Essays and Reviews
Protestantism Ends in Transcendentalism
by Orestes A. BrownsonMargaret, a Tale of the Real and Ideal, Blight and Bloom,
including Sketches of a Place not before described, called Mons Christi
Boston: Jordan & Wiley. 1846. 12mo. pp. 460.WE have no intention of reviewino, at length the book the title of which we have just quotel. Indeed, we have read it odly by proxy. We have heard i'-, spoken of in certain literary 210 circles as a rei-narkable production, almost as one of the wonders of the a(re. The Protestant lady who read it .or us tells us that it is a weak and sillv book, unnatural in its scenes and characters, coarse and vulgar in its laiiffuatte and details, wild and visionary in its speculations; and, juctoing from the portions here and there which we actually have read, and from the source whence it emanates, we can hardly run any risk in endorsing out Protestant frien(-I's criticism. The, author is a man not deficient in natural gifts ; he has respectable attainments; and makes, we believe, a tolerably successful minister of the latest form of Protestantisro with which we chance to be acquainted ; though, since we have not been introduced to any new form for several months, it must not be inferred from the fact that we are acquainted with no later form, that none later exists.
So far as we have ascertained the, character of this book, it is intended to be the vehicle of certain crude speculations on re- li,rion, theolo(y , philosophy, niorals, society, education, and tnat- n ny tei-s and t,llid(ys in general. The fflon& Christi stands for the liu-,iian heart, and Christ himself is our higher or instinctive nature, and if we but listen to our own natures, we sball at once learn, love, and obey all that our Blessed Redeemer teaches. Hence, Margaret, a poor, neglected child, w'no has received no instruction, who knows not even the name of her Maker, nor that of her Saviour, who, in fact, has grown up in the most brutisli ignorance, is represented as possessiiio, in herself all the el@ meiits of the most perfect Christian character, and as knowing bv heart all the essential principles of Christian fa@tli and morals. The author seems also to have written his work, in part at leas@ for the purpose of instructing our instructors as to the true method of education. He a pears to adopt a very simple and p a very pleasant 'theory on the subject,-one which cannot fail to comrnend itself to our vounu folks. Love is the great teacher: an@l the true method of education is for the, pupil to fall in love with the tutor, or the tutor with the pupil, and it is perfected when the falliD(Y.ai love is mutual. NVbeiiee it follows, that it is a great mistake to suppose it desirable or even proper that tutor and 211 ptil)il should both be of the same sex. This would be to reverse the nat,,iral order, since the sexes were evidently intended for each other. This method, we suppose, should be called " LFAR-@I ING MADE El SY, OR NATURE DISPLAYED,@7 Since it would edabl(i us to dispense with school-rooms, prefects, text-books, study, and the birch, and to fall back on our natural instincts. These two point,, of doctrine indicate the genus, if not the species, of the book, and show that it must be classed under the general head of Transc ndentaliSDI. if we could allow ourselves to go deeper into the work and to dwell longer on its licentiousness and blaspheniy, we probably might determine its species as well as its genus. But this must suffice; and when we add that the author o,ems to comprise in himself several species at once, besides the whole genus humbuggery, we may dismiss the boolk, with sincore pity for him who wrote it, and a real prayer for his speedy restoration to the simple genus humanity, and for his conversion, throuo-ii grace, to that Christianity which was given to man from above, and not, spider-like, spun out of his own bowels.
Yet, bad and disgusting, false and blasphemous, as this book really is, batido- a few of its details, it is a book which no Protestaiit, as a Protestant, has a rioht to censure. Many Protestanth affect oreat contempt of Trar@sc-,nclentalism. and horror at its extravairince and blasphemy ; but they have no to do so. Transcendentalism is a much more serious affair than th&-y would have us believe. It is not a simple " Yankee notion" confined to a few isolated individuals in a little corner of New England, as some of our Southern friends imaoine, but is in fact the dominant error of our times, is as iife in one section of our common country as in another; and, in principle, at least, is to be met with in every popular ADti-Cttholic writer of the day, Nvh-tlier German, @rencli, En(riish, or American. It is, and has I)een from the first, the fundamental heresy of the whole Protestant world ; for, at bottom, it i,@, nothint but the fundamental principle of the Protestant Reformation itself, and without as. suniiiig it, there is no conceivable principle on which it is possi'bl( tojustify the Reformers in their separation from the Catholic 212 Church. The Protestant who refuses to accept it, with all its legitimate consequences, however frightful or absurd they maybe, condemns himself and his whole I)ai-tv.
We are far from denying that mtiiy Protestant-, and, indeed, the larger part of them, as a matter of fact, profess to hold idqnv doctrines which are incompatible with Ti,anscendeDtilism; but this avails them nothing, for tllev hold them, Dot as Protestants, but in despite of their Protestantism, and therefore have no right to hold them at all. In taking an accoun" of Protestantism, we have the right, and, indeed, are bound, to exclude them frot-n its definition. Every man is bound, as the condition of being ranked among rational beings, to be logically consistent with himself; and no one can claim as his own any doctrine which does not flow from, or which is not logically consistent with, his own fir-t principles. This follow- necessarily from the principle, that of contradictories one must be false, since one necessarily excludes the other. If, then, the doctrines incompatible with Trangeendentalism, which Protestants- profess to bold, do not flow from their oivn first principles, or if they are not logically compatible with them, they cannot claim them as Protestants, and we have the right, and are bound to exclude them from the definition of Protestantism. The man cannot be scientifically included in the definition of the horse, because both chance to be lodo-ed in the same stable, or to be otherwise found in juxtaposition.
The essential mark or characteristic of Protestantism is, ur,questionably, dissent from the authority of the Catholic Church, in subjection to which the first Protestants wei-e.spirittially born and reared. This is evident from the whole historv of its orifin, and from the well known fact, that opposition to Catholicity is the only point on which all who are called Protestants can agree among themselves. On every other question which comes up, thev differ widely one from another, and Dot Infrequently some take views directly opposed to those taken by others; but when it concerns opposing the Church, however dissii-nilar their doctrines and tempers, they all unite, and are ready to i-narcb as one man to the attack. As dissent. Protestantisn is negative, dedies 213 'he autlioritv of the Catholic Church, and can include within its definition notliin(r which, even in the remotest sense, concedes or iiiijilie-, that authority. But no man, sect, or party can rest on a iiiet-e negation, for no niere negation is or can be an ultimatt, principle. Every negation implies an affirmation, and therefore an affirmati@@e principle which authorizes it. He who dissents does so in obedience to some authority or principle wbieli comniands or requires Iiii-n to dissent, and tl)is principle, not the lieg,ttion, is his fundamental principle. The essential or fundameiital I)rincil-,)Ie of Protestantisi-n is, then, not dissent from the, authority of the Catholic Church, but the affirmative principle on which it relies for the jtistifleation of its dissent.
What, then, is this affirmative principle? Whatever it be, it must be either out of the individual dissenting, or in him; that is, some external authority, or some internal authority. The first supposition is not admissible; for Protestants really allege no authority for dissent, external to the individual dissenting,have never defined any such authority., never hinted that such authority exists or is Deeded -, and there obviously is no guch antboritv %vliich can be adduced. In point of fact, so far from dissentino, from the Church on the ground that they are commanded to do so by an external authority paramount to the Church, they deny the existence of all external authority in matters of faitb. and defend their dissent on the ground that there is no such authority, never was, and never can be.
But some may contend, judoing from the practice of Protestants, and what we know of the actual facts of the orioinal establishment of Protestantism in all those countries in which it ha.-, become predominant, that it does recognize an exteraal authority, -,vhicli it holds paramount to the Church, and on which it relies for its justification. Protestantism, as a matter of fact., owes its establishment to the authority of the lav lords and temporal princes, or, in a general sense, to the civil authority. It ;Yas, originally, much more of a political revolt than of a strictly religious dissent, and its external causes must be sough, in the ambition of princes, dating back from Louis of Bavaria, and in- 214 eluding Louis the Twelfth of France, rather than in any rea. chan @e of faith operated in the masses; and its way was prepared by the temper of mind which the temporal piidces created in t'neir subjects by the wars they undertook and carried on ostensibly qgainst the popes as political sovereigns, but really for the purpose of possessing the patrimony of the Church, and of subjecting the Church, in their respective dominions, to the control of the secular power. The Reformers would have accomplished little or nothing, if politics had not come to their aid. Luther would have bellowed in vain, bad he not been backed by the powerful Elector of Saxony, and immediately aided by the Landgrave Philip; Zwingle, and CEcolampadius, and Calvin would have accomplished nothing in Switzerlaiid, if they had not secured the aid of the secular arm, and followed its Aislies ; the powerful Iluguenot party in France was more of a political than of -,i religious party, and it dwind, led into inSi(yDificance as soon as it lost the support of great lords, distidguisbed statesmen and lawyers, and provincial parliaments. In Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, the Reform was purely the act of the civil power; in the United Provinces, it was embraced as the principle of revolt, or of national independence; in Enfyland, it was the work, confessedly, of the secular 0 government and was carried by court and parliament a(rain,,t n the wishes of the immense majority of the nation ; in Scotland, it ivas effected bv the great lords, who wished to usurp to the@ selves the authority of the crown ; in this country, it came in with the civil government, and was maintained by civil eiiactnients, pains, and penalties. We might, therefore, be led, at first siglit, to assert the fundamental principle of Protestantism to be the supremacy in spirituals of the civil power. But this would be a mistake, because it did not rec@ilize this supremacy unless the civil power was Anti-Catholic, and because the assertion of this supremacy of the civil power in spirituals was itself w denial of the authority of the Chur@,i, and therefore could not be made without makii3g the act of dissent. There is no question but the Protestants did, whenever it siiited their pur, 215 pose, assert the supremacy of the state in spiritual matters; and it must be conceded that it is very ,i(rrecable to its nature to do so, gs @S evident from the fact, that even now, and in this cotintrv it opposes the Catholic Church ciiieflv, and with the most success, on the gi,oun(,i that Catliolicitv asserts the freedom of religion, or, what is the same thing, the independence of the spiritual authority. Still this cannot be its ultimate principle. The Cbui@ch taught and teaches, that, thouoh the independence of the civil power in matters purely temporal is asserted, it-, antbority in spirituals is null. To deny this is to deny the Church, and as much to dissent from her authority as to deny her infallibility, her divine authority, or any article of the creed she teac'hes; and this must be denied before the supremacy of the civil power in spirituals can be asserted. Therefore, if Protestantism did openly, avowedly, assert the Erastian heresy of the supremacy of the civil power in spirituals, it would not justify her dissent by an external authority, unless she could make this assertion itself on some external authority acknowledged to be paramount to the Church. But for this she has no external authority, since the Church denies it, and the authority of, the state is the mat- ter in question. SLc can, then, issert the supremacy of the state only on the iLithcr@ of some principle in the individual ly dissenting and tl@erel@'3re only on. some internal authority. Whatever authority, then, Protestei)tisi-ii may ascribe to the civil power, it is not aa external authority, because the a-atlioi,ity asserted is fdwayi of tl-ie same order as that on which it is asserted, and can never transcend. it.
Others, a(,Ya-@n, may those among them cler-loiliinated Anglicans and Episcopalians, occasionally appeal to Christian antiquity and talk of the Fathers, and sometimes even profess to quote them, that they have, or think they have, in Christiar. antiquity an authority for dissent, virtually, at least external to the individual dissenting. But Christian antiquity, unless read with a presumption in favor of the Church, save on a few general arid public facts manifestly againstProtestants,decidesnothing. UnderstoolastheChurcb since Protestants, and especially 216 anderstands it, aid it evidently may, without violence to its letter or spirit, be so understood, it condemns Protestantism without mercy. To make it favor Protestantism even negatively, it is necessary to resort to a principle of interpretation which the Church does not concede, and the adoption of which would, therefore, involve the dissent in question. If we take with us the canon, that all the Christian Fathers are to be understood in accordance with the Church when not manifestly against her, Christian antiquity will be all on the side of the Roman Catliolie Cliurcl-i; if we take the canon, that all in the Christian Fathers is to be understood in a sense against the Church, when not manifestly in her favor, Christian antiquity may, on -,ome important do a,, leave the question doubtful; though even then it would, in fact, be decisive for the authority of the Church, and therefore implicitly for all special dogmas. But, be this as it i-nay, it is undeniable that it is only by adopting this latter canon that Protestantism can derive anv countenance from Christian antiquity. But on what authority do they, or can they, adopt such a canon ? Protestants call themselves reformers; tli(,,v are accusers, dissenters, and therefoi@e all the presumptions in the c c are manifestly toain,,,t them, as trey are against all who accuse, brin(y an action or a char(,e @z-eiiist others; and they must make out a stronct prima force be@@@)rethey can turn the presumptions in their favor. is law, and it is justice. Till they do this, the pi-@@amption is :I'! E-Lvor of the Church ; and then it is enough for her to show tli-,*@ Viic@ testimony of an- tiqtiity may, without violence, be, so as not to im- peach her claims. Till then, -coii,ip. Triake @@or Protestants which is not manifestly aya;nst her, so clear and express as by no allowable latitude of interpretation to be reconcilable with her pretention,-z. That is to say, the Protestant must impeach the Church on prima facie evidence, before he can have the ri,ylit to adol,)t that canon of interpretation wittiouu which it is manifestly suicidal for him to appeal to Christian antiquity. Take, as an illustration of what we mein, the, testimony of St. Justin Martyr to the Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence. It 217 is clear to any one who reads the p@ssiffe, that the words in a "plain and easy sense confirm the, Catholic doctrine ; and yet, if there were an urgent necessity for interpretiDO' them otherwise, ;we are not certain but, without greater deviation from the litei-al sense than is sometimes allowed, they might be so understood as not to be inconsistent with the vieivs of the Blessed Eucharist which some Protestant sects profess to entertain. But by what authority, because they may be so interpreted, are we to sty they must be ? In truth, it is nothing to the Protestanfs purpose to sav they may be, till he establishes bv positive authority they must be, for it is obvious they also may not be. Now, what and where is this positive authority I Manifestly not in Christian antiquity itself; and yet it must be had, before Christian antiquity can be adduced as authorizing dissent from the Catholic Church. This authority, as we said before, must be either external to the dissenter oi- internal in the dissenter himself. It cannot be external ; for, after the Church, there is no conceivable external authority applicable in the ease. It must, then, be ii-iternal. Then the authority of Christian antiquity, aallecred i(,rainst the Church, is only the authority there is in the dissenter hii-nself, accoi-dino- to the principle already established, that the authority asserted is necessarily of the same order as that on which it is asserted.
Finally, it will, perhaps, be alleoed, inasmuch as all Protestants did at first, and some of them do now, appeal to the wr@tter word, or the Holy Scriptures, in justification of their dissen@ that tliev have in these a real or a pretended authority, external to and independent of the dissenter, distinct from and paramount to that of the Church. But a moments reflection will show, even if the Scriptures were not in favor of the Church, that this is a mistake. The Holy Scriptures proposed, and their sense deciara by the Church, we hold with a firm faith to be the word of God,.and therefore of the highest authority; but, if not so proposed and interpreted, though in many respects important and authentic historical documents, and valuable for their excell@nt didictic teachings, they would not and could not be for us 218 the inspired, and, in a supernatural sense, the authoritative, word of God. To the Protestant they are not and cannot be au authority external to the dissenter; because, denyin(r the unwritten word, the Church, and all authoritative tradition, he has no external authority to voiieli for the fact that they are the inspired word of God, or to declare their genuine sense. If there be no external authority to decide that the Bible is the word of God, and to declare its true sense, the authority ascribed to it in the last analysis, according to the principle we have established, is only the authority of some internal principle in the individual dissenting; for, in that case, the individual,. by virtue of this intern,tl principle, decides, with the Bible as without it, what is and what is not God's word, what God has and has not revealed; and therefore ivhat he is and what he is not bound to believe, what he is and what he is not bound to do.
It is, moreover, notorious that Protestants do really deny all external authority in matters of faith, and bold that any external authority to determine for the individual what he must believe would be mauifest usurpation, intolerable tyranny, to be resisted by every one who has any sense of Christian freedom, or of his rights and dignity as a man. Even the Anglican Church, which claims to herself authority in controversies of faith, acknowledges that she has no rioht to ordain any thing as of necessity to salvation, which may not be proved from God's word written; and by implication it least, if she means any thing, leaves it to the individual to determine for himself whether what she ordains is provable from the written word or not; and, therefore, abandons her own authority, by making the individual the judge of its legality. No one will, furthermore, pretend that Protestant-even affect to have dissented from the Catholic Church, in which they were spiritually born and reared, in obedience to an external authority; thtt is to say, another Church, which they bel(I to be paramount to the Roman C@itliolic Church. If they had admitted that there was anywhere an authoritative Church, they would have agreed that it was this Church, and could have been no other. In deliyiiio, the authority of the Roman Catholie 0 219 Church, they denied, and intended to deny, in principle, all ext,ernal a-,itlioriti, in matters of faitli ; and the chief count in the indictment of @he Church, which they have drawn up, and on which they have been for these three hundred years demanding conviction, is, that she claims to be such authority, when no such authority was instituted, or intended to be instituted. We mty, then, safely conclude that the affirmative principle on which Protestantism relies for the justification of its denial of Catholic authority is not some authority external to the individual dissenting, and held to be paramount to that from which he dissents.
Then the principle must be internal in the individual himself and this is precisely what Protestantism teaches; for by her own confession, nay, by her own boast, her fundamental principle is, PRIVATE JUDGMENT. Tbi, was the only principle which, in the nature of the case, she could set up a- the antagonist of Catholic authority; and it is notorious the world over, that it is in the name of this principle that she arraio-ns the Church, and cornrnatids her to give an account of herself. We see, even to-daj-, emblazoned on the banners borne b-y the motley hosts of the socalled " Christian Alliance," this glorious device,-THE RIGHT OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT. This is their battle-cry, as Deus Vult was that of the Crusaders. It is their -rn hoc s@(Ino vince. 11 We want no infallible pope, bishops, or church, to propound and explain to us God's word, to lord it over God's heritage, and make Plaves of our very consciences. No! we are.freemen, and we strike for freedom, the glorious birthright of every Christian to judge for himself what is or what is not the word of God; that is, what be is or is not to be@ve." There is no mistake in this. If there is any thing essential, any thing fundamental, in Protestantism, any thing which niikes it the subject of a predicate at all it is this far-famed and loud-boasted principle of PRIVATE JUDGMENT.
In sayiiio, this, we of course are not to be understood as asn sorting that Pi,otestints always, or even commonly, respect, in their practice, this rioht of private judgment. Practically, every 220 Protestant Qltlys, " T hive the right to think as I please, and yoil have the ri(yht to tbinIK as I do; and if you do not, I will, if I iia%,e, the power, compel you to do so, or confiscate your goods, (I(,piive you of citizedship, outlaw you, behead bang, or burii you; at least, imp on you, flo(r you, or bore Your cars and t6ii,yue." In point of fact, Protestants, we grant, have very gcnei-ally, violated the principle of private judgment, and have prac. tised, in the name of religious liberty, the most unjust, tyranny over conscience,-unjust, because, on their own principles, they have received from Almighty God no authority to dictate to conscience, and because they also concede, what is unquestionably true, that conscience is accountable to God alone. Every attempt of any man, set, or class of men, not expressly commissioned by Almio;bty God,-so expressly that the authority exercised sball be really and truly his,-to exert the least control over conscience is a mtnifest 'usurpation, an outrageous tyranny, which every man, having a just reverence for his Makei-, will resist even unto death. The Catholic ChiLircb, indeed, claims plenary authority over consciei,,cc ; but only on the ground, that she is divinelv commissioned, and that the authority which speaks in her is literally and as truly the. authority of God, as that of the representative is that of his sovereign. If per impossibile, she could suppose herself not to be so commissioned, and therefore not havillo, the pled(ye of the divine supervision, protect-,on, and aid which such commission necessarily implies, she would concede that she hts no authority, and should atteiipt to exercise none. AN"e cheerfully obey her, because in obeying her we Are obeying not a human authority, but God himself. In submitting to her we are free, because we are submitting to God, who is our riyhtful sovereign, to whom we belong, all that we have, and all that we are. Frec@dom is not in being held to no obedience, but in being held to obey only the legal sovereign; and the more unqualified this obedience, the freer we are. Perfect freedom is in htvino- no will of our own, in willing only -what oursovereign -,vills, and because lie wills it. If the Church,, m we cannot doubt, be really commissioned by God, the more 221 absolute her authority, the more unqualified 3ur submission, the more perfect is our liberty, as every man knows, who knows any tliino, at all of that freedom wherewith the Son makes us free. But in yielding obedience to a Protestant sect, it is -not the same. When any one of our sects undertakes to dictate to conscience, it is tyranny; because, by its own confession, it has received no authority from God. It is tvrandy, even tllouoh what it attempts to enforce be really Go(Ps word ; for it attempts to enforce it by a human, and not by a di?)ine authority. It would still tyran- inize, because it his no right to enforce any tbidg at all. It may say, as our sects do say, it has the Bible, that the Bible is God's word, and that it only exacts the obedience to God's cornmarids which no man has the right to withhold. Be it so. But who has made it the keeper and executor of God's laws? Where is its Commission under the hand and seal of the Almiohty ? It is, doubtless, right that the civil law should be executed,that the murderer, for instance, should be punished; but it does not therefore follow that 1, a,- a simple citizen, have the right to execute them, and to iDfliCt the punishment. That mty be done only by the constituted authorities, and is not my business; and it is a sound as well as a homely qdage, Let every one mind his own business. Protestants, on this point, fall into grievous errors. The simple possession of the Holy Scriptures does not ,constitute them keepers of the word,-eved supposing the Scrip tur(,s to contain the whole word,-and give them the right to dictate to conscience, a.-, they imagine, any more than the fact of my having in my possession the statute-book constitutes me the guardian and administrator of the laws of the commonwealth. Protestants, whenever they interfere with the right of private judgm6iit, convict themselves, on their own principles, of practising on what, in these days, is called "Lynch law;" and Lynch law is to the state precisely what Protestantism, in practice, is to the Chureli.-Tliis is ,t fact which deserves the grave consideratioii of those sects which contend for creeds and confessions, and zlaim the right to try and puni@h as heretics such as in theif Pdo,,ment do not conform to them. Even Dr. Beecher himself 222 came very near, a few years since, beino, lynched by his Presbv- · teiian associates ; and if it bad not been for an extraordinary 1 suppleness and marvellous skill in parrving blows, hardly to have I been expected in one of his a e, it mioht have been all up with 9 n him. Our Presbyterian, Dutch Reformed, Puritan, and Aiiolican friends should lay this to heart, and never suffer themselves to complain of the practice of " Lynch law," or to find the least fault ivith the commission of Jud,,-e Lynch himself,-for it emanates from the same authority as their own, and is as regu- larly made out and authenticated. But this is foreign from our present purpose. It is enough for our present purpose, that Protestants assert, in theory, as they unquestionably do, the right of private judgment, and make it the principle of their dissent from the authority of the Catholic Church.
But all IneD, at I ast as to their inlierei-it rights, are equal. The riolit of private judgment, then, cannot be asserted for one man, without bein(y at the same tii-ne, and by the same authority, asserted for all men. Then Protestants cannot assert private judffment as their authority for dissenting from the Catho0 lie Church, without erecting it into a universal principle. We may assume, then, that Protestantism begins by laying down as it.-, principle the i-ifyht of all men to private judgment.
But the right of all men to private jud(rment is in effect the unrestricted or universal right to private judgment. This may not have been clearly seen in the beginning, and there is Do question but Protestants intended in the commencement to restrict the right of private jud(,Meut to the simple interpretation of the written word. But every one, whatever may be his intentioils, must be held answerable for the strict logical consequences of the principles he deliberately adopts ; for if lie does not foresee these consequences, he ought Dot to take upon himself the responsibility of adopting the principles. The right of private judgment, once admitted, can no longer be restricted. If restricted at all, it must be by some authority, and this authority must be either external or internal. If internal, it is private judgment itself, and then it cannot restrict, for it would i, ab. 223 sued to say that private judon-ient can restrict private judgment. It cannot be an external authority, because Protestants dmit Do external authority, and because we cannot assert an external authority to restrict private judgment, without denying private judgment itself. Either the authority must prescribe the limits of private judoment, or private judgment must prescribe the limits of the restriction ; if the first, it is tantamount to the denial of private judgement itself, for private judgment would then subsist only at the mercy of authority, by sufferance, and not by right; if the latter, the authority is null; for private jnd(rinent may enlarge or contract the restriction as it pleases, and that is evidently no restriction which is only what that ,which is restricted chooses to make it. It is impossible, then, to erect private judoment into a principle for all men, and afterwards to restrict it to the simple interpretation of the Holy Scriptures.
If we assert the right of private judgment to interpret the Holy Scriptures, we must assert its right in all cases whatsoever; for the principle on which private judgment can be defended in one case is equally applicable in every case. Will it be said that private judoment must yield to God's word? Granted. But what is God's word? The Bible. How know you that? Do you determine that the Bible is the word of God by some external authority, or by private judcment ? Not bv some external authority, because you have none, and admit none. By private judgment? Then the authority of the Bible is for yozi only private judgment. The Bible does not propose itself, and therefore can have no authority higher than the authority which us difficult proposes it. Here is a serio y for those Crotestant,-, who set up such a clamor about the Bible, and which shows them, or ought to show them, that, whatever the Bible may be for a Catholic, for them it can, in no conceivable contii)g(,ncv, be any thin(, but a human authority. The authority of that which isproposed is qf the same order as that which proposes, and cannot transcend it. This is a Protestant argument, and is substantially the great argument of ChilliDoworth against 224 Catholicity. Nothing proposes the Bible to Protestants but private judgment, as is evident from their denial of all other antbority; and therefore in the Bible they-not we, tbadk God! -have only the authority of private judgment, and therefore only the word of man, -tnd not the word of God. If the tuthority on which Protestants receive the word of God is only that of private judgement, then there is for them in the Bible only private judgmedt; and then uothidg to restrict private judgmed@ for private judgment can itself be no restriction on private judgment.
Moreover, if we take tbebible to be the word of God on the authority of private judgment, and its sense on the same authoritv as Protestants do and must, then we assume private judgment to be com etent to decide of itself what is and what is not , p the word of God, what God has revealed and what be has not revealed, has commanded and has not cornmanded,-and there,fore competent to decide what we are to believe and what we are not to believe, and what we are to do and what we are not to do. But this is to assume the whole for private judoment, and therefore to assume its unrestricted right. We, may, then, assume, in the second place, that Protestantism not only lays down the principle of the right of all men to private judgment, but the right of all men to the universal or unrestricted right of private judgment.
But private judgment itself is not, strictly speaking, ultimate, and therefore, though it be the principle of Protestantism, ' is not its ultimate principle. The ultimate principle of Protestantism lies a little fartber back. Rights are never in themselves ultii-nate, but@iust alwavs to be ri(yhts, rest on some foundation or authority. The right of private judgment necessarily implies some principle on which it is founded. Every judgment is by some standard or measure; for when we judge it is always by something, and this, whatever it is, is the principle, law, rule, criterion, standard, or measure of the tid(yment. In every act of private judoment this standard or measiire is the individual judging. The individual judges by himself, and to judge kv 226 on@s self is precisely what is meant by private judgment. In -it the individual is both measurer and ineasure,-in a word, his own yard-stick of truth and goodness. But rio;litF,, to be rights, must not only be founded on some principle, but on a true principle ; for to say they are founded on a false principle is only saying in other words, tlitt they have no foundation at all. The right of all men to unrestricted private judgment, then, necessarily 1. -nplies that each tnd everv man is in himself the exact measure of truth and goodness. In laying down the principle of private jud,yment as the principle of its dissent from the Catholic Church, Protestantism, then, necessarily lays down the principle, that each and every man is in himself the exact measure of truth and goodness,-the very fundamental proposition of Trailseeii. (lentalisin. The identity in principle is, then, perfect; a nd no Protestant, as we began by sayino, can refuse to accept Trans,.ceiidentalisiii, with all its legitimate consequences, without condeiiining himself and his whole party
This conclusion is undeniable, for the acutest dialectician will find no break or flaw in the chain of reasoning by which it is obtained. We, &.en, may assume this very important position, that Transcendentalism is the strict logical termination of Protestantisni ; and if some Protestants, as is the case, refuse to ad mit it, it is at the expense of their dialectics ; because they can not, or dare not, siy, Two and two make four, but jtidoe it more prudent to say, Two and two make five, or to compromise the matter and say, Two in two make three. There are few things @,vbich are more di-.gusting than the cowardice which shrinks from avowing the legitimate consequences of one's own priyiciI)Ies. The siti of inconsequence is, as the celebrated Dr. Evaristo de Gypendole, justly remarks, a mortal siii,-at least, in the eyes of humanity; for it is high treason against the rational nature itself; and be -,,vbo deliberately cornniits it voluntarily abdicates reason, and takes his place among irferior and irrational natures. If 'voiir principles are sound, you cannot push them to a dangerous extreme ; and if tbev will not bear -pushing @W 226 their extreme consequences, you should know that they are unsound, and not fit to be entertained; for it is always lawful to conclude the unsoundness of the principle from the unsoundness of the consequences.Takino, this view of the case, we confess the Transeendentalisti appear to us the more respectable, and indeed the only respectable because the only consistent, class of Protestants. Consistent as Protestants, we mean, not as men; for Transcendentalism is the ne plus ultra of inconsistency and absurdity ; but as Protestants they are consistent in so far as they carry out with an iron looic the Protestant principle to its legitimate results; and in doing this, in the providence of God, they are rendering no mean service to the cause of truth. They are a living and practical reductio ad absurdum of Protestantism. They strip it of its disguises, expose it in its nakedness, and subserve the cause of truth as the drunken Helotoe subserved the cause of temperance in the Spartan youth by exposing to them the disgusting effects of drunkenness.
It is of great pract,@cal importance that Protestantism should be exhibited by its followers in its true light as it really is in it@elf. Thus ftr Protestants have owned their success and influelice, in the main, to the fact, that the mass of them have never ,5eei-i and comprehended Protestantism in its simple, unadulterated elements. It has always been presented to them in a livery stolen from Catholicity. The great mass of the Protestant people, seemly it only in this livery, have supposed that it appertained to the household of faith, and that they had in it all that is essential to the Christian religion. Unible to penetrate its disguises, unable to distinguish between what was genuinely Protestatit and what was surreptitiously taken frora the Church, they could not understand the force or truth of the Catholic accusations against them. It seemed to them utterly false to say that they had no faith, no church, no religion, and that their Protestantism necessarily involved the denial of the whole scheme of revealed religion, and left tl)em in reality notbino, but inere Naturalism. Bad they not something they @led a church i 227 Haa they not places of worship mode.led after Christian temples ? Had they not the Holy Scriptures, pastors and teachers, hvnins, I)rayers,-all the exterior forms of worship? Did they Dot profess to believe in God, the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation, the Atonement, the necessity of Grace, the endless punishment of the wicked, and the eternal beatitude of the just,-all that even Catholic doctors have ever taught that it is necessary ex necessitate medii ad salutem to be explicitly believed ? Did they not try to lead holy and devout lives, spend much time in prayer and prtise, seek earnestly to know and do the will of God, and actually, in Many instances, attain to a moral elevation which would more than compare favorably with that of many Catholics? How say, then, that we have no religion, that our pi-idcil)les are at war with Christituitv, and lead necessarily to the destruction of -,ill faith, of all Christian morality? Have we not in our Protestantism, as we hold it, a living lie to your unjust charge, your foul &,persion ? It must be confessed, that appearances to the Protestant, were much against the Catholic, and it required considerable insight and firmness of logic to establish the charges which the Catholic, from the principles of an infallible faith, was fully warranted in preferring. But time and events have now made clear and certain to all who can see and reason, what then seemed so doubtful, iaot to say, so unfounded. In Transcendentalism, which is both the logical and historical development of Protestantism, it may now be seen that the Protestant, not the Catholic, was deceived; that not tb(@ Catholic was unjust 'In his charges, but the Protestant was carried away by his delusions. This is an immense gain, and by showing this, by stripping Protestantism of its disguises, by cornpel]idg it to abandon what it had attempted to retain of Catbolieltv, and to restrict it to its own principles, Trancendentalism is subserviiig in no ordinary degree the cause of religion and morality. Three hundred years of controversy have resulted i-n Si-DplifyiDg the question, and in mtkidg Up the true and ,ororr issue. If the true and proper issue could have been @e in the beginning, Protestantism would have died in its 228 birth. The mass of those who have followed the Protestant standard have done so because they supposed they had in the Holy Scriptures a divine authority for their belief. Heie was their mother delusion. Catholics have really in the Holy Scriptiires t divine authority, because they receive tlierii on the proposition of the Church expressly commissioned by Almi-hty God to propose the truth revealed; but Protestants, as we have seen, since they take the Holy Scriptures only oil the authority of private reason, have in them only the authority of private reason,a merely human authority. It is now seen and understood that the, Scriptures, if taken on human authority, have onlv a huintn authority; and therefore, as Catholics always alle(red, Protestants, with all their pretensions, have only a human auth,)ritv for the dogmas they profess to derive from them, and therefore are not, aud never have been, able to make that act of divine faith without which, if they have come to years of discretion, they possess no Christian virtue, and do nothing meritorious for eternal life. If Christianity be a supernatural life, the life which begins in supernatural faith and contemplates a supernatural destinv it is now clear that Protestants cannot and never could claim to be truly within the pale of the Christian family, but do itject and always have virtually rejected the Christian religion itself.
This being so, it becomes necessary now either to deny the supernatural character of the Christian life, and therefore the necessity of divine or supernatural faith, or to give up Protestantism as having no claim to be called Christian. This is becoming a general conviction among Protestants themselves, and therefore the tendency to reject Christiai-iitv, as a supernatural religion, is manifesting itself all over the Protestant world. Even Bishop Butler, the great Anolican li(ybt of the last century, declares the Gospel to be only " a republication, of the law of nature ; " and we have rarely met with a Protestant, whatever might be his unintelligible jargon about the New Birth, that did n-,t bold, substantially, that the Christian life is merely the continuation and development of our natural life. The old 229 anodes of .,peech, adopted when Christianity was held tc be a Supernatural relioion, are, we admit, in some instances, retained 0 and insisted upon; but they have lost their former significance. SU-Pernatural is defined to be sttpersensuotts, as if spiritual existences could not be natural as well as material existences. It is thus Coleridge defides supernatural; it is thus, also, the Supernatu2-alists of Germany, of the school of Schleiermactier and De Wette, understand it, while the Rationalists deny it in name as well qs in reality. In no Iiiober sense do we find the word recoo,nized by the mass of Swiss and French Protestants. n "What did Almio-hty God make us for?" said we, the other day, to a worthy Protestant preacher, not without note in this comnaunity and the councils of his country. "To develope and perfect our spiritual nature-,,," was the ready reply ; that is, to finish the work which Almighty God beoan, but left incomplete; and I this is the reply which, in substance, is almost universally given by those Protestants who plume themselves on having pure and ennobling spiritual views of religion. Thus it is, men everywhere lose sioht of their supernatural destiny, and then deny the necessity of a supernatural life,, and then the necessity of grace. Thus, in substance, if not in Datne, they reject the doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Miraculous Conception and Birth of our Saviour, Original SiD, the Atonement, Remission of Sins, the Plenary Inspiration of the Scriptures, and, finally, all that is incompatible with the principle of ma-n's sufficiency for himself, as so many reminiscences of Popery, or traditions of the Dark Ages, and as interposing between the human soul and its Creator, and hindering ith freedom ant-@ growth. It is idle to deny, that all over the Protestant world, the tendency to this result is strong and irresistible, and that i. is already rembed by the more thinking and enlightened pertion of Protestants. The true an I proper issue, then, cannot be really any longer eraded. Protestants must meet the simple questions of Naturalism or Superriataralism, of Transcendentalism o- Catholicity, of man or God.
No doubt, a certain class of Protestant doctors do, and wUL 230 for some little time to come, struggle to stave rff this issue, but in vain. Matters have proceeded too far. It is too late. ]'he internal developments of Protestantism are too far completed, the spirit at work in the Protestant ranks is too powerful, to prevent the direct issue from being made. Transcendentalism, under one form or another, has struck its roots so deep, has spread out its branches so far, and finds so rich a soil, that it must ere long cause all the other forms of Protestantism, as the underbrush in a thick forest, to die out and disappear. The spirit of inquiry which Protestantism boasts of ban,ing quickened, the disposition to bring every question, the most intricate and the roost sacred, to the test of private judgment, which she fosters, and which it would be suicidal in her to discountenance, will compel these doctors themselves either to give up tbeii- vocations, or to fall into the current arid suffer tliemse]N-es to be borne on to its termiiiation. Resistance is madness. The movement party Advances with a steadv step, and will drive all before it. Whatever Evangelical doctor throws himself in its path to stay its onward march is a dead man and ground to powder. There is no alternative; you must follow Schlegel, Hurter, Newman, Faber, back into the bosom of Catholic unity, or go on with Emerson, Parker, and Carlvle. Not to-day only have we seen this. Think you that we, who, according to Your own story, have tried every form of Protestantism, and disputed every inch of Protestant ground, would ever have left the ranks of Protestantism in ",bieli eve were born, and under whose banner we bad fought so long and suffered so much, if there bad been any other alternative for us i
The "No Popery " cry which our Evangelicals are raising, and which rings in our cars from every quarter, does not in the least discompose us. In this very cry we hear an additional proof of what we are maintaining. We understand the full sig-nificance of this cry. The Protestant masses are escaping from their leaders. The sectarian ministers, especially of the species Evangelical, are losing their bold on their flocks, and fliading that their old petrified forms, retained from Luther, or Calvin, or Knox, will no longer satisfy them,-have no lodoer vita!ity 0 231 for them. Their craft is in danyer; their power and influence are departing, and Ichabod is beginning to be written on theif foreheads. They see the handwriting on the wall, and feel that something must be done to avert the terrible doom that awaits them. Fearfulness and treinblinfy seize them, and, like the drownino, man, they catch at the first straw, and hope, and yet - Mel, ,vith th e hope of despair, that it will prove a plank of safety. They have no resource in their old, di-ied-up, dead forms. They must look abroad, call in some extrinsic aid, and, by means of some forei(rn power, delay the execution of the judgment they feel in their liearts has already been pronounced against them. They must got up some excitement which will captivate the people and blind their reason. No excitement seems to them more likelv to answer their purpose than a "No Popery" excitement, which they fancy will -find a firm support in the hereditary passions and prejudices of their flocks. Here is the significance of this "No Popery" excitement.
But this excitement will prove suicidal. Times have chan(Yed, and matters do not stand as they did in the days of Luther, and Zwingle, and Henry, and Calvin, and Knox. The temper of men's minds is different, and there is a new order of questions up for solution. The old watchwords no longer answer the purpose. What avails it to prove the Pope to be Antichrist, to populations that do not even believe in Christ? What avail- it to thunder at Catholicity with texts which are no longer believed to have a divine authority ? Protestantism must now fall back vn her own principles, and fight her battles with her own weapons. She must throw out her own banner to the breeze, and call upon men to gather and arm and fight for progress, for liberty, for the unrestricted right of private judgment, or she will not rally a corporal's guard against Catbolitv. - But the i-noment she does this, she is, as the French say, enfonc@e; for she has subsisted and can subsist only kv professing one thing and doino, another. Let our EvaDoelical doctors. in their madness, rally, in the name of pro(ri-ess, of liberty, of private judgment, an army to put down the Pope, and the matter will not end there 232 Their fort,-es, furnished with ari is afrainst Catholicity, will turn n upon themselves, and in a hoarse voice, and if need be, from brazen throats and tongues of flame, exclaim, " No more sliam. f)-entlem en. We go for principle. We do not uiipope the Pope to find a new pope in each petty presbyter, and a spy and informer in each brother or sister communicant. You ai-(, notliiDg to us. Freedom, gentlei-nen; doff your gowns, abrogate all your creeds and confessions, break up all your religious organizations, abolish all forms of worship except such as each individual mav choose and exercise for himself, and acknowledge in fact, a,.; welf as in name, that every man is free to worship one God or twenty Gods, or no God at all, a-, seems to him good, unlicensed, unquestioned, or take the consequences. 1,11'e will no more submit to your authority than you will to that of the Pope."
This is the tone and these the terms in which these 11 No Popery" doctors will find, one of these days, their flocks address. ing them; for we have only given words to what they knonv as well as we is the predoi-ninant feelinu of the great majority of the Protestant people. The very means, in the present temper of the Protestant public, they must use to insure their success, eaDnot fail to prove their ruin. They will only basten the issue they would evade. Deprived, as they now are, for the most part, of all direct aid from the civil power, the force of things is against them, and it matters little whether they attempt to nion,e or sit still. They were mad enough in the beginning to take their stand on a movable foundation, and they must move on with it, or be left to balance themselves in vacuity; and if they do move on with it, they will simply arrive-nowhither. They are doomed, and they cannot escape. Hence it is all their motions affect us only as the writhidgs and death-throes of the serpent whose b?ad is crushed.
RegardiDO'it Of the greatest importance that the whole matter should be bi-ollo-bt to its true and proper issue, and believiiio, firmly, that when the alternatives are (listipctly apprehended Pnd admitted, that many Protestants will choose " 'he better 233 part," we are not displeased to witness the ve-Y decided tend. enev to Transcendentalism now manifestin(r itself throughout the Protestant world. It is a proof to us that the internal developments of Pi-otestantis are not only bringing it to its strictly lo(rical termination, but, what is more important still, to the ter7n of its existence. The Dations which became Protestant rebelled a(,riiiist the God of their fathers, the God who bad brought them up out of the bondaoe of ignorance, barbarism, idolatry, and superstition, and said they would not have him to reign over them, but they would henceforth be their own masters, and rule themselves. He, for -,vise and merciful but inscrutable purposes, gave them up to their reprobate sense, I(-,ft them to themselves, to follow their own wills, till bitter experierice should teach them their wickedness, their impiety, their folly and madness, tnd bring them in Shaine and confusion topray, "O Lord, in thy wrath remember mercy; save us from ourselves, or we perish !" To this desirable result it was not to be expected they -%vould come till Protestantism had run it.,i natural course, and reached its legitimate termination. Thev would not abandon it till they bad exhausted all its possibilities, and till it could no longer present a new face to cbarm or delude them. In this Transcendental tendency, we see the evidence that it has run or very nearly run its natural course, and in Transcendentalism reaches it.-, termination, exhausts itself, and can go no firther; for there is no farther. Beyond Transcendentalism, in the same direction, there is no place. Transcendentalism is the last stage this side of i\,owiiERE; and when reached, we must hold up, or fly off into boundless vacuity. In its prevalence, then, we may trust we see the signs of a change near at hand; and any change must certainly be in a bettei direction.
Adapted from
Essays and Reviews p. 209
Brownson's Quarterly Review (July, 1846)
Works, Vol. VI, p. 113
Revised January 5, 2005.