The spirit-rapper; an autobiography
religion, they will have superstition. The tendency of modern science is
to destroy all religious faith, and therefore to promote, indirectly,
the very evil it proposes to cure,—the common effect of all unbaptized
science, as of all unbaptized philanthropy.”
“There is some truth in that, I must own,” I remarked. “I know not why
it is so, but every effort made, although with the purest and best
intentions in the world, outside of Christianity, seem always to fail,
or to end only in aggravating the very evils they were intended to cure.
There is less real liberty in France to-day than there was before the
meeting of the States-General in May, 1789. The revolutions which,
during the last sixty or seventy years, have so terribly raged on
European soil, though made in behalf of liberty or of popular
representation, have resulted only in depriving each nation in which
they have taken place of its former too feeble checks on power, and in
rendering the monarchy more absolute. The same may be said in principle
of all our efforts at philanthropic reform on a smaller scale.”
“Undoubtedly,” replied Mr. Merton; “and the reason is, that the glory of
whatever is good is due to God, and he will suffer no plans to succeed
that would rob him of his due. He has himself given us his law, and
provided us the means of salvation, temporal and eternal; and whosoever
seeks salvation by any other means, or in contempt of that law, must
fail, and shamefully fail.”
CHAPTER XXIII.
DIFFICULTIES.
“What you say, Mr. Merton,” said Jack, “may be very plausible, but you
will never convince me that Almighty God, the loving Father of us all,
would ever permit his children to be exposed to Satanic invasion. It
would impeach either his wisdom and love, or his power.”
“Why more than his permission of the same vexations and afflictions by
any other agency?” asked Mr. Merton, very quietly. “The facts, the
phenomena themselves are undeniable, and must be produced by some
agency, and by Divine permission too. While they remain the same, I
cannot see how their production by Satan, any more than their production
by some other created or secondary cause, is incompatible with the
Divine perfection.”
“I do not pretend to be able to say how that is,” replied Jack, “but I
will never believe that God will allow the devil, or any other being
subject to his power, to have such influence over the children he loves.
It is contrary to common sense. It is nonsense, absurdity, blasphemy.”
“I am very much of Jack’s opinion,” interposed Dr. Corning, who had for
a long time ceased to take any part in our conversations. “If there is a
God, a God who is Lord Omnipotent, the devil, if devil there be, must be
subject to him, and unable to do any thing without his permission. Can
any reasonable man believe that God would permit the devil to harass and
afflict, besiege and possess his children? Would a human father permit,
if he could help it, an enemy to exercise a corresponding power over his
own offspring? God is love, and love worketh no ill, and, as far as in
its power to prevent, suffers no ill to be worked to any one.”
“All that,” replied Mr. Merton, “would be very conclusive, if the facts
or phenomena did not exist to give it a flat denial. Here are the facts,
and whatever origin you assign them, they remain, in themselves
considered, the same. You assign insanity as their origin. Be it so. But
would a God who is love, who is wisdom, who is omnipotence, suffer his
children to be afflicted with so grievous a disease as insanity, one so
terrible and so humiliating in its effects? Insanity must be subject to
his dominion; and why then does he suffer any one to become insane?”
“Many of these facts, as you call them, are the result of mere jugglery
and sheer imposture,” answered the Doctor, “and do not deserve a
moment’s consideration.”
“Be it so,” replied Mr. Merton. “But how can God permit such jugglery
and imposture?”
“They are the works of man, and the results of evil passions,” promptly
replied Dr. Corning.
“Very good,” said Mr. Merton; “but whence these evil passions? and how
can God, consistently with his perfections, permit them to produce such
pernicious effects? You see, my dear Doctor, turn which way you will,
take what ground you please, your argument can always be retorted. As
far as the Divine perfection is concerned, it makes no difference, since
the facts really exist, whether you ascribe them to Satanic invasion or
to insanity, to the evil passions of man, or to the elemental forces or
inherent laws of nature; for, on any of these suppositions, you ascribe
them to a created cause, dependent on God as first cause for its very
existence, and therefore a cause that cannot operate without his
permission. The whole question resolves itself into the old question,
then, of the origin of evil. Evil certainly could not exist without the
permission of God; and yet you yourself concede that evil does exist.
How can God, consistently with his perfections, permit it? This is the
question; and, if he can permit it at all, he can as well permit it when
produced by one agent, as when produced by another.”
“But that,” said Dr. Corning, “is a question for you to answer, as well
as for me.”
“Not in the case before us,” rejoined Mr. Merton, “because your
objection concedes the existence of evil, and only denies it as the work
of a particular agent. But let that pass. I can answer the question only
in the light of Christian theology. According to that theology, there is
no real evil but sin; and sin is always voluntary on the part of the
sinner. God chose to create men and angels free moral agents, that they
might be capable of virtue, and of meriting the rewards of obedience. He
could not so create us without making us capable of abusing our freedom,
for obedience is not and cannot be meritorious where there is no power
of disobedience, as disobedience is not culpable where there is no power
of obedience. Hence the saints in heaven, having no longer the power of
disobedience, do not merit by their obedience, and simply enjoy the
rewards of their obedience in their state of probation on earth. If any
do not obtain the rewards of obedience, the fault is their own, and they
have no one to blame but themselves. Their failure is voluntary; they
fail only because they choose to fail.
“In regard to the Satanic vexations,” continued Mr. Merton, ”we must
bear in mind that Satan has no power to harm us—not even a hair of our
head—against our free will or deliberate assent. It is always in our
power to resist him, and even to turn his machinations and vexations
against him, and to make them occasions of merit. ‘Count it all joy, my
brethren,’ says the blessed Apostle St. James, ‘when ye fall into divers
temptations,’ that is, trials and afflictions. The evil is not in the
temptation even to sin, but in the free, voluntary assent; it is not in
the vexations and afflictions, obsessions and possessions, but in our
voluntary abuse of them, or failure to turn them to a good account. God
suffers no one to be tempted or tried or harassed beyond what he can
bear. Always is his grace sufficient for all straits. Always stands firm
his promise, ‘My grace is sufficient for thee;’ and this sustains and
consoles us in the midst of our greatest distress, our severest trials,
and our most perfect abandonment. We may always, if we will, come forth
from the furnace of affliction purified as gold tried in the fire. It
depends on our own free will whether the vexations of Satan shall do us
good or harm. If we choose, we can always prevent his wiles from doing
us evil, and derive profit from his malice. This is a sufficient answer
to the objection drawn from the perfection of God. It is no impeachment
of Divine Love to let loose an enemy against us for our good, or to give
us an opportunity to acquire merit, any more than it is to Divine
Justice to permit an enemy to harass us as a punishment for our sins.
Satanic temptations and invasions are sometimes permitted for the one
purpose, and sometimes for the other, and in either case are perfectly
compatible with the attributes of God.”
“I think I can understand that,” I remarked, “and I think also I can see
in it a manifestation of Divine love. God, in permitting these vexations
against the wicked, manifests his justice; but in permitting them
against the good, he manifests his love, and turns the malice of Satan
against himself. What Satan intends shall work our ruin, by the grace of
God is made to work our higher perfection; and thus God overcomes Satan
by educing good from evil.”
“Undoubtedly,” added Mr. Merton, “God often permits Satan to afflict the
faithful, to prove them,—sometimes to humble them, to chastise their
spiritual pride, and to become their occasion of rising to a purer and
loftier virtue; and in such cases we may say he educes good from evil,
and makes the malice of Satan redound to his own glory. In the cases
where he permits Satan to harass by way of penalty, he equally makes the
Satanic malice redound to his glory, for God’s glory is no less
interested, so to speak, in justice than in love. There is no
discrepancy between the Divine attributes; and the manifestation of his
justice is no less essential to his glory, or the good of his creatures,
than the manifestation of his love or mercy. The beginning of love is
the love of justice, equity, right.”
“But be that as it may,” said Jack, “I have heard it contended by
theologians that Satan has been bound since the coming of Christ, and
has no longer any power, since Christ triumphed over him on the cross,
to besiege or to possess men, as it is supposed he had before.”
“I am not answerable,” replied Mr. Merton, “for what you may have heard
theologians maintain. I concede that our Lord, on his part, triumphed
over Satan on the cross; I also concede, that since the coming of our
Lord, and the spread of Christianity, the power of Satan has been
greatly curtailed; but I know no authority for saying that he does not
continue to go about ‘as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour,’ or
that he has not power still to besiege men, and literally take
possession of them. The Church, whether Catholic or Protestant, has a
form of exorcism, and continues to practise it. The faithful are daily
winning victories over him, and if God gives them the grace of
perseverance, they will finally overcome him, and obtain a triumph; but
their warfare with him ceases not so long as they remain in the flesh.
Satan, it is true, has no power to harm us against our deliberate
consent, and it is far easier to resist him now, than it was before our
Lord died on the cross, because grace is more abundant; but still he may
besiege and actually possess the holiest of men, the most devoted
followers of the Lord, at least so far as it is given to men to judge.
He cannot harm us without our own fault; but he may vex, afflict, even
possess us, without any blame on our part, as a man may become sick, or
even insane, without any fault of his own.
“Out of the Christian society,” continued Mr. Merton, “where there are
wanting the means which Christians have to defend themselves against his
approaches, and to drive him away, his power is, no doubt, far greater.
Among Mahometans, and among the pagan tribes of Asia, Africa, and
America, inhabiting a land which has, so to speak, never been baptized,
or sprinkled with holy water, his power is still very great; and, if we
may credit the well-attested reports of our missionaries, almost as
great as ever. He recovers his power, too, in Christian nations in
proportion as they recede from the faith and piety of the Gospel, and
fall anew into heathenism.”