Complete Works of Edward Young, page 98
Cornelius, the centurion, though one of the best of men, thought not the belief of the gospel unnecessary to his salvation. But modern deists, wiser, not better than he, have their objections to the gospel. Their chief objection is against its mysteries. There is nothing mysterious in it, but with regard to things which we either can not, or need not, understand: Can not, through the limitation of the human intellect; or need not, through the sufficiency of other means and motives for our leading good lives. To what amounts, then, this capital objection and charge against it? To no more than this, namely, that Christianity performs not what is impossible to be performed; for it is as impossible for its Author, Almighty God, to do more than is needful for his gracious end, (namely, the good lives of mankind,) as to do what in its nature is impossible to be done.
Indeed, all their objections to Christianity seem to be no more nor less, than playing the best card they have; than using the best expedient they can think of to keep themselves in countenance, and the world in the dark, as to the true motive of their apostasy. Nor are their objections to be looked on, in those that are men of sense, as an argument of their disbelief, but their dislike. They wish not the mysteries removed; for that would rob them of a favourite objection. They wish not the darkness of the mysteries removed, but transferred; transferred from the doctrines to the moral precepts. These are without a cloud, these are too plain for their purpose. None ever fully complied with these but was easily reconciled to the mysteries of the gospel. The disgusted, despotic heart commands the passive obedient head to fight its unjust quarrel, and say it is its own; so that Satan may blame them for some degree of hypocrisy in his favour; may blame them for only pretending to disbelieve. If, on the other hand, Christians were not also hypocrites, (hypocrites, I mean, as to practice,) they would rob the deists of their most plausible plea against us, and either lessen their numbers, or increase their shame.
I hope that some of the deists, at least some of those whose principles are endangered by them, may admit some little impression from what has been offered. I hope they may discern, and own the self-accusation which is evidently implied in our deists’ renunciation of Christianity; or, if I am mistaken, that they will set me right: for if I have wronged them, I have wronged them much. For in what a disadvantageous light appear these deserters from Christianity in these pages! A deistical tongue, a Christian conscience, and a partly Pagan heart! What a sad composition is this! It is a far heavier charge than I wish to find true.
But it is a natural question, “How comes it to pass that men of parts should so much disaffect the scriptures, so admirable, and still more and more admirable, in proportion to the discernment of their reader?”
Can it be from ignorance? It may be so, if their hearts are worse than their heads; for there are parts of scripture which none but a good man can well understand: “Rejoice always; and again I say, Rejoice.” This must appear to the vicious absurd, because impracticable, and therefore uninspired. To rejoice in tribulation, they have neither cause nor power. Thus, bad manners almost necessarily render men infidels to holy writ. On the contrary, a good life is a key to the scriptures. “The secret of the Lord is with those that fear him,” A text this, as unintelligible to the vicious as the former. As he has had no experience, so neither has he any comprehension, of its truth. The good man comprehends, and feels it too. Thus the scripture, like the cloudy pillar which it records, is light to the true Israelite, but darkness to the Egyptians. Hence acutest understandings in religious debates often lose their edge.
Can that cause we seek be vanity? It may be said of the viscount’s writings as of Catiline, Satis eloquentiœ, sapientia parum. Had his eloquence been less, — had those talents been denied him, which flattered him with hope of shining a first lustre in the lettered world, — he had escaped a temptation which has evidently been too hard for his prudence; and a common-sized head had probably left his heart in safety. So formidable a possession is an immortal pen, if his is immortal; a pen more fatal to its master than Cato’s sword.
Or might not envy be the cause we seek? “But can these men envy Christians, whom they quit on account of our unhappy mistake?” Man is not only desirous, but ambitious too, of happiness. He but ill bears that another should be happier than himself; because superior happiness is a natural argument of superior wisdom or worth. The man of a libertine life knows that the good Christian, if his religion is true, is, on the whole, much happier than himself. Therefore he wishes it to be false, and endeavours to find it so. And strong endeavours to be in the wrong, Heaven will punish with success. It will permit them to believe their own lie; that is, to fall on their own sword, which was drawn against the truth.
Non hos quasitum munus in usus. — VIRG.
And I am the more inclined to impute their opposition to envy, rather than vanity; because pure vanity is consistent with good-nature, and may be a very candid thing. But envy has bitterness and ill-will, and ridicule is the genuine child of ill-nature; ridicule, that offensive brat of which they are so fond.
Now, though nothing is more improper in important debates than raillery, yet can I make some apology for them. They may possibly perceive, that the load on their own misgiving consciences would sink them, were it not for the light expedient of forced mirth, like a bladder filled with wind, to keep them above water; and that they sometimes have their doubts and misgivings of heart, it is reasonable to believe. To give full established security is the incommunicable privilege of the gospel.
For the reasons above, I venture to set down envy among the causes of infidelity, though (I think) by others overlooked. And, further, I believe it to be a very principal cause of lettered infidelity in the world. Other, but not greater, vices are, doubtless, the chief causes of infidelity in lower and illiterate life; where sense has no rival in thought, but tyrannizes alone.
But whatever is the cause of their infidelity, be it ignorance, vanity, envy, or any other vice, their infidelity will naturally have some effect in our favour. It is much to be hoped, that it will put us on our guard, and make us better men. Our leading a bad life is playing into their hands. It is giving them an argument in the debate against ourselves. Though the argument is bad, yet it is an argument still. And since they have none but bad arguments, and such they will make use of, we should not increase the number. This is like furnishing them with ammunition to protract the war: and though the war protracted will not hurt us, yet will it hurt them; and as we are Christians, that should give us an equal concern.
Secondly, Christianity may thank its opponents for much new light from time to time, thrown in on the sublime excellence of its nature, and the manifestation of its truth; opponents, in some sort, more welcome than its friends; as they do it signal service without running it in debt; and have no demand on our gratitude for the favours they confer. The stronger its adversaries, the greater its triumph; the more it is disputed, the more indisputably will it shine. With what pious pleasure must you see the brightest talents striking at it with the most hearty goodwill, yet dropping harmless, like old Priam’s spear?
Telum imbelle tine ictu
Conjecit; rauco quod protinus cere repulsum,
Et summo clypei nequicquam umbone pependit. — VIRG.
Christianity, that great support of man’s welfare and God’s glory, like a well-built arch, the greater load of opposition and reproach its enemy lays on it, the stronger it stands.
Thirdly, their antichristian writings may detect them: for since (as shown above) a false faith, or no faith at all, is the natural consequence of a bad life, it is possible that the gentlemen in the opposition, while they are giving us their opinions, may be giving us more: they may be discovering their morals while they mean only to teach us their creed: and thus, they may carry, like Bellerophon, their own condemnation, while they imagine they are graciously conveying intelligence and new light to mankind: so that the old proverb, Bellerophontis literae, may be a proper motto for the learned labours of them all.
But condemnation from others will be much more supportable than their own, if that should fall on them. And where is he on whom it shall not one day fall? If a man born blind, who had never so much as heard of the sun, moon, and stars should suddenly receive sight, he would not be more astonished at the first rushing in of those material glories, than would the man by vice struck blind to religion be, at his first conviction of heavenly troths, namely, Divine manifestations, awful revelations, fulfilled prophecies, numberless miracles; and one unbroken chain of marvellous expedients, from before creation to this hour, for our salvation, those spiritual luminaries; those (dare I say?) sun, moon, and stars, of the moral world; if God should give him light. Till then, walking in darkness, he must mistake danger for safety, shame for glory, and mischief for pleasure. Like the blinded of Sodom, he reaches eagerly after, and presses hard for, enjoyment; but of real enjoyment, of true felicity, he cannot find the door; as I propose showing in my next.
If some part of it may seem too severe, I must observe, that no man can strike fire with a feather. A fire elemental is diffused through all nature, though locked up in dark matter, and unapparent in most parts of our globe. Thus I conceive, that there is Divine grace spread through all hearts, (where not entirely quenched by vice,) though inactive, and dormant in them. No slight animadversion can awake it. It must be a blow of some force that strikes it out of a heart of flint. And such there must be in these days of darkness, when few sparks of grace are apparent. Such there must be when infidelity prevails; for infidelity and faith are the day and night of the moral world. One reveals, the other hides, heaven from our thoughts. Happy am I if this letter shall occasion the smallest dawn on but one single heart, in this our grand eclipse. With you, dear sir, the dawn is long since past; and that you may continue in the light till Heaven, at that knock of faith which only will be heard, shall admit you into perfect day, where undisputed truth, and unmistaken pleasure, with endless glory, crown the just; this is the prayer of
Your affectionate humble servant.
LETTER II. ON PLEASURE.
DEAR SIR,
I NOW proceed to say something of pleasure; that subject which you so warmly recommend; not aware, I believe, that it may be long before men, whose faults set the public eye at defiance, will learn to blush when alone in their closets. And till then, what hope of much reformation from the pen? Besides, though our transgressions with regard to pleasure are great, yet they are not new. To the scandal of the antediluvians be it spoken, there were British iniquities before the flood. To such a degree have all moral subjects been exhausted, that it is difficult for a writer on them not to repeat, though he is no plagiary. But your desires are an apology for my deficiencies in compliance with them.
Whether we are more hardened in infidelity, or softened in pleasure, may be disputed: but none can deny that the love of pleasure is the root of every crime. Theft, murder, perjury, are a few of its fatal fruits; nor the worst. But I shall not dip so deep in its consequences; yet deep enough to render the name of a “man of pleasure,” which some affect for their honour, not only ridiculous, but detestable.
What an extravagant dominion does pleasure exercise over us! It is not only the pestilence that walketh in darkness, but an arrow that destroyeth at noon-day. The moon hides her face at our midnight enormities, and the morning blushes on our unfinished debauch. I am almost tempted to say, that our impudent folly puts nature out of countenance. But there is no need by words to exaggerate the fatal truth. Our luxury is beyond example, and beyond bounds; it stops not at the poor; even they that live on alms are infected with it.
It has often been observed, that it is with states as with men. They have their birth, growth, health, distemper, decay, and death. Men sometimes drop suddenly by an apoplexy, states by conquest; in full vigour both. As man owes his mortality to original sin, some states owe their fall to some defect or infelicity in their original constitution. But contracted distemper is the most common ruin of states and men. And what national distemper more mortal than our own? On the soft beds of luxury most kingdoms have expired.
If causes should not fail of their usual effect; if our national distemper, far from being cutaneous at present, should reach the vitals of our state; how applicable to this opulent, proud, profligate metropolis (which calls the sea her own, and whose vices, more diffusive, are without a shore) would be the prophet’s sacred dirge over ancient Tyre; whose sea-born wealth and hell-born iniquity, let it not be said, was but a prelude to our own. And yet, if we proceed in our infernal career, that most infamous reproach may become but too true.
The sublime and most memorable words run thus; and I cannot but think that, at present, they must have a formidable sound in a British ear: “Is this the joyous city, whose antiquity is of days remote? whose merchants were princes, and her traffickers the honourable of the earth? whose revenue was the harvest of rivers, and her exchange the mart of nations? who sat as a queen, stretched out her hand over the seas, and shook the kingdoms? But she is fallen! she is fallen! Heaven has stained the pride of all glory. How sorely must you be pained at the report!”
Has not Britain reason to be more deeply struck with this part of scripture than the rest of mankind? The prophecy as yet, indeed, through mercy, is unfulfilled in us; but if Britain continues, like Tyre, “to sing as an harlot, to take the harp, to make sweet melody, sing many songs, turn to her hire, and commit fornication with all the kingdoms of the world,” her fall is to be feared, unless the fate of most former empires betray us into mistake; and that national poison which has ever proved mortal, is mortal no more. If the fate of kingdoms is lodged in a just and impartial hand, what but the grossest self-flattery can banish our fears? And if our fears are banished, leave it not unobserved that our very want of fear is a proof of our danger: for Heaven infatuates, when it determines to destroy.
“But such a general face of affluence and gaiety: are these signs of ruin?” Not signs only, but causes of it too. Not Babylon alone has been smitten at a banquet, and perished in its joys. Most nations have been gayest when nearest to their end; and, like a taper in the socket, have blazed as they expired.
Were our fathers to rise from their graves, they would conceive that their fortune had thrown them on some day of public festivity, nor imagine that every day was drunk of the same disease. By our gaiety, we seem to celebrate the perpetual triumph of the millennium; by our vices, to add to it the manners of the antediluvian world; and by our security under them, to put full confidence in the Divine promise that the world shall be drowned no more. If, with the vices of the antediluvians, we had their years too, more might be said in our excuse: but to weigh such a moment against eternity, shows that the balance is in very weak hands. The world, which the Divine vengeance swept away for its enormities, was incapable of so great a guilt.
But, in so general a dissolution of manners, are there none that stand entitled to more particular blame? Are not our great patrons of luxury a sort of anti-Curtii, who leap into the gulf for the ruin of their country? Their country’s ruin they threaten by the malignity of their example; while, by the profusion of their expense, they nearly finish their own. What a weakness is self-denial, what idle self-tormentors are penitents, what wretched lunatics or gross suicides are the noble army of martyrs, if these men are in the right! How cheap would their pleasures come, if they cost them nothing more than their health, credit, and estates!
Pleasure is, in some sort, more pernicious than direct vice. Vice has, naturally, some horror in it. It startles and alarms the conscience, and puts us on our guard. Pleasure, under the colour of being harmless, has an opiate in it; it stupefies and besots. In the soft lap of pleasure conscience falls asleep. Vice, losing its horror, becomes familiar. And, as vice increases, some expedient becomes necessary to reconcile us to ourselves. Thus, looking out for some shadow of excuse, we naturally slide into groundless doubts, and become infidels out of pure self-defence.
And, as pleasure makes us infidels, by stupefying the conscience, so it makes us very bad husbands of temporal enjoyments, by darkening our understandings; and thus unqualifies us for the very point to which alone we pretend.
It is this cloud on their understanding which hinders our voluptuaries from discerning, that their blind rage for pleasure turns blessings into their reverse. Birth, education, and abundance, are great blessings; but, abused by pleasure into motives and instruments of indulgence, birth is more ignoble than obscurity, knowledge is more pernicious than ignorance, and abundance more a misfortune than want. Men of rank, (and of such I speak,) if wrong, can scarce avoid sinning beyond themselves. How pestilential their example falls on the lower world, which, under the welcome force of such illustrious authority, turn dissolute, as much for the sake of their credit and fortune as of their lusts; pride and interest bringing needless succour to loose desire; and Tyburn has sometimes reaped what assemblies have sown. Great men in the wrong are powerful engines of mischief, and, like bursting bombs, destroy themselves and all around them.
And as to the two supreme blessings and glories of man, their reason and immortality, these, as they manage it, flame out into vengeance too great to be mentioned without horror. Their reason serves only to render them more guilty, and their immortality to render endless the sad wages of their guilt.
