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Abuses of the Spiritual Element.

729 of the church have run in later times, and thus wrought their ruin. But the ruin is not effected without a struggle. The spirit lifts her voice and strives to maintain her place. And in the conflict she sometimes becomes herself transformed from a spirit of light to a spirit of darkness. It is no uncommon thing for moral combatants to run into extremes. And the contests in which spiritualism has been engaged, have often deteriorated her character, and made her seem almost anything else than a child of Heaven. To a few of the unnatural shapes which she has at times assumed, we will here advert.

It may be premised that the spiritual element of religion is a complex one, embracing acts of the intellect, such as reason, belief, imagination; acts of the will, such as purposes, dispositions; and acts of the feelings, such as veneration, love, and the like. By a too full or too feeble development, or an irregular action of any of the mental powers, the spiritual element may become seriously disordered, and so exert a baleful, instead of a healthy influence on the world.

Its first abnormal state which I shall mention is that of pure Rationalism. In this case, the reason is inordinately active. It is exalted to the chief place among the powers of the mind, and acquires an undue control over them. The heart and conscience are brought into subjection to its decisions. Even the Bible is rejected, if it does not perfectly quadrate with the teachings of this inner guide. The doctrines of inspiration, and the gospel itself, a dispensation from a God of infi nite wisdom, must be received only so far and in such a sense as will perfectly harmonize with the illumination of man's brighter light within. All the facts of revelation which transcend the power of reason to comprehend and explain the inspiration of the Bible, the prophecies of the Old Testament, the miracles of Moses and Christ, a vicarious atonement, and regeneration by the power of the Holy Ghost, must be discarded as no part of a reasonable system of religion. All the grand and sublime truths of a revelation from heaven, originating in the omniscience of God, and partaking in character of his own unsearchableness, must be brought down from their high elevation and made level with the intellect of a worm. Now in all this, the man is under the influence of a spurious spiritualism. He dislikes and despises the sensuous and material. He would have a religion of mind, one purely spiritual. He mistakes reason for revelation, and makes it his sure teacher, his unerring guide; in fine, his deity. In her presence he bows, and, with French infidelity before her, he worships. He may style himself a Christian, and be baptized with the name of a believer, but he has no more of the true Christian character or doctrine than the followers of Rousseau, D'Alembert, or Voltaire. He has

only a religion which pries into mysteries and acknowledges none; admitting no higher wisdom and no safer guide than the teachings of reason; a religion of which the devil has more than he; for Satan understands more mysteries than he, and reasons more correctly from admitted facts. It may be a religion more elevating to the mind than formalism, but it more surely engenders pride and self-importance. It is a system of philosophy and vain deceit, after the traditions of men, after the rudiments of this world, and not after Christ.

A second unnatural form of the spiritual element is fanaticism. In this case, the faculty of reason is less prominent, while that of faith is so inordinately developed that it degenerates into credulity. In con⚫ junction with this, there is an unwonted growth of the imagination, a mental organ indispensable to the exercise of faith. A due development of this faculty is necessary in order to bring before the mind the objects of faith which, not being objects of sight, must be contemplated and seen by the mental eye before they can be believed. When an individual has these two faculties unduly expanded, especially if he be very much inclined to religious contemplation, they produce a strong tendency to fanaticism. It would not be strange, if he should talk of his internal illuminations, and his being specially led by the Holy Spirit. He might even fall into the conceit that he saw, at times, the spirits of the dead, and held intercourse with the unseen world. He might think that heaven and hell were open to his spiritual view, and that communications of truth were made to him from the throne of God. He might deem himself commissioned to reform the world, and give it an improved system of religion. This delusion has not unfrequently visited the imaginative Germans. It sometimes leaves the subject of it an innocuous citizen, except in as far as he deludes himself and others, and leads them to trust in a lie. At other times it has urged him to the commission of the most horrid acts, hapless perpetrator, deeming himself, all the while, under the special promptings of the Holy Spirit and the peculiar favorite of Heaven. Take, for example, the case of Thomas Shucker of Switzerland, who, in 1526, at a public meeting of religious fanatics, where visions and revelations were common things, approached his brother Leonard and, showing him some gall in a bladder, said: "thus bitter is the death thou art to suffer." The spectators, fearing some evil, exclaimed: "take care that no mischief happen!" "Fear not," said Thomas, "nothing will happen without the will of the Father;" and then, snatching a sword, he severed his brother's head from his body, exclaiming: "now is the will of the Father accomplished!" "I did it," said he a little while after, "but it was God who did it by my hands."

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Misguided Philanthropy.

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In such a case, fanaticism overleaps its boundaries, and cures itself. It ceases to influence the community for evil. It manifests its character and destroys its power to do injury. But it often assumes a milder form, and appears uncommonly attractive, so that it would, if possible, deceive the very elect. It is highly spiritual, and has frequent revelations from Heaven, and asks us to receive them without giving us the evidence of their reality. The reason is, in this case, subordi. nated to internal feelings. It is vain to use argument or Scripture proof, with the victim of this delusion. He is under the power of inward impressions, which no arguments can remove. They are, to him, a present reality, more convincing than argument, more implicitly to be obeyed than the Bible, because a special revelation vouchsafed by Heaven to himself, and fitted to his own peculiar case. They, of course, rise above all civil law, inasmuch as we must always obey God rather than man. Being, as he imagines, the promptings of the divine Spirit, they can never be wrong. This is not Christianity; it is delusion. It is credulity, infatuation; and, in its extreme, it assumes a form somewhat akin to demoniacal possession. Let the evil spirit be exorcised, and the liberated captive may then sit, clothed and in his right mind, at the feet of the great Physician.

A third abnormal form of the spiritual element we know not how to designate better than to call it misguided philanthropism. It would be, by some, classed under the head of fanaticism, and is often found in company with it. But it springs from an essentially different source. Fanaticism originates in the intellect, in a warm imagination and an easy belief; whereas, this philanthropism originates in the feelings, in the prurient sensibilities of our nature. It shrinks from the sight of human suffering, and cannot bear to think of its infliction, even as a punishment for sin. It creates so intense a sympathy with the suf ferer, as to drown all sense of his criminality and desert of punishment. Its repugnance to the infliction of pain on the guilty, is stronger than its love of justice or desire to sustain the authority of law; and so it comes to repudiate the use of punishment in the government of moral beings; it expunges it from the list of means for the rectification of a wicked world. It dissevers all penalty from law, and converts the law codes of both God and men into books of mere advice. Spiritual in the extreme, it would govern all moral beings, the good and bad, alike; angels, men, and devils, by reason and argument, or the omnipotent force of moral suasion. We blame not this weak sentimentality. It is less unlovely than cruelty, its opposite vice. It is, too, less worthy of respect than unwavering justice, the virtue which lies between the two extremes. Just so generosity, a virtue

standing midway between parsimony and prodigality, possesses a nobility which belongs to neither of its neighboring vices. This philan thropism is contracted in its sphere of vision. It takes no broad and liberal views of human nature, or the law and government of God. It can see only an individual, a suffering violator of law; but it overlooks the suffering he has occasioned to others, the persons he has injured, the God he has dishonored. In the government of moral beings, it would throw out of the account the influence of fear, and rule them only by the attractions of hope. We might much sooner expect to guide aright a refractory horse by pulling, always, at the right hand rein. In a world of sin and sinners, we must use the left as well as the right hand rein; we must have the influence of fear as well as that of hope. We must have penalties to law, and they must be inflicted. It never will answer to turn the new born child loose into the world, and take off from him the restraints of family government and civil law. But this philanthropism would do this. It would remove parental authority from childhood, civil authority from manhood, and the divine authority from the spirit world, and forbid alike the parent, the civil officer, and the God of heaven, to inflict punishment on the transgressor of law. It would throw the bridle upon the neck of every passion, and leave the unchecked lusts of the wicked to riot, at will, in iniquity. It would proclaim the reign of anarchy throughout the empire of Jehovah, and transform the whole universe into one broad Aceldama, a field of selfish and angry strife and blood. Howbeit, "they think not so, neither do their hearts mean so." But when they thus scatter abroad their demoralizing sentiments, and endeavor to weaken or destroy the sacred sanctions of human and divine laws, one thing is certain, they are sowing dragons' teeth, from which they will, ere long, reap a harvest of sin and woe.

Such are some of the unnatural forms of the spiritual element; they find a basis in the disproportionate development of the mental faculties. In these cases, there is generally an absence of the grand principle of true religion, we mean an intelligent regard to the general good, or an influential reception of the law: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Wherever that principle rules supreme, the true principle of obedience to God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, it secures an orderly and perfect religion. All the powers of the mind act in sweet harmony, the outward is made subject to the inward, faith is the master, and form the servant. But instead of this, formalism for centuries has, for the most part, held dominion over the world. She has thus had a fair opportunity to unfold her character and produce her fruit. If she could bless and save the world, if she

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Effects of Formalism.

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could purify the heart, render virtuous the life, or give peace to the conscience, she has had a fair opportunity to try her power, and might have done the work. Let us ask, then, "What has she effected for man?" "What are her legitimate fruits?"

1. She has been the mother and nurse of superstition. She imposes an implicit obedience on her votaries, defrauding them of the use of their reason, and leaving them only the choice of unconditional submission to the dictation of their spiritual guides, or the curse of excommunication from the church with all its attendant horrors-its disabilities, confiscations, imprisonment, and death. Her dognias and decrees must be received without investigation, and submitted to without hesitation or doubt. In fact, investigation and doubt belong to the spiritual element of religion, and find no place in the formal. The submission required is, however, only outward, the acknowledgement of the lip; the belief of the heart is non-essential; it may or may not be given. If only an outward assent is yielded to her requirements, she is satisfied. She thus forms the intellectual habits, and disciplines and prepares the mind to receive any dogma or practice however extravagant or incredible. No matter how absurd a doctrine may be, if it has been sanctioned by a council; no matter how foolish a practice may be, if it has come down in the church from a remote antiquity, and been hallowed by the approval of the fathers; no matter how false, how untenable a position may be, if it has secured the approval of a pope, cardinal, or bishop; it is then unhesitatingly received by the superstitious worshipper without question or hesitation; if the church affirms its propriety and truth, that is ground sufficient of belief; it must be true and right. If the church teaches a thousand foolish legends of saints, they must all be believed without a lingering doubt. If she shows a rusty chain as that with which John the Baptist was bound in prison; if she show a bottle of blood as the blood of Jesus; no one questions their genuineness. If she says, "here is the table of the last supper; here, a part of the cross on which the Saviour hung; here, the spear with which his side was pierced; superstition gazes on these relics as possessed of peculiar sanctity. No doubt intervenes between the object and the veneration of the beholder. If there be two sculls of St. Patrick, in two rival churches in Ireland, and she can reconcile all this with the admitted fact that St. Patrick had but one head; the credulous people are ready to accept the expla nation. And when it is ascertained that one of the sculls is much smaller than the other, and the decision is made that the smaller is St. Patrick's scull when he was a boy, and the larger his scull when he was a man, the explanation is received with all due submisVOL. VI. No. 24.

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