83
“Belief and Unbelief,” Christian Examiner, vol. 7 (January 1830), pp. 358–65; selection from pp. 363–4.
Anonymous
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There is, indeed, a kind of unbelief which does itself yield an artificial buoyancy and satisfaction; but it is not the unbelief of calm, reasonable, thoughtful, feeling human nature. It is a scornful, contemptuous, sneering unbelief. It is not the true philosopher, it is not the true man, that so disbelieves; but it is, if there ever were such a thing as demoniacal possession — it is a demon within the man, that sits mocking with insane laughter at the wreck it has made, or scowling with fiendish malignity over the desolation it has spread around it. Such a skeptic was Thomas Paine. But such was not Mr Hume. From that calm and clear, though mistaken mind, you hear the sighings of human nature over its doubts. ‘I am affrighted and confounded,’ says Mr Hume, ‘with that forlorn solitude in which I am placed by my philosophy. When I look abroad, I forsee on every side, dispute, contradiction, and distraction. When I turn my eyes inward, I find nothing but doubt and ignorance. Where am I, or what? From what causes do I derive existence, or to what condition do I return? I am confounded with these questions, and I begin to fancy myself in the most deplorable condition imaginable, environed in the deepest darkness’.
Yes, human nature must feel this, amidst the gloom and cheerlessness of skepticism. Why should Mr Hume strike out this passage from the later editions of his Treatise on Human Nature? It is honorable to him. We can conceive of a man’s being a sincere and honest unbeliever. We can conceive of his entertaining such false views of Christianity, as to be induced to reject it. We can conceive of many influences at work upon his mind, to expose him to this result. But we could not conceive of being ourselves unbelievers, without being the most sorrowful and disconsolate of human beings. We should say with Job, in his season of gloomy doubt, ‘Let the day perish wherein I was born; let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; as for that night let darkness seize upon it, let it be solitary; let no joyful voice come therein.’ We might be wrong in this complaining, but we could not help it. The birthday of such an existence, would seem to us to deserve no joyful commemoration, if all the thoughts of the mind, if all the dear and cherished affections of the heart, if all the blessed aspirations and hopes of our nature were to perish in the grave. And whether they shall actually perish there or not, if we have no assurance given us, such as the scriptures contain, all, to our minds at least — all that rests upon the tomb must be darkness and the shadow of death!