fare thou well! The Dignity of Man and blessing of heaven be with thee! The broad hand of the Almighty cover thee! Mayst thou shine when the sun is quenched! Mayst thou live and triumph when time expires!
This cordial duty done, this human debt discharged, my mind is eased, my spirits revive, my pain is less. And when this endless letter is ended, I shall drop thee for the present, and this idle pen and an idler world (that other feather in the scale of eternity) for ever. He that drops the world before that drops him, — he only knows its real value, and the value of his own soul. And, whatever the gaiety of the world pretends to, he only can have a solid, permanent, and uninterrupted joy of heart who builds it on the rock, on hope of the Divine mercy. Give a man the world, and give him no more, and his happiness is at an end: the human heart will necessarily feel a futurity, through all the superabundance earth can heap on it: nothing can possibly give it a peace independent of an hereafter; that point of view in his creation, that purchase of blood in his redemption, and yet in human conduct that ever-neglected ALL of man.
Ask the last bill of mortality, ask pleasure’s or ambition’s triumph most triumphant, “What is human life?” Knowledge of the world recommends recess; knowledge of life reconciles to the grave. Few sufficiently consider how great mercy is implied in the grant of death. With a heart quite disengaged, its cable cut, imploring a smooth passage and gentle gale, bound for that port whence none returns, I wait the mighty Master’s call; that call irresistible, which every moment should expect, which every fool forgets, every knave dreads, every wise man welcomes, and every monarch obeys.
And yet, my friend, some of our few coëvals close not altogether with this way of thinking; but rather seem to judge, that some little degree of precipitation may be laid to its charge. As the dial knows not the hour it points out; so they, by their infirmities and decays, discover their time of day to all but themselves. Their desires grow stronger as enjoyments grow more coy. It is somewhat to be feared that their hearts gravitate, almost as much as their scarce-animated clay, and take but few and feeble flights above the level of the world; though very excellent things are spoken of thee, thou welcome haven of eternal rest, thou delightful region of inextinguishable love, thou great goal of perfection, thon bright meridian of glory, thou boundless ocean of unrepenting pleasure, thou city of God!
And is man invited to this fulness of fruition? And is man importuned to partake the glories of the Almighty? He that weighs not well this transcendent height of love Divine, is far from being able to comprehend the terrible depth of human guilt. And what guilt so deep as that of a baptized infidel? [that obscene bird of night, flying abroad by day, with eyes unable to bear the sun, — the hoot, offence, and ill-omen of all the rational world.] A rank Heathen rising out of the sacred font, is reason’s greatest shock, the deepest wound of rectitude, the blackest brand of earth, the sigh of angels, a second spear in the side of the most blessed Jesus, and the supreme triumph of the foe to God and man.
Most gracious God, in happiness and dignity how widely distant is man from man! In both, what an immense superiority has the pious believer! Scarce seems of the same species the believing and the apostate world. To the first, how justly may we cry out, “O ye happy sons of the fallen Adam, where is the damage you received from your father’s fall? Where are the once-lamenting miseries of life, where are the once-unsurmountable terrors of death, fled?”? discern the Dignity of Man when his carcass is in the dust. I congratulate his happiness while the worm is feasting on him. Rejoice, O ye dead! exult and sing, ye dark inhabitants of the grave! For do I not behold, even in the grave, the comfort of heaven, when, with an eye of Christian faith, in heaven I behold a Man, the Man Christ Jesus? And with transport and adoration let me resound the lofty language of the prophet, “A man the fellow of the Almighty.” (Zech xiii. 7.)
THE CONCLUSION.
AND now, my friend, let us consider how deplorably wretched is that man amongst us who is deaf to such a voice, and blind to such a sight! And how criminally wretched is he, if he voluntarily declines them, — if he voluntarily recalls the suspended curse, obstinately presents disarmed death with his mortal sting again, and pours out, in his distraction, all the vials of its original bitterness on the days (how dismal and unredeemed!) of an apostate human life! What a formidable revelation does such a man bespeak, in lien of that which brought pardon and peace! What a revelation of no glad tidings awaits him, when his now-involving cloud breaks, and truth thunders on the dreadfully illumined soul, at the no-distant hour of death!
It is, indeed, in man’s option, which of these revelations he will admit. One he must; but it is not in man’s wisdom to make the least apology for a wrong option in so plain and important a point. A point how plain! I shall here just touch on a single proof of the truth of Christianity, which renders any further proof, among proofs innumerable, unnecessary with me, to create and support our Christian faith.
Every thing in the natural world is a proof of a God; and almost every thing in the moral world is a proof of a revelation. As, in the material universe, all exactly corresponds with the previous ideas of it in the Divine Mind, and in a substantial copy renders legible to man its invisible pattern, in the thought of the Almighty; so a complete history of mankind (if such could be had) would be little more than the same Almighty’s prophetic word in scripture, materialized into fact. The prophets are more accurate and authentic historians of the future than the most happy genius, uninspired, can possibly be of the past. And want we miracles for our conviction? The series of scripture prophecies accomplished, is the most striking of miracles: it is a miracle not expiring in a transient act, but of great longevity, persisting in a perpetually increasing weight and validity, through the protracted course of many thousand years. It is a living, growing, permanent, paramount miracle, lighted up as a lamp of illumination for all ages; that all able to see might be quite unable to disbelieve, quite unable to retain reason and, at the same time, renounce belief. For if the scripture prophecies are fulfilled, the scripture is the word of God; and if the scripture is the word of God, Christianity cannot be false. Shall we reject it as false, when, in the present state of almost all nations, we are surrounded and condemned by a full ocular demonstration of its being true? Let us dispute our own existence, if we would continue of a piece with this.
