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THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
OF
MOEAL EVIL.
A LECTURE, delivehed in
PARADISE STREET CHAPEL,

LIVERPOOL,

ON TUESDAY, APRIL 30, 1839.

REV. JAMES MARTINEAU.

BEING THE ELEVENTH OF A SERIES, TO EE DELIVERED WEEKLY, IN ANSWER TO A
' COURSE OF LECTURES AGAINST UNITARIANISM, IN CHRIST CHURCH, LIVERPOOL,
BY THIRTEEN CLERGYMEN OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

LIVERPOOL:
WILLMER AND SMITH, 32, CHURCH STREET.
LONDON:
JOHN GREEN, 121, NEWGATE STREET.

WILLMER AND SMITH,
32, CHURCH STREET, LIVERPOOL.

LECTURE XL
THE CHRISTIAN VIEW OF MORAL EVIL.
BY EEV. JAMES MARTINEAU.

" WOE UNTO THEM THAT SAY,  LET THE COUNSEL OF THE HOLY ONE OP
ISRAEL DRAW NIGH AND COME, THAT WE MAY KNOW IT ; WOE UNTO
THEM THAT CALL EVIL GOOD, AND GOOD EVIL ; THAT PUT DARKNESS
FOR LIGHT, AND LIGHT FOR DARKNESS ; THAT PUT BITTER FOR
SWEET, AND SWEET FOR BITTER."— iiaiaJ v. 18—20.
The Divine sentiments towards right and wrong every man
naturally believes to be a reflexion of whatever is most pure
and solemn in his own. We cannot be sincerely persuaded^
that God looks with aversion on dispositions which we revere 5^
as good and noble ; or that he regards with lax indifference
the selfish and criminal passions which awaken our own dis
gust. We may well suppose, indeed, his scrutiny more
searching, his estimate more severely true, his rebuking look
more awful, than our self-examination and remorse can fitly
_ J, represent ; but we cannot doubt that our moral emotions, as
far as they go, are in sympathy with his ; that we know, by
our own consciousness, the general direction of his approval
and displeasure ; and that, in proportion as our perceptions
of Duty are rendered clear, our judgment more nearly ap
proaches the precision of the Omniscient award. Our own
conscience is the window of heaven through which we gaze
oiTGfodTandT'as its colours perpetually change, his aspect
changes too ; if they are bright and fair, he dwells as in the
warm light of a rejoicing love ; if they are dark and turbid, he
A 2
XhjL^J-MAt/L imtu^i^Uf i^VffiT'i^i^ 04 ^ itT^^^U ^(firfP^fi^'^**^ '

THE CHRISTIAN VIEW

hides himself in robes of cloud and storm. When you have
lost your self-respect, you have never thought yourself an ob-
( ject of divine complacency. / In moments fresh from sin,
''ilushed with the shame of an insulted mind, when you have
broken another resolve, or turned your back upon a noble
toil, or succumbed to a mean passion, or lapsed into the sick
ness of self-indulgence, could you ever turn a clear and open
face to God, nor think it terrible to meet his eye ? Coidd
you imagine yourself in congeniality with him, when you
gave yourself up to the voluble sophistry of self-excuse, and
the^loose hurry of forgetfulness? Or did you not discern him
rather in your own accusing heart, and meet him in the silent
anguish of full confession, and find in the recognition of your
alienation the first hope of return ? To all_ unperyerted
minds, the verdict of conscience sounds with a preternatural
voice ; it is not the homely talk of their own poor judgment,
but an oracle. o£ the sanctuary. There is something of anti
cipation in our remorse, as well as of retrospect ; and we feel
that it is not the mere survey of a gloomy past with the slow
lamp of our understanding, but a momentary piercing of the
."' future with the vivid lightning of the skies. lOur^ moral nature,
> left to itself, intuitively believes that guilt is an estrangement
from God, — an unqualified opposition to his will, — a literal
service of the enemy ; that he abhors it, and wiU give it no
rest till it is driven from his presence, that is, into anni
hilation : that no part of our mind belongs to him but the pure,
( and just, and disinterested affections which he fosters j. the
faithful will which he strengthens ; the virtue, often damped,
whose smoaking flax he will not quench, and the good re
solves, ever frail, whose bruised reed he will not break : and
that he has no relation but of displeasure, no contact but of
resistance, with our selfishness and sin. In the simple faith of
the conscience it is no figure of speech to say, that God " is
angry with the wicked every day," and is " of purer eyes than
to behold iniquity." So long as the natural religion of the

OP MORAL EVIL.

' ' JlSHtil undisturbed, to^injs^ in the plainest and most posi
tive sense, to set up against Heaven, and frustate its will.
f Soon, however, the understanding disturbs the tranquilhty
of this belief, and constructs a rival ^creed- _Th£ primitive
conception of God-i« -acquired, I believe, without reasoning,
and emerges from the affections ; it is a transcript of our own
emotions, — an investiture of them with external personality
and infinite magnitude. But a secondary idea of Deity arises
in the intellect, from its reasonings about causation. Curi
osity is felt respecting the origin of things ; and the order,
beauty, and mechanism of external nature, are too con
spicuous not to force upon the observation the conviction of
a great architect of the universe, from whose designing
reason its forces and its laws mysteriously sprung. Hence
the intellectual conception of God the Creator, which comes
into inevitable collision with the moral notion of God the holy
watch of virtue. For if the system of creation is the pro
duction of his Omniscience ; if he has constituted human
nature as it is, and placed it' in the scene whereon it acts ; if
the arrangements by which happiness is aUotted, and cha
racter is formed, are the contrivance of his thought and the
work of his hand, then the sufferings and the guilt of every
being were objects of his original contemplation, and the
\v productions of his own design. / The deed of crime must, in
this case, be as much an integral part of his Providence as
the efforts and sacrifices of virtue ; and the monsters of licen
tiousness and tyranny, whose images deform the scenery of
history, are no less truly his appointed instruments than the
martyr and the sage. And though we remain convinced that
he does not make choice of evil in his government, for its
own sake, but only for ultimate ends worthy of his per
fections, still we can no longer see how he can truly hate that
which he employs for the production of good. That which is
his chosen instrument cannot be sincerely regarded as his
everlasting enemy ; and only figuratively can he be said to

6 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
repudiate a power which he continually wields. There must
be some sense in which it appears, in the eye of Omniscience,
to be eligible; some point of view at which its horrors
vanish; and where the moral distinctions, which we feel
ourselves impelled to venerate, disappear from the regards of
God. Here, then, is a fearful contradiction between the religion
of conscience and the religion of the understanding : the one
pronouncing evil to be the antagonist, the other to be the
agent, of the divine ^^iU. In every age has this difficulty
laid a heavy weight upon the human heart ; in every age has
it pointed the sarcasm of the blasphemer ; mingled an occa
sional sadness with the hopes of benevolence ; and tinged the
devotion of the thoughtful with a somewhat melancholy trust.
The whole history of speculative religion is one prolonged
effort of the human mind to desti-oy this contrariety ; system
after system has been born in the struggle to cast the op
pression off; with what result, it will be my object at present
to explain. The question which we have to consider is this :
" How should a Christian think of the origin and existence of
evil ?" I propose to advert, first, to the speculative ; secondly,
to the scriptural ; thirdly, to the moral relations of the sub
ject ; to inquire what relief we can obtain from philosophical
schemes, from bibhcal doctrine, and from practical Chris
tianity. I. Notwithstanding the ingenuity of philosophers in va
rying the form and language of their systems, there can be but
two solutions ofi'ered to the great problem respecting evil. The
benevolence of the Creator may be vindicated, by denying
that he is the author of e^-il ; or, by pronouncing it his mere
tool, unavoidably introduced for the production of greater
good. '- : i
(I.) In Greece, the genius of whose people anticipated
most of the great ideas which have since occupied the world,
we find the first clear trace of the doctrine of two original

OF MORAL EVIL. 7
causes, one good, the other evil, of the order and disorder of
the universe.* Amid the almost universal pantheism, which
gave the sanction of philosophy to a corrupting mythologj',
one or two great thinkers seized on the true conception of an
intelligent, eternal, infinite Mind ; not mixed up in indissoluble
oneness with the universe, hke the principle of life with an
animal or vegetable organism, but wholly external to matter,
capable of acting objectively upon it, of moulding it into
form, of assigning to it laws, of disposing it into uniform
arrangements, and subordinating it to the production of
beauty, the reception of life and soul, and the ends of bene
volence. With the absolute perfection, intellectual and
moral, of the creative spirit, there was nothing to interfere ;
he called into existence only what is good, — light, life, hap
piness, wisdom, harmony, virtue. All else was to be ascribed
to the imperfect materials from which the universe was con
structed. Of these he was not supposed to be the author ;
no conception was entertained of creation out of nothing by
the volition of the divine and sohtary Spirit. Co-eternally
with him, matter was thought to have existed, inert, and
dark and formless, — the boundless and unworked quarry,
whence the great Artist of earth and skies moulded the orbs
of heaven, and furnished his mansions of space with magni
ficence and beauty. The materials thus provided to his hand,
did not afford unlimited facilities for the execution of his
good designs ; they had the inherent and obstinate properties
of all matter, of which skill might variously avail itself, but
which Omnipotence could not utterly subdue. They for ever
dragged down every being towards the passiveness and chaos
of the primeval state, and established a universal gravitation
towards nonentity. Hence a ceaseless tendency in all things
to descend from the higher to the lower states of existence,
and to slip from the divine into the inert : on the soul of
man were forces impelling it into the grosser animal life ; in
• See Note A.

is THE CHRISTIAN' VIEW
the animal life, a propensity towards disease and death ; and,
in lifeless organisms, a law of corruption and return to atoms.
In this unconquerable sluggishness of matter, and not in the
intention of the Creator, \\as to be found the source of all evil,
natural and moral. The supreme Spirit had called into being
whatever is fair and blessed and pure ; and that there is no
more good, was due to the resistance which his materials
ofi'ered to his wiU, and which had made his execution finite,
while his desires were infinite.
In this system, all faults and imperfections are attributed
to the opposition of a passive and evil principle, co-existent
with the First Cause, and restraining him within certain limits
in working out the problem of creation. The essential idea
of the scheme is, that the actual frame of the universe is the
result of a struggle between two conflicting energies, both
primitive and eternal, to the one of which is to be referred
all that is good, to the other whatever is evil. Make then a
slight and superficial change in this scheme ; throw aside its
abstract and philosophical dress ; personify this impracticable
material principle which stands in the way of the Creator's
glorious designs : call it, instead of inert, obstinate ; instead
of the residence of death, the destroyer of life ; instead of a
weight on the. Divinity, a force against him ; in short, treat
it, not as negative, but as positive; not as impervious to
light, but as the power of darkness ; not as a physical ob
struction, but as in real antipathy to God : and by such
assumption of personality, this hostile energy becomes an
active principle of evil, a malignant and antagonist God, busy
in frustrating the purposes of Providential goodness, and
spreading ruin, disorder, and guilt over the fair regions of
nature and the soul.
This doctrine of a good and evil spirit, engaged in perpetual
conflict on the theatre of the universe, is then only the po
pular and mythical form of the philosophical speculations on
matter and Deity which I have described. It is commonly

OF MORAL EVIL. 9
known under the name of the Manicheanjieresy. It was
from very early times the characteristic idea of the Persian
theology; and thence, as I shall show, by admixture with
Judaism, has given rise to the prevailing belief in a devih
To this scheme, considered as a metaphysical theory of the
divine perfections, and a solution of the perplexities respect
ing natural and moral evil, objections of insurmountable force
will occur to every one. It pFeserves the infinite benevolence
by sacrificing the omnipotence of God. It sets up a rival to
his government, froih whose malignity he can only imper
fectly protect us ; so that his Providence becomes precarious,
and we feel ourselves the sport of a conflict the most awful,
beset by pure, unmitigated, indestructible evils, which, how
ever beaten off in the end, must win against us many a
dreadful success, A believer in this doctrine may indeed pre
sume, that a Being, omniscient and benign as God, would
never have called a world into existence unless assured, by
his foreknowledge, that he could prevailingly protect it from
the powers which obstructed him, and render life to every
creature on it a blessing on the whole. Under any other con
ditions, his goodness would have restrained him from the act
of creation. Still the blessed Ruler sways his works under
constant check ; and all limitations on his power must be pro
portionate deductions from our peace. This theory, then, fails
to afford us the desired relief. It does not reconcile the God
of pur conscience with the God of our understanding: it
simply adheres to the former, and rejects the latter ; assuring
us that, as our secret hearts had said, the great Father hates
evil as his enemy ; not, as our logic had insinuated, wields it
as his instrument.
(2.) We turn, then, to the second attempt to extricate our
thoughts from this perplexity ; which is found, in a con
sistent form, only in the system of philosophical necessity.
This scheme assumes the absolute, unlimited monarchy of
God ; represents him as origihalTy alone, and "without either

10 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
universe or materials for its construction: teaches that he
willed all things into existence ; conceiving the plan, speaking
the word, beholding the birth, sustaining the order, de
creeing the means, ordaining the end. The compass of his
design is all-embracing; aU causes and effects, all enjoyment
and misery, all excellence and guilt, lie within its circuit ; nor
can " there be evil in a city," or in a world, " and the Lord
hath not done it." We are assured, that in fact it is im
possible to distribute to separate authors the blessing and the
curse which appear to mingle in creation ; for the same law
which brings the one introduces the other ; the tempest which
blasts the field and flock purifies the air of pestilence ; the
necessities of the body are the incentives of labour and the
stimulants of the mind ; and industry and art, commerce
and wealth, the whole structure even of society and ci\'ili-
zation, rest on the ultimate basis of hunger. Nor is it pos
sible to separate sufiering, even in conception, from a scene
in which great virtues are to be born, and the diviner forms
of character to be trained. Evil is. the resistance, by its con
quest over which moral force can alone be measured and
manifested ; without which, conscience and fidelity would have
no field of victory, benevolence no place for glorious toil,
faith and wisdom no consciousness of power. In the sickly
seductions of pleasure, are seen the health and simplicity of
holiness ; amid the temptations of selfishness, we discern and
venerate the spirit of self-oblivious love ; beneath the arm of
tyranny, and amid examples of hypocrisy, we learn how calm
the front of uprightness, and how noble the magnanimity of
truth. Pain is never the whole of suffering ; which spreads in
moral influence beyond itself and its hour,and administers some
of our noblest disciphne. The anguish of one human being
is usually the pity of many; even the guilt of one may be the
forbearance, the warning, the affectionate and healing grief,
of many. Scarcely can any ill be found that is not so linked
with visible benefits, so entangled with arrangements in which

OF MORAL EVIL. 11
we recognize indisputable blessings, that one only author can
be assigned to all ; if he has had foresight of any thing, he
must have had foresight of all ; if he has devised a part, he
must have devised the whole. Even such free-will as the
human mind possesses is a power of his own deliberate be
stowal ; and the -whole extent of its disastrous mistakes, its
deluded estimates, its degrading preferences, its faithless
abuse of liberty, must be considered as ordained and intro
duced by him for some ultimate and transcendent good.
At present, and for a long future yet, the sufferings are great
which sin must entail upon all who come within its range ;
but even its saddest victim is yet a child of God, and must
at last (benevolence requires no less) be enabled to pronounce
his existence a boon. And hence we must believe the
peaaltifiS_Df.guilt.tO-be- remedial; subduing the stubborn soul,
and leading it back to seek its peace in God ; working out
their own remission, because their victim's restoration ; till
the wail of despair shall be softened into the sob of repent
ance, and this into the sigh of self-distrustful hope, falling
into the silence of deep resolve ; leading to the energy of a
new fidelity, warmed by the refreshment of a returning love,
and bursting at length into grateful chorus with the song of
the redeemed.
The .esseatialidea of lliis..systein, evidently is, that eyil is
a result of GodP^will, his temporary instrument for ever
lasting ends. This characteristic remaining, it is wholly un
important whether he is regarded as producing it immediately
or mediately ; distributively or collectively ; by detailed vo
litions of his own, or by the agency of a being commissioned
to this department of his government. As the blessings,
scattered by the activity of good minds of every order in the
universe, are no less his, than if there were no creature but
himself to shed them forth, so the woes, which any dependent
spirits of evil may diffuse, belong as truly to his proAridence,
as if they were the personal inflictions of his will. Hence

12 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
the doctrine of wicked angels, and of a created Prince of dark
ness, is the very same with the system which I have just de
scribed; simply, its popular and mythological form, gathering
up the abstract conception of evil into a person ; but still
representing it, in this Jiving dress, as a creature intentionally
formed by the Omniscient and predetermining God. Ijre-
gard the belief in the existence of Satan, not as opposed -to
the prevailing Unitarian views of Providence, but, so far as
it is consistently held, as in all essential particulars, identical
with them. Its relation to the character of God is the same ;
and the sole difference between the two is in the question of
personality ; a question of great consequence, when the ex
istence of a divine person, as the Holy Spirit, is suspended
on the decision ; but of small moment when, as in this case, a
mere creature more or less is to be given to the invisible world.
What does it matter to us whether there be any, or a myriad, of
interposing agents between the ills that touch us and our God?
Surely it is with the effects, — with the evils themselves, — that
our practice and duty are concerned, and about their original
cause that our faith is anxious ; and, on both these points, the
Necessarian and the Satanic schemes seem to be agreed.
Both refer our thoughts back to a time when no evil existed,
and say that none could have come into existence, had the
creative activity of God never been exercised. Both make the
same estimate of the actual sins and sorrows and temptations
which are in contact with our life ; and whichever view be
adopted, these are neither increased nor diminished, their
complexion is neither brightened nor darkened, their insi-
diousness and their treatment continue the same. They come
out of the dark upon us ; and no more concern us till they
strike upon our experience, than a line of light affects us,
till its end impinges on our eye. Hence I cannot feel much
interest in the mere question respecting the existence of a
Devil ; and must be excused for treating it as only an insig
nificant part of a subject vast and terrible.

OF MORAL EVIL. 13
Does, then, this second system resolve our difliculties, and
altogether harmonize the perfections of God ? Alas ! the
success is no greater than before. Why. this circuitous
method of producing a happy universe ? Evil is called into
being, as an instrument of good, in this world ; and then is
annihilated, by the addition of more evil, in another. If it
be the great object of Providence to get rid of suffering and
sin, if his government be an educative disciphne for puri
fying the guilt, illuminating the ignorance, and destroying the
misery of souls, must we not ask, why then were these
things created ? If God's providence be thus against them,
why was it ever for them ? And how are we to think of those
agencies, as the work of his own hands, on which his whole
administration is said to be aggressive ? No answer can be
given, except that the temporary operation of natural and
moral evil was unavoidable, — the essential and only means of
accomplishing results which all admit to be beneficent, espe
cially the development and progress of mind, and the proba
tionary discipline of character. It may be so ; but, in this
explanation, the benignity of God is again saved at the ex
pense of his Omnipotence. If no other means were open to
him than those which he has actually employed, his range of
possibilities was mysteriously limited, his choice incompre
hensibly narrowed; and he solved the problem of Creation
under some restraining conditions. And no theory, which
leaves this shadow of necessity lingering behind the throne
of God, justifies its pretensions as the vindicator of his
Power. Scarcely does this system seem to be reconcileable with the
Holiness of God. I confess myself unable to understand how
a Being, who is held to be the prime cause of all the moral
evil which the universe contains, can be regarded as morally
perfect^ or to imagine, if this be consistent with infinite
purity, what phenomena would be inconsistent. It is not
enough to say, that the evil is produced, by no means for its

14 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
own sake, but for ultimate good. Often, at least, does a
human being do wrong on no other pretext ; and the very
plea admits, that God subordinates moral distinctions to some
other good, and esteems some foreign benefit worth pur
chasing by the deed of sin. Is it urged, that the foreknow
ledge and infaUible certainty of the Divine mind justify this,
and that it is only because man wants the requisite discern
ment, that he is forbidden in his bhndness to do evU, that
good may come ? Then it would seem that moral distinctions
are intended only for the ignorant ; and are, to an immea
surable extent, delusions of inteUectual infancy, designed to
vanish, or undergo unimaginable transformations, as our men
tal vision is enlarged. And if this be so, none of our ideas
of obhgation are apphcable to God, and he passes beyond
the range of our moral apprehension, reverence, and love.
No ; the language of piety becomes unmeaning, and the
sanctity of religion is in danger of utter ruin, imless the divine
sentiments of right and wrong are perceived to be akin to our
own, recognising the same immutable differences, and spon
taneously observing the same laws. Not even can we admit
that he has created, and could change, the relations of right
and wrong ; that his will is the source of obligation, and by
a command could make into a binding duty that which in
itself is sin. Moral excellence is no creature of mere
power, which he has created ; for he is, and ever was, excel
lent himself, rendered venerable by intrinsic and imoriginated
perfections ; by holy sentiments, whose outward action, in
deed, must be dated from the beginning of created things,
but whose consciousness has been from everlasting. I dare
not think, that the Providence of God largely consists in
doing that, which would be guilt in man.
From this scheme then, not less than from the former, we
fail to obtain satisfaction. It does not reconcile the faith of
the conscience with the faith of the understanding ; but simply
prefers the latter, to the injury of the former, compromising

OF MORAL EVIL. 15
God's abhorrence of evil ; and, for the sake of maintaining
his sovereignty, making it his instrument. In fine, philo
sophy must make confession of its ignorance, and talk no
more so exceeding proudly. This question of ages is too much
for all its subtlety. Let us pass on to the doctrinal search of
Scripture. Does it either reveal any new view of our subject,
or determine our choice to either of the schemes we have re
viewed ?
II. Trinitarian theologians maintain, that the Bible reveals
to us the existence of a created spirit of evil, with a host of
subordinate associates in guilt ; who seduced our first parents,
and so introduced both the spiritual depravity and the mor
tality of our race ; who has since tormented the bodies of
men with divers diseases, afflicted their minds with some spe
cies of insanity, and corrupted their conscience with every
variety of horrible and guilty thought ; and who especially
assailed the person, and withstood the kingdom of Christ,
knowing that the Messiah's power would finally overthrow
his own. In opposition to this statement, I submit, .that in
neither the Mosaic nor the Christian dispensation have we
any revelation of the existence of such a being, or any doc
trinal solution of the problem respecting the origin of evil.
Let me not, however, be supposed to say, that no such
beings as Satan, the fallen Angels, and demons, are named in
Scripture. I do not pretend to fritter aU these away into
personifications and figures of speech. I have no doubt that
some of the sacred authors believed in the real existence and
agency of such beings ; I have just as little doubt that others
did not ; and that the Hebrew conceptions on this subject
underwent a regular development in the course of their his
tory, no part of them having any origin in supernatural re
velation, but the whole being either the result of natural
speculation or a gift from foreign tribes. This will be thought
very shocking by those who, maintaining the plenary inspi
ration of the Bible, cannot imagine that it contains any traces

16 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
of the notions and sentiments of its various times ; and can
not think of admitting even an incidental allusion that is not
an infaUible oracle. But untd it can be shown, that a per
son inspired is unable to form an opinion of his own ; that he
has no ideas from education and position, no prepossessions
in common with his age ; that, from Moses to the John of
Patmos, every scriptural author is an unerring authority, not
merely in faith and morals, but in cosmogony and physics, in
geology and astronomy, in natural history, physiology, meta
physics and medicine ; we may venture to maintain, on the
ground of historical evidence, that the behef in witchcraft and
charms, in angels and devils with Chaldee names, in demo
niacal possession and Satanic infhctions, may be no result
of revelation, but one of the natural traces of time and loca-
hty with which the Scriptures abound. There prevails, how
ever, great misapprehension resjiecting the ideas of the
Scripture writers on these subjects ; and especially, tlj^ con
ception of a Devil is thought to pervade the whole Bible in
one unvarying form. With a view to rectify this mistake, I
wiU briefly notice the chief passages of the Hebrew and
Greek Scriptures relating to this topic; adverting, in suc
cession, to the history of the fall ; to the growth of the be
lief both in Satan and exorcism ; and to the temptation of
Christ. (1.) It is impossible to conceive of a greater outrage upon
an author's meaning, than is the common representation of
the FaU, on the account of that event in the Book of Genesis.
Not a trace, even of the faintest kind, does the original nar
rative contain of all that theologians tell us respecting the
tempter, the curse, the recovery. The tempter was not an
evU spirit, but a serpent, to whose natural and instinctive
cunning, and not to any diabolical instigation, the seducing
thought is attributed : for " The serpent," it is said, " was
more subtle than all the beasts of the field."* The writer,
* Genesis iii. 1.

OF MORAL EVIL. 17
indeed, had not apparently any idea of such a being as Satan ;
for, throughout his five books, there is not a word in allusion
*9 ,®"55 ^ P^''5°'?.^§6 ; though he records, I beheve, more
temptations, more trials of faith and duty, which it is thought
the office of the evU one to administer, than aU the rest of
the Scriptures together. It is nothing to the purpose to say
that, without preternatural possession, it is absurd to sup
pose that the serpent could speak, and become an agent in
the transaction at aU ; for, on any view of the passage, the
author ascribes to the creature the power both of speech and
of walking : and to imagine that the Devil would betray him
self by assuming so improbable a vehicle, and making a dumb
reptile talk, is surely little consonant with the character of so
subtle a diplomatist. The record affirms that, by way of
punishment, the serpent was reduced to the reptile state,
and compelled to crawl instead of walk;* and an author,
whose imagination had reconciled itself to this conception,
would feel no additional improbability in supposing the same
occasion to have condemned the animal to silence. This has
always been the interpretation of those Hebrew writers, who
have received the account as literal history. Josephus, a
man of learning and a priest, states, that " aU animals at that
period partook of the gift of speech with man ;" that " the
serpent lived on familiar terms with Adam and his wife ;" and
" from a malicious intention of his own^. persuaded the woman
to taste of the tree of knowledge;" that, in consequence,
" God deprived the creature of speech and of the use of his
feet."t If the account be considered as historical, this is its
plain meaning ; and the insertion in it of a powerful malig
nant spirit, is a mere fiction of later times.f
* Genesis iii. 14, 15.
f Jos. Ant. lib. i. c. 1.
X The first trace of this fiction presents itself in the Apocryphal boolc of the
Wisdom of Solomon, ii, 24 ; " Nevertheless, through envy of the Devil, came
B

18 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
Nor is the usual description of the results of the Fall, a
less extravagant perversion of Scripture. The necessities of
toil to the man, the pangs of travail to the woman, and to
both a consequent abbreviation of the term of life, are aU the
effects of which the original speaks, and to which Josephus
refers.* St. Paul adds to the.se the introduction of mortahty ;
but neither in his writings, nor in any more authoritative
place than the invention of modem divines, do we find the
least hint of any moral corruption entailed by the faU on the
human constitution, or any penal woes prepared for our
lapsed nature after death. Throughout the whole subsequent
Scriptures, there are only three places in which the effects of
the first transgression are mentioned :t aU of these are in the
epistles of Paul ; two, out of the three, are mere passing aUu-
sions, not occupying a line ; and in the remaining one, as
weU as in the others, natural death alone is said to have passed
on the descendants of Adam ; " not," (as Mr. Locke justly
remarks) " either actual or imputed sin," which, he says, " is
evidently contrary to St. Paul's design here."J Between the
gmlt of men, and the faU of their progenitor, there did not
exist the slightest connexion in the Apostle's mind ; they are
never once mentioned together. When he draws his fearful
death into the world." How difficult it appeared, even to the learned and ima
ginative Origen, to establish this interpretation on any sound scriptural autho
rity, may be seen in the fact, that he can quote in its behalf nothing better than
an unknown Jewish work in the Greek language, entitled 'Avd\ri^is roii Muffeas.
In Rufinus's version of Origen's '¦' Principles," occurs the following passage :
" In Genesi serpens Evam seduxisse describitur ; de quo in Ascensione Moysi,
cujus libelli meminit in epistola sua Apostolus Judas, Michael archangelus cum
Diabolo disputans de corpore Moysi, ait, a Diabolo inspiratum serpentem, cau-
sam exstitisse prsevaricationis Adae et Evae." — De Princip. lib. iii. c. 2. Though
the learned Father does not hesitate to cite this book, for a theological purpose,
he does not inform us of the grounds on which he was satisfied to invest it with
divine authority.
* Genesis iii. 16 — 19.
+ Rom. V. 12—20; 1 Cor. xv. 21, 22; 1 Tim. ii. U.
I Paraphrase on Romans. Note on v. 12. See also Whitby in loc, to whom
Mr. Locke refers.

OF MORAL EVIL. 19
pictures of the depravity of both Jews and Gentiles, he is
wholly silent respecting the fall, describing all this corruption
not as constitutional but as actual, not as the growth of a
foul and incapable nature, but rather as the abuse and insult
of one inherently noble.* And when again he speaks of the
fall and its issues, he is silent about moral depravity, and
dwells only on physical death. Never was there a writer
more barbarously tortured, more ingeniously forced to speak
in a spirit which he loved to withstand, than this glorious
Apostle. Out of his own writings, by incredible perversion,
his generous conceptions are condemned as heresies, and his
favourite sentiments denounced as blasphemies.
" I will put enmity," says the book of Genesis, " be
tween thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her
seed; it shaU bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his
heel."t Considered as a description of the mutual hostiUty
and injuries of the race of venomous reptiles and the human
species, — man naturally attacking the head qf the creature,
and the animal, especially among the naked feet of oriental
chmes, finding nothing in man so vulnerable as the heel, — a
more vivid sentence can scarcely be conceived. Considered
as a prophecy of Christ, ingenuity could construct nothing
more obscure. And, accordingly, it is never once appealed
to, as a prediction, either by the Messiah himself, or by any
of the New Testament writers; and before the Advent, it
had certainly faUed to produce the proper effect of prophecy,
and had not aided in preparing the minds of the Hebrews for
the event. It is indeed acknowledged by " a strenuous ad
vocate for this appUcation of the passage," " that the ex
pressions here used do not necessarily imply the sense thus
attributed to them ; and that there is no appearance of our
first parents' having understood them in this sense, or that
• See Rom. i. 16 ; ii. 29 ; and iii. 9—23. f Genesis iii. 15.
B 2

20 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
God intended they should so understand them."* If, then,
this prophetic signification escaped the persons to whom
the announcement was made, and the nation before whose
eye it lay for ages, and the Christ himself of whom it spake,
and the Evangelists and Apostles who proclaimed him to
the world, our doubt of its reality can scarcely be deemed
unwarrantable. But it is, I beheve, a misconception of the author, to
treat this passage as a piece of history. Neither Moses, nor
any other scriptural writer, professes to have been mira
culously instructed in the events of the antedUuvian world ;
and if they make no such pretension themselves, it is alto
gether gratuitous in us to make it for them. The slightest
consideration must convince us, that all natural sources of
information respecting so primitive a period must have
ceased to exist, at least in any reliable form : and the earliest
portions of the book of Genesis have every characteristic of
that beautiful mythical composition, which is the first fruit
of the hterary activity of every simple-hearted nation, and
which mingles together in one texture, tradition, fact, spe
culation, poetical conception, and moral truth. In this
instance, the writer seems to have been oppressed by the
feeling, that human peace and tranquiUity were disturbed by
the restless aspirings and inquisitive ambition of the mind.
If man could but be content to take the good which God has
spread within his easy reach, and not permit himself to pry
into the possibilities of having more, his life might be spent
as in a garden of the Lord, in the warmth of sunny days, and
the light sleep of unhaunted nights. But he cannot repress his
insatiable curiosity, his passion for the fruits of knowledge
and dignity, of which Providence has given him the idea,
but which have been set beyond his permitted reach ; and
* Dr. T. Sherlock's Six Discourses on Prophecy, p. 80 ; as quoted in Jlr. Well-
beloved's excellent note on the passage.

OF MORAL EVIL. 21
this thirst of his nature he resolves at all hazards to in
dulge; this godlike aspiration, imprisoned in a frame to
which it is unsuited, chafes against his quiet, and abbreviates
his days. Hence proceed the struggle and the toil of life ;
the thistle and the thorn which he gathers from a soil that
might have yielded only flowers ; hence, children are we all
of care and sorrow ; hence, by the sweat of the hardy brow
we must live, and soon fret down existence into dust ; not
however, without our victory after all ; for we subjugate the
earth, and reign thereon.
Observe too, that Adam rules the woman : and the woman
has a heel upon the serpent : — the last seduced is placed the
highest; and the first .corrupter, sinks into a reptile. Our
temptations are beneath us ; and having once detected them,
we are to rule them ever after. Once let the knowledge of
good and evil be tasted, and the primitive equality of things,
which put man and beast upon a level, is destroyed; all
beings fall into the ranks of a moral gradation ; and though
none that have free will may escape a fall, he that is.last to
yield shall be the fir§t.toj;eign.
(2.) Neither then in the original account, nor in the scanty
subsequent notices of the transgression in Eden, is.there any
disclosure of a Satanic existence. Let us rapidly follow
down the course of Hebrew literature, and search in it for
the first and successive indications of this belief. I have
stated that the books of Moses are destitute of all trace of
such a conception ; nor can any thing at all corresponding to
the popular idea of the Devil, be found in any part of the
Old Testament. The name itself never once occurs ; and it
would be a great mistake to identify the Satan of the He
brew Scriptures, with the^ Devil of the Greek. * The Satan
of the former has a very uncertain personahty. The name
* See Note B.

22 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
rather denotes an office, which any agent of Providence
might be appointed to fiU, than a definite individual being.
Any person, performing the function of an accuser, or who
prepares matter for accusation, by seducing men into evil, —
any one acting the part of an adversary to another, — is
caUed Satan. Thus David is caUed Satan to the Philistines ;*
a certain captain named Rezon was Satan to Israel ;t the
angel of Jehovah was Satan to Balaam ; I nay, even Paul uses
this singular expression, " Hymeneus and Alexander, I have
dehvered to Satan" (for what purpose, do you suppose), "thai
they may be taught not to blaspheme." § No doubt this idea,
at first vague and indefinite, graduaUy became individualized ;
and that which had been an appeUative, passed into a proper
name, yet without ever whoUy losing its generic character. ||
At the commencement of the book of Job occurs its most
distinct and definite use. It is there apphed, not to a faUen
Spirit, not to a repudiated subject of the celestial state, but
to an angel near the throne, to a recognized minister of the
Supreme Power, who appears in the courts above among
" the Sons of God." He is represented as a general in
spector and pubhc prosecutor of the Divine government over
* 1 Samuel xxix. 4. t 1 Kings xi. 25.
X Xumb. xxiL 22. § 1 Tun. i. 20.
II " \tS^ (!•) adeersarim ; in antiquiori Hebraismo homo, ut in 1 Sam. xxix. 4 ;
2 Sam. xix. 23 ; 1 Reg. v. 4 ; xi. 14 ; xxiii. 25 : in sequiori, post exilium Baby-
lonicum, angelus malus sive diaholus, qui kot' i^axh" Satan vocatur, Ps. cix. 6 ;
Zach. iii. 1, 2 ; 1 Chron. xxi. 1. (2.) circuitor, qui civium motus observat j se
cundum quosdam, Hiob. i. 6, S ; ii. 1." — Joh. SlmonU Lex. Hcbr. in verb.
In Ps. cix. 6, and Zach. iii. 1, 2, there is, however, no reason to suppose that
the word is used as a proper name. The former of the two passages is best ren
dered, " Let an accuser stand at his right hand :" and in explanation of the latter.
Archbishop Newcome cites the foUowing note fi^om Dr. Blayney; " It appears to
me most probable, that by Satan, or the Adversary, is here meant the adver
saries of the Jewish nation in a body, or perhaps some leading person among
them, Sanballat for instance, who strenuously opposed tbe rebuilding of the
temple, and of course the restoration of the service of the sanctuary, and the re-
establishment of Joshua in the exercise of his sacerdotal ministry." — Ncwcome's
Minor Prophets, in loc

OF MORAL EVIL. 23
man; going to and fro over the earth, by heavenly com
mission, to execute the probationary part of the great Ruler's
wiU, and administer to mankind the severities which test
their faith. In the earlier Hebrew writings, this office is said
to be fiUed by no subordinate instrument: it is Jehovah
himself who is represented as trying his servants, — as the
personal cause of their afflictions, and author of their temp
tations. I recently heard the following passage from the
first book of Chronicles adduced in proof of the agency of
Satan in seducing men from their aUegiance to God. " And
Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to num
ber Israel."* Now it so happens, that this same event is
recorded also in the much more ancient books of Samuel,
where it is thus introduced : "And again the anger of the
Lord was kindled against Israel, and He moved David
against them to say, ' Go, number Israel and Judah.' "t
What can more clearly mark the natural progress of opinion
on this point ? As the ideas of God became more elevated
and refined, it was felt to be scarcely compatible with his
perfections to seduce his children into violation of the duties
he himself required : and the imagination at least, if not the
understanding, was reUeved by assigning that office, of har
dening the heart and tempting the will, (which originally had
been left with Jehovah himself,) to some interposing being,
who might separate between God and guilt.
When we open the Apocrypha of the Old Testament, we
perceive a complete change in this class of ideas. Even the
latest written of the canonical books introduce us to several
angelic beings, unknown to the earlier Scriptures, — as the
Michael and Gabriel of Daniel. But in addition to these,
we find in the Jewish Apocrypha, for the first time, the ma
tured conception of the Prince of evil ; J who is thenceforth
* 1 Chron. xxi. 1. t 2 Sam. xxiv. 1.
X Wisd. ii. 24 ; Tobit iii. 8.

24

the CHRISTIAN VIEW

represented in the scarcely consistent relations of. creature
and enemy pf . the. Mo,§t, High : and it is in this form that
the notion presents itself to us in the New Testament
writings. Now what is the inference from these facts?
In the books of the ancient dispensation, this malignant
Spirit does not yet appear : in the writings of the new dis
pensation, he is mentioned, — not as a novelty of revelation,
but as long familiar to the mind of every reader. The origin
then of the belief in his existence, must be sought between
the close of the Hebrew inspiration and the opening of the
Christian. And what had happened in this interval ?
The Jewish people had been in long and intimate relation
with Persia : connected with it by political ties, and united
by the sympathies of monotheism. The characteristic fea
tures of the Persian religion were, — its doctrine of a Spirit
of Evil in perpetual enmity to the Supremely Good ; — and
its representation of a heavenly hierarchy, whose spirits were
ranged in ranks of angels and archangels, and received their
separate names. These ideas then naturally passed into the
Jewish mind, with little change ; except that the Evil Spirit
was reduced to a somewhat lower station, in obedience to the
stern Mosaic principle, of the absolute Monarchy of God.*
* On entering the creed of the Jews, this doctrine underwent another change,
of which many traces are to be found in all their subsequent writings, and which
throws light on several passages of the New Testament. It is thus stated by
Dr. D. F. Strauss : " When that Satan who appears in the Persian religion as a
wicked being inimical to mankind, passed into the Jewish faith, his character
was accommodated to the Hebrew peculiarity, which confined to the people of
Israel all that is good and worthy of humanity ; and he was regarded as at once
the special enemy of their nation, and the Lord of their Gentile foes. The in
terests of the Jewish people becoming concentrated in the person of the Mes
siah, it was natural that the Satan should be conceived of as the personal oppo
nent of the Messiah." " Accordingly," adds this writer, " in the New Testa
ment the idea of Jesus as the Messiah everywhere involves that of Satan as the
adversary of his person and work." ' We may well object to the unqualified
' Das Lebeii Jesu krltisch bearbeitet, 5 55.

OF MORAL EVIL. 25
And as these notions became perfectly engrafted on the na
tional faith of Israel, the founders of Christianity were edu
cated in them ; and they were permitted to appear by inci
dental aUusion, and in conformity with the general sentiments
of the country and the age, in the pages of history and cor
respondence, which the evangehsts and apostles have left.
Nor can I perceive, either how it can be proved, or why it
should be desired, that God would annihilate from the un
derstanding of his inspired servants, aU the harmless ideas,
foreign to their mission, which constituted the common stock
of thought at the time, and gave them points of necessary
sympathy and intellectual contact with the spirit of their ge
neration. How slight the sanction which they give to some,
at least, of these mythological imaginations, may be esti
mated by a single fact. The whole theory respecting fallen
angels rests upon two verses,* each in one of the most
doubtful of the New Testament writings : indeed the texts
can scarcely be regarded as constituting two independent au
thorities ; for the latter is httle else than a repetition of the
former ; occurring in a portion of the second epistle of Peter,
which, strangely enough, contains, the sentiments and even the
language of a large part of the epistle of Jude. When such evi
dence as this is brought forward, as conclusive and infallible, I
would respectfully ask our opponents, whether they seriously
believe, on the authority of the same epistle, that Michael the
archangel disputed with the Devil about the body of Moses ?
and as this is nowhere else mentioned, whether an express
and personal revelation of the fact was imparted to St. Jude ?
If so, consistency would require them to maintain, that this
generalization comprised in this last remark, and therefore to many of the au
thor's particular applications of it ; and especially we must regard as unsuccess
ful his attempt to destroy the historical character of the narrative of our Lord's
temptation ; but no judicious interpreter will wholly neglect the suggestion which
the passage contains.
» Jude 6 ; 2 Pet. ii. 4.

26 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
is one of the essential doctrines of the Gospel : for how
much soever our natural and corrupt reason might be
tempted to think the circumstance trivial, if true, it cannot
really be otherwise than fundamental, if privately and expli
citly revealed.*
From the foregoing remarks, the general principles, in con
formity with which I would treat the question of demoniacal
possessions, will be so evident, that it wUl be unnecessary to
enter into any details. The precise relation to each other of
the various orders of evil spirits in which the Jews believed,
it is not possible to define. It is certain, however, that they
made a distinction, which our common translation of the
Scriptures has improperly obhterated, between demons and
devils. The former were thought to be of only human rank,
the souls of the wicked dead : and it was these only that
were supposed to possess and afflict the bodies of the living.
The latter were guilty angels, and had no agency assigned to
them on earth, being kept in durance within the prisons of
the unseen world. There was therefore the same difference
between demons and devils, as with us between ghosts and
fiends. Of the former, Beelzebub was considered as the
chief ; of the latter, Satan : and whether these beings were
regarded as standing in any definite relation to each other, is
uncertain; probably the Devil, as the Prince of darkness,
was believed to be the ruler of all the powers of evil, whether
human or angelic. Unlike his incarcerated compeers, Satan
Was permitted to be at large, and to practise his arts against
mankind: all gentile kingdoms being absolutely his; and
even the chosen people not protected wholly from his ma
lignity, at least until the Messiah's reign, which was to com
mence with his dethronement. It may be observed by any
careful reader of the gospels, that the evUs of which he was
* See Note C.

OF MORAL EVIL. 27
held to be the author, are not the same that are ascribed to
Beelzebub and his demons. Satan, and he only, was the
moral seducer : and the physical calamities proceeding from
him were only natural and inteUigible diseases, regular
enough to fall under the cognizance of science. The demons
had, on the contrary, no concern with the conscience ; and
occasioned only the irregular and apparently preternatural
maladies, which science deserted and left to the tender mer
cies of superstition ; — of which epilepsy and insanity are the
most remarkable examples.
Of this system of notions the evangelists were doubtless
possessed. But that they held them on the tenure of un
erring inspiration can by no means be shown. On the con
trary, the natural causes which produced them can be so clearly
detected in the prevalent sentiments of their age and coun
try, that not the slightest pretext remains for referring them
to express revelation. So far from requiring a miracle to
excite these conceptions, we must admit, that nothing less
than a miracle could have excluded them, familiar as they
had been to the national mind from the time of its inter
course with Persia. Had the founders of Christianity.. never
received any extragjdinary mission, they would have enter
tained the conception of demoniacal possession ; and its hold
upon their thoughts must therefore be regarded as the result
of natural prepossession, not of supernatural communica
tion. ~ A notion whose human origin can be distinctly traced,
— which was shared by uninspired persons, and existed in
the authors of our rehgion in their uninspired years, — has no
claim to be considered as a part of Christianity, and is as
open to doubt and examination as any other opinion of anti
quity. To affirm that, were it not true, God must have
blotted it from the mind of his messengers, is not only to
overbear evidence with assertion, but to decide dogmaticaUy
on the obligations of Deity, and, with infinite presumption,
to dictate the fit measure of his gifts. Till it can be shown.

28 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
that inspiration is co-extensive with omniscience, it must re
main compatible with error.
The language of the Gospels then, respecting demoniacs,
is not to be regarded as a condescending accommodation to
popular prejudice ; but as a genuine expression of the writers'
own state of mind. There is no reason to doubt that the
prevalent ideas were shared by the apostles themselves. By
these did they interpret the facts which they witnessed :
through the colouring of these, their minds beheld the mi
racles of Christ, and their own : and at the suggestion of
these arose the language in which they have recorded the
ministry of their Lord. All this has not the smallest effect
on the truth and soundness of their testimony. They no
doubt reported faithfully that which they saw and heard;
only they tell us something more, adding a few phrases, dis
closing also what they thought. Like all witnesses of simple
mind, especially when telling that which awakens their won
der and affection, they mix up their statements of phenomena
with notions of causation ; and present us with a composite
register of sensible impressions and mental interpretations.
It should be our business, as we read, to call up before us
the scene described ; to see for ourselves the things visible,
and hear the things audible, of which the record speaks ;
and we shall find that this effort will usually make a perfect
and easy separation between the real and the merely ideal,
between the permanent fact and the temporary explanation.
When, for example, it is said, that the demons in a man
possessed spake to Christ, of what are we to think ? for what
voice are we to listen ? where are the lips from which the
utterance flows ? — Certainly it was from the organs of the
poor lunatic himself that the sound must have proceeded :
and modern language would describe this fact by saying, that
he spake ; and in thus believing we accept the whole attesta
tion of the historian.
(3.) The same principle must be applied to the temptation

OF MORAL EVIL. 29
2^ 9^r.^^*" No hint whatever is given, implying any visible
appearance communing with Jesus ; nor need we even sup
pose "any~audible voice addressing him.* The Evil Spirit,
like God himself, was held to be invisible, and inappre
ciable by any human senses: and when words are attri
buted to him, they represent only the dialogue which he is
supposed to hold with the sUent ^nd tempted heart. His
whole guilty transactions indeed belonged, it was imagined,
to the region of the mind ; and his was a viewless and speech-
* Mr. Stowell, in his Lecture on the Personality and Agency of Satan (pp. 703,
704), intimates that probably no visible form presented itself to Jesus : and
though strongly, and as it appears to me reasonably, objecting to the interpreta
tion which resolves the whole temptation into a vision, he supposes, with more
latitude than consistency of explanation, that the Devil " showed" to our Lord
all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, — not really and objectively,
— but by means of " a glowing though scenical representation." The Lecturer
does not state whether he conceives the solicitations of Satan to have been con
veyed by the method of real and organic talking : but if, in the peculiar style of
this narrative, the Tempter can be described as " showing" things without the
presence of any visible objects, he may be described as " saying" things without
the presence of any audible sounds. English orthodoxy, in conformity with the
gross and hard materialism which pervades it, seems to have encouraged the
idea, that all preternatural communications, whether diabolic or divine, with the
human mind, must be made by articulate noises or sensible images ; that the ac
tion of spirit on spirit is inconceivable ; and a revelation in silence and darkness
a thing impossible. Adverting to this prejudice, the admirable Barclay says,
" We must not think his" (Abraham's) " faith was built upon his outward senses,
but proceeded from the secret persuasion of God's spirit in his heart ;'' — '* by
which many times faith is begotten and strengthened without any of these outward
and visible helps ; as we may observe in many passages of the Holy Scriptures,
where it is only mentioned, ' And God said,' &c., ' And the word of the Lord
came' unto such and such, ' saying,' &c. But if any one should pertinaciously
affirm, that this did import an outward audible voice to the carnal ear, I would
gladly know, what other argument such an one could bring, for this his affirma
tion, savirig his own simple conjecture. It is said indeed, ' The Spirit witnesseth
with our spirit ;' but not to our outward ears, Rom. viii. 1 6. And seeing the
Spirit of God is within us, and not without us only, it speaks to our spiritual,
and not to our bodily ear. Therefore I see no reason, where it's so often said ip
Scripture, ' The Spirit said,' ' moved,' ' hindered,' ' called,' such or such a one,
to do or forbear such or such a thing, that any have to conclude, that this was
not an inward voice to the ear of the soul, rather than an outward voice to the
bodily ear. If any be otherwise minded, let them, if they can, produce their
arguments, and we may further consider of them." — Barslay's Apology for the
true Christian Divinity, Prop. II.

30 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
less wrestling with conscience on its throne. Whenever there
fore the seductive assaults of Satan are recorded, the real
fact described is this ; that internal moral confficts have been
going on, and deluding thoughts have been passing, like the
shadow of a dark Spirit, across the purer soul. And in such
case, the first and the only thing of which our consciousness
can be aware, is, the occurrence of these thoughts. To
their antecedent source, our testimony cannot reach; and
whether they are precipitated on us by some enemy from
without, or are of spontaneous origin within our own minds,
is a point accessible indeed to specidation, but beyond
the contact of experience. TUl they enter our nature, and
so become a part of our personahty, they are nothing and
nowhere : and when they enter and we feel their torment,
they are ours and no other being's. No one ever sees, hears,
or feels, the DevU : he perceives simply the intrusion of sinful
ideas, and supposes them to be the result of diabohc power.
He experiences the temptation in reahty ; and refers it to
the tempter in idea. And were this not true of Christ, as
of ourselves, it would be false to say, that he " was tempted
in all points as we are." The temptation of our Lord then,
stripped of the dress which the historians have thrown
around the central facts, was the natural struggle, by which
he exchanged the imperfect, and local, and ambitious con
ceptions of the Messiah, which his cottage training in Naza
reth had imparted, — for that pure, and seK-sacrificing, and
comprehensive interpretation of the office, which broke upon
his sohtude so awfuUy. That he learned, at Mary's knees,
to cherish the common hope of his nation, in the form under
which it prevailed among the peasantry, appears as httle
doubtful, as that he caught the language of his native fields.
Yet it is certain that this early vision passed away ; and that
when he himself was called to fill the appointed office, he
acted out a conception quite opposite to the dreams imparted
to his childhood. Once he had mused on the widening glory

OP MORAL EVIL. 31
of Judcea; but he ended with announcing the prospect of
Its fall. Once he had exulted in the dignity and power of
the coming messenger, who should break the oppression of
his people, and set forth anew the triumph of their ancient
Providence : he declared himself at length the meek prophet
of penury, and woe and childhood. Once he had thought of
what Jerusalem would be, when the temple should be the
centre of the world's homage, and multitudes of all nations
should throng its pavement, and its incense should rise in
the pride of freedom, and its hymn spring upward on the
wing of happy melody : but ere his work of life was finished,
he taught a lowlier yet subhmer expectation, not of the
compression of the world into the Hebrew worship, — ^but of
the diffusion of that worship to cover the world; and re
vealed that secret shrine in every human heart, where emo
tions, purer than incense, may burn for ever, and tones
sweeter than music be for ever breathed. This revolution of
sentiment, this conflict, by which new thoughts of inspira
tion expelled the old ones inherited from education and re
puted prophecy, constituted the temptation in the wilder
ness ; nor was it possible that ideas the most divine, should
thus burst the shell of custom and tradition, without a con
vulsion truly terrible. It would be easy, were it not irrele
vant, to show how this hidden colloquy between the national
prepossessions and the personal intuitions of our Lord's
mind, would give rise to the separate scenes of which the
temptation is said to have been composed. Possibly, how
ever, the history, as it stands, is not the record of a single
event, to which a fixed date can be assigned in his ministry :
more probably, it gathers into one view a series of mental
conflicts, distributed over his whole public life ; the strug
gles between the accidental and the essential portions of his
nature ; between the national and the human : between an
historical imagination trained amid the gorgeousness of pro-

32 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
phecy, and a heavenly conscience dwelling with the simpli
city of God; between the conventional and the spiritual;
between, in short, the superinduced faith contracted from
time and place, and the inborn faith of a soul divine and
free, .. 
In the preceding notices of Scripture, bo sanction is given
_- to the interpretations, if -such there be, which resolve Satan
into a personification, treat the temptation as a vision or an
allegory, and identify the demoniac phraseology with the
common language of pathological description. I believe, in
deed, that, wherever the Devil and. his .flgency_are named,
the only real fact denoted is, the occurrence to some one of
a moral temptation : and that, wherever demons are said to
have been cast out, the only historical event described is, the
cure of some physical or mental disease. \But it appears to
me absurd to deny, that the writers meant more than this ;
to doubt that they held the popular theory of such facts, and
blended it naturaUy with their record ; that they were sin
cerely under the influence of the existing system of demo-
nology, and referred the seductions of sin to the personal
activity of the malignant Spirit. Nowhere, however, do they
pretend to set forth these ideas as gifts of preternatural re
velation, but simply take them up as part of the common
media of thought belonging to the age, and use them as the
incidental colouring to their narrative of facts. In different
parts of the Hebrew Scriptures, as we have seen, very dif
ferent, and even inconsistent notions respecting the origin of
of evil prevail : the conception of a powerful diabolic agent
underwent a regular and natural development : and the sys
tem of pneumatology apparent in the Greek Scriptures is
traceable to a foreign origin in an uninspired age. Hence
we must conclude, that respecting the origin of evil, nothing
doctrinal is speciaUy revealed ; that even in Palestine, the
human mind has been left to grapple with this great problem

OF MORAL EVIL. 33
by its own natural forces ; and that we rise from the page of
Scripture, as from the speculations of wisdom and genius,
with the difficulty yet unsolved.
By no means, then, can we attain to any theoretical cer
tainty, or logical consistency of belief, on this great topic.
Revelation is silent, and philosophy perplexedi_anid the con
troversy between the Religion of Conscience and the Religion
of the Understanding, is undecided still. Let the framers
of systems say what they will, the thing is deeper than our
minds, and what can we know ? Nothing remains, but to
abandon hopelessly the speculative point of view,, and treat
the matter as an object, not of knowledge, but of trust; to
regard it as a question to be decided by its bearings on duty,
rather than its materials for debate. Whenever the means
of attaining to objective truth do not exist, we can but rest
in those views of things which most entirely accord with our
best nature. If we cannot tell what is true of God, we yet
may judge what is fittest for ourselves ; what state of mind,
what modes of thought, prepare us best for the work of life ;
what mental representation of existence most nobly sustains
those fundamental moral convictions, which it is the end of
Christianity to fix in our implicit faith and constant practice.
To this arbitration we must submit our present doubts re
specting the source of evil ; and, while waiting to reach the
realities of reason denied us now, accept, as our best truth,
the conceptions which are most just to our moral nature and
relations, III, Let us then, for final decision, consult the practical
spirit of Christianity, and ascertain to what view of the
origin of sin it awards the preference. Is it well, for .the
consciences and characters _Qf. men, to xjonsiderJjod, — either
directly or through his dependant Satan, — either by his
general laws, or by vitiating the constitution of our first pa
rents, — as the primary source of moraLevU ? or, on the con
trary, to regard it as, in no sense whatever, wiUed by the
c

34 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW^
Supreme Mind, and absolutely inimical to his Providence ?
Are we most in harmony with the characteristic spirit of the
gospel, when we call sin his instrument, or when we call it
his enemy ? ^or myself, I can never sit at the feet of Jesus,
-7 and yield up a reverential heart to his great lessons, without
casting mjrself on the persuasion, that God and evil are ever
lasting foes ; that^never, and for no end, did he create it ; that
his wiU is utterly against it, nor ever touches it, but with an
nihilating force. Any other view appears to be injurious to
the characteristic sentiments, and at variance with the dis
tinguishing genius, of Christian morahty,"^
(1.) Christianity is distinguished by the profound senti
ment of individual responsibility which pervades it. All the
arbitrary forms, and sacerdotal interpositions, and hereditary
rights, through which other systems seek the divine favour,
are disowned by it. It is a religion ewinentiy personal ; es
tablishing the most intimate and solitary dealings between
God and every human soul. It is a religion eminently na
tural ; eradicating no indigenous affection of our mind, dis
torting no primitive moral sentiment ; but simply conse
crating the obligations proper to our nature, and taking up
with a divine voice the whispers, scarce articulate before, of
the conscience within us. In this deep harmony with our
inmost consciousness of duty, resides the true power of our
religion. It subdues and governs our hearts, as a wise con
queror rules the empire he has won ; not by imposing a sys
tem of strange laws, but by arming with higher authority,
and administering with more resolute precision, the laws al
ready recognised and revered.
This sense of individual accountability, — notwithstanding
the ingenuities of orthodox divines on the one hand, and
necessarian philosophers on the other, — is impaired by all
reference of the evil that is in us to any source Iteyond our
selves. To look for a remoter cause than our own guilty
wills, — to contemplate it as a Providential instrument, whe-

OF MORAL EVIL. 35
ther we trace it to Adam, to Satan, or directly to God, be
wilders the simple perceptions of conscience, and throws
doubt on its distinct and solemn judgments. The injury
may be different in character, according to the particular
system we adopt: but any theory which provides the indivi
dual moral agent with participating causes of his guilt, of
fends and weakens some one of the feelings essential to the
consciousness of responsibility.
There is no persuasion, for example, more indispensable
to this state of mind, and, consequently, no impression which
Christianity more profoundly leaves upon the heart, than
that of the personal origin and personal identity af sin, — its
individual, incommunicable character. Our own secret souls,
and that divine gospel which confirms all their sincere deci
sions, alike declare that my^wa. cannot be your-sm ; that by
no compact, even by no rniracle, can any exchange of re-
sponsibUities, or transfer of moral qualities, be effected.
What indeed is guilt in its very n'ature, but a violation of
some venerated rule of action, — a contravention of our own
sentiments of equity, truth, purity, or generosity ? and what
is the guilty mind, but a system or habit of desire, which
successfully resists the control of reason and conscience ?
That mind which is the seat of the delinquent will, — which
hears the remonstrances of right, and heeds them not,^s the
sole proprietor of the sin, deriving it from none, imparting
it to none : its dwelling is in his volition ; and unless that
can cease to be his, the criminahty can admit of no aliena
tion. He may have accomplices indeed : but they are so
many additional agents, each with his separate amount of
guilt, and not partners among whom his one act of free-will
is distributed. The trains of thought and emotion, the ad
justment of tastes and affections, are different in every soul :
each has its own moral complexion ; each, its separate moral
relations; each, its distinct responsibihty in the sight of
God. In no sense is the gift or transfer of character more
c 2

36 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
possible, than a barter of genius, or an interchange of sen
sation. God may caU new life into existence, and determine
what its consciousness shaU be : he may annihUate life, and
plunge its memory and experience into nothing : but to shift
the feelings and aims which constitute the identity of one
being into the personahty of another, is no more possible,
than to alter the properties of a circle, or to cancel departed
time. To trifle in any way with this plain and solemn principle,
to invent forms of speech tending to conceal it, to apply to
moral good and ill, language which assimilates them to phy
sical objects and exchangeable property, imphes frivolous
and irreverent ideas of sin and exceUence. The whole weight
of this charge ievidently faUs on the scheme, which speaks of
human guUt as an-hereditary entaU ; a scheme which shocks
and confounds our primary notion of right and wrong, and,
by rendering them impersonal quahties, reduces them to
empty names. No construction can be given to the system,
which does not pass this insult on the conscience. In what
sense do we share the guUt of our progenitor ? His conces
sion to temptation did not occur within our mind, or belong
in any way to our history. And if, Mithout participation in
the act of wrong, we are to have its penalties, — crimes in
the planet Saturn may be expected to shower curses on the
earth ; for why may not justice go astray in space, as rea
sonably as in time ? (JS nothing more be meant, than that
^ from our first parents we inherit a constitution liable to in
teUectual error and moral transgression ; — stiU, it is evident,
that, until this UabUity takes actual effect, no sin exists, but
only its possibUitvjj' and when it takes effect, there is just so
much guilt and no more, than might be committed by the
individual's will : so that where there is no volition, as in in
fancy, cruelty only could inflict punishment; and where
there is pure volition, as in many a good passage of the
foulest life, equity itself could not withhold approval.

OF MORAL EVIL. 37
In whatever way, then, you define this hypothesis, it di
rectly denies the personal character and personal identity of
sin, and thus enfeebles the most essential element compre
hended in the sentiment of responsibility. The practical re
sult will inevitably be, a system of false views and fictitious
feelings, with respect both to our own characters, and to
those of our fellow-men. That which can be vicariously in
curred, or vicariously removed, cannot be guilt; cannot
therefore, be sincerely felt as such; can awaken no true
shame and self-reproach, and draw forth no burning tears
when we meet the eye of God. It is a shocking mockery to
call sorrow for an ancestor's sin by the name of penitence,
and to confound the perception (or, as it is termed, ' appli
cation,') of Christ's holiness with the personal peace of con
science : the one can be nothing else than moral disapproba
tion, attended by the sense of personal- injury; the other,
moral approval, attended by the sense of^ personal benefit:
and mean and confused must be the sentiments of duty in a
mind which can mistake these for the private griefs of con
trition, and the serenity of a self-forgetful will. Only coun
terfeit emotions, and self-judgmeiits half sincere, can con
sistently arise from a faith which mystifies the primitive
ideas of moral excellence, and destroys aU distinct percep
tion of its nature. It is always with danger that we turn
away from the natural hand-writing of God upon the con-
scLence : from heedless eyes the divine symbols fade away ;
unless, indeed, in some preternatural awakening of our
sight, they blaze forth once again, to tell us that the
kingdom of true greatness hath departed from us. Let
each consider his own life as an indivisible unit of respon
sibility, no less complete, no less free, no less invested
with solemn and sohtary power, than if he dwelt, and
always had dwelt, in the universe alone with God. There is
confided to him, the sole rule of a vast and immortal world
within; whose order can be preserved or violated, whose

38 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
peace secured or sacrificed, by no foreign influence. We
cannot, by ancestral or historical relations, renounce our own
free-will, or escape one iota of its awful trusts. No faith
which fails to keep this truth distinct and prominent, no
faith which shuffles with the sinner's moral identity, contains
the requisites of a " doctrine according to godhness." It
must pervert, moreover, our estimates of others' characters,
no less than of our own. If guilt can be hereditary, — guilt
meriting infinite and indiscriminate punishment, — it must be
universal : and whether we see it or not, we must believe it
to exist, with no appreciable variation of degree, in every
human heart. Thus it becomes a prime duty to regard every
thing in -life, except its wretchedness, every thing in human
nature, except its displays of foulness and of ruin, as a de
lusion and a cheat. We strongly protest against this mise
rable distrust of our best and truest perceptions. We main
tain the intelligible and appreciable character of all moral
qualities, in opposition to all schemes which make distinction
between natural and theological excellence, and which pro
pose imaginary standards of right, different from those that
recommend themselves to a discerning conscience. Sin is no
mysterious thing, no physical poison, no taint in the blood,
which may lurk venomously within us, giving no symptom,
and exciting no consciousness, of its presence. However
insidious in its approaches, and subtle in its manifestations,
vigilance only is needed to detect it : its stealthiness affords,
indeed, a sound reason for circumspection ; but not for su
perstitious horror at its possible existence, without discover
able trace, in ourselves or others. To look on the spectacle
of vice, and not feel abhorrence, indicates a depraved state of
sentiment : — to look on the spectacle of virtue, and believe it
sin, to witness all the outward expressions of goodness and
suspect interior corruption, to be invited by natural emotion
to moral admiration, and, by theological stimulants, to gal
vanise the heart into loathing (or even " pity") instead, im-

OF MORAL EVIL. 39
plies a falsehood of conscience no less malignant. Let me
not be told that, in thus speaking, we assign too high a value
to mere external moralities, which are but treacherous indi
cations of character, and may be the visible fruit of various
and dubious motives. We never cease to teach, that no Epi
curean respectabilities, no conformity with conventional rules
of order, can satisfy the claims, or afford any of the peace
of duty, unless they be the native growth of a perceptive,
devout, and loving heart : — that it is not in the hand which
executes, but in the soul which devises and aspires, in the
secret will which makes sacrifice of self, in the conscience
which grapples with temptations and overmasters fears, that
true and immortal virtue dwells ; since acts are evanescent,
while the affections are eternal. But it is monstrous to infer
from this superficial character of outward morality, that
there is probably no substratum of genuine goodness. Nay,
it is a mean and degrading scepticism which distrusts, without
assignable cause, the reality of any of the symptoms of ex
ceUence ; is tempted by theories of divinity to insinuate that
they are an empty semblance ; and plies its pious ingenuity
to blacken the great human heart. He that is pledged to
make out a case against mankind at large, must find of diffi
cult attainment that charity that " hopeth all things and be-
lieveth aU things." How blunted must be the deUcacy of
moral perception, where the gradations of excellence are
swept away into the dark abyss of universal depravity ! and
t» effect this reduction of all minds to the same level, what
vehement distortion, what wretched sophistries, what devo
tional scandal and romance, must become habitual ! How
much less place for delusion and insincerity is there, when
we maintain a reverential faith in the natural moral senti
ments, repress no generous admiration, disbelieve no ge
nuine expression of disinterestedness and integrity, and in
stead of whining over guUt, dare to bless God with a manly
voice, for all varieties of noble virtue !

40 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
Thus does the habit of tracing sin beyond the individual
wUl to a progenitor, spread confusion over the moral percep
tions, by mystifying the nature of guUt, and destroying that
feeling of its personal character and identity which belongs to
the Christian sentiment of responsibihty.
By a different and directer method the same tendency ope
rates, when we refer our temptations to the agency of the
DevU, rather than to our descent from Adam. An invisible
power, foreign to ourselves, is held chargeable, to an unde
fined extent, with the evil of our own wiUs : and the con
science can as ill bear the present distribution, as the past
transrriission of its guilt. It is said indeed, that man is not
" less culpable, because Satan seduces him, and bhnds his
mind," since there is no power on earth or hell to compel
him to transgress ; that he is a wiUing captive, and no more
to be excused than when a human accomphce entices him to
crime, without (it is admitted) relieving him of any portion
of his criminality.* But the cases are obviously not paral
lel. Man stands up before his fellow man, equal with equal ;
his weapons are fairly measured against his danger, by the
great Arbiter himself; and therefore is he summoned to close
with his temptations, and condemned as a traitor if he yields
or ffies. And should it ever be otherwise, — should the feeble
minded and inexperienced be misled by the cunning of the
strong-headed and practised seducer, the instinctive justice
of mankind mitigates its sentence, and commiserates the fall.
With how much greater force, then, must this paUiation be
felt, when the Tempter is admitted to be " possessed of ca
pacity and power immensely surpassing ours,"t — a "master
spirit" of majestic intellect, with whom we are as an infant
in the gianf s grasp ! With such a being, the broken energy,
the purblind vigilance, of a faUen man, can hardly be ex
pected to cope ; at least they will be induced, in so plausible
» Mr. Stowell's Lecture, p. 713. f Ibid. p. 695.

OF MORAL EVIL. 41
a case, to esteem themselves unfairly matched against so ex
alted a competitor. While it were earnestly to be desired
that the wretched conscience should be aUowed no evasion,
and for awhile no alleviation, under the condemning sentence
of its memory and its God, — this doctrine calls up, inevitably
and reasonably, the feeling of a divided criminality, of which
the weaker nature has the smaller share.
These tendencies, so far as they have been truly stated,
must continue to act, so long as we trace the evil that is in
us to any foreign agent. Hence it appears impossible to de
fend the doctrine of PhUosophical Necessity, — which presents
God to us as the author of sin and suffering, — from the same
charge of invading the sense of perspnal responsibility. Not
that we are for a moment to sanction the vulgar error which
confounds this scheme, in its theoretical structure and prac
tical effects, with the system of fatahsm ; or to imagine, that
an abdication of all free-will, and a total indifference to moral
distinctions, would be its proper and consistent results.
Though, however, it leaves room for individual pursuit, and
motive to individual perfection, one of its chief and most
vaunted features undoubtedly is, the encouragement which it
affords to the passive virtues : and it wUl be found, I greatly
fear, that it is their passiveness, more than their virtuousness,
which- puts them under the protection of this doctrine.
Doubtless, he who can look on aU men as the instruments
of heaven, and recognize in their mutual injuries and crimes
the chosen methods of the Divine government, must learn
submission to many a triumph of wrong, and consider anger
against the profligate and oppressor as insubordination against
God. He who is haunted by the immutabihty of things,
and feels himself locked in with the universal mechanism,
wiU chafe himseK with no rash spirit of resistance, nor vainly
thrust his hand against the fly-wheel of nature. He who
believes that all things are right, that absolute evU does not
exist, that whatever men may be, and whatever they may

42 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
do, nothing could possibly be better, must needs discover
that his own wishes are no criterion of good, and look with
a contented eye over the whole surface of the past, as weU
as a serene trust on the prospect of the future. Nor can
there be any self-exaggeration in a mind conscious of pos
sessing but an infinitesimal fraction of the universal power, —
and even that little wielded and directed by an uncontrollable
sovereignty, that turns the hearts of men whithersoever it
pleaseth. Complacency with every lot, resignation to all
events, forbearance under injury, an equal tenderness for all
men, and the lowhest attitude before God, are the unques
tionable results of this religious philosophy. But aU this is
attained by a process which, I would submit, the moralist is
bound to regard as illegitimate ; — by an appeal to external
mechanical necessity, rendering any thing but these states of
mind intellectually improper ; not by any considerations of
duty, or any perception of their intrinsic obligation. The
whole efficacy of the system is negative, not positive. It
prostrates and destroys the turbulent elements of our nature,
and its quietude is the residue left by their exhaustion : it
crumbles beneath us the heights of passion, and deposits us
upon a placid level beneath the infinite ej^panse. Its cha
racteristic dispositions are reached by the sacrifice of the
feelings which are distinctively moral : — the feelings, that is,
of which right and wrong acts and propensities are the ap
propriate objects ; — the feelings of approbation and aversion,
which recognize merit and demerit, and impel to praise and
.blame. The Necessarian sees, neither in himself nor others,
any good or ill desert to justify such feelings : he regards
natural and moral qualities in the same light, — contempla
ting benevolence as a species of health, and selfishness as
akin to disease : if he utters censure or applause, it is not
from an impulse in himself, but for an effect upon their ob
ject. In his love to men moral distinctions have no place ;
for as their sins justify no alienation, their virtues give no

OF MORAL EVIL. 43
claim to admiration : he loves them apart from the percep
tions of conscience, — without veneration, — without praise, —
by the mere force of the sympathies which take interest in
sentient beings as capable of happiness and misery : — loves
them, may we not say, because there is no cause for hate ;
resentment, impatience, disgust, being out of place towards
creatures who are what they were meant to be, nothing
remains but to include them in his complacency. Nor does
the humility which this system inculcates, bear the true
and Christian stamp. It is .not the irrepressible aspiration
after moral perfection, the pursuit of an image in the con
science infinitely beautiful and great, the devoted worship of
the holy, good, and true, which draw forth tears of contri
tion for the past, and dwarf the attainments of the present,
though reckoning their thousand victories ; but it is rather a
sense of physical and mental insignificance, which annihi
lates aU worth except such as we may derive from sharing the
regards of God : it is not a perception of want of merit in our
character, but a consciousness of incapacity for it in our
nature. And who could fairly realize the fundamental idea of this
scheme, without losing aU confidence in his own moral con
victions, and constantly distrusting his best feelings as delu
sions ? For does he not beheve, that whatever is brought to
pass is absolutely right and best, and that any different view
of it is an iUusion incident to our human point of sight?
The optimist casts his eye over the past, and can see no blot
upon the retrospect : yet does it contain innumerable things,
— woes and crimes the most deplorable, — which, ere they
happened, were repugnant to his worthiest desires, and to
be encountered by the most strenuous resistance of duty.
Is he then to look at these objects, up to the last moment of
the present, as utterly evU ; and from the first moment of
the past, as indisputably best ? Is he to set up a two-faced
sentiment, gazing with mutable and discriminative expres-

44 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
sion on things approaching, but with unvaried complacency
on things departed ? Is it possible, that actions and charac
ters can change their complexion by mere migration in time?
or was it altogether a mistake to think so ill of the iniquities
which, having been summoned into existence, must always
have appeared ehgible in the view of God ? These per
plexities must perpetually arise to a mind which uses two
standards of good; the moral, which approves the right;
and the eventual, which reveres the past. The latter inces
santly contradicts the former, and insinuates that it is a
bhnd guide, aiming at that which the All-wise wiU refuses to
achieve. And thus our theorist, in so far as he is true to his
principles, would lapse into scepticism of his moral judg
ments ; into a hesitating veneration for the oracles of duty ;
a suspicion that they may inculcate provisional superstitions,
rather than eternal truths. It must be difficult to unite
pious acquiescence in the guUt of others, with uncompro
mising resistance to our own.
In short, the contemplations presented by this doctrine
do not appear to be favourable to active excellence : rising
too far, and embracing too much, they quit the contact of
this green earth, and lose sight of the interval between the
quiet vales where virtue walks, and the giddy heights it may
not tread. The soul, rendered conscious more of the im
mensity around it, than of the obligations upon it, lies still,
without a passion, without a fear, — venturing an approach
to the benignity more than to the energy of God. Perhaps it
is the tendency of aU systems which most amply spread forth
the Divine Infinitude, to be less occupied with the concep
tion of the Divine HoUness : perhaps the mind intensely
occupied with the idea of one solitary Power, absorbing all
subordinate agencies, and willing every change that renders
space or time perceptible, has all its strongest impulses, both
moral and sympathetic, suppressed in the abyss of mystery ;
and the distinction between different beings and different

OF MORAL EVIL. 45
acts appears, in so vast a view, too trivial to be worthy of
deep emotion and resolute volition. Certain it is, that the
oriental religions which have encouraged this subhmity of
devotion and self-annihilation in the Deity, have not been
remarkable for the formation of a sound and vigorous type
of moral character. Indeed we have seen that God himself,
the supreme centre of reverence, no longer remains, under
the Necessarian representation, a really holy object of
thought. If we are to admit no possibUity of resisting his
will, and proclaiming him the Only Cause, to drown all other
powers in his immensity, it becomes impossible to feel that
he has any paramount regard to moral distinctions : he can
not share our feelings towards human guilt, for it is his work:
he objects to no amount of vice, provided it issues in enjoy
ment : and not one libertine, or traitor, or murderer, could
his purposes have spared. To reconcile us to this dreadful
thought, we are reminded of his benevolence, which wiU
bring all things to a glorious result. But how can we discern
any sanctity in a benevolence so indiscriminating in its in
struments ? Must aU our various apprehensions of God,
the supremely good and supremely fair, shrink into this
one, of ultimate-happiness Maker, by no means fastidious in
his application of means, but secure of producing the end ?
Must the harmony of the Divine perfections lapse into this
dull monotone ? It can hardly be well for our conscience to
worship a Being whom we could not imitate without guilt :
-or, if it be said, that we may imitate his ultimate aim,
though not his intermediate methods, — what is this but to
admit that our moral sympathies \vith him must be post
poned to the end of time ?
This system, then, like others which trace sin to causes
beyond the individual will, does not appear to foster that
deep reverence for moral distinctions, and sense of personal
responsibility, which eminently characterize practical Chris
tianity. It is favourable indeed to the passive virtues, which

46 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
occupy their due place in the morality of the Gospel : but
in producing them, appeals to considerations discouraging to
the active spirit of moral resistance and moral aggression.
To all this, however, an objector might urge the following
reply : — " Human conduct is not influenced by such consi
derations as you have supposed. It matters little what men
may think about the origin of their guilt, if they make no
mistake about its consequences : let them only be sure that it
will be punished in the end, and they may please themselves
with speculating about its beginning. Every one wiU fly an
inevitable suffering, whether self-incurred or induced by fo
reign causes : and if he clearly sees the penal sentence, he
wiU shun the sin, just as much when he imagines that others
have involved him in it, as when he conceives that he alone
has brought it on himself. In short, the will neither is nor
can be determined by anything but the prospect of pleasure
or pain ; and so long as consequences of this kind depend
on his decisions, a man will feel himself accountable. The
sense of responsibility can never be weakened by any system
which, hke those just noticed, retain the doctrine of future
retribution." This statement assumes that self-regarding motives, pro
mises of happiness, and threats of misery, are the sole powers
for operating on human character.
(2.) In reply, I submit as a second distinguishing feature of
practical Christianity, that it makes no great, certainly no
exclusive, appeal to the prudential feelings, as instruments of
duty ; treats them as morally incapable of so sacred a work ;
and relies, chiefly and characteristicaUy, on affections of the
heart, which no motives of reward and punishment can
have the smallest tendency to excite.
The Gospel, indeed, like all things divine, is unsystematic
and unbound by technical distinctions, and makes no meta
physical separation between the will and the affections. It is
too profoundly adapted to our nature, not to address itself

OF MORAL EVIL. 47
copiously to both. The doctrine of retribution being a solemn
truth, appears with aU it.§...native. force . in „the teachings of
Christ, and arms many of his appeals with_ a persuasion just
and terrible. But never was there a religion (containing
"these motives at all) so frugal in the use of them ; so able, on
fit occasions, to dispense with them : so rich in those inimit
able touches of moral beauty, and tones that penetrate the
conscience, and generous trust in the better sympathies, which
distinguish a morality of the affections. In Christ himself,
where is there a trace of the obedience of pious self-interest,
computing its everlasting gains, and making out a case for
compensation, by submitting to infinite wisdom ? In his
character, which is the impersonation of his religion, we surely
have a perfect image of spontaneous goodness, unhaunted by
the idea of personal enjoyment, and, like that of God, un
bidden but by the intuitions of conscience, and the impulses
of love. And what teacher less divine ever made such high
and bold demands on our disinterestedness ? To lend out our
virtue upon interest, — to " love them only who love us," he
pronounced to be the sinners' morality ; nor was the feeling of
duty ever reached, but by those who could " do good, hoping
for nothing again," except that greatest of rewards to a true
and faithful heart, to be " the chUdren of the Highest," who
" is kind unto the unthankful and the evil." In the view of
Jesus, all dealings between God and men were not of bargain,
but of affection. We must surrender ourselves to him with
out terms ; must be ashamed to doubt him who feeds the birds
of the air, and, like the lily of the field, look up to him with a
bright and loving eye ; and he, for our much love, will pity
and forgive us. In his own ministry, how much less did our
Lord rely for disciples on the cogency of mere proof, and the
inducements of hope and fear, than on the power of moral
sympathy, by which every one that was of God naturally
loved him and heard his words;* by which the good shepherd
* John viii. 42, 47.

48 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
knew his sheep, and they Ustened to his voice, and foUowed
him ;* and without which no man could come unto him, for
no spirit of the Father drew liim,t No condition of disciple-
ship did Christ impose, save that of " faith in him ;" absolute
trust in the spirit of his mind ; a desire of self-abandonment
to a love and fidehty Uke his, without tampering with expe
diency, or hesitancy in perU, or shrinking from death.
There is, then, a wide variance between the genius of
Christianity, and that phUosophy which teaches, that aU men
must be bought over to the side of goodness and of God, by
a price suited to their particular form of selfishness and ap
petite for pleasure. Our religion is remarkable for the large
confidence it reposes on the disinterested affections, and the
vast proportion of the work of Ufe it consigns to them. And
in thus seeking to subordinate and tranquilhze the prudential
feehngs, Christ manifested how weU he knew what was in
man. He recognized the truth, which aU experience declares,
that in these emotions is nothing great, nothing loveable, no
thing powerful ; that their energy is perpetuaUy found inca
pable of withstanding the impetuosity of passion ; and that
aU transcendant virtues, aU that brings us to tremble or to
kneel, aU the enterprises and confficts which dignify history,
and have stamped any new feature on human life, have had
their origin in the disinterested re^on of the mind ; in affec
tions, unconsciously entranced by some object sanctifying and
divine. He knew, for it was his special mission to make aU
men feel, that it is the office of true religion to cleanse the
sanctuary of the secret affections, and effect a regeneration
of the heart. And this is a task which no direct nisus of the
wUl can possibly accomphsh, and to which, therefore, aU
offers of reward and punishment, operating only on the wiU,
are quite inapphcable. The single function of vohtion is to
act ; over the executive part of our nature it is supreme ; over
• John X. 14, 27. f John vi. 44.

OF MORAL EVIL. 49
the emotional it is powerless ; and all the wrestUngs of desire
for self-cure and self-elevation, are like the struggles of a child
to lift himself. He who is anxious to be a philanthropist, is
admiring benevolence, instead of loving men ; and whoever is
labouring to warm his devotion, yearns after piety, not after
God. The mind can by no spasmodic bound seize on a new
height of emotion, or change the light in which objects appear
before its view. Persuade the judgment, bribe the self-in
terests, terrify the expectations, as you will, you can neither
dislodge a favourite, nor enthrone a stranger, in the heart.
Show me a child that flings an affectionate arm around a pa
rent, and lights up his eyes beneath her face, and I know that
there have been no lectures there upon filial love ; but that
the mother, being loveable, has of necessity been loved ; for
to genial minds it is as impossible to withhold a pure affec
tion, when its object is presented, as for the flower to sulk
within the mould, and clasp itself tight within the bud, when
the gentle force of spring invites its petals to curl out into the
warm light. As you reverence all good affections of our na
ture, and desire to awaken them, never caU them duties,
though they be so ; for so doing, you address yourself to the
will ; and by hard trying no attachment ever entered the heart.
Never preach on their great desirableness and propriety ;
for so doing, you ask audience of the judgment ; and by way
of the understanding no glow of noble passion ever came.
Never, above all, reckon up their balance of good and ill ; for
so doing, you exhort self-interest ; and by that soiled way no
true love will consent to pass. Nay, never talk of them, nor
even gaze curiously at them ; for if they be of any worth and
delicacy, they will be instantly looked out of countenance and
fly. Nothing worthy of human veneration will condescend to
be embraced, but for its own sake : grasp it for its excellent
results, — make but the faintest offer to use it as a tool, and it
slips away at the very conception of such insult. / The func
tions of a healthy body go on, not by knowledge of phy-

50 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
siology, but by the instinctive vigour of nature ; and you will
no more brace the spiritual faculties to noble energy and true
life, by study of the uses of every feeling, than you can train
an athlete for the race, by lectures on every muscle of every
hmb. The mind is not voluntarUy active in the acquisition
of any great idea, any new inspiration of faith ; but passive,
fixed on the object which has dawned upon it, and filled it
with fresh light.
If this be true, and if it be the object of practical Chris
tianity, not only to direct our hands aright, but to inspire our
hearts ; then can its ends never be achieved by the mere force
of reward and punishment; then no system can prove its
sufficiency, by showing that it retains the doctrine of retribu
tion, and must even be held convicted of moral incompe
tency, if it trusts the conscience mainly to the prudential feel
ings, without due provision for enlisting the co-operation of
many a disinterested affection.
To this objection must any scheme be liable, which repre
sents the Creator as having made choice of the instrumentality
of evil. I freely admit, that no one urges the personal
motives to duty with more closeness and force than the
Necessarian. Maintaining, with the utmost strictness, the
connexion of moral cause and effect, teaching the aUiance of
happiness with excellence, and of misery with vice, by a law
inexorable as fate, he convinces us, that every concession to
temptation, every relaxation of conscientious effort, is an ad
dition of wretchedness to our future lot ; that when the evil
volition has once passed, no fortuity can provide evasion, nor
any mercy give us shelter ; that on the decisions of our will is
suspended whatever can make our everlasting destination
blessed. But his doctrine goes on to assure us, that it is only
to ourselves that our sins create any clear increase of suffer
ing ; they are a part of the best possible system, designed for
the general good ; and shown, by their occurrence, to be clear
benefits to the world. No love of our fellow-man, then, can

OF MORAL EVIL. 51
be engaged in behalf of duty ; let conscience say what it will,
we hold no power, and incur no risk, of creating injury to
others ; and our sympathies with them cannot reasonably de
termine any moral choice. No love of God can tender help
to our feeble virtue : for he is not " grieved in our sins ;" and
whether, in our conflicts, we succumb or conquer, the issue is
weU-pleasing in his sight. He appears to sustain a relation,
not of concern, but of indifference, to our choice ; and the
idea of him, as spectator of the strife, inspires no courage, and
brings no victory. If it be urged, that these considerations
are of too high and abstract a kind to influence us in prac
tice, and that to us our misconduct must always appear in
jurious to men, and offensive to God; what is this but to
aUow the unfitness of the doctrine to our minds, and to say,
that it is harmless, in proportion as it remains unrealized ? It is
a poor plea for the value of a system to exclaim, " Never mind
its threatened mischiefs, conscience is too strong for them."
The point at which, the p.resent argument rests is this, that
in so far as the doctrine operates, it dismisses all but the pru
dential feelings from the service of duty.
Our conclusion is evident. The spirit of practical Chris- •
tianity gives a double suffrage against the scheme which makes ,
moral evil the instrument of God ; and bids us regard it as his
enemy. Revelation alhes itself with the primitive rehgion of.
the conscience.
To the theoretic question, still urged by our wonder and
sojicitude, " But whence this foe ?" it has been already said,
that no answer can be giyen. All the ingenuities of logic
and of language, leave it a mystery still : and it is better to
stand within the darkness in the quietude of faith, than
vainly to search for its margin in the restlessness of know
ledge. Were we compelled, for relief of mind, to select
some definite method of representing the case to our appre
hensions, I know not any simpler or better conception than
that of the ancient Platonists ; — that the process of creation
D 2

52

THE CHRISTIAN VIEW

consisted, not in the origination of matter itself out of no
thing, but in the production of form, order, beauty, organi
zation, life, sentiency, out of matter, — in making it the re
sidence of mind, the receptacle of experience, and the ser
vitor of souls : that the Divine hand has manifested illimit
able skill, and the Divine love infinite versatility, in the use
and application of the original material ; but that, as it is
the negative opposite to his positive perfections, its unsus-
ceptibility of life and spirit has occasioned the portion of
evil which deforms the universe, and which, however varied
and reduced, and, in the higher gradations of being, attenuated
to the verge of extinction, cannot be utterly annihilated.
From the large proportion of visible evil, natural and moral,
that is traceable to disorganization and its related changes,
this view is easily apprehended, and may indeed be detected,
in many common forms of thought and speech. If it be not
true, no better substitute for the truth is within our reach.
It limits the power of God no more than the rival scheme :
for were we to say, that he became the author of evil, as the
unavoidable means of ulterior benefits, we should admit, that
only on these terms was the contemplated good producible,
even by him whom, in relation to all our measures of force,
w^e justly call Omnipotent. It is impossible to escape, and
therefore better to confront, the idea of a necessity, re
stricting the conditions within which the Divine goodness
operates; — a necessity, mysterious, but not dreadful; not
great enough to be subversive of faith, nor trivial enough to
be reasoned out of sight. I know not why our thoughts
should not find a residence for this necessity, rather in the
materials awaiting the Creative hand, than in any immaterial
laws, under the mystic title of " the Nature of things," or
(in other words,) any dark Fate behind the throne. But in
saying thi.s, I only propose to state the problem in the most
salutary form, and by no means to offer a solution : mere
pretension to ideas, where truly we have none, only excludes

OP MORAL EVIL. 53
us from the benefits (which are many) of our allotted portion
of ignorance. I have no sympathy with the confident and
dogmatic spirit, which exclaims, " Let the counsel of the
Holy One draw nigh, that we may know it ;" and would
only protest against systems that " call evil good, and good
evil," that " put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter."
Sin, then, in the sight of God and all good men, is to be
esteemed an evil, absolutely and everlastingly. We may
rally the whole power of our nature against it : for it
destroys our personal security ; it irremediably wounds our
brother ; and it puts us in dreary alienation from our Father
and our Judge. We may let loose our aversion to all that
offends the conscience, and without metaphysical hesitancy,
visit it with uncompromising hate ; for so doing, we are in
dignant with no instrument of Deity ; nor do we faU into
any sentiment at variance with his. We may yield, with
entire seK-precipitation, to the love of whatever things are
pure and true and good ; never fearing that our affections
wiU become too exclusive for the enlightened children of the
Highest, When we look into the darker chambers of our
soul, and discern, asleep or awake, the powers of selfish
ness, malice, jealousy, — we see therein no nursery of disci
pline, where God presides to train us ultimately well ; but
the dreadful dwelling of our familiar fiend who wrestles in
apostacy with God ; — the palace of the penal furies that at
once tempt and torture us, a place severed by a whole uni
verse from Heaven ; — the inner HeU of our immortal nature,
so plenteous in solitary agonies, that the addition of outward
flames populous with tormented beings would only refresh
us with pity for their woes. The fever of desire, the fires
of revenge, the gnawing of remorse, still busy in our im
mortality ; the shame of resuscitated memories ; the pas
sionate yearning after strength with the prostrate conscious
ness of weakness ; the strangeness and desolation of empty
minds and heated appetites carried to the assemblage of the

54 THE CHRISTI.A.N VIEW
skies, and gazed on by the pitying eye of a Divine but
aUenated purity, — Oh ! what flames can burn into tenderer
seats of anguish than these ? And so far from planning and
wiUing the lapse of any into such guilt and suffering, the
Great Ruler never ceases to resist to the last, aU such delay of
his benediction and frustration of his desire. He dwells ab
solutely apart from all creative contact with the evU which
we are bound to abhor : he comes before us as a being un
ambiguously Holy ; not in any ultimate and scarce inteUigible
way, but in our plain human sense. His name must be re
served as the exclusive receptacle of all the excellence and
beauty, the majesty and tenderness, the purity and justice,
of which our minds can gather together the ideas. It is no
figure of speech, that there is joy in heaven over the sinner
that repenteth : that part at least of heaven that dwells be
low and hides itself within our hearts, that portion of God
that expresses itself through the sanctities of our nature,
yields to our moral restoration not only a ready welcome,
but a mysterious help. When fear has performed its proper
and only function on a responsible being, — which is, not to
create holiness, but to arrest guilt ; when it has summoned
us, like the prodigal, to ourselves again ; when it has brought
the mad career to halt, and left us weeping, humbled, pros
trate in the dust, crying, " Lord, help us, we perish ;" —
then the Divine Spirit dawns on the gloom of our self-
abasement, and refreshes us with the delicious light of a
new and purer love : instead of the vain strivings of an ener
vated will, the restless beating of mere prudence against the
iron bars of corrupt desire, the gates of the soul are burst
silently open by some angel affection, and we are free ! And
shall we not, with most devout allegiance, follow our Divine
Emancipator ? The great work, which his holy energy is
thus ready to carry on within us, he may be discerned con
ducting every where without us. On the theatre of the uni
verse he is himself engaged to grapple eternaUy with Evil,

OP MORAL EVIL. 55
and hurl it from the higher portion of his abode. And so,
he waits, with his inspiring sympathy, to hail every victory
of our free-will : and by all the fihal love we bear him, by
the generous fear of estrangement from his spirit, by the
hope of growth in his similitude, we are summoned to enter
the field of moral conflict, — to stir up the noble courage of
our hearts, and in the Lord's own might, do battle with the
confederate fiends of guilt and woe. There is not elsewhere
a combat so glorious, or a trophy so divine.

J^ jfe<^iC iff-Mt, CeLf-t^ - — — ^*i^ff'%}irUu^lft'i^'>'l'**fn^^'t-f~^

NOTES.

A.

Origin of the Doctrine of Two Principles.
The prominent place which the doctrine of two principles occupies
in the later theology of the Persians has procured for that people the
reputation of heing the first to apprehend it ; and for Zoroaster the
credit of assigning to it its due importance in the religious reforma
tion which he accomplished. So much doubt, however, exists, re
specting the age in which Zoroaster lived, the nature and extent of
the change which he introduced, and even on the question whether
he really taught the dualistic scheme at all, that he cannot justly
deprive the Ionian philosophers of a claim to originality in their
resort to it. If either before the Persian conquest of the Medes.or
in the time of Darius Hystaspes, this doctrine had been entrusted to
the Magi, as conservators of the national religion, it is difficult to
account for the omission of so fundamental a tenet in the account
which Herodotus gives of the Persian theology. The simple mono
theism which the Father of History describes, as seeking the moun
tain top in sacrifice, and calling the whole circle of the heavens God,*
can scarcely be the same with the elaborate system of dualism,
attributed by Plutarch to Zoroaster and the Magi ;t and the diflference
between the two accounts throws a doubt on the antiquity of the latter
doctrine in the East. Yet, on the other hand, if we assign to it the
most recent date of which the case admits, we must allow that it
formed part of the popular belief in the fourth century before Christ ;
in which case, it must bave existed, at least in its previous philosophical
* Ot V yojuffoi/ffi All' lih, ^7r! to ul/flJ^((TaTa tuv oipewv avafiaivorra, Svfflas
ipStti/, rhr KiK\ov itivTa toS oipavov Aia Ka\4ovTfS. i. 131.
t De Iside et Osiride, § 46, 47.

58 NOTES.
form, in the fifth. A doctrine, however, which had not yet assumed
a mythological character, or drawn to itself any external ceremonial,
might easily escape the notice of Herodotus. The Indian books, which
contain the same tenet, are thought by Friedrich von Schlegel to have
borrowed it from Persia ;* and cannot therefore be adduced in separate
proof of its high antiquity. On the whole, there appears to be no
evidence of its propagation among any native Oriental people, before
the brilliant period of art and philosophy in the Greek cities of Asia
Minor. Even if it should be chronologically incorrect to affirm, that Ionian
speculation " anticipated" the oriental religions in their theological
and philosophical ideas, there is no sufficient reason to deny its in
dependence and originality. Though the Greek schools did not arise
till an opening intercourse with Egypt and the interior of Asia afforded
to their founders the opportunity of borrowing from foreign sources, it
does not appear that they estimated this advantage highly enough to
avail themselves of it. Only a truly indigenous philosophy could
have left such distinct traces of a regular and progressive development,
beginning with the poetical cosmogonies of a purely mythological
sera, and growing, under the fostering care of successive teachers,
into vast speculative systems, bearing a relation, continually more
obscure and questionable, to the theology which gave them birth.
Adverting to this natural process, Mr. Thirlwall says : "It can excite
no surprise that in a period such as we are now reviewing, when
thought and inquiry were stimulated in so many new directions, some
active minds should have been attracted by the secrets of nature, and
should have been led to grapple with some of the great questions
which the contemplation of the visible universe suggests. There can
therefore be no need of attempting to trace the impulse by which the
Greeks were now carried toward such researches, to a foreign origin.
But it is an opinion which has found many advocates, that they were
indebted to their widening intercourse with other nations, particularly
with Egypt, Phoenicia, and the interior of Asia, for several of the
views and doctrines which were fundamental or prominent parts of
their earlier philosophical systems. The result, however, of the
maturest investigation, seems to show that there is no sufficient ground

* See his Treatise, Uber die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier ; an abstract of
which, with a translation of the portions relating to the dualistic system, will be
found in Dr. Prichard's Analysis of the Egyptian Mythology, Book III.

.NOTES. 59
even for this conjecture.* On the other hand, it is clear that the
first philosophers were not wholly independent of the earlier intel
lectual effiDrts of their own countrymen, and that, perhaps uncon
sciously, they derived the form, if not, in part at least, the substance
of their speculations, from the old theogonies and cosmogonies. "t
The successive evolutions of the Pantheistic principle, and its final
renunciation by Anaxagoras, are thus succinctly described by Mr.
Thirlwall : " Thales evolved his world out of a single simple sub
stance, (water) to which he attributed the power of passing spontane
ously through the various transformations necessary for the multi
plicity of natural productions. But he does not seem to have attempted
accurately to define the nature of these transformations. And so
most of his successors, who set out from a similar hypothesis, con
tented themselves with some vague notions, or phrases, about the
successive expansions or contraftions of the original substance. But
as the contemplation of animal life had led Anaximenes to adopt air
as the basis of his system, a later philosopher, Diogenes of ApoUonia,
carried this analogy a step further, and regarded the universe as
issuing from an inteUigent principle, by which it was at once vivified
and ordered — a rational, as well as sensitive soul — still without recog
nizing any distinction between matter and mind. Much earher, how
ever, Anaximander of Miletus, who flourished not long after Thales,
and is generally considered as his immediate disciple, seems to have
been struck by the difficidty of accounting for the changes which a
simple substance must be supposed to undergo, in order to produce an
infinite variety of beings. He found it easier, in conformity with
some of the ancient cosmogonies, to conceive the primitive state of
the universe as a vast chaos, for which he had no other name than
the infinite, — containing all the elements out of which the world was
to be constructed, by a process of separation and combination, which,
however, he considered as the result of a motion, not impressed on
it from without, but inherent in the mass. This hypothesis, which
tended to give an entirely new direction to the speculations of the
school, seems to have been treated with a neglect which it is difficult
to explain, and which has raised a suspicion that some less celebrated
names may have dropped out of the list of the Ionian philosophers.
* We allude to Ritter (Geschichte der Philosophic), who (i. p. 159-173) has
weighed all the arguments which have been alleged in behalf of this opinion with
an even hand.
t Thirlwall's History of Greece, Vol. IL pp. 130, 131.

60 NOTES.
But a century after Anaximander, Anaxagoras of Clazomenae revived
his doctrine with some very fanciful additions, and one very impor
tant change. He combined the principle of Anaximander with that
of his contemporary Diogenes, and acknowledged a supreme mind,
distinct from the chaos to which it imparted motion, form, and order.
The Pantheistic systems of the Ionian school were only independent
of the popular creed, and did not exclude it. The language of Thales
and Heraclitus, who declared that the universe was full of gods, left
room for all the fictions of the received mythology, and might even
add new fervour to the superstition of the vulgar. But the system of
Anaxagoras seems to have been felt to be almost irreconcilable with
the prevailing opinions, and hence, as we shall find, drew upon him
hatred and persecution."*
In confirmation of the opinions expressed towards the close of this
Lecture, I cannot refrain from subjoining the following moral esti
mate of the doctrine of two principles : it is from F. von Schlegel's
Treatise, before alluded to, on the Language and Wisdom of the
Indians. " Pantheism inevitably destroys the distinction between
good and evil, however strenuously its advocates may contend
in words against this reproach ; the doctrine of emanation de
presses the moral freedom of the will by the idea of an infinite degree
of innate guilt, and the belief that every being is predestined to crime
and misery ; the system of two principles, and the warfare between
good and evil, holds the middle place between these extremes : it
becomes, itself, a powerful incentive to a similar contest, and a source
of the purest morality."t
• Vol. IL pp. 134, 135.
t Dr. Prichard's Translation. Egyp. Myth. pp. 242, 243.

NOTES.

61

Hebrew Names for the Evil Spirit.
The mere fact, that no proper names for the Evil Spirit exist in
the Hebrew language, except such as are of Apocryphal or Rabbinical
creation, is in itself a sufficient proof of the late and unscriptural
origin of the belief in his existence. A glance at an English concord
ance will make it evident, that the word " Devil," in the singular
number, does not occur in our authorized translation of the Hebrew
Scriptures. It is found in the plural in Lev. xvii. 7, 2 Chron. xi. 15,
Deut. xxxii. 17, Ps. cvi. 37 ; and in none of these instances can it
for a moment be supposed that the original word, if used in the sin
gular, would represent any idea corresponding to the popular notion
of the Devil ; indeed, when the Rabbinical writers needed a name for
the expression of this idea, they had recourse to other terms than
those which are found in the verses just cited. In the two latter pas
sages, the Hebrew word is D''^^i>, literally, mighty beings ; it clearly
denotes false gods, and probably designates them by the title applied
to them by their votaries ; for the name is evidently not contemptu
ous, and is indeed radically the same which was applied by the
Israelites to Jehovah, and receives in our version the translation
Almighty. In the two former passages, the word is Qn^yiy, literally,
goats, and evidently denotes the ieathen deities, typified under the
form of that animal ; especially, we may suppose, the Egyptian Pan,
worshipped in the Mendesian nome,* with rites the most abominable.
In Isaiah xiii. 21, the common translation renders the same word

Several names of evil spirits occur in the Talmudical writings :
and among them are two which are appropriated to the Satanic chief,
viz., 7KDD, Samuel; and "'"TDti/K, Asmodceus. The latter is the
term by which the evil spirit is designated in Tobit iii. 8 ; and it
would be easy to show, by a multitude of passages, that the being to
whom both these names were given corresponded to the " Devil" of
modern theology, as far as correspondence can be affirmed to exist
between any two creations of the imagination. Thus we are told, in
words which also show the use of the word Satan as a generic rather
* Bochart's Hierozoicon. P. I. lib. ii. p. 640. seqq. Herod. II. 46.

62 NOTES.
than a proper name ; " The wicked angel Samael is prince of all the
Satans," XIH D''JDtyn "^O V^l i^')Tl ^KDD.* Again, Jehovah
is represented as saying to him, under his title of Angel of Death
(niDH "fi*'7D) "I have made thee Ruler of the world," •TmN''JT'Wli'
TlD"1plDnp (Koa-fioKpiTopa) .i The same supremacy is attributed
to this being under his other name. Thus it is said, that when
Solomon became too much elated by his prosperity, there was sent
to him " Asmodseus, the Prince of evil spirits," K07D '•nDti'N
C'Tty'T.t And with slight variation of phrase he is described as " the
devil Asmodreus, the Prince of Spirits," lira") ^^Dly^< HT'llf
tiDtrni-^ Buxtorf identifies Samael and Asmodseus, on the authority
of R. Elias ; he says, " Eundem esse Asmodaum, qui alio nomine
Rabbinis dicitur Samael}'\\ And Bertholdt again identifies this being
with the enemy of the Gospel described in 2 Cor. iv. 4, as i Sehs roi
alayos roirov ; and in John xiv. 30, as 6 rod kSo'ii.ov [toiJtou] &px<ev : after
quoting these phrases, he says " Apud Targumistas et Rabbinos oc-
currit sub nomine 7i^QD SamaeL" %
The idea then of which we are in search, is unquestionably of fre
quent occurrence among the Talmudists. In expressing it they have
recourse to new names not found in the Canonical writings. Surely
a strong presumption arises, that the Hebrew Scriptures did not fur
nish them with the means of designating the personage about whom
they discoursed.
• EUeh Haddebarim rabba, fol. 302. 2. ap. D. L. Bertholdt's Christologia
Judaeorum Jesu Apostolorumque setate. § 36.
f Vajikra rabba, fol. 151. col. 1. ap. Bertholdt. toe. cit.
X Targum in Eccles. i. 12. ap. Joh. Buxtorf. Lex. Chald. Talm. & Rabb. in v.
§ Aruch ex Rabboth. ap. Lightfoot's Hebr. and Talmud. Exercitations on
Matt. xii. 24. See also on Luke xi. 15,
II Lex. Chald. loc. cit.
% Christologia, loc. cit.

NOTES.

63

c.

The parallel Passages in the Epistles of Jude and 2 Peter.
For the sake of those readers of the English Scriptures who may
not have noticed the remarkable similarity between the Epistle of
Jude, and the second chapter of the second Epistle of Peter, I sub
join a comparison of the two. A reference to the Greek Testament
will make it evident, that the parallelism is fairly exhibited in our
common translation. My present purpose, at least, will be suffi
ciently answered by taking the citations thence.

2 Peter ii.
1. . . There shall be false teach
ers among you, who privily shall
bring in damnable heresies, even
denyingtheLordthat boughtthem,
and bring upon themselves swift
destruction. 3. And through covetousness
shall they with feigned words
make merchandise of you : whose
judgment now of a long time lin-
gereth not, and their damnation
slumbereth not.
4. For if God spared not the
angels that sinned, but cast them
down to hell, and delivered them
into chains of darkness, to be re
served unto judgment :
6. And turning the cities of
Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes,
condemned them with an over
throw, making them an ensample
unto those that after should live
ungodly :

Jude.
4. For there are certain men
crept in unawares, who were be
fore of old ordained to this con
demnation, ungodly men, turning
the grace of our God into lascivi-
ousness, and denying the only
Lord God, and our Lord Jesus
Christ.

6. And the angels which kept
not their first estate, but left their
own habitation, he hath reserved
in everlasting chains under dark
ness unto the judgment of the
great day.
7. Even as Sodom and Gomor
rah, and the cities about them in
like manner, giving themselves
over to fornication, and going after
strange flesh, are set forth for an
example, sufiering the vengeance
of eternal fire.

64

NOTES.

2 Peter ii.
10. But chiefly them that walk
after the flesh in the lust of un-
cleanness,and despise government.
Presumptuous are they, self-willed,
they are not afraid to speak evil of
dignities. 11. Whereas angels, which are
greater in power and might, bring
not railing accusation against
them before the Lord.

12. But these, as natural brute
beasts, made to be taken and de
stroyed, speak evil of tbe things
that they understand not ; and
shall utterly perish in their own
corruption. 13. . . Spots they are and ble
mishes, sporting themselves with
their own deceivings while they
feast with you.
17. These are wells without
water, clouds that are carried with
a tempest ; to whom the mist of
darkness is reserved for ever.
18. For when they speak great
swelling words of vanity, they al
lure through the lusts of the flesh,
through much wantonness, those
that were clean escaped from them
who live in error.

Jude.
8. Likewise also these filthy
dreamers defile the flesh, despise
dominion, and speak evil of dig
nities.

9. Yet Michael the archangel,
when contending with the Devil
he disputed about the body of
Moses, durst not bring against
him a railing accusation, but said,
The Lord rebuke thee.
10. But these speak evil of
those things which they know not :
but what they know naturally, as
brute beasts, in those things they
corrupt themselves.
12. These are spots in your
feasts of charity, when they feast
with you, feeding themselves with
out fear.
12. Clouds they are without
water, carried about of winds ; . .
13. ... Wandering .stars, to
whom is reserved tbe blackness of
darkness for ever.
16. These are murmurers, com-
plainers, walking after their own
lusts ; and their mouth speaketh
great swelling words, having men's
persons in admiration because of
advantage.

Very few readers, it is probable, will rise from the examination of
this parallelism, without the persuasion, that the writings betray
ing it cannot be independent productions ; and without amazement
at the opinion of Lardner, that " the similitude of the subject might
produce," to such extent, " a resemblance of style. The design," he

NOTES. 65
continues, " of St. Peter and St. Jude was to condemn some loose
and erroneous Christians, and to caution others against them. When
speaking of the same sort of persons, their style and figures of speech
would have a great agreement." * Lardner appears to shrink frorqi
attributing to the inspired St. Jude (supposing him to be the later
writer) either plagiarism or a needless repetition of instruction, f But
why should his inspiration deter him from such an act ? It rather
affords, as Michaelis observes, a conclusive reason for ascribing it
to him. " For the Holy Ghost," this author suggests, " certainly
knew, while he was dictating the Epistle to St. Jude, that an Epistle
of St. Peter, of a like import, already existed. And if the Holy
Ghost, notwithstanding this knowledge, still thought that an Epistle
of St, Jude was not unnecessary, why shall we suppose that St, Jude
himself would have been prevented from writing by the same know
ledge }"l This argument of the learned German certainly renders it
unnecessary to doubt, with the scrupulous Lardner, whether St. Jude
would copy from a fellow-labourer's letter : but then, it also renders
it unnecessary to believe this : for with the perfect familiarity which
the Holy Ghost possessed (" while dictating") with the previous
epistle of Peter, there was no occasion whatever for St. Jude to
have the knowledge too. Indeed so completely might any degree of
parallelism be explained in this way, that no conceivable phenomena
of agreement would furnish the slightest proof that the one writer
had seen the production of the other.
For some inscrutable reasons, however, all the ablest theologians
seem to have declined this easy solution, by appeal to the memory of
the Holy Ghost ; and to have been convinced that some method,
simply human, must be sought, to account for the accordance be
tween these two epistles. Some have supposed, with Bishop Sher
lock, that both authors drew their materials from a common source,
the imagery and phraseology of which they freely used. But as
Eichhorn has well observed, " Bare conjecture is an insufficient sup
port for this supposition ; in the absence of all trace of any document
* Credibility of the Gospel History. Supplement, ch. xxi.
t " It seems very unlikely that St. Jude should write so similar an epistle, if
he had seen St. Peter's. In that case, St. Jude would not have thought it need
ful for him to write at all. If he had formed a design of writing, and had met
with an epistle of one of the apostles, very suitable to his own thoughts and in
tentions, I think he would have forborne to write." — Cred, loc, cit.
X Michaelis' Introd, to the N, T, ch. xxix, sec, 2,

66 NOTES,
giving plausibility to the suggestion, by disclosing a source in com
mon relation with the corresponding passages of the two epistles." *
If this explanation be untenable, nothing remains but to conclude that
one of the writers copied from the other; and this, accordingly, has been
the general opinion of theologians. This, however, is the only point
on which critics are agreed : for when the question is proposed, whether
St, Peter or St, Jude were the original writer, it is curious to observe
the confidence with which each of the two answers may be returned,
and the opposite views which may be taken of the considerations
affecting the decision. In the absence of aU external evidence, the
intrinsic character of the two compositions must determine our reply :
and the chief impression which results from a comparison of them is,
that St, Jude has expressed his ideas with more succinctness and
unity; St. Peter with more vagueness and amplification. Appealing
to this circumstance,* Dr. Hug says, " the critic cannot fail to per
ceive which was the original :" " it is evident that the passages of
Peter are periphrases and amplifications;" "the originality of Jude
is clear from the comparison of both authors, and especially from the
language ;" " Peter had, therefore, the Epistle of Jude before him,
and in his own manner applied it to his purposes. "f Michaelis, how
ever, — who rejects the Epistle of Jude, and says that, "judging by its
contents," we " have no inducement to believe it a sacred and divine
work," — ^ventures on the following confident statements : " No doubt
can be made, that the second Epistle of St. Peter was, in respect to
the Epistle of St. Jude, the original and not the copy :" " with re
spect to the date of this (Jude's) Epistle, all that I am able to assert
is, that it was written after the second Epistle of St. Peter ;" " this
appears from a comparison of the two, which are so similar to each
other both in sentiments and in expressions, as no two epistles could
well be, unless the author of the one had read the epistle of the other.
It is evident therefore that St. Jude borrowed from St. Peter both
expressions and arguments, to which he himself has made some fe#
additions."} After reading these positive statements on either side, we are
struck with the justice of the following remark of Eichhorn's : refer
ring to the diflferences between the two epistles in respect to their
* Eichhorn's Einleitung in das neue Testament, viii. 3.
f Dr. J. L. Hug's Introduction to the New Testament : translated by Dr. Wait.
Sec. 169, 170.
X Marsh's Michaelis, ch. xxviii. sec. 1 ; ch. xxix. sec. 2, 5.

NOTES. 67
style, he says : " These phenomena admit of a twofold explanation.
Peter might be regarded as the original and Jude as the copy ; inas
much as, in the process of revision, a writing may become more per
fect in the expression and disposition of the ideas ; the superfluities
wOl naturally be retrenched, the march of the thoughts become
quicker, the diction more choice ; the copyist having the matter all
before him, and being able to direct his attention exclusively to the
form which it shall assume. But with just as much truth we might
turn round and say, — ^Jude was the original, whom Peter illustrated,
amplified, and paraphrased. In the process, the style lost its unity,
its compactness, its clear outhne : the paraphrast interrupted the
succession of thoughts with several foreign ideas ; and the exposition
of the subject thus became more obscure, prolix, and disorderly.
Who can decide between these two possibilities ?"
This acute author does not, however, consider the problem of im
possible solution. The suspense in which its difficulty holds us, con
tinues, he observes, " only so long as we confine ourselves merely to
a mutual comparison of the parallel passages. If we look at them
in their relation to the whole of St, Peter's second epistle, we find a
reason for concluding that Jude is original, Peter the copyist. The
author of the second chapter of Peter does not stand, as a writer, on
his own ground : if he did, his mode of writing would be the same
as in the first and third chapters, which, however, is not the case. It
is clear that we cannot apply to Jude this test of originality, derived
from consistency of style ; for we possess no other composition of
his, with which to compare his epistle. Yet there is a compactness
and unity in his writing, from which its independent character may
be inferred. Whoever is content to take up the thoughts of others,
yet not without introducing something of his own, is easily di'awn
aside by accessory ideas ; by which the definite outline of a com
position is lost. This is by no means the case in the epistle of
Jude."* It is generally admitted, then, that these two productions, as far
as their topics coincide, constitute but one authority : and we shall
follow, I think, the most judicious criticism, if we assign that au
thority, whatever it may be, to the epistle of Jude. Whence, then,
did he derive his knowledge of such circumstances as those which
are mentioned in the sixth and ninth verses, respecting " the angels
* Einleitung in d. N. T. viii. 3.
E 2

68 NOTES.
which kept not their first estate," and " Michael the archangel con
tending with the Devil" " about the body of Moses? " There are
but three supposable sources ; immediate personal inspiration ; the
Hebrew Scriptures; or some non-canonical and unauthoritative
work. The first of these suppositions I do not find to be maintained by
any creditable theological writer ; and it may be dismissed with the
following remarks of Michaelis : — " The dispute between Michael
and the Devil about the body of Moses, has by no means the ap
pearance of a true history : and the author of our epistle has not
even hinted that he knew it to be true by the aid of Divine inspira
tion, or that he distinguished it from other Jewish traditions. On
the contrary, he has introduced it as part of a story, with which his
readers were already acquainted : he does not appear to have had
any other authority for it, than they themselves had : nor does the
part which he has quoted at all imply, either that he himself doubted,
or that he wished his readers should doubt, of the other parts of
it."* The second supposition, that the writer makes no aUusion, on these
points of celestial history, to any thing beyond the Old Testament,
is so universally regarded as untenable, that even Lardner's great au
thority wiU hardly avail to procure it any further attention. In what
part of the Hebrew Scriptures St. Jude obtained his information re
specting the fallen angels, Lardner, while deploring a like omission
on the part of his predecessors, has neglected to explain. And
when, in order to connect the story of Michael and the Devil with
Zach. iii. 1 — 3, he is obliged to construe " the body of Moses}'
into the Israelitish people, it surely becomes evident that the con
sideration of this passage never fuUy engaged his incomparable judg-
ment.f Happily, Lardner's is a reputation of which there is no need
to be economical : and even theological opponents cannot apply to
him the description which, with some truth and more severity, they
have given of Mr. Wakefield, as a " scholar, who was great among
Unitarians, but not among scholars :" —
" Quern bis terque bonum cum risu miror ; et idem
Indignor, quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus ?"
There remains, then, but the third supposition, that St, Jude de-
* Marsh's Michaelis, ch. xxix. sec. 4.
•j- For a sufficient refutation of Lardner's interpretation, see the last-cited sec
tion of Marsh's Michaelis.

NOTES. 69
rived these notices of the supernatural world from some apocryphal
and traditional work. And we need the less scruple to admit this, as
he himself intimates the fact, in the fourteenth verse, where he re
fers to the Book of Enoch. This work professes to be extant in the
jEthiopic language ; and the copies of it contain the passage cited
by St. Jude : and whatever doubts may attach to Bishop Lawrance's
opinion, that we have it substantially as it was originally written
shortly before the time of Christ, the citations from the " Book of
Enoch," by Syncellus, and the references to it by both Greek and
Latin Fathers, are too numerous and ancient, to leave it question
able that such a work existed, and was in use not long after the
Christian era, and probably before. Hug gives this account of it : —
" The Book of Enoch, in fact, was full of Jewish, Theurgical, and
Magical reveries, as indeed the character of the person, to whom
this writing was ascribed, required it to be. According to Eupo-
lemus, he is said to have been the inventor of Astrology, or rather a
scholar of the Angels in this science, who initiated him into the
mysteries of it ; for he had at one time obtained a mission to the
Angels, on which occasion he probably received their instruction.
But it did not suffice, that he was acquainted with the course of the
planets, the position of the Heavens, and their signification ; but
he likewise, as the Jews and other Easterns maintained, learned
in addition from the heavenly natures, the art of prognostication,
characters, ofierings, purifications, lustrations, and other things of
this description, which he imparted to mankind. According to these
ideas, which were entertained of him far and wide among Jews, Ara
bians, and others, we can easily determine, to what sort of lite
rature his writings must belong. The remains of it, which we find
in the Church- Fathers also, do not deceive this expectation." *
Though this is the only Apocryphal production to which St, Jude
refers by name, Origen informs us, in a passage already cited, that
the adventure between Michael and the Devil was taken from a work
entitled 'Avi\7i\j/is or 'Avd^acis roi Mu<r4ms. " From a comparison of the
relation in this book with St, Jude's quotation," says Michaelis,
" he was thoroughly persuaded, that it was the book from which
St. Jude quoted. This he asserts without the least hesitation : and
in consequence of this persuasion, he himself has quoted the As
sumption of Moses, as a work of authority, in proof of the tempta-
* Hug's Introduction, sec. 175.

70 NOTES.
tion of Adam and Eve by the Devil. But as he has quoted it
merely for this purpose, he has given us only an imperfect account
of what this book contained, relative to the dispute about the body of
Moses. One circumstance, however, he has mentioned, which is
not found in the epistle of St. Jude, namely, that Michael reproached
the Devil with having possessed the serpent which seduced Eve.
In what manner this circumstance is connected with the dispute
about the body of Moses wiU appear from the following considera
tion. The Jews imagined the person of Moses was so holy, that
God could find no reason for permitting him to die : and that no
thing but the sin committed by Adam and Eve in paradise, which
brought death into the world, was the cause why Moses did not live
for ever. The same notions they entertained of some other very
holy persons, for instance of Isai, who, they say, was delivered to
the angel of death, merely on account of the sins of our first parents,
though he himself did not deserve to die. Now in the dispute be
tween Michael and the Devil about Moses, the Devil was the accuser,
and demanded the death of Moses, Michael therefore rephed to
him, that he himself was the cause of that sin, which alone could
occasion the death of Moses. How very little such notions as these
agree, either with the Christian theology, or with Moses' own
writings, it is unnecesary for me to declare." *
The direct testimony of Origen should be talcen in connexion
with the well-known fact,- that this story of Michael and the Devil
is one of the standing traditions of the Jewish people ; the invention
of a remote antiquity ; and repeated ever since by a multitude of
Rabbinical writers. A specimen of the legend may be found by the
curious in the section of Michaelis, from which 1 have quoted the
foregoing passage. With respect to the reception which we must
give to such an alleged fact, the same author observes — " It lies
without the circle of human experience ; and therefore it cannot be
attested by any man, unless he has either divine inspiration, or has
intercourse with beings of a superior order. Consequently, whoever
was the author of the apocryphal book, from which the quotation
was made, his account cannot possibly command assent. "f This
remark evidently applies, not only to the story of Michael, but to the
tradition of the Fallen Angels ; which, there is every reason to be-
* Marsh's Michaelis, ch. xxix. sec. 4.
f Marsh's Mich, loc, cit.

NOTES. ?!
lieve, must have been derived from a like apocryphal source ; espe
cially as we have the express assurance of TertuUian, that the Book
of Enoch treated of the nature, offices, and fate of fallen Beings.*
This author, then, has unquestionably " made use of Jewish ma
terials, which have no existence but in apocryphal books,"t and
therefore no claim on our belief. " I know of no other method of
vindicating the quotation," says MichaeUs, " than by supposing
that St. Jude considered the whole story, not as a real fact, which
either he himself believed, or which he required his readers to believe,
but merely as an instructive fable, which served to illustrate the doc
trine which he himself inculcated, that we ought not to speak evil
of dignities."! Hug resorts to an explanation of this kind; and
conceives that St. Jude employs apocryphal weapons of persuasion,
as best adapted to confound the Heretics whom he assailed.§ It
may be so : but if his illustrations and examples from the superna
tural world be thus destitute of intrinsic authority and truth, and
we must be heretics before we can feel their force, what becomes of the
orthodox doctrine of fallen Angels .''
* De habitu mulier, c. 3. De Idolat. c. 4. et 15, De cultu foeminar, c, 10, as
cited by Hug, sec. 175.
f Eichhorn's Einl. viii. 4. § 296.
X loc. cit. Michaelis adds a hint, which may perhaps be as appropriate in
England as in Germany : " To the doctrine, which St. Jude inculcates by this
quotation, that we ought not to speak evil of dignities, not even of the fallen
angels, but that we should leave judgment to God, I have no objection. And I
really think, that they transgress the bounds of propriety, who make it their
business,''either in the pulpit or in their writings, to represent the devil as an ob
ject of detestation ; since, notwithstanding his fall, he is still a being of a supe
rior order. This reminds me of a certain oriental sect, which Niebuhr met with
in the neighbourhood of the river Zab, in Assyria, and which, for the same reason
as that which I have just assigned, will not suffer any one to speak evil of the
devil." § loc. cit.

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