Theism :: :: University of Virginia Library

There is a certain kindness which a man has for brutes:
Life and happiness he would wish for all innocent creatures,
Though he scruple not to take life for small convenience.
For the death of his horse or his dog he might sincerely grieve,
Yet not long nor fondly, as with sacred remembrance.
But where love has been mutual between moral beings,—
Intelligent love, founded on virtuous esteem,—
More sacred is the sentiment, and far more lasting,
Different even in kind from our affection to the brute.

Now all who believe in God the Righteous at all,
Are sure of his kindly feeling to all mankind:
Yet how intimate is that feeling, all are not agreed.
For some will say, that “as a man loves his beast,
With a certain vague kindliness, so does God love man:

The disparity of nature forbids a closer friendship:
They stand off at arm's length, and embrace not intimately.
God desires a noble creation, as a duke a troop of deer,
Careless of the individuals, careful only of the herd,
Which is perpetuated in beauty, though each is short of life.”—
Such a theory is self-consistent, intelligible, worthy of debate;
It is the view of philosophic intellects, but hardly of the most pious.

Nor is this wonderful; if, as perhaps it may here be shown,
The doctrine deals fatal blows to spiritual piety:
And we trust also to show that it is not well-grounded.

Recalling first principles, we find that God in Conscience
Enjoins certain duties and endless progress in virtue,
With such feelings towards himself as his nature demands.
If now, through the disparity of his nature and ours,
He stand far apart and embrace us not intimately,
Yielding to us no love, he surely demands no love.
As well might a man claim love from his cows or sheep.
Then by what need of nature or right is self-devotion called for?
Self-devotion will still indeed be possible, as in a loyal subject,
Who, though unknown to his king, yet devotes himself for his service:
Nor is the king to blame, that he cannot know all his subjects;
Else would he be less virtuous for not loving his faithful votary.
But if man be self-devoted to God who assuredly knows him,
And God have no love, the man may seem to be the more virtuous;
Unless any say, that such self-devotion was an extravagance.
Here we must press, that if there be question of God's love,
It is a certainty of our nature, that many men have loved God;
Have loved him with all the passion of virtuous reverence,
As a glorious Lord, a present Counsellor, a holy Friend.
This is a cardinal fact, important and undeniable,
A firm stepping-stone amid uncertainties.
Try love by any test, and you find their love sound.—
To desire company and converse, is one great mark of love:
Many a man has preferred God's company to all other,
Finding it sweeter than of friend, sweeter than of wife,
Dearer than his pleasantest work, and more longed for than any.—

Sacrifices for a friend are another great mark of love:
Many a man for God's love has forfeited human sympathy,
Has left fortune and family, and has died in torture.—
Is it then imputable, that a man should love God supremely,
Rejoicing in his counsel, throbbing for his conscious presence
Devoted to his service, and dying horribly for loyalty;
And that the Perfect God should not love this man at all,
Nor care that he perished, more than had he been a sheep?
Love is our highest and most lovely virtue:
If God has it not as much as we, how can he be all lovely?
Love is of all our affections the most glorious,
Supplying forces and heart to every noblest virtue.
To deny then that the Source of love has love, is mere paradox,
And has no claim to pass as cautious philosophy,
But tends to degrade God as less virtuous than man,
Making adoration of his Holiness impossible,
And depriving the soul of the right or motive to love him.
Thus spiritual worship and all heavenward drawings fail,
Unless God's love to man be definite and personal;
Enthusiasm becomes gratuitous and self-devotion an imprudence,
And religion loses its motives and its highest energies.

Nor only so, but Prayer becomes hardly reasonable.
For if the Highest regards men generically only,
Designing mankind to thrive, but caring for no one man,
Why should he attend to the personal case of each,
Or answer his prayer, or assist his struggling virtue?
And if he stand apart from us, as a man from his cattle,
Spending no love on each and requiring no love,
No communion of soul between God and man is appropriate:
Rather would the attempt be unseemly and presumptuous.

This is perhaps the secret belief of many acute persons,
(For it flows direct from the denial of God's love,)
And they accept our conclusion, as right and natural.
Thus their religion wholly loses its inward element;
And even if they imagine some future existence for man,
God will in it be eternally separate from man still,

So that heaven itself is desecrated as earth.
Such a scheme may intend to be religious; nevertheless internally
It has no more spiritual force than has moral Atheism.
Like Atheism also it is opposed to primary facts.
God does not stand at arm's length and deal with us from without,
As a king with subjects, and keep no personal converse:
But he speaks to us within, he whispers in our hearts,
As a Soul within the soul is he closely interfused,
Not dealing as by edicts issued to a multitude,
But by private counsel as from a friend to a friend.
And all those principles, which we laid down as Axioms,
Show that God commands individual virtue,
And approves personal adoration, personal communion.
And since the human heart is notoriously capable of this,
Our proper relation to God is not as that of brutes to man.
Nor does he value us for our Usefulness as a man values sheep,
While we in turn look to him for Protection only;—
(As in the relations of the unlike, where unlike benefits are sought,
And Virtue is not sought, or is but a means to an end;)—
But here Virtue itself begins and ends the relation;
Hence the affection arising is that of proper friendship:
We love him for his Goodness, he loves us that we
may be Good:
Thus we are humble friends of him the Supreme Friend,
And self-devoting adoration of his Holiness becomes possible.

Atheism which denies Intellect, must deny Virtue to God;
But every form of Theism, which holds God to be righteous,
Must teach that our goodness is but a shadow of his goodness,
And that our deepest love to him but hints his love to us.
In this very way does the heart which loves him learn his love,
And his true worshipper rises above philosophic doubts.

Finally: Love is to us the deepest fountain of Joy,
Which surpasses by far the delights of Knowledge and Honour:
And though we claim not entire acquaintance with the Highest,
Nor may say that he lacks bliss, if one source of bliss be dry,
Yet if we may trust in the analogies of Earth and Heaven,
Our noblest joy can hardly be joy unknown to God;

And He, who is blessed beyond all creature-blessedness,
Must abound in that personal Love, whence flows our most blessed bliss.