Part 3 (1/2)

Christ being made all, both physical and moral Saviour, was intended to swallow up all the various Pagan honours and ceremonies, every one of which, in part or whole, is still retained in our law-established Church; and so Christ personated both the elements, bread and wine, as his body and blood, as before they had been called body of Ceres and blood of Bacchus.

Be it remembered, that the Pagans had no other ideas of these matters, than those of dramatic effect. The origin of the drama was in and with the religion of the human race. And we must come back or come up to this for a right understanding and use of the Christian Religion.

As food, bread and wine are the best elemental representatives of the body and blood of the human being, and will sustain human life in health and vigour. As bread and wine, they are elements of the physical nature of G.o.d; and when taken into the human body, they transubstantiate in that body, and, in making blood, become the blood which is necessary to sustain the moral G.o.d or reason in the G.o.dly man: so, through the transubstantiation, they do not cease to be the body and blood of Christ. This is what is meant in the matter, and this solves the language of Saint Augustine, cited in the twenty-ninth article, that though the wicked eat the consecrated bread and drink the wine, they do not eat the real body and blood of Christ, because in leading bad lives they do not improve themselves, and so eat and drink but for new condemnation.

The revelation of the mysterious word sin, in the Sacred Scriptures, is generally applicable to the ignorance of the human race; and so of original sin, which is not to be otherwise reasonably understood. Man is born without knowledge, but may, by due care, be made a member of the Church of Christ; that is, may be made a scholar, as the foundation of a wise and good man.

I shrink not from a full and reasonable explanation of every part of the mysterious doctrine of the Christian Church, in this way; and I am prepared to maintain, before all men, that this is the true revelation of the mystery, the true spirit of the letter, both of the Old and New Testament: ”the truth as it is in Jesus”--in nature: the truth, by G.o.d.

This beautiful and deeply-woven allegory embraces, in its mystery, almost every known process of nature; and must, in my opinion, have been the labour of the united science of many generations of the wisest men---of truly inspired men. This very doctrine of transubstantiation in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, is descriptive, and is in fact and principle, the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ in. man.

The bread and wine are swallowed, are buried in the human stomach, there decomposed or transubstantiated, formed into chyle, rise again into blood, and form the spirit of the man: which is, in reality, a death of the body and resurrection of the spirit: and the brain being the chief of the sentient principle, there becomes an ascension into that kingdom of heaven, which it is in a reasonable man, and than; which there can be, by law of nature, no other. The same or similar explanation applies to the first and second birth; the birth of the physical body in its original sin, the second the birth of the spiritual mind or inward man, which is the Lord Christ Jesus. It is a divine riddle, and such is the solution.

The riddle is of larger comprehension than the mere relations of G.o.d to man. It is an astronomical almanack, a written and dramatized picture of the celestial globe; and is, in truth, a most perfect allegory of all known nature, both in physics and morals, in matter and spirit.

There are no such men in the Church now as the writers of the Sacred Scriptures; none even with sufficient knowledge to understand them. We have fallen; yes, we have fallen into the dark ages; and the revelation, when known, is to be the millennium. We have fallen by that Scarlet Wh.o.r.e, the Babylon of Mystery; and have to rise again, by getting a knowledge of Christ, which is not now in the Church, nor yet among any of the Dissenters so called. Nothing can be imagined more anti-Christian in spirit and character, than that which has been called the Christian Church of the last fifteen hundred years.

Christ, in his physical character, personates the sun and solar year, while his twelve disciples personate the twelve months, or the signs of the zodiac; and; in this sense, we have a death, descent, resurrection and ascension, once a year. It is in that sense he performs the miracle of turning the water of the pot of Aquarius (January or Winter) into the wine of Autumn; the story, of course, is told, in the gospel, after the form of a personated narrative of a dramatic incident. So the product of the corn-seed of five small loaves and two fishes, becomes sufficient, in the season, to feed five thousand. The knowledge and ingenuity of the state of mind, that could so construct the allegory, as an harmonious picture of the works of nature, is absolutely wonderful, and has my admiration, even my ejaculatory adoration; and I am not a little proud of my own ingenuity, in having penetrated thus far into so deep and mysterious a subject. It has brought me perfect peace of mind, as to the general system of nature, and left me burning with the desire to acquire more knowledge.

In the Church now existing, is there aught but mystery that can be called its religion? And in mystery unexplained, unrevealed, can there be aught but impudent knavery in the ministration, with general hypocrisy or credulous folly in the reception? I have penetrated the subject so deeply as not to shrink from saying, that the present ministration of the Church is an impudent and mischievous imposture, sanctioned by the custom of antiquity, that neither instructs nor moralizes the people; for, notwithstanding all the pretences to religion, greater immorality than is here found cannot be supposed to exist among a people holding or held together as a community, in daily danger of disruption, and utterly without a code of moral guidance or guides: and this not so much among the poor as among the rich. Even this city is in danger, from its ill-a.s.sorted and ill-conditioned population, of all the disasters that befell Babylon, Jerusalem, Rome, Constantinople or Paris. And almost every village in the Island groans under want, and courts even the desolation of contested revolution for a change. And that very feeling and profession, which is now miscalled the religion of peace, will, from its state of ignorant dissension, only serve to whet the appet.i.te for contention and slaughter, and make another war in the name of G.o.d.

I call upon you to repent, by which I mean reflection. I ask you to be honest, and that, too, because the season of profitable dishonesty is exhausted, and you have wealth enough: save it. It is never too late to reform and do justly; but the later the reform is deferred, the more necessity that the justice be rigid and prompt. I feel that if I had your authority, I could save the Church and its property, not for a farther career of its iniquity and error, but as a n.o.ble inst.i.tution for the good of the people, a sufficient school for all, and a hospital for the infirm; to which, I add, that this, or nothing good, must have been the purpose of its first inst.i.tution. I believe, from what I now see of the foundation of the Christian Religion, that this was the first purpose of its inst.i.tution. Banish the superst.i.tion of the Church, plant the tree of knowledge there, and you will quickly overthrow the morally pestilent Dissenters. I mean, of course, by moral means, by the exhibition of more knowledge and wisdom and utility than they. This would be salvation and reform to every good inst.i.tution in the country; for when knowledge becomes the nation's religion and moral pole-star, everything good is safe, everything evil will vanish before a discussion of its merits. This or blood-thirsty contention is your choice. You may delay for a while; but you cannot otherwise reform. You, by delay, will merely bid the people wait until they are strong enough to combat your authority. Delay will be a challenge to them of physical combat.

What can confer more dignity on the ”Dignitaries of the Church” than for the Legislature to say to them:--”Feed the people with knowledge and no longer fill them with superst.i.tion?” If I understand human nature rightly, it has more pleasure in honesty than in dishonesty.

Would the experimental lectures of a Faraday, desecrate the building?

Or a beautifully reflected picture of the heavens and its explanation lessen true devotion? Would moral; science profane the pulpit or injure the congregation? Would the real catechism; and instruction, of children in matters of physical and moral science be of less importance than the parrotlike catechism of the language of the present mystery? There would then be some ground for a bishop's or overseer's examination and confirmation; but what does confirmation now mean? All that I can remember of it is a learn-ing to repeat from memory a prayer and a creed, perhaps a few commandments, which are studied to-day, to be gone through tomorrow, and neglected ever after. Give the people something which they can feel and know to be useful, which they can reduce to practice, and they will emulate each other in flocking to Church at the appointed times. You will then have need of still more churches to receive the increasing population. It will be an emulative pleasure to children, a new delight to parents, a mutual gratification to be at school together in church.

I can say from observation, comparison and experience, that among the most moral of the working people in the metropolis, will be found those who have attended scientific lectures on the Sunday, and who have thereby been taught, to contemn superst.i.tion. You find them not in the house of intoxication; but pa.s.sing soberly in the evening from their homes to the school; and gratifiedly after the lecture from the school to their homes. The greatest error that toryism and superst.i.tion have fallen into has been to suppose that knowledge will make a people disorderly. Bacon's aphorism is true, that superst.i.tion is the _primum mobile_ of sedition, the great agitator; and ignorance the great disorderer of States. Is it not so in Ireland? Is it not your greatest trouble in this island? The wisest act of the life of the late Lord Castlereagh was to propose to send _Paine's Age of Reason_ among the Roman Catholics of Ireland. If it had been so thoroughly done, when he proposed it, they would have been all quiet enough by this time. Real knowledge is the water-cup of sobriety for a people: with that they will seek to rid themselves of nothing but error and evil that cannot be morally defended.

Make the change that I propose in the business and ceremony of the Church, and you instantly make a Christian Religion, eminently Catholic, that will not only annihilate the Dissenters, but convert Jew, Mahometan and Pagan. It will be irresistible to all mankind. They cannot argue against science; but each argues against the superst.i.tion of the other.

Science is the essence of Judaism, but the men called Jews understand it not. It is the foundation of their name, the ground on which they have been considered a chosen people, it is the only sign of G.o.d in man, the only proof of true religion. Science and morals are the whole duty and all needful to man; beyond which he can gain nothing but superst.i.tion, error and evil. Science and morals, then, are the only proper business of the Church. Let us have our National Education in the Church. Let the Church be the fountain of knowledge, and all be there baptized, as a true sign of mental birth and members.h.i.+p of Christ.

Gather together all the property that was ever ecclesiastical; get it back from whoever may hold it; take it out of the hands of the priesthood or the ministers of the Church, t.i.thes and all; and give it into the hands of its true owners, the people, each parish with its separate share, and let the majority of the paris.h.i.+oners make the best use of it they can for ecclesiastical, that is scholastical purposes; and with it, also, provide for their infirm and accidentally poor. This one act of public justice and public good would go far toward settling the affairs of this distracted and unsettled nation, and do injury to no one. Let the State Parliament be also the Church Convocation, which may be well done when there are no superst.i.tious disputes, all will go on smoothly with due and sufficient authority and order, and Britain look forward to happy days. It would be the regeneration of the whole earth in a few years. This is what is meant by the promise of the knowledge of the Lord covering the earth as the waters fill the ocean.

Somebody must publicly break through the trammels of superst.i.tion, I have done it as far as a private man can do it; but wo public man in England has yet dared to approach the subject. Be you the first. No other circ.u.mstance could bring you a more imperishable name and fame.

Of wealth you have enough. I ask nothing more than that you fulfil the promise of your administration made to the Electors of Tamworth. If you say, that you did not mean what I express, I shall answer you, that you could have no other meaning. Were I in Parliament, I would carry the subject in spite of prejudice; so strong is my faith in the power of knowledge. I would move, in such a clear and simple way, that a man should not hold up his face to his fellow man after voting against me.

Give us a commission, with power to enquire into this subject. I will be content to wait all the time that justice to all concerned may require.

If religion be any thing more than I make it--mental cultivation from infancy to death, it must be the private business of every man's life and nothing national; like national sobriety, it must be made up of the sobriety of each individual, and cannot rest on social forms and ceremonies. Ceremonial sobriety would be but the mockery of a good principle. I care not how much repenting and proving we have, how much trial, let us but have free, full, and fair enquiry and discussion, in Parliament and out of Parliament. Giving a man knowledge cannot be a disqualification for true religion. Feeding him with science can have no tendency to injure his morals. Occupying his time well can be no source of bad habits. Spurring him on to a moral emulation in the acquisition of equal or more knowledge than his neighbour, will not create ill will toward that neighbour.

The best occupation of time is a question at the very root of individual happiness and national prosperity: I find it everywhere sadly neglected; here in prison, out in church, at the theatre, in public and private business, in families, in pursuit of pleasure, in the army--everywhere.

It can be scarcely said, that there is anything solid in our actions; frivolity prevails everywhere, and is mixed up with our most serious professions. I cannot look back to Pagan times without seeing that they were a superior people to ourselves, and that we have fallen, through the management of our religion and politics, from, rather than risen, above them: we exceed them in nothing but hard and lengthy labour for small wages, insufficient for the necessaries of life. We have not learnt from Seneca, ”that he lives longest who has made the best use of his time.”

Be it your study to seek to give us some sound moral reforms, and sink party politics in the moral of public good; withdraw all licences from houses of intoxication and late hours; let there be no public resort, in Parliament or elsewhere, after ten at night; if it would be no abridgement of general liberty, confine shop business to limited hours, that the conductors and a.s.sistants may have due time for mental improvement. Some of the young men and women in London shops, bitterly lament the want of more time for rational recreation, for health and improvement. They are among the veriest of slaves in confinement. Let knowledge be once legislatively encouraged, remove all taxes from it, and then a hundred minor arrangements, by legislation, may be made conducive to public good, and a bar be set against injurious, offensive, and slavish compet.i.tion. It is the Tory fear--and, in justice, I will add, Whig fear too--of knowledge that has produced all the present wrongs and evils of the country; for if cunning men have legislated, it has not been done for the public good; because there has not been sufficient public responsibility.

This is all Church as well as State business that I am proposing. The clear distinction as to Church and State is--that the Church means the people, congregated for mental improvement; and the State means the exercise of that mental improvement in their public business: so true it is, that Church must precede and give character to the State.

t.i.thes are a recognition of the original proprietors.h.i.+p of the whole people in the land; a rent paid under that consideration, appropriate-able to the sustenance of the poor, and the mental improvement of all.

Church Property is the property of the whole people who const.i.tute the Church; and not, as now, of the ministers, who profess to be, and ought to be, the servants of the Church. At present, the servants are set above, defy, and tyrannize over the masters. All public officers in Church and State, from the King to the Beadle, should be subject to the periodical election of an intelligent people: without this, there can be no just and dignified authority--no proper public officers,--all will be tyranny, corruption, and inefficiency!