Again to make a use which is not uninstructive of the old tongue,
Emerson is for faith before works. Nature, he says, will not have us
fret and fume. She does not like our benevolences, our churches, our
pauper-societies, much better than she likes our frauds and wars. They
are but so many yokes to the neck. Our painful labours are unnecessary
and fruitless. A higher law than that of our will regulates events. If
we look wider, things are all alike: laws and creeds and modes of living
are a travesty of truth. Only in our easy, simple, spontaneous action
are we strong, and by contenting ourselves with obedience we become
strong. Our real action is in our silent moments. Why should we be awed
by the name of Action? 'Tis a trick of the senses.[7]
[Footnote 7: _Essays_: Spiritual Laws, etc.]
Justification by faith has had a savour of antinomianism and
indifferency ever since the day when Saint Paul so emphatically denied
that he made void the law through faith, and said of certain
calumniators that their damnation was just. Emerson was open to the same
charge, and he knew it. In a passage already quoted, Emerson says
good-humouredly that his wife keeps his philosophy from running to
antinomianism He could not mistake the tendency of saying that, if you
look wider, things are all alike, and that we are in the grasp of a
higher law than our own will. On that side he only paints over in
rainbow colours the grim doctrine which the High Calvinist and the
Materialistic Necessarian hold in common.
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