1848.] Religious System. 3 eties of such persons, convince them that it is not only not wrong to abandon a church to which one does not truly belong, but that it is the duty of every Christian to join the church whose doctrines are the most in harmony with his own, and they would soon be found, we doubt not, at the foot of some Protestant pulpit. M. Coquerel's work is intended to present to these Christians, who have renounced the religion of the past, but who are still doubtful as to the path which they shall now follow, a complete religious system, which may serve as the foundation of their future faith. Firm and tranquil in his belief that France will one day be a Protestant country, M. Coquerel has devoted all his powers to the realization of this, his most ardent wish. The energies of a highly gifted mind, an impassioned and touching eloquence, and the treasures of a truly Christian heart, have been alike directed towards this great object. After thirty years of uninterrupted labor as a preacher, first in the French Protestant Church at Amsterdam, and afterwards as one of the pastors of the Reformed Church of Paris, he has at last published the work we have before us. M. Coquerel belongs to that class of Christians who think, that, as there were reformers before the Reformation, so too there may be reformers in every age; and that, however much we may be indebted to those immortal men who first freed the world from the yoke of Romanism, we may differ widely from them in their manner of interpreting the Scriptures. An intolerant Protestantism, that is to say, a religious system in which liberty of conscience is the first word but which ends with the solemn and horrible declaration, that there is only one Church in which man can be saved, is as unfit for our age as the Roman Catholic faith. A new system is, then, to be sought. In this system, faith in God as a Father, in Christ as a Saviour, and in immortality as the continuation of our present existence, must be included. But faith will not alone be required. We are confident that man will be judged, not according to his belief, if that belief be sincere, but according to his actions. And must it not be so? If every Protestant has a right to read his Bible, and therein to find his faith, how can it be expected that all men should believe alike ? Who can suppose that the simple-hearted laborer, who on the Sabbath reads the Bible to his family, should understand it and interpret it as a Luther or a Calvin, a Chalmers or a Channing? No. The time is fast approaching when there will be a large class of Christians, who, when asked to what religious denomination they belong, will simply reply, - We are disciples of Christ; Christ has taught us to love God as a Father, to love each other, and to do by others as we would wish to be done by; we are Christians, not theologians. And when, at last, the number of those who profess these liberal views shall have so increased as to spread all over the world, when all nations shall meet together to offer up prayers at the same altar, then, and then only, Christianity will have accomplished its object in this world. How beautiful is this anticipation of the future condition of the human race! How soothing to the heart of the Christian, amidst the dissensions which now agitate mankind and divide them into innumerable sects, each of which is willing to assert that it alone is possessed of the truth! There are many Christians, however, who may think that such a system savors too much of Rationalism. If they peruse M. Coquerel's volume, they will see, we think, that they are mistaken. They will see that the author, while he maintains our right to investigate, by the light of our reason, the various and difficult problems which surround us, at the same time shows that we shall necessarily, sooner or later, be stopped in our investigations, and be obliged to seek for another guide, or run the risk of remaining for ever in darkness and uncertainty. Such a system assigns to philosophy and to religion each its true place. Their respective positions have been often strangely misapprehended. They have been viewed, not as successive stages of the same science, but as rival methods of teaching the same truths. If this were the case, then either the one or the other would be useless. If with the light of our reason alone we could penetrate into the deepest recesses of our souls and solve the dark mysteries which envelope our existence, if philosophy could give a satisfactory answer to those questions which have perplexed the wisest,- What am I? Whence come I? Whither am I going? then might we not ask, To what purpose religion? Might not Christ have remained in his glory on the right hand of the Father, instead of taking a human form and submitting to all the evils attendant on a human life? Might he not have spared himself the sufferings of the most cruel of deaths? A correct view of our own nature will show us that philosophy is but the introduction to religion, the vesti 1848.] Nature of Man. 5 bule of the temple. Free to choose between good and evil, ignorance and knowledge, man may content himself with the imperfect and uncertain instructions of philosophy, or complete his knowledge by the aid of religion; he may read the first volume of his history, and neglect the second; he may pause in the vestibule of the temple as in a labyrinth, or take one step more, lift the veil which covers the sanctuary, and penetrate into the deepest mysteries of our being. A work, founded on this distinction between philosophy and religion, must necessarily begin with a minute and careful examination of the nature, the faculties, and the desires of Let us endeavour to follow M. Coquerel in this re man. search. Man has the consciousness of his own existence, and of his individuality. He alone, of all the animals that inhabit this earth, has a clear and distinct notion of himself and of what surrounds him. From this conviction naturally result two facts, that man has not always existed, and that the source whence his life has sprung is not within himself. Man knows that he has not always existed, because, as he has the consciousness of a present, he would, then, have also within himself the evidence of a past existence. He, moreover, knows that he did not create himself; for if he had the power of creation, he would also have the power of maintaining his existence. On a further examination, man discovers within himself different powers or tendencies, which may be thus classed: -1. the intellectual power, the object of which is knowledge; 2. the moral power, the object of which is virtue; 3. the affective power, which leads man to desire to form certain relations with his fellow-creatures; 4. the feeling power, which tends to a complete satisfaction of man's desire, to perfect happiness; 5. the religious power, which induces man to seek for an object which he may adore. The ideal notion of knowledge, of virtue, of love, of happiness, and of religion, which man has conceived in all stages of civilization, is but the object of these powers or tendencies. To deny that such an ideal exists is to declare that all the faculties, all the powers, of man are directed towards an unattainable object. This ideal does exist; it is the object of our life; it must be attained. These few and simple observations on the nature and the desires of man at once destroy three of the most erroneous philosophical systems which have ever existed in the world, -pantheism, pyrrhonism, and absolute spiritualism. We know that we exist; we feel our individuality. There is, then, something in nature which is not God. Pantheism is destroyed. This consciousness of our existence is alike fatal to a system of absolute doubt; since this one fact, at least, is indisputable and undisputed. And, finally, a system of absolute spiritualism can no longer subsist; for the knowledge we have of ourselves and of what is not us teaches us that matter exists. From these considerations, man rises to a higher and purer conception, that of the existence of God. He feels that God exists; for, if God did not exist, the religious tendency which he finds within himself would be without an object. God is the ideal of the mind. This ideal is one. God is one. How simple and how beautiful are these thoughts! I am; and because I am, God is. That which it is vain to seek to prove by a philosophical demonstration is made evident by the religious instinct we have within us, and is alike revealed to the greatest and the most humble minds. If God is one, every thing that is not God is created. Man, then, was created by God. The object of this creation is the complete satisfaction of all the powers and tendencies of man. Arrived at this degree of knowledge, we are stopped by an impenetrable mystery, that of our liberty. We cannot comprehend how God, who has created us and who watches over us, should have left us entire liberty to use as we like the faculties with which we have been endowed. To this mystery, as to all mysteries, there is no answer. We all believe in our liberty and at the same time in the omniscience of God; but we cannot reconcile these two notions, which seem contradictory. To understand this mystery, it would be necessary to understand how God, when he had created the world, withdrew his almighty hand from his work. We are as much at a loss to comprehend how God leaves the heavenly bodies suspended in the universe, or how, after having formed the material world, he allows it to follow its laws, as to know how we can enjoy our liberty while God sees all that we are doing. The field in which this liberty is to be exercised is boundless, for the object of the powers of which we have recognized the existence within us is infinite. We can al 1848.] Inferences from Principles. 7 ways approach nearer to God, or separate ourselves more from him. "What a distance," says our author, "between him to whom it was said, 'Where is thy brother Abel?' or him of whom the Saviour said, 'It had been good for that man if he had not been born,' and a Moses, with whom the Lord spake as a man speaketh unto his friend,' or a St. Paul, who desires to leave the world to be with Christ'! And yet neither of these examples shows the last degree of separation, or the most complete union, between God and man. An eternal life can alone suffice for man to fulfil his destiny and to approach the throne of God. However high he may have risen, he will still have to ascend. The angels are even "charged with folly" by God; the heavens themselves, that is, those who people them, "are not clean in his sight." Man is, then, immortal. If the object of all our faculties, of all our desires, is God, must we not be immortal? Would the narrow limits of a condition, which, whether after years or centuries, must end, be sufficient for the accomplishment of our destiny? No. The time can never come, when we shall possess sufficient science to authorize us to say, We know enough. The time can never come, when our religious aspirations will be so completely satisfied, that we shall feel ourselves near enough to God. The time can never come, when our affections will be so entirely gratified, that we can say, We have loved enough. We are immortal, and during the successive stages of our immortality we shall have the same consciousness of individuality that we have during our present existence. If we were to lose that consciousness, it would be matter of little or no importance to us whether we were immortal or not. The activity of man is uninterrupted. Thus generation after generation follow on that eternal road at the end of which is the Infinite. "A new principle is an inexhaustible source of new views." This remark of a distinguished French philosopher is perfectly correct. If we take the principles which we have laid down as the basis of our philosophical and religious system, we shall view in a different light many of the most difficult and interesting problems of our destiny. We shall regard the notions of time and space, for example, as the necessary corollaries of these principles. Space is but the stage on which our activity is to be exercised; time, the successive * Vauvenargues, Maxime 211. |