ARTICLE III.

THE PRESENT STATE OF THE CONTROVERSY

CABELL'S REPLY TO POND. *

If there be one generalization more distinctly conspicuous than any other, which the last three-quarters of a century may be said to have contributed to the Philosophy of History, it is probably this:-that, as we gradually approach towards the present time, all the societary movements appear to have acquired an accelerated velocity.

We cast our eyes back over this period of time, and behold the roused spirit of our race bounding forward in its course of rapid invasion of the Unknown and the unapplied, pushing out its feelers in every possible direction, and asking all manner of questions, as if the knowledge of its high earthly destiny had become a fact of its solidaritic consciousness.

There are those, neither unlearned nor few in number, who regard these modern developments of the human activities, popularly called progress, as indications of the opposite of all true progress; as progress in error, and in evil, only; and believe that the race is rapidly leaving behind it everything of the good and the true. Without entering at this time into any debate with the advocates or the opposers of the doctrines of the progressionists, we may safely affirm, that there has been a vast development of materials, and an accumulation of instrumentalities, which may be used, as the race wills, either for good or for evil. That there has been, and now is, a great perversion of the means which Providence has thus placed in our hands, and that they have been caused to minister to an increased intensity of the evils of life and errors of doctrine with many, there can be no doubt.

That, on the other hand, they are capable of being applied to the accomplishment of nobler purposes; that, if any so will, they may be used to contribute to the more rapid advancement of the individual in a better life and truer thought, and that vast numbers have so applied, and are now so applying them, is equally undeniable. That the race as a unity

Reply to Rev. Dr. Pond's Swedenborgianism Reviewed,' By N. F. Cabell, A.M., with a Preliminary Letter, by R. K. Crallé." 8vo. pp. 195. New York: 1848.

will hereafter make a good use of its accumulations, we are unable to prove. Our trust is, that it will; and our hope is based upon Him who controls the causes which operate upon the minds of men. The proposition that it will make a bad use of them, has certainly not been proven: and before recording it in the affirmative, we prefer to wait for the result of the experiment.

For our present purpose it will suffice that we contemplate those developments under a single aspect. Inquisitive researches into numerous departments of Physical Science and Ethnological knowledge have brought to light facts, and given rise to inferences, which appear to many incompatible with, and in some cases, in direct contradiction to, the sacred scriptures, as these have been usually interpreted.

Philosophical theories, having for their object to account for the origin or the early history of nations, of languages, of different races, and of the earth, are boldly put forth in the face of Christendom, and defended by a large array of evidence, which leave out of view the divine authority of the Scriptures altogether. These have indeed been from time to time replied to by theological writers, but the replies have usually failed to convince any that the theorists were in error. Large schools of scientific men there are throughout Europe, numbering among their adherents names the most renowned for extensive acquisition, who, in the arrangement of their facts, and the organization of their systems of knowledge, leave the divine authority of Christianity and her documents entirely out of view. We see the enlightened portion of the world gradually sweeping away from its old theological moorings; and the clergy as a body progressively sliding from that pre-eminent station in the public esteem, and in the direction of the thought of this age, which, from their office, they ought, legitimately, to hold. We see the political, social, and intellectual destinies of nearly all the larger and more important communities of modern civilization, confessedly in the hands and under the proximate control of men to whom Christ and Christian principles are only secondary and subservient ideas. The influence of the church for the accomplishment of good, is brought almost to a stand-still, and we see it swaying convulsively to and fro, seeking to multiply counsel by." World Alliances" and "Unions"-Modern Theology, looking with jealous and supercilious eye upon the Speculative Philosophy and Physical Science of the age, and science in turn casting back its indignant frown on theology--theology on the one hand attempting to challenge, with its officious negation, many of the presumed advancements of profane

knowledge, and, on the other, the scientific spirit, chafed, by what it conceives to be the narrow criticism of the cloister, redoubling its energies in the collation of obnoxious facts.

Thus there has at length become developed in the world of opinion two great schools of scepticism. First, a scientific scepticism, which is the growth of the facts collected, the inferences drawn, and the habits of mind induced by the pursuit of the modern sciences, and which calls in question, or regards lightly, the doctrines and the documents of Christianity. Secondly, an ecclesiastical scepticism, existing to a very considerable extent within the church; having its root primarily in that mental inertia natural to all masses of men, which more enjoys rest in old habits of thought, than the active pursuit of new, strengthened in its growth by the prevailing dogmatic teachings; and calling in question, talking lightly of, and striving to throw discouragement and discredit upon, presumed acquisitions of modern science.

Should we construct a correct chart of Religious Opinion, in which should be thrown together an exhibition of its leading phases-historically, in the past, geographically, in the present-into a single view, running back for three hundred years and including the present limits of Christendom; certain broad facts would stare out from the landscape. We should perceive that at the start, Christianity, having entire possession of the field and of all the avenues leading to the public mind, had, in proportion to the advancement of general knowledge, progressively lost larger and larger portions of it, until at length it has become divided as we now see it. Second, that within certain circles and around certain centres, in which the light of modern intelligence is supposed to burn brightest, a want of confidence in the received teachings of Christianity becomes most apparent. And, lastly, that in proportion as we recede from these circles and these centres, into those regions where the light of this intelligence is supposed to have penetrated least, we find the people more and more under the control of the ancient dogmas. Now it cannot fail to present itself as a serious question to every believing mind which carefully reflects upon it, why it is that a studious pursuit of the higher kinds of scientific knowledge has a tendency to lead men away from the prevailing religious tenets of Christendom? Why is it that an enlarged study of the Works of God has so marked a tendency to bring into discredit what is claimed to be the Word of God? Why has it become so nearly universal for those men who have lived up to the philosophical culture of the time, to graduate, so to speak, out of the trammels of the various theological teachings of the day,

holding them in abeyance, if not arraying themselves in opposition to them? These observations point us to a series. of effects, the proximate and exciting causes of which might be made the subject of an interesting inquiry. All have observed them, and they have been variously accounted for. The Dublin Review, Mr. Brownson, and the Catholic writers generally, charge them directly and solely to the protestant movement. High-Churchmen are disposed to attribute them to the rejection of the prelacy; and orthodox writers usually regard them as growing out of the rejection of the doctrine of the Trinity, and the prevalence of Unitarianism. Each system of church government manifests a disposition to charge them to the account of the system next below it, which has happened to have gone a little farther into liberalism than itself.

But all these are evidently only narrow empiricisms, which the future historian will have to reject. For the growth of the new opinions is not confined to one region, nor to any region where a particular form of ecclesiasticism is in the ascendant, but pervades the whole of Christendom. Moreover, protestantism is as much the result, historically, of catholicism, as rationalism is the product of protestantism. The spirit of rationalism is the natural growth of the human mind, marking its ascent to a higher plane of intelligence, and is as observable in Italy as in New-England or Germany. The New Churchman of course regards these indications as evidences, sown broadcast over the land, that the old church, protestant and catholic, has proved herself by experiment to be unequal to the task of Christianizing mankind. The promise to her was, "to the end of the dispensation," and that end" we believe to have arrived. To us it appears that her prevailing teaching is insufficient to keep pace with the growing reason of the ages. The soul of the great humanity has ascended to the experience of spiritual wants which she is unable to provide for; and prospects are beginning to open upon its intellectual vision which she is unable to give an account of. Large classes of truth-seekers have sprung up around her, without her pale, and she has no territory on which to locate them. The spiritual interests of the race, which for so many centuries have been confided to her keeping, are in process of being taken from her by the Divine Master. The Spirit of Christ is gradually withdrawing itself from the body which was once His church.

66

In the present connection we trust we may be allowed to quote a single passage, which will be seen to have a bearing on this subject, from an article by the late Dr. Chalmers. It

occurs in one of the last papers he penned for the public eye,* and may in some sense be said to record the departing testimony of this great and good man. Speaking of Mr. Carlyle, he says: "There lies an immense responsibility on professing Christians, if such men as he, with their importunate and most righteous demand for all the generous and god-like virtues of the Gospel, are not brought 'to the obedience of the faith.' There must be a deplorable want amongst us of the 'light shining before men,' when, instead of glorifying our cause, they can speak, and with a truth the most humiliating, of our inert and unproductive orthodoxy. These withering abjurations of Carlyle should be of use to our churches; as things stand at present, our creeds and confessions have become effete, and the Bible a dead letter; and that orthodoxy which was at one time our glory, by withering into the inert and the lifeless, is now the shame and the reproach of all our churches."

On our own authority had we presumed to say as much, we might have been charged with using defamatory language. It would not however be a difficult task to collate from the pages of the accredited organs of evangelical orthodoxy in our own country, and especially in New England, numerous and constant testimonials to the fact of a deplorable "absence of the Holy Spirit" in the churches. Articles in leading Theological Reviews begin with a reference to it, and columns of religious newspapers have it for a heading.

Suppose we should ask, what is the present attitude of the general mind in relation to certain beliefs which have hitherto been understood to constitute doctrinal Christianity? The position of Germany is notorious. France and Italy still retain the name of "Catholic;" but after making a due allowance for that large class which figures indeed in the statistics of population, but which can scarcely be posted into the rolls of opinion, is it not almost a misnomer to call the former so, and is there not confessedly enough of the new leaven in the latter to agitate violently the whole lump? What account can prelacy in Great Britain give of that public which it has so long had in keeping? To one asking within her pale, can she answer, "here are they?" And what shall we say of New England, the home of the puritan fathers and the puritan faith? She too has lived to have her Parkers, and her Emersons, her Brownsons, and her Anti-Sabbath Conventions. Is it requisite that we go into the statistics of the mind which

*North Br. Rev., Feb., 1847.