From: The Dial, Vol. II, No. I (July 1841).
Author:
Published: E. P. Peabody 1841 Boston
If we may trust the statement of grave philosophers, who have devoted their lives to Science, and given proofs of what they affirm, which are manifest to the senses, as well as evident to the understanding, there were once, in very distant ages, classes of monsters on the earth, which differed, in many respects, from any animals now on its surface. They find the bones of these animals “under the bottom of the monstrous world,” or imbedded in masses of stone, which have since formed over them. They discover the footprints, also, of these monstrous creatures, in what was once soft clay, but has since become hard stone, and so has preserved these traces for many a thousand years. These creatures gradually became scarce, and at last disappeared entirely from the face of the earth, while nobler races grew up and took their place. The relics of these monsters are gathered together by the curious. They excite the wonder of old men and little girls, of the sage and the clown.
Now there was an analogous class of moral monsters in old time. They began quite early, though no one knows who was the first of the race. They have left their footprints all over the civilized globe, in the mould of institutions, laws, politics, and religions, which were once pliant, but have since become petrified in the ages, so that they seem likely to preserve these marks for many centuries to come. The relics of these moral monsters are preserved for our times in the histories and institutions of past ages. But they excite no astonishment, when discovered, because, while the sauri of gigantic size, the mammoth and the mastodon, are quite extinct, the last of the Pharisees has not yet been seen, but his race is vigorous and flourishing now as of old time. Specimens of this monster are by no means rare. They are found living in all countries, and in every walk of life. We do not search for them in the halls of a museum, or the cabinets of the curious, but every man has seen a Pharisee going at large on the earth. The race, it seems, began early. The Pharisees are of ancient blood; some tracing their genealogy to the great Father of Lies himself. However this may be, it is certain, we find them well known in very ancient times. Moses encountered them in Egypt. They counterfeited his wonders, so the legend relates, and “did so with their enchantments.” They followed him into the desert, and their gold thrown into the fire, by the merest accident, came out in the shape of an idol. Jealous of the honor of Moses, they begged him to silence Eldad and Medad, on whom the spirit of the Lord rested, saying; “Lord Moses rebuke them.” They troubled the Messiah in a later day; they tempted him with a penny; sought to entangle him in his talk; strove to catch him, feigning themselves just men. They took counsel to slay him soon as they found cunning of no avail. If one was touched to the heart by true words—which, though rare, once happened,—he came by night to that great prophet of God, through fear of his fellow Pharisees. They could boast, that no one of their number had ever believed on the Saviour of the nations,—because his doctrine was a new thing. If a blind man was healed, they put him out of the synagogue, because his eyes were opened, and as he confessed by the new Teacher. They bribed one of his avaricious followers to betray him with a kiss, and at last put to death the noblest of all the Sons of God, who had but just opened the burthen of his mission. Yet they took care,—those precious philanthropists,—not to defile themselves by entering the judgment hall, with a pagan. When that spirit rose again, they hired the guard to tell a lie, and say, “His disciples came by night, and stole the body, while we slept.”
This race of men troubled Moses, stoned the prophets, crucified the Saviour, and persecuted the apostles. They entered the Christian Church soon as it became popular and fashionable. Then they bound the yoke of Jewish tradition on true men’s necks, and burned with fire, and blasted with anathemas such as shook it off, walking free and upright, like men. This same race is alive, and by no means extinct, or likely soon to be so.
It requires but few words to tell what makes up the sum of the Pharisee. He is at the bottom a man like other men, made for whatever is high and divine. God has not curtailed him of a man’s birthright. He has in him the elements of a Moses or a Messiah. But his aim is to SEEM good and excellent; not to BE good and excellent. He wishes, therefore, to have all of goodness and religion except goodness and religion itself. Doubtless, he would accept these also, were they to be had for the asking, and cost nothing to keep, but he will not pay the price. So he would make a covenant with God and the devil, with Righteousness and Sin, and keep on good terms with both. He would unite the two worlds of Salvation and Iniquity, having the appearance of the one, and the reality of the other. He would work in deceit and wickedness, and yet appear to men with clean hands. He will pray in one direction, and yet live in just the opposite way, and thus attempt, as it were, to blind the eyes, and cheat the justice of all-knowing God. He may be defined, in one sentence, as the circumstances of a good man, after the good man has left them. Such is the sum of the Pharisee in all ages and nations, variously modified by the customs and climate of the place he happens to dwell in, just as the rabbit is white in winter, and brown in summer, but is still the same rabbit, its complexion only altered to suit the color of the ground.
The Jewish Pharisees began with an honest man, who has given name to the class, as some say. He was moral and religious, a lover of man and God. He saw through the follies of his time, and rose above them. He felt the evils that oppress poor mortal man, and sought to remove them. But it often happens that a form is held up, after its spirit has departed, and a name survives, while the reality which bore this name is gone forever. Just as they keep at Vienna the crown and sword of a giant king, though for some centuries no head has been found large enough to wear the crown, no hand of strength to wield the sword, and their present owner is both imbecile and diminutive. So it was in this case. The subsequent races of Pharisees cherished the form, after the spirit had left it, clinging all the closer because they knew there was nothing in it, and feared, if they relaxed their hold, it would collapse through its emptiness, or blow away and be lost, leaving them to the justice of God and the vengeance of men they had mocked at and insulted. In Christ’s time, the Pharisee professed to reverence the law of Moses, but contrived to escape its excellent spirit. He loved the Letter, but he shunned the Law. He could pay tithes of his mint, anise, and cummin, which the law of Moses did not ask for, and omit mercy, justice, and truth, which both that and the law of God demanded. He could not kindle a fire, nor pluck an ear of corn on the Sabbath, though so cold and hungry, that he thought of nothing but his pains, and looked for the day to end. He could not eat bread without going through the ceremony of lustration. He could pray long and loud, where he was sure to be heard, at the corners of the streets, and give alms in the public places, to gain the name of devout, charitable, or munificent, while he devoured widow’s houses or the inheritance of orphans in private, and his inward part was full of ravening and wickedness.
There are two things, which pass for religion in two different places. The first is, the love of what is Right, Good, and Lovely, the love of man, the love of God. This is the religion of the New Testament, of Jesus Christ; it leads to a divine life, and passes for religion before the pure eyes of that Father of all, who made us, and the stars over our heads. The other is a mere belief in certain doctrines, which may be true or false, a compliance with, certain forms, either beautiful or ludicrous. It does not demand a love of what is right, good, and lovely, a love of man or God. Still less does it ask for a life in conformity with such sentiments. This passes for religion in the world, in king’s courts, and in councils of the Church, from the council at Nice to the synod at Dort. The first is a vital religion; a religion of life. The other is a theological religion; a religion of death; or rather, it is no religion at all; all of religion, but religion itself. It often gets into the place of religion, just as the lizard may get into the place of the lion, when he is out, and no doubt sets up to be lion for the time, and attempts a roar. The one is the religion of men, and the best men that have ever lived in all ages and countries; the other is the religion of Pharisees, and the worst men in all ages and in all countries.
This race of men, it has been said, is not yet exhausted. They are as numerous as in John the Baptist’s time, and quite as troublesome. Now as then, they prefer the praise of men to the praise of God; which means they would rather SEEM good, at small cost, than take the pains to BE good. They oppose all reforms as they opposed the Messiah. They traduce the best of men, especially such as are true to Conscience, and live out their thought. They persecute men sent on God’s high errand of mercy and love. Which of the prophets have they not stoned? They build the tombs of deceased reformers, whom they would calumniate and destroy, were they now living and at work. They can wear a cross of gold on their bosom, “which Jews might kiss and infidels adore.” But had they lived in the days of Pilate, they would have nailed the Son of God to a cross of wood, and now crucify him afresh, and put him to an open shame. These Pharisees may be found in all ranks of life; in the front and the rear; among the radicals and the conservatives, the rich and the poor. Though the Pharisees are the same in nature, differing only superficially, they may yet be conveniently divided into several classes, following some prominent features.
THE PHARISEE OF THE FIRESIDE. He is the man, who at home professes to do all for the comfort and convenience of his family, his wife, his children, his friends; yet at the same time does all for his own comfort and convenience. He hired his servants, only to keep them from the almshouse. He works them hard, lest they have too much spare time, and grow indolent. He provides penuriously for them, lest they contract extravagant habits. Whatever gratification he gives himself, he does entirely for others. Does he go to a neighboring place to do some important errands for himself, and a trifle for his friend, the journey was undertaken solely on his friend’s account. Is he a husband, he is always talking of the sacrifice he makes for his wife, who yet never knows when it is made, and if he had love, there would be no sacrifice. Is he a father, he tells his children of his self-denial for their sake, while they find the self-denial is all on their side, and if he loved them self-denial would be a pleasure. He speaks of his great affection for them, which, if he felt, it would show itself, and never need be spoken of. He tells of the heavy burdens borne for their sake, while, if they were thus borne, they would not be accounted burdens, nor felt as heavy. But this kind of Pharisee, though more common than we sometimes fancy, is yet the rarest species. Most men drop the cloak of hypocrisy, when they enter their home, and seem what they are. Of them, therefore, no more need be spoken.
THE PHARISEE OF THE PRINTING PRESS. The Pharisee of this stamp is a sleek man, who edits a newspaper. His care is never to say a word offensive to the orthodox ears of his own coterie. His aim is to follow in the wake of public opinion, and utter, from time to time, his oracular generalities, so that whether the course be prosperous or unsuccessful, he may seem to have predicted it. If he must sometimes speak of a new measure, whose fate is doubtful with the people, no one knows whether he would favor or reject it. So equally do his arguments balance one another. Never was prophecy more clearly inspired and impersonal. He cannot himself tell what his prediction meant until it is fulfilled. “If Croesus crosses the Halys, he shall destroy a great empire,” thunders the Pharisee from his editorial corner, but takes care not to tell whether Persia or Lydia shall come to the ground. Suggest a doubt, that he ever opposed a measure, which has since become popular, he will prove you the contrary, and his words really have that meaning, though none suspected it at the time, and he, least of all. In his, as in all predictions, there is a double sense. If he would abuse a man or an institution, which is somewhat respectable, and against which he has a private grudge, he inserts most calumnious articles in the shape of a “communication,” declaring at the same time his “columns are open to all.” He attacks an innocent man, soon as he is unpopular; but gives him no chance to reply, though in never so Christian a spirit. Let a distinguished man censure one comparatively unknown, he would be very glad to insert the injured man’s defence, but is prevented by “a press of political matter,” or “a press of foreign matter,” till the day of reply has passed. Let an humble scholar send a well written article for his journal, which does not square with the notions of the coterie; it is returned with insult added to the wrong, and an “editorial” appears putting the public on its guard against such as hold the obnoxious opinions, calling them knaves, and fools, or what is more taking with the public at this moment, when the majority are so very faithful, and religious, “infidels” and “atheists.” The aim of this man is to please his party, and seem fair. Send him a paper, reflecting on the measures or the men of that party, he tells you it would do no good to insert it, though ably written. He tells his wife the story, adding that he must have meat and drink, and the article would have cost a “subscriber.” He begins by loving his party better than mankind; he goes on by loving their opinions more than truth, and ends by loving his own interest better than that of his party. He might be painted as a man sitting astride a fence, which divided two inclosures, with his hands thrust into his pockets. As men come into one or the other inclosure, he bows obsequiously, and smiles; bowing lowest and smiling sweetest to the most distinguished person. When the people have chosen their place, he comes down from “that bad eminence,” to the side where the majority are assembled, and will prove to your teeth, that he had always stood on that side, and was never on the fence, except to reconnoitre the enemy’s position.
THE PHARISEE OF THE STREET. He is the smooth sharper, who cheats you in the name of honor. He wears a sanctimonious face, and plies a smooth tongue. His words are rosemary and marjoram for sweetness. To hear him lament at the sins practised in business, you would take him for the most honest of men. Are you to trade with him, he expresses a great desire to serve you; talks much of the subject of honor; honor between buyer and seller; honor among tradesmen; honor among thieves. He is full of regrets, that the world has become so wicked; wonders that any one can find temptation to defraud, and belongs to a society for the suppression of shoplifting, or some similar offence he is in no danger of committing, and so
By damning those he has no mind to.”
Does this Pharisee meet a philanthropist, he is full of plans to improve society, and knows of some little evil, never heard of before, which he wishes to correct in a distant part of the land. Does he encounter a religious man, he is ready to build a church if it could be built of words, and grows eloquent, talking of the goodness of God and the sin of the world, and has a plan for evangelizing the cannibals of New Zealand, and christianizing, forsooth, the natives of China, for he thinks it hard they should “continue heathens, and so be lost.” Does he overtake a lady of affluence and refinement, there are no limits to his respect for the female sex; no bounds to his politeness; no pains too great for him, to serve her. But let him overtake a poor woman of a rainy day, in a lonely road, who really needs his courtesy, he will not lend her his arm or his umbrella, for all his devotion to the female sex. He thinks teachers are not sufficiently paid, but teazes a needy young man to take his son to school a little under price, and disputes the bill when rendered. He knows that a young man of fortune lives secretly in the most flagrant debauchery. Our Pharisee treats him with all conceivable courtesy, defends him from small rumors; but when the iniquity is once made public, he is the very loudest in his condemnation, and wonders any one could excuse him. This man will be haughty to his equals, and arrogant to those he deems below him. With all his plans for christianizing China and New Zealand, he takes no pains to instruct and christianize his own family. In spite of his sorrow for the wickedness of the world, and his zeal for the suppression of vice, he can tell the truth so as to deceive, and utter a lie so smoothly, that none suspects it to be untrue. Is he to sell you an article, its obvious faults are explained away, and its secret ones concealed still deeper. Is he to purchase, he finds a score of defects, which he knows exist but in his lying words. When the bargain is made, he tells his fellow Pharisee how adroitly he deceived, and how great are his gains. This man is fulfilled of emptiness. Yet he is suffered to walk the earth, and eat and drink and look upon the sun, all hollow as he is.
THE PHARISEE OF POLITICS. This, also, is a numerous class. He makes great professions of honesty; thinks the country is like to be ruined by want of integrity in high places, and, perhaps, it is so. For his part, he thinks simple honesty, the doing of what one knows to be right, is better than political experience, of which he claims but little; more safe than the eagle eye of statesman-like sagacity, which sees events in their causes, and can apply the experience of many centuries to show the action of a particular measure, a sagacity that he cannot pretend to. This Pharisee of Politics, when he is out of place, thinks much evil is likely to befal us from the office-holders, enemies of the people; if he is in place from the office-wanters, most pestilent fellows! Just before the election, this precious Pharisee is seized with a great concern lest the people be deceived, the dear people, whom he loves with such vast affection. No distance is too great for him to travel; no stormy night, too stormy for him, that he may utter his word in season. Yet all the while he loves the people but as the cat her prey, which she charms with her look of demure innocence, her velvet skin and glittering eyes, till she has seized it in her teeth, and then condescends to sport with its tortures, sharpening her appetite, and teazing it to death. There is a large body of men in all political parties,
For public good, and mean their own.”
It has always been so, and will always continue so, till men and women become Christian, and then, as pagan Plato tells us, the best and wisest men will take high offices cheerfully, because they involve the most irksome duties of the citizen. The Pharisee of Politics is all things to all men, (though in a sense somewhat different from the Apostle, perhaps,) that he may, by any means, gain some to his side. Does he meet a reformer, he has a plan for improving and finishing off the world quite suddenly. Does he fall in with a conservative, our only strength is to stand still. Is he speaking with a wise friend of the people, he would give every poor boy and girl the best education the state could afford, making monopoly of wisdom out of the question. Does he talk with the selfish man of a clique, who cares only for the person, girded with his belt; he thinks seven eighths of the people, including all of the working class, must be left in ignorance beyond hope; as if God made one man all Head, and the other all Hands. Does he meet a Unitarian, the Pharisee signs no creed, and always believed the Unity; with a Calvinist, he is so Trinitarian he wishes there were four persons in the Godhead to give his faith a test the more difficult. Let the majority of voters, or a third party, who can turn the election, ask him to pledge himself to a particular measure, this lover of the people is ready, their “obedient servant,” whether it be to make property out of paper, or merchandise of men. The voice of his electors is to him not the voice of God, which might be misunderstood, but God himself. But when his object is reached, and the place secure, you shall see the demon of ambition, that possesses the man, come out into action. This man can stand in the hall of the nation’s wisdom, with the Declaration of Independence in one hand, and the Bible, the great charter of freedom, in the other, and justify,—not excuse, palliate, and account for,—but JUSTIFY, the greatest wrong man can inflict on man, and attempt to sanction Slavery, quoting chapter and verse from the New Testament, and do it as our fathers fought, in the name of “God and their country.” He can stand in the centre of a free land, his mouth up to the level of Mason and Dixon’s line, and pour forth his eloquent lies, all freedom above the mark, but all slavery below it. He can cry out for the dear people, till they think some man of wealth and power watches to destroy them, while he wants authority; but when he has it, ask him to favor the cause of Humanity; ask him to aid those few hands, which would take hold of the poor man’s son in his cabin and give him an education worthy of a man, a free man; ask him to help those few souls of great faith, who perfume Heaven’s ear with their prayers, and consume their own hearts on the altar, while kindling the reluctant sacrifice for other hearts, so slow to beat; ask him to aid the noblest interests of man, and help bring the kingdom of Heaven here in New England, and where is he? Why, the bubble of a man has blown away. If you could cast his character into a melting pot, as chemists do their drugs, and apply suitable tests to separate part from part, and so analyze the man, you would find a little Wit, and less Wisdom; a thimble-full of common sense, worn in the fore part of his head, and so ready for use at a moment’s call; a conscience made up of maxims of expediency and worldly thrift, which conscience he wore on his sleeve to swear by when it might serve his turn. You would find a little knowledge of history to make use of on the Fourth of July and election days; a conviction that there was a selfish principle in man, which might be made active; a large amount of animal cunning, selfishness, and ambition, all worn very bright by constant use. Down further still in the crucible would be a shapeless lump of faculties he had never used, which, on examination, would contain Manliness, Justice, Integrity, Honor, Religion, Love, and whatever else that makes man Divine and Immortal. Such is the inventory of this thing which so many worship, and so many would be. Let it also pass to its reward.
THE PHARISEE OF THE CHURCH. There was a time when he, who called himself a Christian, took as it were the Prophet’s vow, and Toil and Danger dogged his steps; Poverty came like a Giant upon him, and Death looked ugly at him through the casement as he sat down with his wife and babes. Then to be called a Christian, was to be a man; to pray prayers of great resolution, and to live in the Kingdom of Heaven. Now it means only to be a Protestant, or a Catholic; to believe with the Unitarians, or the Calvinists. We have lost the right names of things. The Pharisee of the Church has a religion for Sunday, but none for the week. He believes all the true things and absurd things ever taught by popular teachers of his sect. To him the Old Testament and the new Testament are just the same,—and the Apocrypha he never reads,—Books to be worshipped and sworn by. He believes most entirely in the Law of Moses and the Gospel of the Messiah, which annuls that Law. They are both “translated out of the original tongues, and appointed to be read in churches.” Of course he practises one just as much as the other. His Belief has cost him so much he does nothing but believe; never dreams of living his belief. He has a Religion for Sunday, and a face for Sunday, and Sunday books, and Sunday talk, and just as he lays aside his Sunday coat, so he puts by his talk, his books, his face, and his Religion. They would be profaned if used on a week day. He can sit in his pew of a Sunday—wood sitting upon wood—with the demurest countenance, and never dream the words of Isaiah, Paul, and Jesus, which are read him, came out of the serene deeps of the soul that is fulfilled of a divine life, and are designed to reach such deeps in other souls, and will reach them if they also live nobly. He can call himself a Christian, and never do anything to bless or comfort his neighbor. The poor pass and never raise an eye to that impenetrable face. He can hear sermons and pay for sermons that denounce the sin he daily commits, and think he atones for the sin by paying for the sermon. His Sunday prayers are beautiful, out of the Psalms and the Gospels, but his weekly life, what has it to do with his prayer? How confounded would he be if Heaven should take him in earnest, and grant his request! He would pray that God’s name be hallowed, while his life is blasphemy against Him. He can say “thy kingdom come,” when if it should come, he would wither up at the sight of so much majesty. The kingdom of God is in the Hearts of men; does he wish it there, in his own heart? He prays “thy will be done,” yet never sets a foot forward to do it, nor means to set a foot forward. His only true petition is for daily bread, and this he utters falsely, for all men are included in the true petition, and he asks only for himself. When he says “forgive us as we forgive,” he imprecates a curse on himself, most burning and dreadful; for when did he give or forgive? The only “evil” he prays to be delivered from is worldly trouble. He does not wish to be saved from avarice, peevishness, passion, from false lips, a wicked heart, and a life mean and dastardly. He can send Bibles to the Heathen on the deck of his ship, and rum, gunpowder, and cast-iron muskets in the hold. The aim of this man is to get the most out of his fellow mortals, and to do the least for them, at the same time keeping up the phenomena of Goodness and Religion. To speak somewhat figuratively, he would pursue a wicked calling in a plausible way, under the very windows of Heaven, at intervals singing hymns to God, while he debased his image; contriving always to keep so near the walls of the New Jerusalem, that when the destroying flood swept by, he might scramble in at a window, booted and spurred to ride over men, wearing his Sunday face, with his Bible in his hand, to put the Saviour to the blush, and out-front the justice of all-mighty God. But let him pass also; he has his reward. Sentence is pronounced against all that is false. The Publicans and the Harlots enter into the kingdom of God before that man.
THE PHARISEE OF THE PULPIT. The Scribes and Pharisees sat once in Moses’ seat; now they go farther up and sit in the seat of the Messiah. The Pharisee of the Pulpit is worse than any other class, for he has the faults of all the rest, and is set in a place where even the slightest tarnish of human frailty is a disgrace, all the more disgraceful because contrasted with the spotless vestments of that loftiest spirit that has bestrode the ages, and stands still before us as the highest Ideal ever realized on the Earth,—the measure of a perfect man. If the Gold rust, what shall the Iron do? The fundamental sin of the Pharisee of the Pulpit is this. He keeps up the Form, come what will come of the Substance. So he embraces the form when the substance is gone forever. He might be represented in painting as a man, his hands filled with husks, from which the corn had long ago been shelled off, carried away and planted, and had now grown up under God’s blessing, produced its thirty, or its hundred-fold, and stands ripe for the reaper, waiting the sickle, while hungering crowds come up escaping from shipwreck, or wanderings in the desert of Sin, and ask an alms, he gives them a husk—only a husk; nothing but a husk. “The hungry flock look up and are not fed,” while he blasts with the curses of his church all such as would guide the needy to those fields where there is bread enough and to spare. He wonders at “the perverseness of the age,” that will no longer be fed with chaff and husks. He has seen but a single pillar of God’s Temple, and thinking that is the whole, condemns all such as take delight in its beautiful porches, its many mansions, and most holy place. So the fly, who had seen but a nail-head on the dome of St. Peter’s, condemned the Swallow who flew along its solemn vault, and told the wonders she had seen. Our Pharisee is resolved, God willing, or God not willing, to keep up the form, so he would get into a false position should he dare to think. His thought might not agree with the form, and since he loves the dream of his fathers better than God’s Truth, he forbids all progress in the form. So he begins by not preaching what he believes, and soon comes to preach what he believes not. These are the men who boast they have Abraham to their father, yet, as it has been said, they come of a quite different stock, which also is Ancient and of great renown.
The Pharisee’s faith is in the letter, not the spirit. Doubt in his presence that the Book of Chronicles and the Book of Kings are not perfectly inspired and infallibly true on those very points where they are exactly opposite; doubt that the Infinite God inspired David to denounce his enemies, Peter to slay Ananias, Paul to predict events that never came to pass, and Matthew and Luke, John and Mark, to make historical statements, which can never be reconciled, and he sets you down as an infidel, though you keep all the commandments from your youth up, lack nothing, and live as John and Paul prayed they might live. With him the unpardonable sin is to doubt that ecclesiastical doctrine to be true, which Reason revolts at, and Conscience and Faith spurn off with loathing. With him the Jews are more than the human race. The Bible is his Master, and not his Friend. He would not that you should take its poems as its authors took them; nor its narratives for what they are worth, as you take others. He will not allow you to accept the Life of Christianity; but you must have its letter also, of which Paul and Jesus said not a word. If you would drink the water of life, you must take likewise the mud it has been filtered through, and drink out of an orthodox urn. You must shut up Reason, Conscience, and Common Sense, when you come to those Books which above all others came out of this triple fountain. To those Books he limits divine inspiration, and in his modesty has looked so deep into the counsels of God, that he knows the live coal of Inspiration has touched no lips but Jewish. No! nor never shall. Does the Pharisee do this from true reverence for the Word of God, which was in the beginning, which is Life, and which lighteth every man that cometh into the world? Let others judge. But there is a blindness of the heart, to which the fabled darkness of Egypt was noon-day light. That is not the worst skepticism which, with the Sadducee, denies both angel and resurrection; but that which denies man the right to think, to doubt, to conclude; which hopes no light save from the ashes of the past, and would hide God’s truth from the world with the flap of its long robe. We come at Truth only by faithful thought, reflection, and contemplation, when the long flashes of light come in upon the soul. But Truth and God are always on our side. Ignorance and a blind and barren Faith favor only lies and their great patriarch.
The Pharisee of the Pulpit talks much of the divine authority of the Church and the Minister, as if the one was anything more than a body of men and women met for moral and religious improvement, and the other anything but a single man they had asked to teach them, and be an example to the flock, and not “Lord of God’s heritage.” Had this Pharisee been born in Turkey, he would have been as zealous for the Mahommetan church, as he now is for the Christian. It is only the accident of birth that has given him the Bible instead of the Koran, the Shaster, the Vedam, or the Shu-King. This person has no real faith in man, or he would not fear when he essayed to walk, nor would fancy that while every other science went forward, Theology, the Queen of Science, should be bound hand and foot, and shut up in darkness without sun or star; no faith in Christ, or he would not fear that Search and Speech should put out the light of life; no faith in God, or he would know that His Truth, like virgin gold, comes brighter out of the fire of thought, which burns up only the dross. Yet this Pharisee speaks of God, as if he had known the Infinite from His boyhood; had looked over his shoulder when he laid the foundations of the earth, had entered into all his counsels, and known to the tithing of a hair, how much was given to Moses, how much to Confucius, and how much to Christ; and had seen it written in the book of fate, that Christianity, as it is now understood, was the loftiest Religion man could ever know, and all the treasure of the Most High was spent and gone, so that we had nothing more to hope for. Yet the loftiest spirits that have ever lived have blessed the things of God; have adored him in all his works, in the dewdrops and the stars; have felt at times. his Spirit warm their hearts, and blessed him who was all in all, but bowed their faces down before his presence, and owned they could not by searching find him out unto perfection; have worshipped and loved and prayed, but said no more of the nature and essence of God, for Thought has its limits, though presumption it seems has none. The Pharisee speaks of Jesus of Nazareth. How he dwells on his forbearance, his gentleness, but how he forgets that righteous indignation which spoke through him; applied the naked point of God’s truth to Pharisees and Hypocrites, and sent them back with rousing admonitions. He heeds not the all-embracing Love that dwelt in him, and wept at Sin, and worked with bloody sweat for the oppressed and down trodden. He speaks of Paul and Peter as if they were masters of the Soul, and not merely its teachers and friends. Yet should those flaming apostles start up from the ground in their living holiness, and tread our streets, call things by their right names, and apply Christianity to life, as they once did and now would do were they here, think you our Pharisee would open his house, like Roman Cornelius, or Simon of Tarsus?
There are two divisions of this class of Pharisees; those who do not think,—and they are harmless and perhaps useful in their way, like snakes that have no venom, but catch worms and flies,—and those who do think. The latter think one thing in their study, and preach a very different thing in their pulpit. In the one place they are free as water, ready to turn any way; in the other, conservative as ice. They fear philosophy should disturb the church as she lies bed-ridden at home, so they would throw the cobwebs of Authority and Tradition over the wings of Truth, not suffering her with strong pinions to fly in the midst of Heaven and communicate between man and God. They think “you must use a little deceit in the world,” and so use not a little. These men speak in public of the inspiration of the Bible, as if it were all inspired with equal infallibility, but what do they think at home? In his study, the Testament is a collection of legendary tales; in the pulpit it is the everlasting Gospel; if any man shall add to it, the seven last plagues shall be added to him; if any one takes from it, his name shall be taken from the Book of Life. If there be a sin in the land, or a score of sins tall as the Anakim, which go to and fro in the earth, and shake the churches with their tread; let these sins be popular, be loved by the powerful, protected by the affluent; will the Pharisee sound the alarm, lift up the banner, sharpen the sword, and descend to do battle? There shall not a man of them move his tongue; “no, they are dumb dogs, that cannot bark, sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber; yes they are greedy dogs, that can never have enough.” But let there be four or five men in obscure places, not mighty through power, renown, or understanding, or eloquence; let them utter in modesty a thought that is new, which breathes of freedom, or tends directly towards God, and every Pharisee of the Pulpit shall cry out from Cape Sable to the Lake of the Woods, till the land ring again. Doubtless it is heroic thus to fight a single new thought, rather than a score of old sins. Doubtless it is a very Christian zeal thus to pursue obscurity to its retreat, and mediocrity to its littleness, and startle humble Piety from her knees, while the Goliath of sin walks with impudent forehead at noon-day in front of their armies, and defies the living God;—a very Christian zeal which would put down a modest champion, however true, who, declining the canonical weapons, should bring down the foe and smite off the giant’s head. Two persons are mentioned in the Bible, who have had many followers; the one is Lot’s wife, who perished looking back upon Sodom; the other Demetrius, who feared that this our craft is in danger to be set at nought.
Such, then, are the Pharisees. We ought to accept whatever is good in them; but their sin should be exposed. Yet in our indignation against the vice, charity should always be kept for the man. There is “a soul of Goodness in things evil,” even in the Pharisee, for he also is a man. It is somewhat hard to BE all that God made us to become, and if a man is so cowardly he will only aim to SEEM something, he deserves pity, but certainly not scorn or hate. Bad as he appears, there is yet somewhat of Goodness left in him, like Hope at the bottom of Pandora’s box. Fallen though he is, he is yet a man, to love and be loved. Above all men is the Pharisee to be pitied. He has grasped at a shadow, and he feels sometimes that he is lost. With many a weary step and many a groan, he has hewn him out broken cisterns that hold no water, and sits dusty and faint beside them; “a deceived heart has turned him aside,” and there is “a lie in his right hand.” Meantime the stream of life hard by falls from the Rock of Ages; its waters flow for all, and when the worn pilgrim stoops to drink, he rises a stronger man, and thirsts no more for the hot and polluted fountain of Deceit and Sin. Farther down men leprous as Naaman may dip and be healed.
While these six classes of Pharisees pursue their wicked way, the path of real manliness and Religion opens before each soul of us all. The noblest sons of God have trodden therein, so that no one need wander. Moses and Jesus and John and Paul have gained their salvation by being real men; content to seek Goodness and God, they found their reward; they blessed the nations of the earth, and entered the kingdom of religious souls. It is not possible for Falseness or Reality to miss of its due recompense. The net of divine justice sweeps clean to its bottom the ocean of man, and all things that are receive their due. The Pharisee may pass for a Christian, and men may be deceived for a time, but God never. In his impartial balance it is only real Goodness that has weight. The Pharisee may keep up the show of Religion, but what avails it? Real sorrows come home to that false heart, and when the strong man tottering calls on God for more strength, how shall the false man stand? Before the Justice of the All-seeing, where shall he hide? Men may have the Pharisee’s Religion if they will, and they have his reward, which begins in self-deception, and ends in ashes and dust. They may if they choose have the Christian’s Religion, and they have also his reward, which begins in the great resolution of the heart, continues in the action of what is best and most manly in human nature, and ends in Tranquillity and Rest for the Soul, which words are powerless to describe, but which man must feel to know. To each man, as to Hercules, there come two counsellors; the one of the Flesh, to offer enervating pleasures and unreal joys for the shadow of Virtue; the other of the Spirit, to demand a life that is lovely, holy, and true. “Which will you have”? is the question put by Providence to each of us; and the answer is the daily life of the Pharisee or the Christian. Thus it is of a man’s own choice that he is cursed or blessed, that he ascends to Heaven, or goes down to Hell.
All Sub-Works of The Dial, Vol. II, No. I (July 1841).:
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