John Quincy Adams Digital Diary

12. Mr Ecky paid me a visit this morning, and took his Passport— He intends leaving this City for Vienna in about ten days.— I walked before dinner to the Foundery— The weather is fine and mild, but the Streets bad for walking— This is the first day that wears the appearance of the breaking up of Winter.— I finished reading the second part of Watts’s Improvement of the Mind, and began his discourse on the Education of Children and Youth. The second part is on the Communication of useful knowledge—much shorter than the first, and not equal to it.— Watts was a dissenting clergyman— He is cautious never to say any thing that could give offence to the established Church, but he indulges his passion with so much the more freedom against the Roman Catholics— With transsubstantiation it seems as if he never would finish— He insists strongly upon the distinction between things above reason, which as mysteries of religion, may and ought to be believed, and things contrary to religion, which he says must be false: but I doubt whether this distinction will avail, for the maintenance of any religious creed— For any part of the Christian faith I am persuaded it will not.— The Trinity, the Divinity of Christ, the whole Doctrine of Atonement, all Miracles, the immaculate conception of Jesus, and a devil maintaining War against Omnipotence appear to me all as contrary to human reason as the real presence of the Eucharist— Religion as it appears to me is one of the Wants of human Nature— An appetite which must be indulged; since without its gratification human existence would be a burden rather than a blessing— Reason may serve as a guard and check upon the religious appetite as well as upon our bodily necessities, to prevent its leading us into pernicious excesses— But it is presumption in human reason to set itself up as the umpire of our faith— My own Reason is as fallible as that of the Pope—and probably much more so than the collective Reason of an Ecclesiastical Council— I cannot reject a doctrine merely because my Reason will not sanction it— I must appeal to a higher tribunal; and 363believe, what I want to believe; am taught to believe, and may believe without injury to myself or others— The argumentum ex absurdo, is conclusive only upon subjects of a finite nature— Excellent for Mathematics and Geometry, but incompetent for infinity— It is not the absurdity of the doctrine of transubstantiation that proves its error, but as I conceive it is its pernicious tendencies; to enslave the human mind; to subject it to the arbitrary dominion of the priesthood—weak, corrupt and fallible men like ourselves.— Could I once bring myself to believe that by a special power from Heaven, a Priest can turn a wafer into a God and a Cup of Wine into the Blood of my Redeemer, the next and natural step would be to believe that my eternal weal or woe depended upon the fiat of the same Priest— That the keys of Heaven were in his hands to lock and unlock at his pleasure, and that the happiness or misery of my existence in the world to come, depended upon the chance of propitiating not the Deity but his Minister— All these tenets of the Romish Church are streams from the fountain of transubstantiation— The doctrine is pernicious—one motive for disbelieving it— Then I may examine it by the test of Reason— The doctrine is not necessary for the general system of Christianity— It is countenanced by the letter of Christs Words Matt: XXVI.26. Mark XIV.22. Luke XXII.19. (In St: John’s Gospel it is not at all mentioned as an occurrence at the last Supper, but with much more detail upon another occasion. John VI.26–66.) and it appears that the words when spoken even by himself shocked his disciples so much, that many of them, from that time; walked no more with him—though he told them by way of explanation that “his words were Spirit”—that is, as I believe—that they were to be understood in a spiritual, or figurative sense— This of itself is sufficient to settle the question in my mind— If the words were figurative there is no real presence— If they were not—if he performed a miracle, and the bread and wine of the last Supper were really his flesh and his blood, it does not follow that the same miracle can be repeated by every Priest, at every Commemmoration of that Event— He promises no such thing— I trace the Doctrine therefore directly to Priestcraft, to the obvious purpose of the Priests to establish their dominion over the minds of Men, under the mask of holy Mystery— I see that by the History of Christianity such has been its effects— That its consequences have been anti-christian in the highest degree—and that it is a mystery above though not contrary to my reason, why Divine Providence has permitted the weakness and folly of men to turn the very words of Christ to such dreadful abuses— Such is my opinion of transubstantiation— Its abstract inconsistency with my reason is not my principal ground for disbelieving it— The Doctor’s remarks upon preaching are as his Editors remark partly out of date. There is some Satirical humour in them— His principles respecting the influence of human authority are a little embarrassed about the settlement of a difficult boundary— The Chapters on writing Books for the Public and on writing and reading Controversies, are mere loose thoughts scarcely skimming the surface— But the active, thinking and judicious mind appear in them all— I read also Sermons 4 and 5 Vol. 6. of the English preacher—on the unenviable condition of the Wicked; and the wisdom of regarding Counsel. This was my Son George’s birth-day, and brought again the grateful recollection of the joy, which this day eleven years ago, brought me.— Laus Deo— May it never be obliterated from my heart! Charles 3. f 3 1/2 i.