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SECTION 3.
DISORDER AND MISCHIEF PRODUCED BY THIS PREDICTION

We have seen the prophecy: let us now see the effects of it. They were such as might have been expected. They were such as had been expected: expected, as may have been observed, at a very early period. But there was rather more in them than had been expected.

Of the confusion, which, by an expectation of this sort, in a state of society, so much inferior, in the scale of moral conduct, to any, of which in this our age and country we have experience, was capable of being produced, – it can scarcely, at this time of day, be in any man's power, to frame to himself anything approaching to an adequate conception. So far as regards peaceable idleness, of the general nature of it, some faint conception may under modern manners be formed, from the accounts of the effects produced by a similar prediction, delivered first in France, then in England, about the time of Queen Anne: – so far as regards a mixture of idleness and positive mischief in a time of terror, under ancient manners, – from the accounts, given by Thucydides, of the effects produced at Athens, by the near approach of death, on the occasion of the plague; – and, from that given by Josephus, of the effects produced by the like cause, on the occasion of the siege, which, under his eye, terminated in the final destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans.

According to each man's cast of mind, and the colour of the expectations that had been imbibed by it, – terror and self-mortification, or confidence and mischievous self-indulgence, would be the natural result: terror and self-mortification, if apprehensions grounded on the retrospect of past misconduct predominated – mischievous indulgence, if, by the alleged or supposed all-sufficiency of faith, – of faith, of which the preacher was the object – the importance of morality had, even in the imagination of the disciple, been thrown into the back-ground: confabulation without end, in the case of terror; cessation from work, in both cases.

Had he been somewhat less positive on the head of time, – the purposes of those announcements of his might have been completely, and without any deduction, fulfilled. The terror he infused could not be unfavourable to those purposes, so long as it made no deduction, from the value of the produce of their industry! It was his interest, that they should "walk honestly," lest they should be punished for walking otherwise: – punished, capitally or not capitally – and, in either case, bring his teaching into disgrace. It was his interest, that they should work, in such sort, as to earn each of them the expense of his maintenance; lest, by abstaining from work, they should, any one of them, impose a burthen upon the charity of the others, or be seen to walk dishonestly, to the prejudice of the common cause, as above. It was his interest, that they should, each of them, gain as much as could be gained without reproach or danger; because, the greater the surplus produced by each disciple, the greater the tribute, that could be paid to the spiritual master, under whose command they had put themselves. Thus far his interest and theirs were in agreement. But, it was his interest, that, while working to these ends, their minds, at the expense of whatever torment to themselves, should be kept in a state of constant ferment, between the passions of hope and fear; because, the stronger the influence of the two allied passions in their breasts, the more abundant would be the contributions, of which, to the extent of each man's ability, they might reasonably be expected to be productive. Here it was, that his interest acted in a direction opposite to theirs: and it was by too ardent a pursuit of this his separate interest, that so much injury, as we shall see, was done to all those other interests.

Of the disease which we shall see described, the description, such as it is, is presented, by the matter furnished by the practitioner himself, by whose prescription the disease was produced. This matter we must be content to take, in that state of disorder, which constitutes one of the most striking features of the issue of his brain. In speaking of the symptoms, – addressed as his discourse is to nobody but the patients themselves by whom these symptoms had been experienced, – only in the way of allusion, and thence in very general terms, could they naturally have been, as they will actually be seen to be, presented to view. As to details, – from them to him, not from him to them, was, it will readily be acknowledged, the only natural course.

In the same Epistle, – namely in the second, which is the last, but, in a passage which does not come till after the announcement, which, as will be seen under the next head, was to operate as a remedy, – stands the principal part of the matter from whence we have been enabled to collect the nature of the disease. The chapter is the third and concluding one: – the words that add nothing to the information, are here and there omitted.

1. "Finally, brethren, pray for us … – that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men; for all men have not faith. – And we have confidence in the Lord touching you, that ye both do and will do the things which we command you. – And the Lord direct your hearts … into the patient waiting for Christ. – Now we command you, brethren … that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us. – For yourselves know how ye ought to follow us: for we behaved not ourselves disorderly among you: – Neither did we eat any man's bread for nought: but wrought with labour and travail night and day, that we might not be chargeable to any of you. —Not because we have not power, but to make ourselves an example unto you to follow us. – for even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat. – For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies. – Now them that are such, we command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work, and eat their own bread. – But ye brethren, be not weary in well-doing. – And if any man obey not our word by this Epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed."

By anything we have as yet seen, the symptoms of the disease, it may be thought, are not painted in any very strong colours. But, of the virulence of it there is no want of evidence. It may be seen, in the drastic nature of the remedy: – a remedy, for the invention of which, we shall, in the next section, see the ingenuity of the practitioner put to so extraordinary a stretch.

SECTION 4.
PAUL'S REMEDY FOR THE DISORDER, AND SALVO FOR HIMSELF. – ANTICHRIST MUST FIRST COME

We have seen the disorder: we had before that seen the causes of it. We now come to the remedy – the remedy provided by the practitioner for a disease of his own creating. Of the shape given to this remedy, the ingenuity will be seen to be truly worthy of the author of the disease. It consists in the announcement made, of an intermediate state of things, of the commencement of which, any more than of the termination, nothing is said: except that it was to take place, antecedently to that originally announced state of things, by the expectation of which the disorder had been produced. Of the time of its commencement, no: except as above, on that point no information is given. But of its duration, though no determinate information, yet such a description is given, as suffices for giving his disciples to understand, that in the nature of things, it could not be a short one: and that thus, before the principal state of things took place, there would be a proportionate quantity of time for preparation. Satisfied of this, they would see the necessity of conforming themselves to those reiterated "commands," with which his prediction had from the first been accomplished; and to which he had so erroneously trusted, when he regarded them as composing a sufficient antidote to the poison he had infused. That the warning thus provided for them would be a very short one, he left them, it will be seen, no great reason to apprehend. A sort of spiritual monster, – a sort of an ape of Satan, a rival to the Almighty, – and that by no means a contemptible one – was to enter upon the stage.

What with force and what with fraud, such would be his power, – that the fate of the Almighty would have appeared too precarious, had not the spirits of his partisans been kept up, by the assurance, that when all was over, the Almighty would remain master of the field.

The time, originally fixed, by him for the aerial voyage, was too near. By the hourly expectation of it, had been produced all those disastrous effects which had ensued. After what had been said, an adjournment presented the only possible remedy. But this adjournment, after what had been said, by what imaginable means could it be produced? One only means was left by the nature of the case.

2 Thess. 2:1-12. "Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, – That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us,⁶⁸ as that the day of Christ is at hand. – Let no man deceive you by any means; for that day shall not come, except⁶⁹ there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; —Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God⁷⁰– Remember ye not, that when I was yet with you, I told you these things⁷¹– And now ye know what withholdeth, that he might be revealed in his time. – For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. – And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.⁷²– Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan,⁷³ with all power and signs and lying wonders⁷⁴– And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. – And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:⁷⁵– That they all might be damned, who believed not the truth,⁷⁶ but had pleasure in unrighteousness."

To this rival of his God – God and rival – both of them of his own creation, the creator has not, we see, given any name. By this omission, he has, perhaps, as perhaps he thought to do, rendered the bugbear but the more terrible. The deficiency, such as it is, the Church of England translators of the English official translation of the Bible, have filled up: they have taken it in hand – this bantling of Paul's – and christened it Antichrist. "He," Paul, "showeth," say they, "a discovery of Antichrist, before the day of the Lord come." Such is the discovery, communicated in the heading, prefixed to the second chapter of the second of the two Epistles: and, of the readers of this so abundantly and gratuitously distributed Bible, how few are there, by whom any such distinction as that between the headings and the text is borne in mind! The right reverend divines in question, – were they the first authors of this discovery, or was it ready-made to their hands? – made by that church, from the errors of which their own has been so felicitously purified? To this question, let those look out for, and find, the answer, – in whose eyes the profit is worth the trouble.

Not a few are the divines, who have discovered Antichrist sitting in St. Peter's chair, with a triple crown on his head. In the chair of Luther, or in that of Calvin, would the triple monarch be disposed to discover the hobgoblin, if he thought it worth while to look for him. Has he ever, or has he not, made this discovery already?

"Oh, but," says somebody, "we does not here mean we only who are alive at this present writing; it means, we Christians of all ages: – any number of ages after this, as well as this, included. In the designation thus given, neither the individuals he was addressing, nor he himself, were necessarily comprehended." This accordingly, if anything, must be said, or the title of the self-constituted Apostle, to the appellation of false prophet, must be admitted. Oh, yes! this may be said, and must be said: but what will it avail him? In no such comprehensive sense did he use it; for, in that sense, it would not have answered his purposes: not even his spiritual and declared purposes, much less his temporal, selfish, and concealed purposes. Why was it that these disciples of his, as well as he, were to be so incessantly upon the watch! I Thess. 5:6, 7, 8. Why, but because "you yourselves," says he, ver. 2, "know perfectly, that the day of the Lord cometh like a thief in the night." Who, on that occasion, could be meant by we, but himself and them? In no such comprehensive sense was it understood by them: if it had been, no such consequences as we have seen following, could have followed. After the experience he and they had had, of the mischief produced by the narrow sense put upon the all-important pronoun, would he have continued thus to use it in that same narrow sense, if it had not been his wish that in that same sense it should continue to be understood? Would he have been at all this pains in creating the spiritual monster, for the declared purpose of putting off their expectation of the great day, if, but for this put-off, it would not have come on?⁷⁷ In what part of all his preachings can any distinct ground be seen for any such supposition, as that any portion of the field of time, beyond that by which his own life was bounded, was ever present to his view? In the field of place, yes: in that field his views were of no small amplitude: for in that field it was by his ambition that they were marked out: but in the field of time, no symptoms of any the smallest degree of enlargement will anywhere be found. But, on this occasion, suppose other ages, and those others to any extent, included in his views: from their including such future ages, would it follow that they had no application to the age then present? – But, supposing them understood to apply to that age, thereupon in comes the mischief in full force.

Any man that has been reading these Epistles, – let him suppose, in his own breast, any the most anxious desire to raise an expectation, such as that in question: and then let him ask himself, whether it be in the power of that desire to suggest language, that would afford any considerably better promise of giving effect to it.

Of the nature of the disorder, as well as of the cause of it, – the persons, to whom the world is indebted for the preservation of these remains of the self-constituted Apostle, – have given us, as above, some conception. Of the effect of the remedy, it would have been amusing to be informed: unfortunately, this portion of his history is not comprised in the labours of his historiographer.⁷⁸

CHAPTER XIII

Paul's supposable Miracles explained

SECTION 1.
OBJECTIONS, APPLYING TO THEM IN THE AGGREGATE

But, it may be said, Paul's alleged commission from God was certainly genuine; for it is proved by his miracles. Look at the Acts, no fewer than twelve miracles of his you will find. If then taken by themselves, for want of that accurate conception of the probative form of evidence, to which maturer ages have given birth, the account of the miracle by which his conversion was wrought fails of being completely satisfactory, – look at his miracles, the deficiency will be filled up. The man, to whom God had imparted such extraordinary powers – powers so completely matchless in these our times, – can such a man have been a liar – an impostor? a liar for the purpose of deceit – of giving support to a system of deception – and that a lucrative one? An imposition so persevering as to have been carried on, from youth to death, through, perhaps, the greatest part of his life?

The observation is plausible: – the answer will not be the less satisfactory.

The answer has two branches: one, general, applying to all the alleged miracles in question, taken in the lump: the other particular, applying to the several miracles separately considered.

Observations applying to the whole together are, the following:

1. Not by Paul himself, in any one of his own Epistles, is any such general assertion made, as that he had received from God or from Jesus, – or, in a word, that he was in possession of, any such power, as the power of working miracles.

2. Nowhere in the account given of his transactions by the author of the Acts, is he in any of his speeches represented as making reference to any one act of his in the character of a miracle.

3. Nowhere in that same account, is he represented as stating himself to be in possession of any such powers.

4. Not by the author of the Acts, is he spoken of as being in possession of any such power.

5. Nowhere by the author of the Acts, is he in any general terms spoken of, as producing any effects, such as, in respect of the power necessary to the production of them, approach to those spoken of as having been produced by Simon Magus; by that declared impostor, in whose instance, no such commission from God is represented as having been received.

6. Neither on the occasion of his conversion, nor on any other occasion, is Paul stated to have received from Jesus any such power as that of working miracles: – any such power as the real Apostles are – in Mark 16:15, 16, 17, 18 – stated to have received from Jesus.

Was it that, in his own conception, for gaining credence to his pretension of a commission from Jesus – from Jesus, styled by him the Lord Jesus – any need of miracles, or of a persuasion, on the part of those with whom he had to deal, of his having power to work miracles? By no means. Of the negative, the story told by him of the manner of his conversion is abundant proof. Of the efficient cause of this change in his mind, the account given, is plainly given in the character of the account of a miracle. But of this miracle, the proof given consists solely in his own evidence: his own statement, unsupported by that of any other person, or by reference to that of any other person: his account, of the discourse, which on the occasion of the vision, in which nothing was seen but a flood of light, he heard from the Lord Jesus: his own account, of the vision, which he says was seen by Ananias: his own account, of that other vision, which, according to Ananias, he, Paul, had had, but of which Paul himself says nothing.

In the work of his adherent and sole biographer, the author of the Acts, – we have five speeches, made by him, in vindication of his conduct, in the character of a preacher of the religion of Jesus; and, from his own hand, Epistles out of number: yet nowhere is any reference made, to so much as a single miracle wrought by his own hand, unless the trance which he falls into when he is alone, and the vision which he sees, when nobody else sees anything, are to be placed to the account of miracles. Miracles? On him, yes; by him, no. True it is, that, on one occasion, he speaks in general terms of "signs and wonders," as having been wrought by him. But vague, in the highest degree, is the import, as well as wide the extent, of those general terms: nor is it by any means clear, that, even by himself, any such claim was meant to be brought forward, as that of having exhibited any such manifestations of supernatural power, as are commonly regarded as designated by the word miracles. In the multitude of the persons, whom, in places so widely distant from one another, he succeeded in numbering in the list of his followers – in the depth of the impression, supposed to have been made on the heart of this or that one of them – in all or any one of these circumstances, it was natural he should himself behold, and, whether he did or no, use his endeavours to cause others to behold, not only so many sources of wonder, but so many circumstances; all conspiring to increase the quantity of that confidence, which, with so much industry, and, as far as appears, with such brilliant success, he was labouring to plant in every breast: circumstances, serving, in the minds of his adherents in general, in the character of a sign or proof, of the legitimacy of his pretension, as above.

But, of any such supernatural power as that which is here in question, could any such loose and vague expressions be reasonably regarded as affording any sort of proof? No: – unless whatsoever, in the affairs of men, can justly be regarded as wonderful, ought also to be regarded as a miracle.

In one passage, and one alone, either in the Acts or in his own Epistles, is he found laying any claim, how distant and vague soever, to any such power, as having ever been exercised by him. And, in this instance, no one individual incident being in any way brought to view or referred to, what is said will be seen to amount absolutely to nothing, being nothing more than, without incurring any such interpretation as that of imposture, is at the present time continually averred by Christians of different sects.

He who makes so much of his sufferings, had he wrought any miracles, would he have made nothing of his miracles?

In the next place, although it must be admitted, that, on several occasions, by his sole biographer and professed adherent, viz., the author of the Acts, a sort of colour of the marvellous seems endeavoured to be laid on; laid on over the incident itself, and over the part, which on that occasion was taken by him; yet on no one of these occasions, unless perhaps it be the last – of which presently, – does the account, given by him of what passed, wear any such complexion as shall render it matter of necessity, either to regard it as miraculous, or to regard the biographer, as having on that occasion asserted a complete and downright untruth.