Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 8

Flotsam and Jetsam. — Reminiscences of Argumentative Conversations held at sundry times between James Auldlight and John Dubious, mostly regarding things spiritual. Written and collated by me the aforesaid John Dubious. — Chapter V

Flotsam and Jetsam.

Reminiscences of Argumentative Conversations held at sundry times between James Auldlight and John Dubious, mostly regarding things spiritual. Written and collated by me the aforesaid John Dubious.

Chapter V.

James.—Weel John, supposin' they did look out for the last day in the tenth centuary, it was their bounden duty see to do, and moreover it is the duty on' the hale human family in every centuary to do the same, for is it no' written that the vera angels in heaven ken na the day or the hour of the Son of' Mon's coming? Anither thin' I wish maist eemphatically to impress upon ye, is this : hoo is a mon to manage if he throws overboard his only true guide, or Polar Star, whilk I hold to be the inspired writin's of the Auld and New Testaments? I should just like to be tauld what kind o' holding' ground he is gaun to cast anchor in.

John.—That grand old philosopher Locke, points to a different test in matters of morality, and which I think not inapplicable to your last remark. He says : "Every man carries about him a touchstone, if he will make use of page 316 it, to distinguish substantial gold from superficial glittering, truth from appearances. And indeed the use and benefit of this touchstone, which is natural reason, is spoiled and lost only by assumed prejudices, overweening presumption and narrowness of mind. ... A notable champion for the truth, that is, for the doctrines of the sect that chance or interest has cast him into need but be furnished with verses of Scripture, containing words and expressions that are but flexible (as all general obscure and doubtful ones are), and his system, that has appropriated them to the orthodoxy of his Church, makes them immediately strong and irrefragable arguments for his opinion." Now, how strongly must terrorising renderings (of the obscure and flexible prophecies of the wrath to come) have worked upon the fears and hopes of a man in past ages, especially a credulous and superstitious man. And how heartily must the jolly monks of old have laughed in their sleeves when they were accepting donations of money or land from their panic-struck victims, writing out the gifts with due formality in this wise, "Appropinquante mundi termino" etc. Verily, I say unto you, friend James, that the wonderful things man has invented or made puzzle me not, but most assuredly the wonderful things he has swallowed amaze me utterly.

James.—Ye are far waul than the Thessalonians, what, it seems, were either influenced by cause teachers, or were continually misapprehending' Paul, whilk seems plain from the following verses : "Now we beseech ye, brethren, by the coming' o' our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering' together unto him, that ye be not shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day o' Christ is at hand "(2 These. ii. 1-5). It was therefore appear that in the expectation that our Saviour wad appear, some o' the Thessalonians had become unco negligent o' their warldly concerns; that there were some tods in the fauld—to wit, fause teachers what pretended to ha' been inspired; and that there were it hers among them, what declared that they had been sent by the Apostle will' a letter to the Thessalonians, apprising them that the day o' Christ was at hond, whereas this letter was doubtless a forgery. Paul, taking these premises intil consideration, cautions them not to be shaken in mind, or troubled about these matters, but to pay due attention to their secular affairs; not to be thrown intil confusion, either by any pretended revelation o' the Speerit, obtruded upon them by fause teachers, or by any word o' mouth message as free him, or by any letter forged in his name, importing' that he believed the Day o' Judgment was at hond; for naethin' had fa'en free either by speech or writing' whence they were to infer that "the day o' Christ was at hond." And as for his words in the first Epistle to these Thessalonians—" Then we which are alive and remain," etc.; I can only mak' oot that they just simply misunderstood him, as I tauld ye afore they were conteenually doing'.

John.—You are perfectly welcome to whatever benefit may arise from Paul's doubts and contradictions about the end of the world. But it seems perfectly plain to me that his teaching has raised a fruitful crop of fanatics in all ages, whose characters were a compound of imposture and mental derangement, and for whose unhallowed doings Christendom as well as Pagandom bears record in gigantic mausoleums of murdered fellow-creatures. Indeed, it is an open question now, whether Christianity would ever have attained its present proportions, if its Jewish ingredients had not been manipulated by the Gentile Paul in a Roman crucible. Well might that elegant writer Gibbon, when commenting on the early success of Christianity, exclaim: "That the careless Polytheist, assailed by new and unexpected terrors against which neither his priests nor his philosophers could afford him any certain protection, was very frequently terrified and subdued by the menace of eternal tortures. His fears might assist the progress of his faith and reason; and if he could only persuade himself to suspect that the Christian Religion might possibly be true, it became an easy task to convince him that it was the safest and most prudent plan that he could possibly embrace." A doctrine which held forth eternal life, with every happiness page 317 man is capable of enjoying, to all who would embrace it, and threatened everlasting punishment, with all the horrors the human mind can picture, to all who reject it, must, in its very nature have had the strongest possible influence upon the hopes and fears of the people to whom it was addressed. Those who believed this doctrine were to be saved, but those who believed not were to be damned. The good, the watchful, those who continued to the end were to be saved, were to have deliverance, salvation, and so on. Anyone that believed should not perish in the general conflagration of the world, but should have everlasting life in the Kingdom of Heaven. The whole tenour of the Gospels and the Epistles bears out the truth of Mr. Gibbon's remark that "when the promise of eternal happiness was proposed to mankind on condition of adopting the faith and of observing the precepts of the Gospel, it is no wonder that so advantageous an offer should have been accepted by great numbers of every religion, of every rank and of every province in the Roman Empire. The ancient Christians were animated by a contempt for their present existence, and by a just confidence of immortality, of which the doubtful and imperfect faith of modern ages cannot give us an adequate notion."

Audialterampartem Creek.

Urtica Urens.

(To be continued.)