In the year 1691 Robert Boyle directed by a Codicil to his Will “that eight Sermons should be preached each year in London for proving the Christian Religion against notorious Infidels, to wit, Atheists, Theists, Pagans, Jews and Mahometans; not descending lower to any controversies that are among Christians themselves.” He desired “that the preacher of these Sermons should be assisting to all companies, and encouraging of them in any undertaking for propagating the Christian Religion to foreign parts;” and “further, that he should be ready to satisfy such real scruples as any may have concerning these matters, and to answer such objections and difficulties as may be started, to which good answers have not yet been made.”
The second of these clauses seems to explain the intention of the first. The objections to Christianity urged by Jews, Pagans and Mahometans, were not, perhaps, likely to perplex an ordinary Englishman. But England, in the 17th century, was becoming more and more a colonizing country. The American settlements were increasing in importance every year. The East India Company had already begun its career of commerce, if not of conquest. In his own particular department of natural science Boyle observed the most steady progress; no one was doing more to accelerate it than himself. He would naturally divine, that an advancement, not less remarkable, must take place in another course, in which the interests of men were far more directly engaged. He must have felt how much the student in his closet was helping to give speed to the ships of the merchant, and to discover new openings to his ambition. As a benevolent man he could not contemplate accessions to the greatness and resources of his country, without longing that she might also be conscious of her responsibility, that she might bring no people within the circle of her government whom she did not bring within the circle of her Light. Accordingly, we find him offering frequent encouragement by his pen and purse to the hard-working missionaries who were preaching the Gospel among the North American Indians. Cheering words, pecuniary help, and faithful prayers, might be all which these teachers of savages could ask from their brethren at home. But Boyle knew that difficulties which they would rarely encounter must continually present themselves to those who came in contact with the Brahmin in Hindostan, with the Mussulman both in Europe and Asia, with the Jew in every corner of the globe. A man who thought lightly or contemptuously of any of these, or of their arguments—who had not earnestly considered what they would have to say, and what he had to tell them—could not be expected to do them much good. Moreover, Boyle was too well acquainted with philosophical men, with the general society of England, and with his own heart, not to be aware that there was another kind of opposition more formidable than this, which the proposal to diffuse Christianity abroad must struggle with. Was the gift worth bestowing? Were we really carrying truth into the distant parts of the earth when we were carrying our own faith into them? Might not the whole notion be a dream of our vanity? Might not particular soils be adapted to particular religions? and might not the effort to transplant one into another involve the necessity of mischievous forcing, and terminate in inevitable disappointment? Might not a better day be at hand, in which all religions alike should be found to have done their work of partial good, of greater evil, and when something much more comprehensive and satisfactory should supersede them? Were not thick shadows overhanging Christendom itself, which must be scattered before it could be the source of light to the world?
Such questions as these Boyle must often have heard propounded by others; but the deepest and most painful suggestion of them had been to himself. He tells us, in the sketch of an European tour written under the name of Philaretus, that
“when he was still a young man, after he had visited other places, his curiosity at last led him to those wild mountains where the first and chiefest of the Carthusian abbeys is seated; where the devil, taking advantage of that deep raving melancholy befitting so sad a place, his humour, and the strange stories and pictures he found there of Bruno, the father of that order, suggested such strange and hideous thoughts, and such distracting doubts of some of the fundamentals of Christianity, that though his looks did little betray his thoughts, nothing but the forbiddingness of self-dispatch hindered his acting it. But, after a tedious languishment of many months in this tedious perplexity, at last it pleased God one day he had received the Sacrament to restore unto him the withdrawn sense of his favour. But, though Philaretus ever looked upon these impious suggestions rather as temptations to be resisted than as doubts to be resolved, yet never did these fleeting clouds cease now and then to darken the clearest serenity of his quiet; which made him often say that injections of this nature were such a disease to the faith as toothache is to the body, for though it be not mortal, it is very troublesome. However, as all things work together for good to them that love God, Philaretus derived from this anxiety the advantage of groundedness in his religion; for the perplexity his doubts created obliged him to remove them—to be seriously inquisitive of the truth of the very fundamentals of Christianity, and to hear what both Jews and Turks, and the chief sects of Christians, could allege for their several opinions; that so, though he believed more than he could comprehend, he might not believe more than he could prove, and not owe the steadfastness of his faith to so poor a cause as the ignorance of what might be objected against it. He said, speaking of those persons who want not means to enquire and abilities to judge, that it was not a greater happiness to inherit a good religion, than it was a fault to have it only by inheritance, and think it the best because it is generally embraced, rather than embrace it because we know it to be the best. That though we cannot always give a reason for what we believe, yet we should be ever able to give a reason why we believe it. That it is the greatest of follies to neglect any diligence that may prevent the being mistaken where it is the greatest of miseries to be deceived. That how dear soever things taken upon the score are sold, there is nothing worse taken up upon trust than religion, in which he deserves not to meet with the true one that cares not to examine whether or no it be so.” (Works, Vol. 1., p. 12.)
It is evident, I think, that a comparison of religious systems undertaken by a man who had just passed through so tremendous a conflict, and who had no professional motive for entering upon it, must have been something very different from a dry legal enquiry respecting the balance of probabilities in favour of one or the other. I do not mean that Boyle will not have brought to this subject all the habits of patient investigation which he ordinarily applied to the study of physical phenomena. The very anguish of his mind made it essential that he should seek for a real standing ground; and that he should not therefore strain facts for the sake of arriving at an agreeable conclusion. Indeed, it is difficult to say which conclusion would seem most agreeable to a man exercised as he was: there would be at times a bias of understanding, and even affection, as strong against Christianity, as his education could create in favour of it. But, undoubtedly, his object in questioning these different schemes of belief will have been to ascertain what each of them could do for him; what there was in it to meet the demands of his heart and reason. It was no occasion for clever special pleading; the question was to him one of life and death: when he had once resolved it, the next duty was to act upon his conviction, and to strive that all men should be better for that, which he, because he was a man, had found to be needful for himself. Upon this principle he founded these Lectures. The truth of which he had become assured, was, he believed, a permanent one; the next generation would need it as much as his own. He did not suppose that the actual relation in which that truth stood to different systems of belief could alter. But it did not follow that the enquiry respecting the nature of that relation would be exhausted in his day. As new regions unfolded themselves to European adventure, new facts, modifying or changing previous notions respecting the faiths which prevailed in them, might come to light; fresh and more trying experiences might make the past more intelligible; the same doubts respecting the justice, wisdom, or possibility of bringing other men into our religious fellowship which presented themselves to his contemporaries, might appear again and again in very different shapes, and appealing to even opposite feelings and tempers.
The event, I believe, has proved that he was right. Within fifty years a prodigious change has taken place in the feelings of men generally—of philosophical men particularly—respecting Religious Systems. In the latter part of the 17th century, still more during a great part of the 18th, they were regarded by those who most gave the tone to popular thinking, and who had the highest reputation for wisdom, as the inventions of lawgivers and priests. Men cleverer and more dishonest than the rest of the world, found it impossible to build up systems of policy, or to establish their own power, unless they appealed to those fears of an invisible world, which ignorance so willingly receives, and so tenderly fosters. This being the admitted maxim respecting religions generally, it seemed the office of the Christian apologist to shew that there was one exception; to explain why the Gospel could not be referred to this origin; how entirely unlike it was to those forms of belief which were rightly considered deceptions. That many dangerous positions were confuted by works written with this object; that many of the distinguishing marks of Christianity were brought out in them; that many learnt from them to seek and to find a standing-ground in the midst of pits and morasses, it is impossible to doubt. But the demonstrations of God’s providence were in this case, as in all others, infinitely broader, deeper, more effectual than those of man’s sagacity. The evidence furnished by the great political Revolution at the close of the last century, seems slowly to have undermined the whole theory respecting the invisible world, and men’s connection with it, which possessed the teachers of that century. Men are beginning to be convinced, that if Religion had had only the devices and tricks of statesmen or priests to rest upon, it could not have stood at all; for that these are very weak things indeed, which, when they are left to themselves, a popular tempest must carry utterly away. If they have lasted a single day, it must have been because they had something better, truer than themselves, to sustain them. This better, truer thing, it seems to be allowed, must be that very faith in men’s hearts upon which so many disparaging epithets were cast, and which it was supposed could produce no fruits that were not evil and hurtful. Faith it is now admitted has been the most potent instrument of good to the world; has given to it nearly all which it can call precious. But then it is asked, is there not ground for supposing that all the different religious systems, and not one only, may be legitimate products of that faith which is so essential a part of man’s constitution? Are not they manifestly adapted to peculiar times and localities and races? Is it not probable that the theology of all alike is something merely accidental, an imperfect theory about our relations to the universe, which will in due time give place to some other? Have we not reason to suppose that Christianity, instead of being, as we have been taught, a revelation, has its root in the heart and intellects of man, as much as any other system? Are there not the closest the most obvious relations between it and them? Is it not subject to the same law of decay from the progress of knowledge and society with all the rest? Must we not expect that it too will lose all its mere theological characteristics, and that what at last survives of it will be something of a very general character—some great ideas of what is good and beautiful—some excellent maxims of life, which may very well assimilate, if they be not actually the same, with the essential principles which are contained in all other religions, and which will also, it is hoped, abide for ever.
Notions of this kind will be found, I think, in much of the erudite as well as of the popular literature of this day; they will often be heard in social circles; they are undoubtedly floating in the minds of us all. While they hover about us, it is clearly impossible that we can, with sound hearts and clear consciences, seek to evangelize the world: yet they are not to be spoken of as if they proceeded from a mere denying, unbelieving spirit: they are often entertained by minds of deepest earnestness; they derive their plausibility from facts which cannot be questioned, and which a Christian should not wish to question. They may, I believe, if fairly dealt with, help to strengthen our own convictions, to make our duty plainer, and to shew us better how we shall perform it. All their danger lies in their vagueness: if we once bring them fairly to those tests by which the worth of hypotheses in another department is ascertained, it may not perhaps be hard to discover what portions of truth, and what of falsehood, they contain. I think I shall be carrying out the intention of Boyle’s Will, if I attempt, in my present course, to make this experiment. I propose to examine the great Religious Systems which present themselves to us in the history of the world, not going into their details, far less searching for their absurdities; but enquiring what was their main characteristical principle. If we find, as the objectors say, good in each of them, we shall desire to know what this good is, and under what conditions it may be preserved and made effectual. These questions may, I think, be kept distinct from those which will occupy us in the latter half of the course. In what relation does Christianity stand to these different faiths? If there be a faith which is meant for mankind is this the one, or should we look for another?
I shall not take these systems in their historical order, but rather according to the extent of the influence they have exerted over mankind; reason which would at once determine me to begin in the present Lecture with Mahometanism.
For the first ninety years after the publication of this religion in the world, the Christians of Europe could do little more than wonder at its amazing and, as it seemed, fatal progress in Asia and Africa. Before the end of the century it had obtained a settlement in a corner of their own Continent, and threatened every part of it. But the new Western Empire established itself, Christian champions appeared in Spain, the power of the Caliphs declined. Then Islamism appeared again in another conquering, proselytising tribe. For two centuries the European nations wrestled to recover its conquests in the Holy Land. A period followed during which the disciples of both religions seemed almost equally threatened by Tartar hordes. These stooped to the Crescent; in the 15th century mighty Mahometan government was seen occupying the capital of the East, threatening the Latin world, profiting by the disputes of Christian sovereigns with one another, exhibiting its own order and zeal in melancholy contrast to the quarrels, unbelief, and heartlessness of monarchs and prelates. It became a question with the thoughtful men of that time, whether the Ottoman empire did not possess a polity which was free from the tendencies to weakness and decay that had existed in all previous governments, and whether it might not last for ever.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, when the fallacy of this notion was making itself evident, Christians began to speculate coldly and quietly upon the causes which had given such prevalency to this faith in past days, and which still kept it alive in their own. It may be well to consider a few of the explanations which different persons, according to their different observations or habits of mind, have offered of this fact, that we may not lose the benefit of any light which has been thrown from any quarter upon the nature or principle of the religion itself.
I. It was an easy and obvious method of solving the difficulty, to say that the Mahometans had triumphed by the force of their arms; personal valour, and a compact military organization being comprehended under that term. That they were warriors from the very first, that their courage was often amazing, and that the Ottomans for a very long time possessed the secret of military subordination, more than almost any nation has ever possessed it, is evidently true. And it is a truth of which Christian apologists would very naturally avail themselves. The opposition, not in some accidental points, but in its whole scheme and conception, between the Sermon on the Mount, and the doctrine which could require or sanction such methods for its diffusion, would of course be carefully noted. Plain men would be asked to declare which teaching bore clearest tokens of belonging to the earth, which of a Divine origin.
Nor was this argument an unfair one, however it might be, and has been again and again, traversed by an appeal to the practice of Christians, and the weapons to which they have resorted for the defence and propagation of their faith. For it is quite clear that the Mahometan wars are no accidental outgrowth of the system—that they were not resorted to with a doubtful conscience, with any uneasy feeling that they might by possibility be inconsistent with the intentions of their Founder. On the contrary, the very spirit and life of Mahometanism exhibited themselves in these wars. In them came forth all the most striking and characteristic virtues which the doctrine has a right to boast of.
The Mahometan ruler felt that he was fulfilling his vocation, when he was going forth against the infidel; he could scarcely fulfil it in any other way. We know indeed that Bagdad and Cordova became celebrated for all graceful refinements, for letters, even for toleration. We know that science, physical and metaphysical, became distinctive marks of the Arabians. Where a book like the Koran, written in a beautiful language, is regarded with unbounded reverence, by degrees it will be studied; and out of that study will be produced a literature which may spread itself in various directions. Monarchs would feel the influence of such pursuits, and would consider it their chief honour to direct them. But though periods like those of Haroun al-Raschid were sure to occur in the history of Mahometanism, though in one sense they may be considered natural developments of it, they assuredly do not belong to the religion as such; they rather shewed that the original spirit which possessed its disciples was becoming feeble; they portended a further decline of it, and probably its revival in some more vigorous form. Whenever a Mahometan ruler quite allows his arms to rust, whenever he does not feel that it is his main work in the world to diffuse his doctrine by those means which are most simple and direct, we may be sure, whatever temporary prosperity may be vouchsafed him, that his dynasty cannot last very long.
But though on these grounds it may be fair to represent Mahometanism as essentially warlike, it is surely a great mistake to suppose that by saying so, we have accounted for its spread over so large a portion of the earth. No thoughtful man could accept such a solution, because when he hears of valour in men and discipline in armies, he must ask himself whence these proceeded, how they came to attach themselves to this particular faith; and because that question must inevitably lead him to seek for the real ground of success elsewhere. It cannot satisfy any Christian, because the very belief which he opposes to that of the Mahometan, must teach him that arms are not the most mighty things; that there are secret invisible influences which are stronger than they.
II. The extraordinary proneness of the human mind to embrace any imposture, was resorted to as a second method of accounting for this phenomenon, which might perhaps combine with the former, and help out its weakness. Of this proneness, the records of the world’s history seem to supply abundant proofs—our own daily experience of others, and of ourselves, still more. All men, in one language or another, have confessed that there is something in man which tempts him to embrace falsehood, and disown truth, to follow deceitful guides, to reject the honest and true, to make a lie, and to love it. And yet I think all also confess, in one kind of language or another, that whenever any man, or any set of men, have learnt to relish what is false, and dislike what is true for its own sake, that man, or that body of men, is in the last stage of corruption and degradation—is approaching a point in which manliness, faith, and union become impossible—in which the death of all individual power, of all social existence, is at hand. That the elements of such destruction are in every human being, and in every human fellowship, at every moment, and that the records of religious systems present the saddest memorials of them, none will dispute. But that they can ever account for the existence of any thing which has endured for a long time, which has manifested great power; that in them lies the source of a vigour and concentration which they are perpetually threatening to extinguish, I think no sane person who sets the question fairly before himself can believe. We may need the propensity of men to believe imposture, as a key to many portions of Mahometan history, to many circumstances of its present condition; we shall not find therein the secret of its diffusion and predominance.
III. Led by these, or other considerations, to feel that what is right must be recognized in this system, as well as what is wrong, Christians have sometimes explained its influence, by speaking of the plagiarisms in the Koran from the Old and New Testament Scriptures. That Mahometanism derived much from its connection with the older faiths of the world, would be confessed, I suppose, even by the philosophers who have least veneration for those faiths. They would easily acknowledge, nay, have often acknowledged, how much historical dignity and sacredness an Arabian teacher must have acquired by connecting himself with patriarchs who had lived 2000 years before; who were attached, by closest links of association, to the very soil his countrymen trod; whose doctrine he could speak of, as the truth given to their fathers, now revived in its purity by himself. Nor would it be denied by these philosophers, that one living not only among Sabean worshippers, but amongst Christians and Jews, might advance his cause by professing his sympathy with much of the teaching in their holy books; by saying, that he came to restore their systems also to their purity, while he delivered his countrymen from their idolatry. But though, perhaps, thus much might be conceded by all, far more by a firm believer in the Bible, it may be fairly doubted whether the word “plagiarism” is one suited to the case; or whether, so far as Mahomet was a mere plagiarist, he could have exerted any influence. If he merely transferred passages from our Scriptures to his, merely adopted formal doctrines which they set forth in living power to mix them with his own notions, one cannot believe that he ever would have moved the heart of a single nation or of a single man. A teacher may, indeed, exercise a much greater power by reviving what is old, than by inventing what is new; but to revive a principle he must have been penetrated by it, it must have taken possession of him, it must have inspired his whole being; otherwise he could never impart it to others. Something of this sort must have been the case with Mahomet; and therefore his plagiarisms, great as they may have been, do not account for his success.
IV. The same answer may serve for those persons of a very different temper who are disposed to dwell with complacency upon passages in the Koran which contain just and benevolent sentiments, and who believe that these were not merely transferred from Jewish or Christian sources, but actually exhibited the heart of the writer. We may admit the existence of such sentiments; we need not, in the least, wish to represent them as insincere or hypocritical; we may believe that they have exercised a real influence over the minds of Mussulmans, who constantly repeat them, and look upon them as proceeding from a prophet of God. But we cannot believe that mere phrases and sentiments, be they ever so good, nay, even if they did not occur in the midst of any that are fond, or trivial and contradictory to themselves, could have wrought a deep conviction into the minds of men previously indisposed to them. A precept may be of vast weight when we have first bowed to the preceptor; otherwise it is weak: it may be respected and praised, but it will not be followed; nothing will be abandoned for the sake of it.
V. There would seem then to be far more plausibility in the opinion of those who attribute great weight to the character of Mahomet itself, believing that however it may have been mixed of good and evil qualities, it was of a kind to act mightily upon his own countrymen, and through them upon mankind. He has been spoken of as one of the great governing and leavening minds of the world, one able to stamp his own image upon nations and generations. Men did homage to him, it has been said, as they always will do homage to one who they feel is their master, who is stronger than they, because his convictions are stronger, because he has grappled more with realities, because he has faith in unseen substances, of which they see little more than the shadows. Such assertions may be at variance with many conceptions we have formed of this man, but there is much in his biography to bear them out; there is nothing in them, I believe, to startle any Christian who knows the grounds of his own belief. At what point the strong conviction of a truth which must be divine, which must be given us from above, becomes mixed with self-exaltation, with the desire of shewing how wise we are, and of exercising a dominion over others for our own sakes, it is hard to determine in any case. The more we know of ourselves, the more we shall understand how it is possible to vibrate between a certainty we have of principles, which for the sake of our moral being we cannot part with, and a positiveness about notions which we have grounded upon them. When the conscience is clear, when the man is lowly, when he has been subdued by discipline, the opposition seems clear to him as between day and night; the delusion of his own heart is manifested to him by the light which God has kindled there. But amidst the noise of human applause the distinction which was so definite vanishes, the precious and the vile become hopelessly mingled. Such personal experiences, which all have had in a greater or less degree which earnest and thoughtful young men especially often require to be schooled in, because it depends upon the way they use them whether strong and clear and bright impressions in their minds shall destroy their docility, shall make them merely utterers of some new notion, or shall ripen into blessed discoveries of that which is true—these experiences, I say, may help us to read the biographies of men who have had a great influence upon the world, with a kindlier and truer feeling. Their impressions were, doubtless, more overpowering than ours, their conflicts greater, their temptations severer. It is hard to say, that because they called themselves inspired, they meant to deceive; that language might be the language of humility, not of arrogance—the confession that every good gift, above all, every illumination respecting any invisible reality, cometh from the Father of Lights. Not in this conviction, but in that pride which forgat Him—in the desire to be something in themselves—do we trace the beginning of all imposture; in the blending of the two together, the melancholy mixture which religious systems present to one who studies them in themselves or in their effects. I am far then from wishing to deny that Mahomet’s character may have met with unfair treatment at the hands of Christians; and it is, without doubt, one of the most noticeable circumstances in the history of his religion, that his own person should have been so much bound up with it; that every caliph or sultan who has reigned over any tribe of his followers should have reigned in his name; that the name of a man should have so much more power than even the book which Mussulmans regard with such profound reverence; that the honour of a human chieftain should so markedly distinguish a religion which looks upon man as separated by such an immeasurable distance from the object of his worship. But this last remark shews that the person and character of Mahomet, important as they may have been in their practical influence, cannot satisfactorily explain the charm by which his religion worked its way; in fact, it is one of the anomalies which requires to be accounted for, that a human leader should win this reverence. He himself declared and felt that he was nothing but a witness for God; his followers received and honoured him in that character. All the worth he had in him was derived from that of which he testified. When he began consciously to take up any other position it was one of weakness. We may consider Mahomet a hero if we please; we may regard the reverence for him as a proof of men’s tendency in all circumstances to worship heroes; but we cannot, without denying the plainest facts of the case, say that the success of his doctrine was a consequence of this disposition. His teaching was emphatically the denial of that worship; every Mahometan sword was drawn to prove that it was false, and to put it down.
VI. It might seem to follow inevitably, from what has just been said, that the Monotheism of Mahomet, and his hatred of idolatry, constituted the strength and vitality of his system. This opinion has often been maintained, and a reader of the history is continually tempted to adopt it. As we follow any of the earlier conquerors through Persia, through Egypt, through India, through the Greek empire, we feel that the enthusiasm of the chief and the soldier is connected with what they believe to be the destruction of false worship, the carrying out of the first and second Commandment. All are regarded alike as infidels, because all are thought to have raised something created into the place and glory of the Creator. The belief that nothing in the earth, nothing in the heavens, not even light, is a symbol of God; that not even man himself can be looked upon in any other character than as a minister of the one Supreme Being, evidently inspires every enterprise. In the strength of it they destroy temples, idols, priests, plunder cities, make slaves of their inhabitants, turn their children into soldiers of the Crescent. All this is true, and yet I think no considerate person will suppose that mere opposition to the grossest forms of false worship could give nerve to any arm, far less permanence to any society. If Monotheism means the not believing in many gods, it could, as little as the other causes we have enumerated, be the root of the Mahometan faith, and the Mahometan power.
VII. But these sweeping conquests of Mahomet are susceptible of yet another interpretation, which has sometimes been applied to the whole history of their dominion: they may be regarded as the righteous judgments of God upon guilty nations, whether these were the idolaters of India, the fire-worshippers of Persia, the corrupted Greek, or the Visigoth. It is difficult, I should think, for any person really taking the Bible as his guide, nay, for any person recognizing a Divine Providence at all, not to look upon every great earthquake which has shaken kingdoms as a Divine visitation; not to see a Divine hand regulating outward circumstances, and the wills of men. Nor can we go so far without going further, and asking what the state of those nations was on which the scourge descended? If we pursue the enquiry fairly in this case, we shall be led, it seems to me, to the discovery of the real ground of the Mahometan might, and perhaps to regard the continuance of that might through so many ages (not wholly) in the light of a punishment. In the Christian nations which were permitted to fall under the armies of Islam, almost as much as in those which were avowedly Pagan, the sense of a Divine, Almighty Will, to which all human wills were to be bowed, had evaporated amidst the worship of outward images, moral corruptions, philosophical theories, religious controversies. Notions about God, more or less occupied them; but God Himself was not in all their thoughts. The awe of an Absolute, Eternal Being, to be obeyed as well as to be confessed, was passing away in some—had scarcely been awakened in others. It was given, I believe, to the soldiers of Mahomet to make this proclamation in the ears of men. They said, by their words and acts, “God verily is, and man is His minister, to accomplish His will upon earth.” This we shall find was the inspiring thought in the warriors of the Crescent; this gave them valour, subordination, and discipline. This, where it encountered no like or equal feeling in the minds of those among whom they came, made them invincible. We must not be content with talking of their armies, because here was the life of their armies. We must not speak of men’s readiness to receive an imposture; in yielding to this assertion they were bowing to a truth. This was no verbal copy from older records; it may have been the oldest of all verities, but it was fresh and new for every one who acted upon it. It was no mere phrase out of a book—no homage to a mortal hero—no mere denial of other men’s faith. Let us go yet farther and say, It was a mercy of God that such a witness, however bare of other supporting principles, however surrounded by confusions, should have been borne to His Name, when His creatures were ready, practically, to forget it. The first Mahometan conquests, the continued Mahometan dominion, has borne witness to this everlasting truth; has proclaimed that it is no mere dry proposition, that it is capable of exercising a mastery over the rudest tribes, of giving them an order, of making them victorious over all the civilization and the religion which has not this principle for its basis.
I think that most persons studying the history of Mahometanism without prejudice, will feel that this is the principle which confronts them at every turn, and to which everything else is subordinate.
And if so, the consideration is surely a very important one for our purpose. We are told that some great general principles are enshrined in different religious systems; that the mere theological part of these systems is nothing—a loose, flimsy drapery for certain great maxims of morality, or certain ideas about the nature and spiritual destinies of man. How does the study of Mahometanism bear out this opinion? Is it a collection of moral maxims which has been the strength of this system? Is it some theory or conception about the nature of man? Precisely the opposite assertion is true. All mere maxims, all mere ideas about the nature of man, have proved weak and helpless before this assertion of a living and Eternal God. The theological transcendent principle is just the one which has stood its ground, which has re-appeared age after age, which the most ignorant warriors felt was true and mighty for them, for which no cultivation could provide any substitute. We are told, again, that the character of particular localities and races determines what shall be the character of theology; that that only is universal which concerns the laws of outward nature or the life of man. How does the history of Mahometanism bear out this notion? Let it be granted that the soil of Arabia was one on which it was fitting that such a doctrine as that of Mahomet should be first proclaimed: let it be allowed that the Semitic race has been especially distinguished from every other by an interest in what is purely Divine, by a comparative indifference to what is human. But here is a truth; one which tribes the most remote from this are compelled to recognize; which establishes itself in India, in Syria, in Egypt, in Greece. And it is remarkable that, while numerous sects and parties have been called into existence by questions respecting the proper successors of Mahomet, or the interpretation of the Koran, the Divine principle among them has been the uniting one. It is said again, that the great doctrines which have been embodied in religious systems are the creations of the religious principle in man; that his faith moulds the object which it worships: in other words, that what is called theological truth is but some outward expression of our feelings or habits of mind. Look again at the history of Mahometanism; consider the facts steadily: there are none to which the supporters of this theory should more gladly appeal. They can find no other instance of a race of which faith in an unseen object was more characteristic. “Faithful” is the very name by which the Islamite warriors proclaim themselves to the world. But what was the nature of this faith? It meant nothing, it was nothing, except so far as it asserted a Being not dependent on itself; the ground of man’s being; one of whom he was the minister, not the Creator. The Mahometan believed that the God whom he worshipped must have revealed Himself—that man could not have discovered Him. He went forth to beat into powder all gods which he supposed man had invented. Take away these characteristics from his faith and it vanishes, with all the doings which were the fruits of it.
One question still remains to be considered before I close this Lecture. May not the principle which Mahometanism embodies be left to the protection of the system which it seems to have created for itself?—We must look into Mahometan history itself for the answer.
When I spoke to you of the great power by which the Mahometan soldier was carried along in his enterprizes, of the principle which gave him strength and endurance, you may have wondered that I did not dwell more upon the rewards which were promised to him after death, of the Paradise of sensual felicity for which the brave man was encouraged to hope. I did not allude to this motive, because I do not believe that it was the one by which the Mahometan hosts were really inspired. The mighty conviction that they were then, at that very moment, called by God to a work—that they were proclaiming His Name, and were the ministers of His vengeance, was, I believe, immeasurably more effective than any dreams, were they ever so gross and palpable, of what might be given to them hereafter. When they had already cast themselves away to live or die, they had a sense of immortality which no such visions could impart, which alone made them credible.
But when the Mahometan was at peace, the belief of a mighty Sovereign, to whom he was doing homage, no longer sufficed him: he began to ask himself what he was living for? To the multitude these sensual promises were a tolerable answer. These were the things to be desired; for these, by whatsoever means the Koran or its interpreters prescribed, if they were in earnest, they were to labour. Some, with higher apprehensions, would feel that such rewards were not satisfying; they would explain away the language of Mahomet, and pursue the practices to which the others submitted, in hope of earthly gratifications, that they might attain the knowledge or vision of God. The former would fall into all gross moral corruptions, the latter would be always tending to mere philosophical speculations—would be founding sects would be substituting theories and notions for that Being in whose name their fathers had fought. This has actually been the case, and hence it has been proved that Mahometanism can only thrive while it is aiming at conquest. Why? Because it is the proclamation of a mere Sovereign, who employs men to declare the fact that he is a Sovereign, and to enforce it upon the world. It is not the proclamation of a great moral Being who designs to raise His creatures out of their sensual and natural degradation; who reveals to them not merely that He is, but what He is—why He has created them—what they have to do with Him. Unless this mighty chasm in the Mahometan doctrine can be filled up, it must wither day by day—wither for all purposes of utility to mankind; it can leave nothing behind but a wretched carcase, filling the air with the infection of its rottenness.
For, secondly, see how that which gave all the dignity and glory to this system becomes, from its want of some other element, the very cause of its degradation. The absolute government of the unseen Being had presented itself to the Mussulman, in every age, in the absolute, visible government of his caliph or sultan. While the Divine feeling was strong and alive, the subjection to the human ruler was an affectionate, dutiful, entire submission. The ruler was, in very deed, the centre of his warriors. He felt towards them as a protector, sharing their toils, bound to the same master, enduring hardships in the same cause. But the battle over, he becomes the absolute monarch in the midst of his seraglio they merely his slaves. There is no such connection between him and the Being whom he worshipped as permanently to check this tendency to make the monarch feel that he is set over them to do them good, or the subjects that they had an appeal against him to a higher Ruler.
The very nature of the Ottoman government and that government is the perfect development of the Mahometan idea—excludes the possibility of orders and gradations in society. Its strength lies in all being simply subjects of the one Ruler, holding their offices not in virtue of any hereditary ranks or privileges, but only at his pleasure. When therefore the one principle which quickened the whole society waxes feeble, of necessity it becomes the most intolerable of all despotisms. Elsewhere there is a balance and conflict of powers, which even in the dreariest periods produces struggles or paroxysms of life; here, if the monarch do not inspire his people with strength, all is dead. And the same cause which destroys what may be called the family bonds of civil society, destroys equally the family itself. Polygamy is no accident of Mahometanism: a careful consideration of the system will shew that it must fall to pieces the moment any reformer should attempt to remove this characteristic of it.
But again, the first principle of Mahometanism—wanting the support of some other which it does not acknowledge, must change, and is continually changing, into one which is the counterfeit and direct opposite of itself. The belief of a living, acting Will passes into the acknowledgment of a dead necessity, a Fate, against which there is no struggling, which drives the soul not to energy for some great object, but to indifference, languor, and the submission that means despair. Oftentimes indeed the patience of a Turk must even yet awaken our homage and our shame. Joyfully would we confess that God has not yet suffered the true principle to be wholly extinguished by its bastard product. But we would draw from that confession not a pretext for leaving this, or any feeble and beautiful plant of a better soil, to the hot-bed which has always impeded their growth, and now threatens to stifle them altogether; but a certain hope that they are intended to receive culture from without, and that, by help of it, they may yet blossom and bear fruit abundantly.
These remarks may prepare us to take notice of one great fact in the history of Mahometanism, which is the connecting link between it and the other systems, of which I propose to speak hereafter.
I have talked of the victories of the Crescent in the different quarters of the globe, and it is difficult to exaggerate the greatness of those victories. Yet we all know they were not complete; they did not exterminate that which they were meant to exterminate. I do not speak now of the resistance which this great power encountered from the hammer of the Mayor of Paris, or from the heroes in the Asturian mountains. I do not speak of anything which is directly connected with Christianity. I mean that the most remarkable of the old polytheistic faiths, though crushed, were not cast out; that some of the countries which yielded to Mahometans are not Mahometan. It behoves us to enquire into the meaning of this fact—to ask ourselves what there was in their doctrines, compounded of all strange elements, sanctioning so many fearful crimes, for which the simple and purer Mahometan faith could provide no satisfaction. We may find that convictions which the Mahometan trampled down, do as much require recognition as those which he enforced; that man has demands for himself which will not be satisfied by being told that he is the servant of an absolute Will—demands which must, somehow or other, find their explanation—must in some way or other be reconciled with that great truth.
I will not anticipate the nature or the results of that enquiry; but I hope we may gather something from the one in which we have been engaged. You have found a set of men brought up in circumstances altogether different from yours, who hold your faith in abhorrence, saying in language the most solemn and decisive, “Whatever else we part with, this is needful to us and to all human beings, the belief that God is—the recognition of Him as a living personal Being.” You have seen this faith growing weak for a time, and everything else growing weak with it; you have seen it re-appearing, finding a new set of champions to assert it, compelling nations to bow before it. Be sure that here is something which the heart and reason within you have need of which they must grasp. Be quite sure, that if you give them in place of it any fine notions or theories, if you feed them with phrases about the beautiful or the godlike, when they want the source of beauty, the living God: if you entertain them with any images or symbols of art or nature when they want that which is symbolized, if you talk about physical laws when you want the law-giver, of mechanical properties when you want him who set them in motion, of secret powers when you want him who acts by them and upon you, you are cheating yourselves—cheating mankind. Remember this further, that the acknowledgment of this Being may imply much more than the Mahometan perceived, but that it does imply that which he perceived. If such an One is, His will must be the law of the universe. Every creature in the universe must be in a right or wrong position, must be doing his work well, or failing in it, as he yields himself to this will, or as he resists it. And let us not fancy that the Mahometan was entirely mistaken as to the way in which this will is to be obeyed. He may not have understood what enemies he had to fight with, what weapons he had to wield, but he did discover that the life of man is to be a continual battle, that we are only men when we are engaging in that battle. He was right that there is something in the world which we are not to tolerate, which we are sent into it to exterminate. First of all, let us seek that we may be freed from it ourselves; but let us be taught by the Mussulman that we shall not compass this end unless we believe, and act upon the belief, that every man and every nation exists for the purpose of chasing falsehood and evil out of God’s universe.