by Gemeinde, and thus made their language, by one word, an evangelical messenger of truth to the millions who spoke it. Mixed languages, however, with their numerous conventional words, cannot easily achieve such changes. Still they may correct the dictionary. If neither of these be done, it is because, there being no regard for the truth of the thing, there is none for the truth of the expression, and the conventional lie is continued. The Chinese, by using the word and sign for Heaven, the Firmament, to denote God, the Supreme Being, cannot but admit that by so doing they more or less identify the two, and that they cannot speak (and consequently not think clearly) of a conscious first cause of that Firmament. Indeed, they do not: for in their whole conventional civilisation, they confound the law which causes something to act, with the organ by which it acts, and which they call "Number One," or Principle. This they always did to Gützlaff, when speaking of the mechanism of the steamengine, which they had copied without understanding the principle: "Number One," they insisted, was the same. But observe. No sooner is the mind of the Chinese roused to a higher consciousness of man, than he feels it impossible to use the word Heaven for God, and he invents or uses another. He will assuredly do the same in mechanics, when he studies the principle upon which the mechanism of a watch or a steamengine is put in motion. Etymology, however, cannot supply the place of philosophy and theology. What is Prayer (prière, preces, Gebet), but begging (bitten)? What is Sacrifice, but the making something sacred, as the corresponding German (or rather Latin) term, Opfer, signifies an offering, and the Greek, Thysia, something slain? All these symbols may be explained by the idea, but the idea cannot be discovered by the word; so it is with whatever belongs to the mystery of the mind. What is a Sacrament, but the Latin word by which, in the New Testament, the Greek Mysterium is rendered, and which originally was a sacred declaration on oath? What is Baptism, but immersion? Communion, but communion, community? They were both originally symbols of a renewal of life, deliberately and freely pledged, and of a common offering up of the selfish will. What are they now? Mere words, in which there is scarcely any truth retained if you stick to the letter! Can etymology do more than explain the outward fate of the tragedy? What is Mass (missa), but the unintelligible (and therefore sacred) corruption of the first of the three words by which the Christian people were dismissed (Missa est ecclesia)? What is Sunday, but the day of the Sun? Friday, but the day of Freya, the goddess of Beauty and Love? Yet the one is the Lord's day (Dominica, domenica, dimanche); while the other is connected with the most solemn recollections of Him who died on that day for mankind. The christianised Germanic mind has been unable to furnish an honest indigenous word either for Sacrament or Religion itself. What is Religio, but a conscientious consideration, reflection of the mind? What is Glaube, the real German term for religion as the product of the mind, but the action of lubere, Ang. Sax. geleafan, beleafan (believe), Goth. ga-laubjan, to hold dear, trustworthy? What is credere, but cred-do, giving trust, (vedantic, çrad)? or pisteuein, but the effect of persuasion (peithein)? propitiation, but bringing near (prope), making helpful? What is Sühne or Versöhnung, but making a libation? Is it sufficient to know that Atonement is making two things as one, to understand the connection between a historical fact (Christ's death) and the peace of our soul? What is Faith (foi) but Fides? and what is Fides, but that which one can trust? Truth, but what is trowed, believed, reputed certain? Wahrheit is what is perceived (gewahrt, wahrgenommen). The German word Ewigkeit (Old German, éwa, Goth. aivs, alwv, ævum) means that which is going on, proceeding. What is to be, in all languages, but the spiritualisation of walking, or standing, or eating? Eternitas, Eternity, does not carry us further. And what is God? Not the Good: though its meaning is unknown. Deus (and all the cognate words, as shown in what precedes) is the bright Ether. This brings us back to the Chinese idea as to the substratum. It is well to bear in mind, that Word is the translation of Logos, which signifies Reason as well as Word, but we may add that the Hebrew word for Logos (Debar) signifies also Thing; and that redlich, which comes from Rede, and has now a moral sense, meaning honest, originally signified rational. But will all this antiquarian lore help an enquiring soul, or satisfy a thinking mind? Or is it a great discovery, that the Greek original for Regeneration may be better explained as the act of being regenerated, rather than of being born again? All this is ridiculously superficial, and indeed an absurd delusion, or abominable sophistry. The case is the same as to knowledge and science. What is Wissen, but to have seen (oida from ɛidw, Sanscr. veda, Goth. vait)? what is to know (gnosco, yiváσкw), but to have embraced? what scire, scientia, but to collect, thence to think, thence to know? It is equally illusory to point to historical tradition in order to come to an understanding of things divine. Historical tradition consists of words, and is no more a definition than a person as an abstract notion. Tradition, and consequently all historical religion, is a hieroglyphic as well as the words in which it is conveyed. It implies that the object itself is allowed to exist, and that all men know and somehow understand it within. A firm religious faith in a thinking man or nation can no more rest ultimately upon a history than upon a myth. Or shall religious tradition be explained by rites and gestures? These are mute hieroglyphics waiting for the word to explain them. Everything, in short, points to the mind as the complex of Reason and Conscience. Destroy these, if you can; or trust * L VOL. II. them, and let them have free, sovereign sway: if not, declare yourselves Atheists. The ultimate result of all this may be summed up in a few words, and all that follows may be considered as a commentary upon them, much that precedes as an introduction to them. Words are the most intellectual symbols, and symbols are, at the best, words. Neither the words of language nor the symbols of religion are the basis and reality of thought or of worship; they have no reality but in Reason and Conscience, and are of no use but in so far as they express this reality and are so understood and applied. In proceeding, then, to the philosophy of religion, and, in particular, to the philosophy of the true and universal religion, Christianity, we must not hesitate, if we have any regard for truth, that is to say, for ourselves, to dive down into the depth of the mind, aided by Scripture and by the heavenly light of objectively true Reason, and under the guidance of the divine instinct for everything that is good, namely, Conscience. Language has furnished us the presumption, that religion must be at least as rational as itself, and also that it may become as conventional as the words which are employed to express its rites, symbols, and doctrines. |