:#■ 
 
 
 *M 
 
DUKE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 Treasure %oom 
 
 THE 
 
 COLERIDGE 
 
 COLLECTION 
 
AIDS TO REFLECTION 
 
 FORMATION OF A MANLY CHARACTER 
 
 ON THE SEVERAL GROUNDS OF 
 
 PRUDENCE, MORALITY, AND RELIGION: 
 
 ' ILLUSTRATED BY 
 
 SELECT PASSAGES FROM OUR ELDER DIVINES, ESPECIALLY 
 FROM ARCHBISHOP LEIGHTON. 
 
 BY S. T. COLERIDGE. 
 
 This makes, that whatsoever here befalls, 
 You in the region of yourself remain, 
 Neighb'ring on Heaven : and that no foreign land. 
 
 DANIEL. 
 
 LONDON: 
 PRINTED FOR TAYLOR AND HESSEY, 
 
 93, FLEET-STREET ; 
 AND 13, WATERLOO-PLACE, PALL-MALL. 
 
 1825. 
 
LONDON : 
 
 rRINTED BY THOMAS DAVISON, WHJTEFHIARS. 
 

 ADVERTISEMENT. /{ p <J 
 
 In the bodies of several species of Animals there are found certain Parts, 
 of which neither the office, the functions, nor the relations could be ascer- 
 tained by the Comparative Anatomist, till he had become acquainted 
 with the state of the Animal before birth. Something sufficiently like 
 this (for the purpose of an illustration, at least) applies to the Work here 
 offered to the Public. In the introductory portion there occur several 
 passages, which the Reader will be puzzled to decypher, without some 
 information respecting the original design of the Volume, and the Changes 
 it has undergone during its immature and embryonic state. On this 
 account only, I think myself bound to make it known, that the Work 
 was proposed and begun as a mere Selection from the Writings of Arch- 
 bishop Leighton, under the usual title of The Beauties of Archbishop 
 Leighton, with a few notes and a biographical preface by the Selector. 
 Hence the term, Editor, subscribed to the notes, and prefixed alone or 
 conjointly to the Aphorisms, accordingly as the Passage was written 
 entirely by myself, or only modified and (avowedly) interpolated. I con- 
 tinued the use of the word on the plea of uniformity : though like most 
 other deviations from propriety of language, it would probably have 
 been a wiser choice to have omitted or exchanged it. The various Re- 
 flections, however, that pressed on me while I was considering the motives 
 for selecting this or that passage ; the desire of enforcing, and as it were 
 integrating, the truths contained in the Original Author, by adding those 
 which the words suggested or recalled to my own mind ; the conversation 
 with men of eminence in the Literary and Religious Circles, occasioned 
 by the Objects which I had in view ; and lastly, the increasing dispro- 
 portion of the Commentary to the Text, and the too marked difference in 
 the frame, character, and colors of the two styles ; soen induced me to 
 recognize and adopt a revolution in my plan and object, which had in 
 fact actually taken place without my intention, and almost unawares. 
 It would indeed be more correct to say, that the present Volume owed its 
 
 26388 
 
 O £J 
 
iv ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 accidental origin to the intention of compiling one of a different descrip- 
 tion, than to speak of it as the same Work. It is not a change in the 
 child, but a changeling. 
 
 Still, however, the selections from Leighton, which will be found in the 
 prudential and moral Sections of this Work, and which I could retain 
 consistently with its present form and matter, will both from the intrinsic 
 excellence and from the characteristic beauty of the passages, suffice to 
 answer two prominent purposes of the original plan ; that of placing in a 
 clear light the principle, which pervades all Leighton's Writings — his 
 sublime View, I mean, of Religion and Morality as the means of re- 
 forming the human Soul in the Divine Image (Idea) ; and that of ex- 
 citing an interest in the Works, and an affectionate reverence for the 
 name and memory, of this severely tried and truly primitive Churchman. 
 
 S. T. C. 
 
PEE F ACE. 
 
 An Author has three points to settle : to what sort 
 his Work belongs, for what Description of Readers it 
 is intended, and the specific end or object, which it is 
 to answer. There is indeed a preliminary Interrogative 
 respecting the end which the Writer himself has in 
 view, whether the Number of Purchasers, or the Be- 
 nefit of the Readers. But this may be safely passed 
 by; since where the book itself or the known prin- 
 ciples of the writer do not supersede the question, there 
 will seldom be sufficient strength of character for good 
 or for evil, to afford much chance of its being either 
 distinctly put or fairly answered. 
 
 I shall proceed therefore to state as briefly as pos- 
 sible the intentions of the present volume in reference 
 to the three first-mentioned, viz. What? For Whom? 
 and For what ? 
 
 I. What ? The answer is contained in the Title- 
 page. It belongs to the class of didactic Works. Con- 
 sequently, those who neither wish instruction for them- 
 
 cs i"" o 
 
 263889 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 selves, nor assistance in instructing others, have no in- 
 terest in its contents. Sis Sus, sis Divus: Sum Caltha, 
 et non tibi spiro! 
 
 II. For whom ? Generally, for as many in all classes 
 as wish for aid in disciplining their minds to habits of 
 reflection — for all who, desirous of building up a manly 
 character in the light of distinct consciousness, are con- 
 tent to study the principles of moral Architecture on 
 the several grounds of prudence, morality and religion. 
 And lastly, for all who feel an interest in the Position, 
 I have undertaken to defend — this, namely, that the 
 Christian Faith (in which I include every article 
 of belief and doctrine professed by the first Reformers 
 in common) is the Perfection of Human Intelli- 
 gence : an interest sufficiently strong to ensure a patient 
 attention to the arguments brought in its support. 
 
 But if I am to mention any particular class or de- 
 scription of Readers, that were prominent in my thought 
 during the composition of the volume, my Reply must 
 be: that it was especially designed for the studious 
 Young at the close of their education or on their first 
 entrance into the duties of manhood and the rights of 
 self-government. And of these, again, in thought and 
 wish I destined the work (the latter and larger portion, 
 at least) yet more particularly to Students intended 
 for the Ministry ; first, as in duty bound, to the mem- 
 
PREFACE. Vll 
 
 bers of our two Universities : secondly, (but only in 
 respect of this mental precedency second) to all alike of 
 whatever name, who have dedicated their future lives 
 to the cultivation of their Race, as Pastors, Preachers, 
 Missionaries, or Instructors of Youth. 
 
 III. For what? The Worth of the Author is 
 estimated by the ends, the attainment of which he pro- 
 posed to himself by the particular work: while the 
 Value of the Work depends on its fitness, as the Means. 
 The Objects of the present volume are the following, 
 arranged in the order of their comparative importance. 
 
 1. To direct the Reader's attention to the value of 
 the Science of Words, their use and abuse (see Note, 
 p. 6) and the incalculable advantages attached to the 
 habit of using them appropriately, and with a distinct 
 knowlege of their primary, derivative, and metaphorical 
 senses. And in furtherance of this Object I have 
 neglected no occasion of enforcing the maxim, that to 
 expose a sophism and to detect the equivocal or double 
 meaning of a word is, in the great majority of cases, 
 one and the same thing. Home Tooke entitled his 
 celebrated work, Eitsot Kts^ozvta, Winged Words : or 
 Language, not only the Vehicle of Thought but the 
 Wheels. With my convictions and views, for sitBa. I 
 should substitute Koyoi, i. e. Words select and deter- 
 minate, and for tffeqosvra faovreg, i. e. living Words. 
 
vm PREFACE. 
 
 The Wheels of the intellect I admit them to be ; but 
 such as Ezekiel beheld in " the visions of God" as 
 he sate among the Captives by the river of Chebar. 
 " Whithersoever the Spirit was to go, the Wheels 
 went, and thither was their Spirit to go : for the Spirit 
 of the living creature was in the wheels also.^ 
 
 2. To establish the distinct characters of Prudence, 
 Morality, and Religion : and to impress the conviction, 
 that though the second requires the first, and the third 
 contains and supposes both the former ; yet still Moral 
 Goodness is other and more than Prudence, or the 
 Principle of Expediency; and Religion more and 
 higher than Morality. For this distinction the better 
 Schools even of Pagan Philosophy contended. (See 
 p. 26, 27). 
 
 3. To substantiate and set forth at large the mo- 
 mentous distinction between Reason and Understand- 
 ing. Whatever is atchievable by the Understanding 
 for the purposes of worldly interest, private or public, 
 has in the present age been pursued with an activity 
 and a success beyond all former experience, and to an 
 extent which equally demands my admiration and ex- 
 cites my wonder. But likewise it is, and long has 
 been, my conviction, that in no age since the first 
 dawning of Science and Philosophy in this Island have 
 the Truths, Interests, and Studies that especially belong 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 to the Reason, contemplative or practical, sunk into 
 such utter neglect, not to say contempt, as during the 
 last century. It is therefore one main Object of this 
 Volume to establish the position, that whoever trans- 
 fers to the Understanding the primacy due to the 
 Reason, loses the one and spoils the other. 
 
 4. To exhibit a full and consistent Scheme of the 
 Christian Dispensation, and more largely of all the 
 peculiar doctrines of the Christian Faith ; and to an- 
 swer all the Objections to the same, that do not ori- 
 ginate in a corrupt Will rather than an erring Judge- 
 ment ; and to do this in a manner intelligible for all 
 who, possessing the ordinary advantages of education, 
 do in good earnest desire to form their religious creed 
 in the light of their own convictions, and to have a 
 reason for the faith which they profess. There are 
 indeed Mysteries, in evidence of which no reasons can 
 be brought. But it has been my endeavour to show, 
 that the true solution of this problem is, that these 
 Mysteries are Reason, Reason in its highest form of 
 Self-affirmation. 
 
 Such are the special Objects of these " Aids to Re- 
 flection. 1 ' Concerning the general character of the 
 work, let me be permitted to add the few following 
 sentences. St. Augustine, in one of his Sermons, dis- 
 coursing on a high point of Theology, tells his auditors 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 — Sic accipite, ut mereamini intelligere. Fides enim 
 debet praecedere intellectum, ut sit intellectus fidei 
 prasmium*. Now without a certain portion of gra- 
 tuitous and (as it were) experimentative faith in the 
 Writer, a Reader will scarcely give that degree of 
 continued attention, without which no didactic Work 
 worth reading can be read to any wise or profitable 
 purpose. In this sense, therefore, and to this extent, 
 every Author, who is competent to the office he has 
 undertaken, may without arrogance repeat St. Au- 
 gustine's words in his own right, and advance a similar 
 claim on similar grounds. But I venture no farther 
 than to imitate the sentiment at a humble distance, by 
 avowing my belief that He, who seeks instruction in 
 the following pages, will not fail to find entertainment 
 likewise; but that whoever seeks entertainment only 
 will find neither. 
 
 Reader ! — You have been bred in a land abounding 
 with men, able in arts, learning, and knowledges ma- 
 nifold, this man in one, this in another, few in many, 
 none in all. But there is one art, of which every man 
 
 * Translation. So receive this, that you may deserve to 
 understand it. For the faith ought to precede the Understand- 
 ing, so that the Understanding may be the reward of the faith. 
 
PREFACE. xi 
 
 should be master, the art of reflection. If you are 
 not a thinking man, to what purpose are you a man 
 at all ? In like manner, there is one knowledge, which 
 it is every man's interest and duty to acquire, namely, 
 self-knowledge : or to what end was man alone, of 
 all animals, indued by the Creator with the faculty of 
 self-consciousness? Truly said the Pagan moralist, 
 E ccelo descendit, TvwSi "EsauTov. 
 
 But you are likewise born in a christian land: 
 and Revelation has provided for you new subjects for 
 reflection, and new treasures of knowledge, never to 
 be unlocked by him who remains self-ignorant. Self- 
 knowledge is the key to this casket ; and by reflection 
 alone can it be obtained. Reflect on your own thoughts, 
 actions, circumstances, and — which will be of especial 
 aid to you in forming a habit of reflection, — accustom 
 yourself to reflect on the words you use, hear, or read, 
 their birth, derivation, and history. For if words are 
 not things, they are living powers, by which the 
 things of most importance to mankind are actuated, 
 combined, and humanized. Finally, by reflection you 
 may draw from the fleeting facts of your worldly trade, 
 art, or profession, a science permanent as your im- 
 mortal soul ; and make even these subsidiary and pre- 
 parative to the reception of spiritual truth, " doing as 
 
XH PREFACE. 
 
 the dyers do, who having first dipt their silks in colours 
 of less value, then give them the last tincture of crimson 
 in grain. 1 ' 
 
 S. T. COLERIDGE. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Introductory Aphorisms 1 
 
 Prudential Aphorisms . . . . t . 29 
 
 Reflections respecting Morality . . .49 
 
 Moral and Religious Aphorisms . . . .59 
 
 Elements of Religious Philosophy, preliminary 
 
 to the Aphorisms on Spiritual Religion • . 129 
 Aphorisms on Spiritual Religion .... 141 
 Aphorisms on that which is indeed Spiritual Re- 
 ligion 150 
 
Ovtoos Ttdvta tfgos savtrjv ertdyscra, xat cvvySgoicrphy) 
 ^v/rj avtTj sis dvrfv, gatra nou pdXcc, fiefialw; paxaf /^ercu. 
 
 MARINUS. 
 
 Omnis divinse atquehumanss eruditionis elementa tria, No sse, Velee, 
 Posse : quommjpriwcJpwmunamMENS, sive Spiritus ; cujus Oculus 
 est Ratio ; cui lumen praebet Deus. 
 
 Vita di G. B. Vico, p. 50. 
 
The Readers generally are intreated to strike out the sentence com- 
 prised in lines 4 — 7 of f p. 194, containing a mistaken assertion ; the re- 
 sult of exhausted attention. 
 
 The Editor's personal friends, and others sufficiently prepossessed in 
 his favor to think it worth the trouble, are requested, previously to the 
 perusal of this volume, to make with the pen the following 
 
 CORRECTIONS AND AMENDMENTS. 
 
 Page 1 — For the three first lines of Aph. I. substitute : It is the pre- 
 rogative of Genius to produce novel impressions from 
 familiar objects: and seldom can philosophic genius be 
 more usefully employed than in thus rescuing, &c. 
 2— Aph. IV. 1. 12, after fore-thought, read, Suppose yourself 
 fronting a glass mirror. Now what the Objects behind 
 you are to their images at the same apparent distance before 
 you, such is — omit the words, " in a looking-glass." 
 10 — Aph. XVI. 1. 4, for ground, put rest. 
 13 — Aph. XXI. 1. 1, after Prudence, insert, religious Pru- 
 dence, I mean ; a prudence in the service of Religion. 
 N. B. What Prudence is in itself and independent of Re- 
 ligion, is explained p. 26, in the note to Aph. XXXI. 
 15 — For the five first lines of the Comment, read, This then, 
 comprising the prudentials of. religion, comes first 
 under consideration. Next follow the moral Requisites. 
 If in the first we have the shrine and frame-work for that 
 Divine Image, into which the Wordly-human is to be 
 transformed ; in the second, we are to bring out the Por- 
 trait itself— the distinct, &c. 
 21— Aph. XXIX. 1. 8, omit not. 
 
 46 — Aph. XIII. 1. 4, after therefore, insert (says Seneca.) 
 57 — L> 1, after Religion, insert a colon, and " for the religious 
 
 principle is." 
 67 — L. 18, for He and his, read we and our. 
 
Page 69 — L. 16, transpose from 1. 19, 20, and read, that in the 
 material and visible System it is highly reasonable, &c. 
 74 — L. 6, after no man, insert not, or for meaning, read except 
 
 he meant. 
 75 — L. 6, for senses, read Sense. 
 
 96 — Last line but 3, below Comment, insert, as the heading, 
 " On an intermediate state, or state of transition from 
 Morality to Spiritual Religion." 
 132 — Last line but 6, for Nature, read Prerogative. 
 165 — L. 13, after and, insert why he. 
 170 — Last line, for forms, read makes. 
 176 — L. 14, for this, read that. 
 
 177 — L. 2, after Ribbon put a full stop, and insert, On this 
 
 sophism rest the pretended " Demonstrations of a God" 
 
 grounded on. 
 
 L. 3, after lastly, insert in. And 1. 4, after Demonstrations, 
 
 insert the Authors. 
 
 191 — L. 13, after these, insert together — and after doctrines, 
 
 put of. 
 228 — Last line but five, for it, read the Light. 
 244 — Last line but two, for in Principle, read Principle in. 
 251 — L. 14 of the note, after again, insert it typifies the Under- 
 standing. 
 254 — Last line but ten, after species, insert used as the repre- 
 sentative. 
 256 — Last line, after not in the, insert compulsion of. 
 289 — L. 9, for Principles, read Principle. 
 
AIDS 
 
 REFLECTION. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. 
 
 APHORISM I. editor. 
 
 In philosophy equally as in poetry it is the highest 
 and most useful prerogative of genius to produce the 
 strongest impressions of novelty, while it rescues ad- 
 mitted truths from the neglect caused by the very 
 circumstance of their universal admission. Extremes 
 meet. Truths, of all others the most awful and in- 
 teresting, are too often considered as so true, that they 
 lose all the power of truth, and he bed-ridden in the 
 dormitory of the soul, side by side with the most 
 despised and exploded errors. 
 
 APHORISM II. editor. 
 
 There is one sure way of giving freshness and im- 
 portance to the most common-place maxims — that of 
 reflecting on them in direct reference to our own state 
 and conduct, to our own past and future being. 
 
2 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 APHORISM III. editor. 
 
 To restore a common-place truth to its first un- 
 common lustre, you need only translate it into action. 
 But to do this, you must have reflected on its truth. 
 
 APHORISM IV. LEIGHTON. 
 
 * It is the advice of the wise man, ' Dwell at home,' 
 
 * or, with yourself; and though there are very few 
 e that do this, yet it is surprising that the greatest 
 4 part of mankind cannot be prevailed upon, at least 
 
 * to visit themselves sometimes ; but, according to the 
 ' saying of the wise Solomon, The eyes of the fool are 
 6 in the ends of the earth? 
 
 A reflecting mind, says an ancient writer, is the 
 spring and source of every good thing. (' Omnis boni 
 principium intellectus cogitabundus.'') It is at once 
 the disgrace and the misery of men, that they live 
 without fore-thought. But what the objects behind 
 you are to the images at the same distance before you 
 in a looking-glass, such is Reflection to Fore-thought. 
 As a man without Fore-thought scarcely deserves the 
 name of a man, so Fore-thought without Reflection 
 is but a metaphorical phrase for the instinct of a 
 beast. eb. 
 
 APHORISM V. editor. 
 
 As a fruit-tree is more valuable than any one of its 
 fruits singly, or even than all its fruits of a single 
 season, so the noblest object of reflection is the mind 
 itself, by which we reflect : 
 
INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. 3 
 
 And as the blossoms, the green, and the ripe, fruit, 
 of an orange-tree are more beautiful to behold when 
 on the tree and seen as one with it, than the same 
 growth detached and seen successively, after their im- 
 portation into another country and different clime ; so 
 is it with the manifold objects of reflection, when they 
 are considered principally in reference to the reflective 
 power, and as part and parcel of the same. No object, 
 of whatever value our passions may represent it, but 
 hecomesjbreign to us, as soon as it is altogether uncon- 
 nected with our intellectual, moral, and spiritual life. 
 To be ours, it must be referred to the mind either as 
 motive, or consequence, or symptom. 
 
 APHORISM VI. LEIGHTON. 
 
 He who teaches men the principles and precepts of 
 spiritual wisdom, before their minds are called off from 
 foreign objects, and turned inward upon themselves, 
 might as well write his instructions, as the sybil wrote 
 her prophecies, on the loose leaves of trees, and com- 
 mit them to the mercy of the inconstant winds. 
 
 APHORISM VII. EDITOR. 
 
 In order to learn, we must attend: in order to profit 
 by what we have learnt, we must think — i. e. reflect. 
 He only thinks who reflects. 
 
 APHORISM VIII. l. &ed. 
 
 It is a matter of great difficulty, and requires no 
 
 ordinary skill and address, to fix the attention of men 
 
 b2 
 
4 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 (especially of young men*) on the world within them, 
 to induce them to study the processes and superintend 
 the works which they are themselves carrying on in 
 their own minds; in short, to awaken in them both 
 the faculty of thought"}- and the inclination to exercise 
 it. For alas ! the largest part of mankind are nowhere 
 greater strangers than at home. 
 
 APHORISM IX. editor. 
 
 Life is the one univeral soul, which by virtue of 
 the enlivening Breath, and the informing Word, all 
 organized bodies have in common, each after its kind. 
 This, therefore, all animals possess, and man as an 
 animal. But, in addition to this, God transfused into 
 man a higher gift, and specially imbreathed: — even a 
 
 * So Leighton says : my own experience would rather have 
 suggested the contrary remark. 
 
 T Distinction between Thought and Attention. — By thought 
 is here meant the voluntary reproduction in our own minds of 
 those states of consciousness, or (to use a phrase more familiar 
 to the religious reader) of those inward experiences, to which, 
 as to his best and most authentic documents, the teacher of 
 moral or religious truth refers us. In attention, we keep 
 the mind passive : in thought, we rouse it into activity. In 
 the former, we submit to an impression — we keep the mind 
 steady in order to receive the stamp. In the latter, we seek to 
 imitate the artist, while we ourselves make a copy or duplicate 
 of his work. We may learn arithmetic, or the elements of 
 geometry, by continued attention alone ; but .seZ/'-knowledge, or 
 an insight into the laws and constitution of the human mind 
 and the grounds of religion and true morality, in addition to the 
 effort of attention requires the energy of thought. 
 
INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. 5 
 
 living (that is, self-subsisting) soul, a soul having its 
 life in itself. " And man became a living soul. 11 He 
 did not merely possess it, he became it. It was his 
 proper being, his truest self, the man in the man. None 
 then, not one of human kind, so poor and destitute, 
 but there is provided for him, even in his present 
 state, a house not built with hands. Aye, and spite 
 of the philosophy (falsely so called) which mistakes the 
 causes, the conditions, and the occasions of our be- 
 coming conscious of certain truths and realities for 
 the truths and realities themselves — a house gloriously 
 furnished. Nothing is wanted but the eye, which is 
 the light of this house, the light which is the eye of 
 this soul. This seeing light, this enlightening eye, is 
 Reflection. It is more, indeed, than is ordinarily meant 
 by that word; but it is what a Christian ought to 
 mean by it, and to know too, whence it first came, and 
 still continues to come — of what light even this light 
 is but a reflection. This, too, is thought ; and all 
 thought is but unthinking that does not flow out of 
 this, or tend towards it. 
 
 APHORISM X. editor. 
 
 Self-superintendence ! that any thing should over- 
 look itself ! Is not this a paradox, and hard to under- 
 stand? It is, indeed, difficult, and to the imbruted 
 sensualist a direct contradiction: and yet most truly 
 does the poet exclaim, 
 
 Unless above himself he can 
 
 Erect himself, how mean a thing is man ! 
 
6 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 APHORISM XI. editor. 
 
 An hour of solitude passed in sincere and earnest 
 prayer, or the conflict with, and conquest over, a single 
 passion or " subtle bosom sin," will teach us more of 
 thought, will more effectually awaken the faculty ', and 
 form the habit, of reflection, than a year's study in the 
 schools without them. 
 
 APHORISM XII. editor. 
 
 In a world, whose opinions are drawn from outside 
 shows, many things may be paradoxical, (that is, con- 
 trary to the common notion) and nevertheless true: 
 nay, because they are true. How should it be other- 
 wise, as long as the imagination of the Worldling is 
 wholly occupied by surfaces, while the Christian's 
 thoughts are fixed on the substance, that which is and 
 abides, and which, because it is the substance*, the 
 outward senses cannot recognize. Tertullian had good 
 reason for his assertion, that the simplest Christian (if 
 indeed a Christian) knows more than the most accom- 
 plished irreligious philosopher. 
 
 * Quod stat suhtus, that which stands beneath, and (as it 
 were) supports, the appearance. In a language like ours, where 
 so many words are derived from other languages, there are few 
 modes of instruction more useful or more amusing than that of 
 accustoming young people to seek for the etymology, or primary 
 meaning, of the words they use. There are cases, in which more 
 knowledge of more value may be conveyed by the history of a 
 word, than by the history of a campaign. 
 
INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. 7 
 
 COMMENT. 
 
 Let it not, however, be forgotten, that the powers 
 of the understanding and the intellectual graces are 
 precious gifts of God ; and that every Christian, ac- 
 cording to the opportunities vouchsafed to him, is, 
 bound to cultivate the one and to acquire the other. 
 Indeed, he is scarcely a Christian who wilfully neglects 
 so to do. What says the apostle ? Add to your faith 
 knowledge, and to knowledge manly energy, (dpsfrjv) 
 for this is the proper rendering, and not virtue, at least 
 in the present and ordinary acceptation of the word *. 
 
 APHORISM XIII. editor. 
 
 Never yet did there exist a full faith in the Divine 
 Word (by whom light, as well as immortality, was 
 brought into the world,) which did not expand the 
 intellect, while it purified the heart: which did not 
 multiply the aims and objects of the understanding, 
 while it fixed and simplified those of the desires and 
 passions *f-. 
 
 * I am not ashamed to confess that I dislike the frequent use 
 of the word virtue, instead of righteousness, in the pulpit : and 
 that in prayer or preaching before a Christian community, it 
 sounds too much like Pagan philosophy. The passage in St. 
 Peter's epistle, is the only scripture authority that can be pre- 
 tended for its use, and I think it right, therefore, to notice, that 
 it rests either on an oversight of the translators, or on a change 
 in the meaning of the word since their time. 
 
 t The effects of a zealous ministry on the intellects and ac- 
 quirements of the labouring classes are not only attested by 
 
AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 COMMENT. 
 
 If acquiescence without insight ; if warmth without 
 light ; if an immunity from doubt, given and guaranteed 
 by a resolute ignorance; if the habit of taking for 
 granted the words of a catechism, remembered or for- 
 gotten ; if a mere sensation of positiveness substituted 
 — I will not say for the sense of certainty, but — for 
 that calm assurance, the very means and conditions of 
 which it supersedes ; if a belief that seeks the dark- 
 ness, and yet strikes no root, immoveable as the limpet 
 from the rock, and, like the limpet, fixed there by 
 mere force of adhesion ; — if these suffice to make men 
 Christians, in what sense could the apostle affirm that 
 believers receive, not indeed worldly wisdom, that comes 
 to nought, but the wisdom of God, that we might know 
 and comprehend the things that are freely given to us 
 of God? On what grounds could he denounce the 
 smcerest fervor of spirit as defective, where it does not 
 likewise bring forth fruits in the understanding? 
 
 APHORISM XIV. editor. 
 
 In our present state, it is little less than impossible 
 
 Baxter, and the Presbyterian divines, but admitted by Bishop 
 Burnet, who, during his mission in the west of Scotland, was 
 ec amazed to find a poor commonality so able to argue," &c. 
 But we need not go to a sister church for proof or example. 
 The diffusion of light and knowledge through this kingdom, by 
 the exertions of the bishops and clergy, by Episcopalians and 
 Puritans, from Edward VI. to the Restoration, was as wonder- 
 ful as it is praiseworthy, and may be justly placed among the 
 most remarkable facts of history. 
 
INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. 9 
 
 that the affections should be kept constant to an object 
 which gives no employment to the understanding, and 
 yet cannot be made manifest to the senses. The exer- 
 cise of the reasoning and reflecting powers, increasing 
 insight, and enlarging views, are requisite to keep alive 
 the substantial faith in the heart. 
 
 APHORISM XV. editor. 
 
 In the state of perfection, perhaps, all other faculties 
 may be swallowed up in love, or superseded by im- 
 mediate vision ; but it is on the wings of the cherubim, 
 i. e. (according to the interpretation of the ancient He- 
 brew doctors,) the intellectual powers and energies, 
 that we must first be borne up to the " pure empyrean."" 
 It must be seraphs, and not the hearts of imperfect 
 mortals, that can burn unfuelled and self-fed. Give 
 me understanding, (is the prayer of the Royal Psalmist) 
 and I shall observe thy law with my whole heart. — 
 Thy law is exceeding broad — that is, comprehensive, 
 pregnant, containing far more than the apparent import 
 of the words on a first perusal. It is my meditation 
 all the day. 
 
 COMMENT. 
 
 It is worthy of especial observation, that the Scrip- 
 tures are distinguished from all other writings pre- 
 tending to inspiration, by the strong and frequent re- 
 commendations of knowledge, and a spirit of inquiry. 
 Without reflection, it is evident that neither the one 
 can be acquired nor the other exercised. 
 
10 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 APHORISM XVI. editor. 
 
 The word rational has been strangely abused of late 
 times. This must not, however, disincline us to the 
 weighty consideration, that thoughtfulness, and a desire 
 to ground all our convictions on grounds of right rea- 
 son, are inseparable from the character of a Christian. 
 
 APHORISM XVII. editor. 
 
 A reflecting mind is not a flower that grows wild, 
 or comes up of its own accord. The difficulty is 
 indeed greater than many, who mistake quick recol- 
 lection for thought, are disposed to admit ; but how 
 much less than it would be, had we not been born and 
 bred in a Christian and Protestant land, the fewest of 
 us are sufficiently aware. Truly may we, and thank- 
 fully ought we, to exclaim with the Psalmist: The 
 entrance of thy words giveih light ; it giveth under- 
 standing even to the simple. 
 
 APHORISM XVIII. editor. 
 
 Examine the journals of our zealous missionaries, I 
 will not say among the Hottentots or Esquimaux, 
 but in the highly civilized, though fearfully uncul- 
 tivated, inhabitants of ancient India. How often, and 
 how feelingly, do they describe the difficulty of render- 
 ing the simplest chain of thought intelligible to the 
 ordinary natives, the rapid exhaustion of their whole 
 power of attention, and with what distressful effort it 
 is exerted while it lasts ! Yet it is among these that 
 
INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. ■ 11 
 
 the hideous practices of self-torture chiefly prevail. O 
 if folly were no easier than wisdom, it being often so 
 very much more grievous, how certainly might these 
 unhappy slaves of superstition be converted to Chri- 
 stianity! But, alas ! to swing by hooks passed through 
 the back, or to walk in shoes with nails of iron pointed 
 upwards through the soles — all this is so much less 
 difficult, demands so much less exertion of the will 
 than to reflect, and by reflection to gain knowledge 
 and tranquillity ! 
 
 COMMENT. 
 
 It is not true, that ignorant persons have no notion 
 of the advantages of truth and knowledge. They con- 
 fess, they see and bear witness to these advantages in 
 the conduct, the immunities, and the superior powers 
 of the possessors. Were they attainable by pilgrim- 
 ages the most toilsome, or penances the most painful, 
 we should assuredly have as many pilgrims and self- 
 tormentors in the service of true religion, as now exist 
 under the tyranny of papal or Brahman superstition. 
 
 APHORISM XIX. editor. 
 
 In countries enlightened by the gospel, however, 
 the most formidable and (it is to be feared) the most 
 frequent impediment to men's turning the mind inward 
 upon themselves, is that they are afraid of what they 
 shall find there. There is an aching hollowness in the 
 bosom, a dark cold speck at the heart, an obscure and 
 boding sense of a somewhat, that must be kept out of 
 
12 • AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 sight of the conscience ; some secret lodger, whom they 
 can neither resolve to eject or retain *. 
 
 COMMENT. 
 
 Few are so obdurate, few have sufficient strength 
 of character, to be able to draw forth an evil tendency 
 or immoral practice into distinct consciousness, without 
 bringing it in the same moment before an awaking 
 conscience. But for this very reason it becomes a duty 
 of conscience to form the mind to a habit of distinct 
 consciousness. An unreflecting Christian walks in 
 twilight among snares and pitfalls ! He entreats the 
 
 * The following sonnet was extracted by me from Herbert's 
 Temple, in a work long since out of print, for the purity of the 
 language and the fulness of the sense. But I shall be excused, 
 I trust, in repeating it here for higher merits and with higher 
 purposes, as a forcible comment on the words in the text. 
 
 Graces vouchsafed in a Christian land. 
 
 Lord ! with what care hast thou begirt us round !| 
 Parents first season us. Then schoolmasters 
 Deliver us to laws. They send us bound 
 To rules of reason. Holy messengers ; 
 Pulpits and Sundays ; sorrow dogging sin ; 
 Afflictions sorted; anguish of all sizes; 
 Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in ! 
 Bibles laid open; millions of surprises; 
 Blessings beforehand; ties of gratefulness ; 
 The sound of glory ringing in our ears : 
 Without, our shame; within, our consciences; 
 Angels and grace; eternal hopes and fears ! 
 Yet all these fences, and their whole array, 
 One cunning bosom sin blows quite away. 
 
INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. 13 
 
 heavenly Father not to lead him into temptation, and 
 yet places himself on the very edge of it, because he 
 will not kindle the torch which his Father had given 
 into his hands, as a means of prevention, and lest he 
 should pray too late. 
 
 APHORISM XX. editor. 
 
 Among the various undertakings of men, can there 
 be mentioned one more important, can there be con- 
 ceived one more sublime, than an intention to form the 
 human mind anew after the divine image ? The very 
 intention, if it be sincere, is a ray of its dawning. 
 
 The requisites for the execution of this high intent 
 may be comprised under three heads ; the prudential, 
 the moral, and the spiritual: 
 
 APHORISM XXI. editor. 
 
 First, prudence. — What this is, will be best ex- 
 plained by its effects and operations. It consists then 
 in the prevention or abatement of hinderances and dis- 
 tractions ; and consequently in avoiding, or removing, 
 all such circumstances as, by diverting the attention 
 of the workman, retard the progress and hazard the 
 safety of the work. It is likewise (we deny not) a part 
 of this unworldly prudence, to place ourselves as much 
 and as often as it is in our power so to do, in circum- 
 stances directly favourable to our great design ; and to 
 avail ourselves of all the positive helps and furtherances 
 which these circumstances afford. But neither dare we, 
 as Christians, forget whose and under what dominion 
 
14 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 the things are, quae nos circumstant, i. e. that stand 
 around us. We are to remember, that it is the World 
 that constitutes our outward circumstances; that in 
 the form of the World, which is evermore at variance 
 with the Divine Form (or idea) they are cast and 
 moulded; and that of the means and measures which 
 prudence requires in the forming anew of the Divine 
 Image in the soul, the far greater number suppose the 
 World at enmity with our design. We are to avoid its 
 snares, to repel its attacks, to suspect its aids and suc- 
 cours, and even when compelled to receive them as 
 allies within our trenches, yet to commit the outworks 
 alone to their charge, and to keep them at a jealous 
 distance from the citadel. The powers of the world 
 are often christened, but seldom christianized. They 
 are but proselytes of the outer gate : or, like the Saxons 
 of old, enter the land as auxiliaries, and remain in it 
 as conquerors and lords. 
 
 APHORISM XXII. editor. 
 
 The rules of prudence in general, like the laws of 
 the stone tables, are for the most part prohibitive. 
 Thou shalt not is their characteristic formula : and it 
 is an especial part of Christian prudence that it should 
 be so. Nor would it be difficult to bring under this 
 head, all the social obligations that arise out of the 
 relations of the present life, which the sensual under- 
 standing (to <p§fov)p.6t, rrjs la^xos, Romans viii. 6.) is of 
 itself able to discover, and the performance of which, 
 under favourable worldly circumstances, the merest 
 
INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. 15 
 
 worldly self-interest, without love or faith, is sufficient 
 to enforce ; but which Christian prudence enlivens by 
 a higher principle, and renders symbolic and sacra- 
 mental. (Ephesians v. 32.) 
 
 COMMENT. 
 
 This then, under the appellation of prudential re- 
 quisites, comes first under consideration : and may be 
 regarded as the shrine and frame-work for the Divine 
 image, into which the worldly human is to be trans- 
 formed. We are next to bring out the distinct fea- 
 tures of its countenance, as a sojourner among men ; 
 its benign aspect turned towards its fellow-pilgrims, 
 the extended arm, and the hand that blesseth and 
 healeth. 
 
 APHORISM XXIII. editok. 
 
 The outward service (Qprjaxeia,*) of ancient religion, 
 the rites, ceremonies and ceremonial vestments of the 
 
 * See the epistle of St. James, c. i. v. 26, 27. where, in the 
 authorized version, the Greek word Sprio-xsux. is falsely rendered 
 religion: whether by mistake of the translator, or from the in- 
 tended sense having become obsolete, I cannot decide. At all 
 events, for the English reader of our times it has the effect of an 
 erroneous translation. It not only obscures the connexion of 
 the passage, and weakens the peculiar force and sublimity of 
 the thought, rendering it comparatively flat and trivial, almost 
 indeed tautological, but has occasioned this particular verse to 
 be perverted into a support of a very dangerous error ; and the 
 whole epistle to be considered as a set-off" against the epistles 
 and declarations of St. Paul, instead of (what in fact it is), a 
 masterly comment and confirmation of the same. I need not 
 
16 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 old law, had morality for their substance. They were 
 the letter, of which morality was the spirit; the enigma, 
 of which morality was the meaning. But morality 
 itself is the service and ceremonial (cultus exterior, 
 6f7j(Dtg/a) of the Christian religion. The scheme of 
 grace and truth that became * through Jesus Christ, 
 the faith that looks-f down into the perfect law of liberty, 
 
 inform the religious reader, that James, c. i. v. 27. is the fa- 
 vourite text and most boasted authority of those divines who 
 represent the Redeemer of the world as little more than a moral 
 reformer, and the Christian faith as a code of ethics, differing 
 from the moral system of Moses and the prophets by an ad- 
 ditional motive; or rather, by the additional strength and clear- 
 ness which the historical fact of the resurrection has given to 
 the same motive. 
 
 * The Greek word lyeWo, unites in itself the two senses of 
 began to exist and was made to exist. It exemplifies the force 
 of the middle voice, in distinction from the verb reflex. In 
 answer to a note on John i. 2. in the unitarian version of the 
 New Testament, I think it worth noticing, that the same word 
 is used in the very same sense by Aristophanes in that famous 
 parody on the cosmogonies of the Mythic poets, or the creation 
 of the finite, as delivered, or supposed to be delivered, in the 
 Cabiric or Samothracian mysteries, in the Comedy of the Birds. 
 
 eye vet' 'Ovgavo; il\cavog te 
 
 T James C 1. V. 25. O &l •naoatcj-^a,^ eij vo|ixov te'Xeicv tov t>»? i\si/3it>t(*$. 
 
 The Greek word, parakupsas, signifies the incurvation or bend- 
 ing of the body in the act of looking down into; as, for instance, 
 in the endeavour to see the reflected image of a star in the 
 water at the bottom of a well. A more happy or forcible word 
 could not have been chosen to express the nature and ultimate 
 object of reflection, and to enforce the necessity of it, in order 
 
INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. 17 
 
 has " light for its garment •" its very " robe is righteous- 
 ness." 
 
 COMMENT. 
 
 Herein the apostle places the pre-eminency, the 
 peculiar and distinguishing excellence, of the Christian 
 religion. The ritual is of the same kind, (opoaVtov) 
 though not of the same order, with the religion itself — 
 not arbitrary or conventional, as types and hierogly- 
 phics are in relation to the things expressed by them ; 
 but inseparable, consubstantiated (as it were), and par- 
 taking therefore of the same life, permanence, and in- 
 trinsic worth with its spirit and principle. 
 
 to discover the living fountain and spring-head of the evidence 
 of the Christian faith in the believer himself, and at the same 
 time to point out the seat and region, where alone it is to be 
 found. Quantum sumus, scimus. That which we find within 
 ourselves, which is more than ourselves, and yet the ground of 
 whatever is good and permanent therein, is the substance and 
 life of all other knowledge. 
 
 N. B. The Familists of the sixteenth century, and similar 
 enthusiasts of later date, overlooked the essential point, that it 
 was a law, and a law that involved its own end (tsxo;), a perfect 
 law (teX£<o?) or law that perfects or completes itself; and there- 
 fore, its obligations are called, in reference to human statutes, 
 imperfect duties, i. e. incoercible from without. They over- 
 looked that it was a law that portions out (n6,«oj from vlfxio to 
 allot, or make division of) to each man the sphere and limits, 
 within which it is to be exercised — which as St. Peter notices of 
 certain profound passages in the writings of St. Paul, (2 Pet. c. 
 
 111. V. 16.) oi a,fj,a.$H; xai a^nfwi-31 f-pjjS^Bfnv, wj Hid) ray Xoi7ra? yp^a^, 
 •Bio! iriv l&iav uajiZn ajrwAiiav. 
 
18 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 APHORISM XXIV. editor. 
 
 Morality is the body, of which the faith in Christ is 
 the soul — so far indeed its earthly body, as it is adapted 
 to its state of warfare on earth, and the appointed form 
 and instrument of its communion with the present 
 world ; yet not " terrestrial," nor of the world, but a 
 celestial body, and capable of being transfigured from 
 glory to glory, in accordance with the varying circum- 
 stances and outward relations of its moving and in- 
 forming spirit. 
 
 APHORISM XXV. editor. 
 
 Woe to the man, who will believe neither power, 
 freedom, nor morality ; because he no where finds 
 either entire, or unmixed with sin, thraldom and in- 
 firmity. In the natural and intellectual realms, we di- 
 stinguish what we cannot separate; and in the moral 
 world, we must distinguish in order to separate. Yea, 
 in the clear distinction of good from evil the process 
 of separation commences. 
 
 COMMENT. 
 
 It was customary with religious men in former 
 times, to make a rule of taking every morning some 
 text, or aphorism*, for their occasional meditation 
 
 * In accordance with a preceding remark, on the use of 
 etymology in disciplining the youthful mind to thoughtful 
 habits, and as consistent with the title of this work, c Aids to 
 Reflection,' I shall offer no apology for the following and similar 
 notes : 
 
 Aphorism, determinate position, from the Greek ap, from ; 
 
INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. 19 
 
 during the day, and thus to fill up the intervals of 
 their attention to business. I do not point it out for 
 imitation, as knowing too well, how apt these self-im- 
 posed rules are to degenerate into superstition or hol- 
 lowness : or I would have recommended the following 
 as the first exercise. 
 
 APHORISM XXVI. editor. 
 
 It is a dull and obtuse mind, that must divide in 
 order to distinguish ; but it is a still worse, that di- 
 stinguishes in order to divide. In the former, we may 
 contemplate the source of superstition and * idolatry ; 
 in the latter, of schism, heresy -f-, and a seditious and 
 sectarian spirit J. 
 
 and horizein, to bound, or limit; whence our horizon. — In 
 order to get the full sense of a word, we should first present to 
 our minds the visual image that forms its primary meaning. 
 Draw lines of different colours round the different counties of 
 England, and then cut out each separately, as in the common 
 play-maps that children take to pieces and put together — so 
 that each district can be contemplated apart from the rest, as 
 a whole in itself. This twofold act of circumscribing, and de- 
 taching, when it is exerted by the mind on subjects of reflection 
 and reason, is to aphorize, and the result an aphorism. 
 
 * To Nojjtov iipn^s-iv its woXXiuv ®iwy \lio?r\Ta.z. — Damasc. de Myst. 
 Egypt ; i- e. They divided the intelligible into many and several 
 individualities. 
 
 t From a'tpto-i;, a wilful raising into public notice, an uplifting 
 (for display) of any particular opinion differing from the esta- 
 blished belief of the church at large, and making it a ground 
 of schism, i. e. division, from schizein, to cut off— whence our 
 " scissars" is supposed to have been derived. 
 
 I I mean these words in their large and philosophic sense in 
 relation to the spirit, or originating temper and tendency, and 
 
 c2 
 
20 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 APHORISM XXVII. editor. 
 
 Exclusive of the abstract sciences, the largest and 
 worthiest portion of our knowledge consists of apho- 
 risms: and the greatest and best of men is but an 
 aphorism. 
 
 APHORISM XXVIII. editob. 
 
 On the prudential influence which the fear or foresight of the 
 consequences of his actions, in respect of his own loss or gain, 
 may exert on a newly converted Believer. 
 
 Precautionary remark.— We meddle not with 
 the dispute respecting conversion, whether, and in what 
 sense, necessary in all Christians. It is sufficient for 
 our purpose, that a very large number of men even in 
 Christian countries need to be converted, and that not 
 a few, We trust, have been. The tenet becomes fa- 
 natical and dangerous, only when rare and extra- 
 ordinary exceptions are made to be the general rule ; — 
 when what was vouchsafed to the apostle of the Gentiles 
 by especial grace, and for an especial purpose, viz. a 
 conversion * begun and completed in the same moment, 
 
 not to any one mode under which, or to any one class, in or by 
 which, it may be displayed. A seditious spirit may (it is pos- 
 sible, though not probable,) exist in the council-chamber of a 
 palace as strongly as in a mob in Palace- Yard ; and a sectarian 
 spirit in a cathedral, no less than in a conventicle. 
 
 * Whereas Christ's other disciples had a breeding under him, 
 St. Paul was born an apostle; not carved out, as the rest, by 
 degrees and in course of time, but a fusile apostle, an apostle 
 poured out and cast in a mould. As Adam was a perfect man 
 in an instant, so was St. Paul a perfect Christian. The same 
 
INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. 21 
 
 is demanded or expected of all men, as a necessary 
 sign and pledge of their election. Late observations 
 have shown, that under many circumstances the mag- 
 netic needle, even after the disturbing influence has 
 been removed, will keep wavering, and require many 
 days before it points aright, and remains steady to the 
 pole. So is it ordinarily with the soul, after it has begun 
 to free itself from the disturbing forces of the flesh and 
 the world, and to convert* itself towards God. 
 
 APHORISM XXIX. editor. 
 
 Awakened by the cock-crow (a sermon, a calamity, 
 a sick bed, or a providential escape) the Christian 
 pilgrim sets out in the morning twilight, while yet the 
 truth (the vo^og te\sios o trjg k\sv%eg\as) is below the 
 horizon. Certain necessary consequences of his past life 
 and his present undertaking will be seen by the re- 
 fraction of its light: more will be apprehended and 
 conj ectured. The phantasms, that had not predominated 
 during the hours of darkness, are still busy. No longer 
 present, as Forms, they will yet exist as moulding and 
 formative Motions in the Pilgrim's soul. The Dream 
 of the past night will transfer its shapes to the objects 
 in the distance, while the objects give outwardness and 
 reality to the shapings of the Dream. The fears inspired 
 
 spirit was the lightning that melted, and the mould that received 
 and shaped him. — Donne's Sermons — quoted from memory. 
 
 * From the Latin, convertere — i. e. by an act of the will to 
 turn towards the true pole, at the same time (for this is the 
 force of the prepositive con) that the understanding is convinced 
 and made aware of its existence and direction. 
 
22 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 by long habits of selfishness, and self-seeking cunning, 
 though now purifying into that fear which is the be- 
 ginning of wisdom, and ordained to be our guide and 
 safeguard, till the sun of love, the perfect law of liberty, 
 is fully arisen — these fears will set the fancy at work, 
 and haply, for a time, transform the mists of dim and 
 imperfect knowledge into determinate superstitions. 
 But in either case, whether seen clearly or dimly, 
 whether beheld or only imagined, the consequences con- 
 templated in their bearings on the individual's in- 
 herent* desire of happiness and dread of pain become 
 
 * The following extract from Leighton's Theological Lectures, 
 sect. II. cannot he introduced more to the purpose than as a 
 comment on this sentence : 
 
 ' The human mind, however stunned and weakened hy the 
 fall, still retains some faint idea of the good it has lost ; a kind 
 of languid sense of its misery and indigence, with affections 
 suitable to these obscure notions. This at least is beyond all 
 doubt and indisputable, that all men wish well to themselves ; 
 nor can the mind divest itself of this propensity, without di- 
 vesting itself of its being. This is what the schoolmen mean 
 when in their manner of expression they say, that ' the will 
 (mem. voluntas, not arbitrium) is carried towards happiness not 
 simply as will, but as nature.' ' 
 
 I venture to remark that this position, if not more certainly, 
 would be more evidently true, if instead of beatitudo, the word 
 indolentia (i. e. freedom from pain, negative happiness) had 
 been used. But this depends on the exact meaning attached 
 to the term self, of which more in another place. One con- 
 clusion, however, follows inevitably from the preceding posi- 
 tion, viz. that this propensity can never be legitimately made 
 the principle of morality, even because it is no part or appurte- 
 nance of the moral will ; and because the proper object of the 
 
INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. 23 
 
 motives: and (unless all distinction in the words be 
 done away with, and either prudence or virtue be re- 
 duced to a superfluous synonyme, a redundancy in all 
 the languages of the civilized world), these motives, 
 and the acts and forbearances directly proceeding from 
 them, fall under the head of prudence, as belonging 
 to one or other of its three very distinct species. It 
 may be a prudence, that stands in opposition to a 
 higher moral life, and tends to preclude it, and to pre- 
 vent the soul from ever arriving at the hatred of sin 
 for its own exceeding sinfulness (Rom. vii. 13) : and 
 this is an evil prudence. Or it may be a neutral 
 prudence, not incompatible with spiritual growth : and 
 to this we may, with especial propriety, apply the words 
 of our Lord, " What is not against us is for us. 1 ' It 
 is therefore an innocent, and (being such) a proper, 
 
 and COMMENDABLE PRUDENCE. 
 
 Or it may lead and be subservient to a higher prin- 
 ciple than itself. The mind and conscience of the in- 
 dividual may be reconciled to it, in the fore-knowledge 
 of the higher principle, and with a yearning towards 
 it that implies a foretaste of future freedom. The 
 enfeebled convalescent is reconciled to his crutches, 
 and thankfully makes use of them, not only because 
 
 moral principle is to limit and control this propensity, and to 
 determine in what it may be, and in what it ought to be, grati- 
 fied ; while it is the business of philosophy to instruct the un- 
 derstanding, and the office of religion to convince the whole 
 man, that otherwise than as a regulated, and of course therefore 
 a subordinate, end, this propensity, innate and inalienable 
 though it be, can never be realized or fulfilled. Tnv AeVttoivmv 
 
£4 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 they are necessary for his immediate support, but 
 likewise, because they are the means and conditions 
 of exercise ; and by exercise, of establishing, gra- 
 datini paulatim, that strength, flexibility, and almost 
 spontaneous obedience of the muscles, which the idea 
 and cheering presentiment of health hold out to him. 
 He finds their value in their present necessity, and their 
 worth as they are the instruments of finally superseding 
 it. This is a faithful, a wise prudence, having, in- 
 deed, its birth-place in the world, and the wisdom of 
 this world for its Father ; but naturalized in a better 
 land, and having the Wisdom from above for its Spon- 
 sor and Spiritual Parent. To steal a dropt feather 
 from the spicy nest of the Phoenix, (the fond humour, 
 I mean, of the mystic divines and allegorizers of Holy 
 Writ) it is the son of Terahfrom Ur of the Chaldees, 
 who gives a tithe of all to the King of Righteousness, 
 without father, without mother, without descent, (Nopos 
 qcvtovo^os), and receives a blessing on the remainder. 
 
 Lastly, there is a prudence that co-exists with mo- 
 rality, as morality co-exists with the spiritual life: a 
 prudence that is the organ of both, as the understand- 
 ing is to the reason and the will, or as the lungs are 
 to the heart and brain. This is a holy prudence, 
 the steward faithful and discreet (o]xov6fj.o$ wis-os nai 
 cppovipos, Luke xii. 42), the ' eldest servant 1 in the 
 family of faith, bom in the house, and * made the ruler 
 over his lord's household.' 
 
 Let not then, I entreat you, my purpose be misun- 
 derstood; as if, in distinguishing virtue from pru- 
 dence, I wished to divide the one from the other. 
 
INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. 25 
 
 True morality is hostile to that prudence only, which 
 is preclusive of true morality. The teacher, who sub- 
 ordinates prudence to virtue, cannot be supposed to 
 dispense with it ; and he, who teaches the proper con- 
 nexion of the one with the other, does not depreciate 
 the lower in any sense ; while by making it a link of 
 the same chain with the higher, and receiving the 
 same influence, he raises it. 
 
 In Greek, Logos (Anglice, Word), means likewise 
 the Understanding. If the same idiom existed in our 
 own language, only with the substitution of the prac- 
 tical for the intellectual, I would say: the word* 
 (i. e. Practical Rectitude), has Virtue (or Morality) for 
 its Consonants and Prudence for the Vowels. Though 
 the former can scarcely be pronounced without the 
 latter, yet we ought to acquaint ourselves with their 
 true nature and force. But this we can do only by a 
 distinct knowledge of the latter, that is, what they are 
 of themselves, and sounded separately from the con- 
 sonants. In like manner, to understand aright what 
 morality is, we must first learn what prudence is, and 
 what acts and obligations are prudential ,- and having 
 removed these to a class of their own, we shall find 
 it comparatively easy to determine what acts and duties 
 belong to morality. 
 
 * Logos in Greek, signifies an intelligible word as di- 
 stinguished from pnfAOi, a flowing or articulate sound; and it 
 likewise signifies the understanding, in distinction from n»j (the 
 pure reason) in one direction, and from a*ifSn<t($ (the sense) in 
 the other, 
 
26 ATDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 APHORISM XXX. editor. 
 
 What the duties of morality are, the apostle in- 
 structs the believer in full, reducing them under two 
 heads : negative, to keep himself pure from the world ; 
 and positive, beneficence with sympathy and loving- 
 kindness, i. e. love of his fellow-men (his kind) as him- 
 self. 
 
 APHORISM XXXI. editor. 
 
 Last and highest, come the spiritual, comprising all 
 the truths, acts and duties that have an especial re- 
 ference to the Timeless, the Permanent, the Eternal : 
 to the sincere love of the True, as truth, of the Good, 
 as good : and of God as both in one. It comprehends 
 the whole ascent from uprightness (morality, virtue, 
 inward rectitude) to godlikeness, with all the acts, exer- 
 cises, and disciplines of mind, will, and affection, that 
 are requisite or conducive to the great design of our 
 redemption from the form of the evil one, and of our 
 second creation or birth in the divine image *. 
 
 * It is worthy of observation, and may furnish a fruitful 
 subject for future reflection, how nearly this scriptural division 
 coincides with the Platonic, which, commencing with the pru- 
 dential, or the habit of act and purpose proceeding from en- 
 lightened self-interest, £qui animi imperio, corporis servitio, 
 rerum auxilio, in proprium sui commodum et sibi providus 
 utitur, hunc esse prudentem statuimus^j, ascends to the moral, 
 i. e. to the purifying and remedial virtues ; and seeks its summit 
 in the imitation of the Divine nature. In this last division, 
 answering to that which we have called the Spiritual, Plato 
 includes all those inward acts and aspirations, waitings, and 
 
INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. 27 
 
 APHORISM XXXII. editor. 
 
 It may be an additional aid to reflection, to di- 
 stinguish the three kinds severally, according to the 
 faculty to which each corresponds, the faculty or part 
 of our human nature which is more particularly its 
 organ. Thus : the prudential corresponds to the sense 
 and the understanding ; the moral to the heart and the 
 conscience; the spiritual to the will and the reason, 
 i. e. to the finite will reduced to harmony with, and in 
 subordination to, the reason, as a ray from that true 
 light which is both reason and will, universal reason, 
 and will absolute. 
 
 watchings, which have a growth in godlikeness for their im- 
 mediate purpose, and the union of the human soul with the 
 Supreme Good as their ultimate object. Nor was it altogether 
 without grounds that several of the Fathers ventured to be- 
 lieve that Plato had some dim conception of the necessity of 
 a Divine Mediator, whether through some indistinct echo of 
 the patriarchal faith, or some rays of light refracted from the 
 Hebrew prophets through a Phoenician medium (to which he 
 may possibly have referred in his phrase, Ston-apaSoTOg a-opia, the 
 wisdom delivered from God), or by his own sense of the myste- 
 rious contradiction in human nature between the will and the 
 reason, the natural appetences and the no less innate law of 
 conscience {Romans II. 14, 15), we shall in vain attempt to 
 determine. It is not impossible that all three may have co- 
 operated in partially unveiling these awful truths to this plank 
 from the wreck of paradise thrown on the shores of idolatrous 
 Greece, to this Divine Philosopher, 
 
 Che in quella schiera ando piii presso al segno 
 Al qual aggiunge, a chi dal cielo e dato. 
 Petrarch, Del Triunfo della Fama, Cap. III. I. 5, 6. 
 
28 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 I have now, I trust, effected the two purposes of this 
 introductory chapter, viz. 
 
 1. That of explaining the true nature and evincing 
 the necessity of reflection in the constitution of a Chri- 
 stian character. 
 
 % That of assigning my reasons, why having pro- 
 posed to select from Archbishop Leighton's Works 
 the most striking prudential, moral, and spiritual 
 maxims, I have separated the prudential from the two 
 following, and interpolated the extracts with mementos 
 of my own. 
 
PRUDENTIAL APHORISMS. 
 
PRUDENTIAL APHORISMS. 
 
 APHORISM I. l. & ed. 
 
 You will not be offended, nor think I intend to in- 
 sult you, if once and again, with great earnestness and 
 sincerity, I wish you and myself a sound and serious 
 temper of mind ; for, if we may represent things as 
 they really are, very few men are possessed of so 
 valuable a blessing. The far greater part of them are 
 intoxicated either with the pleasures or the cares of this 
 world; they stagger about with a tottering and un- 
 stable pace ; and, as Solomon expresses it, The labour 
 of the foolish wearieth every one of them ; because he 
 knoweth not how to go to the city : Eccl. x. 15 : — the 
 heavenly city, and the vision of peace, which very few 
 have a just notion of, or are at pains to seek after. 
 Nay, they know not what it is they are seeking. They 
 flutter from one object to another, and live at hazard. 
 They have no certain harbour in view, nor direct their 
 course by any fixed star. But to him that knoweth 
 not the port to which he is bound, no wind can be fa- 
 vourable ; neither can he who has not yet determined 
 at what mark he is to shoot, direct his arrow aright. 
 
 v 
 
32 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 I assert, then, that there is a proper object to aim 
 at ; and if this object be meant by the term happiness, 
 (though I think that not the most appropriate term 
 for a state, the perfection of which consists in the 
 exclusion of all hap (i. e. chance), and should greatly 
 prefer the Socratic Eupraxy, as expressing the union 
 of well-being and well-doing,) I assert that there is 
 such a thing as human happiness. This is indeed im- 
 plied in the belief of an infinitely wise Author of our 
 being. 
 
 APHORISM II. LEIGHTON. 
 
 The whole human race must have been created in 
 misery, and exposed to unavoidable torments, from 
 which they could never have been relieved, had they 
 been formed not only capable of a good, quite un- 
 attainable and altogether without their reach, but also 
 with strong and restless desires towards that impossible 
 good. Now, as this is by no means to be admitted, 
 there must necessarily be some full, permanent, and 
 satisfying good, that may be attained by man, and in 
 the possession of which he must be truly happy. 
 
 APHORISM III. LErcH-roN. 
 
 What this is, the Bible alone shows clearly and cer- 
 tainly, and points out the way that leads to the attain- 
 ment of it. This is that which prevailed with St. 
 Augustine to study the Scriptures, and engaged his 
 affection to them. * In Cicero, and Plato, and other 
 ' such writers,' says he, ' I meet with many things 
 1 acutely said, and things that excite a certain warmth 
 
PRUDENTIAL APHORISMS. 33 
 
 e of emotion, but in none of them do I find these words, 
 ' Come unto me, all ye that labour, and are heavy 
 * laden, and I will give you rest*.'' 
 
 APHORISM IV. LEIGHTON. 
 
 It is the wisdom of mankind to know God, and their 
 indispensable duty to worship Him. Without this, 
 men of the brightest parts and greatest learning seem 
 to be born with excellent talents only to make them- 
 selves miserable ; and according to the expression of 
 the wisest of kings, He that increaseth knowledge in- 
 creaseth sorrow, Eccl. i. 18. We must, therefore, first 
 of all, consider this as a sure and settled point, that 
 religion is the sole foundation of human peace and 
 felicity. This, even the profane scoffers at religion 
 are, in some sort, obliged to own, though much against 
 their will, even while they are pointing their wit against 
 it; for nothing is more commonly to be heard from 
 them, than that the whole doctrine of religion was in- 
 vented by some wise men, to encourage the practice of 
 justice and virtue through the world. Surely then, 
 religion, whatever else may be said of it, must be a 
 matter of the highest value, since it is found necessary 
 to secure advantages of so very great importance. 
 But, in the mean time, how unhappy is the case of in- 
 tegrity and virtue, if what they want to support them 
 is merely fictitious, and they cannot keep their ground 
 
 * Apud Ciceronera et Platonem, aliosque ejusmodi scriptores, 
 multa sunt acute dicta, et leniter calentia, sed in iis omnibus 
 hoc non ir.venio, Venite ad me, &c. [Matt. xii. 28.] 
 
 D 
 
34 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 but by means of a monstrous forgery ! But far be it 
 from us to entertain such an absurdity! For the 
 first rule of righteousness cannot be otherwise than 
 right, nor is there any thing more nearly allied or 
 more friendly to virtue, than truth. 
 
 APHORISM V. LEIGHTON. 
 
 And it is, indeed, very plain, that if it were possible 
 entirely to dissolve all the bonds and ties of religion, 
 yet, that it should be so, would certainly be the interest 
 of none but the worst and most abandoned part of man- 
 kind. All the good and wise, if the matter was 
 freely left to their choice, would rather have the 
 world governed by the Supreme and Most Perfect 
 Being, mankind subjected to His just and righteous 
 laws, and all the affairs of men superintended by His 
 watchful providence, than that it should be other- 
 wise. Nor do they believe the doctrines of religion 
 with aversion or any sort of reluctancy, but embrace 
 them with pleasure, and are excessively glad to find 
 them true. So that, if it was possible, to abolish 
 them entirely, and any person, out of mere good-will 
 to them, should attempt to do it, they would look 
 upon the favour as highly prejudicial to their interest, 
 and think his good-will more hurtful than the keenest 
 hatred. Nor would any one, in his wits, choose to 
 live in the world, at large, and without any sort of 
 government, more than he would think it eligible to 
 be put on board a ship without a helm or pilot, and, 
 in this condition, to be tossed amidst rocks and quick- 
 
PRUDENTIAL APHORISMS. 35 
 
 sands. On the other hand, can any thing give greater 
 consolation, or more substantial joy*, than to be firmly 
 persuaded, not only that there is an infinitely good 
 and wise Being, but also that this Being preserves 
 and continually governs the universe which Himself 
 has framed, and holds the reins of all things in His 
 powerful hand; that He is our father, that we and 
 all our interests are His constant concern ; and that, 
 after we have sojourned a short while here below, we 
 shall be again taken into His immediate presence? 
 Or can this wretched life be attended with any sort 
 of satisfaction, if it is divested of this divine faith, and 
 bereaved of such a blessed hope ? 
 
 APHORISM VI. editor. 
 
 Felicity, in its proper sense, is but another word for 
 fortunateness, or happiness ; and I can see no advantage 
 in the improper use of words, when proper terms are to 
 be found, but, on the contrary, much mischief. For, 
 by familiarizing the mind to equivocal expressions, 
 that is, such as may be taken in two or more dif- 
 ferent meanings, we introduce confusion of thought, 
 and furnish the sophist with his best and handiest 
 tools. For the juggle of sophistry consists, for the 
 greater part, in using a word in one sense in the pre- 
 mise, and in another sense in the conclusion. We 
 should accustom ourselves to think, and reason, in 
 precise and steadfast terms; even when custom, or 
 the deficiency, or the corruption of the language will 
 
 * <t>sv n tbtwv yappa jah^ov av ~Kn^oi;. 
 
 d2 
 
36 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 not permit the same strictness in speaking. The 
 mathematician finds this so necessary to the truths 
 which he is seeking, that his science begins with, and 
 is founded on, the definition of his terms. The bota- 
 nist, the chemist, the anatomist, &c, feel and submit 
 to this necessity at all costs, even at the risk of exposing 
 their several pursuits to the ridicule of the many, by 
 technical terms, hard to be remembered, and alike 
 quarrelsome to the ear and the tongue. In the busi- 
 ness of moral and religious reflection, in the acquisi- 
 tion of clear and distinct conceptions of our duties, 
 and of the relations in which we stand to God, our 
 neighbour, and ourselves, no such difficulties occur. 
 At the utmost we have only to rescue words, already 
 existing and familiar, from the false or vague meanings 
 imposed on them by carelessness, or by the clipping and 
 debasing misusage of the market. And surely happiness, 
 duty, faith, truth, and final blessedness, are matters of 
 deeper and dearer interest for all men, than circles to the 
 geometrician, or the characters of plants to the botanist, 
 or the affinities and combining principle of the ele- 
 ments of bodies to the chemist, or even than the me- 
 chanism (fearful and wonderful though it be!) of the 
 perishable Tabernacle of the Soul can be to the anato- 
 mist. Among the aids to reflection, place the following 
 maxim prominent: let distinctness in expression ad- 
 vance side by side with distinction in thought. For 
 one useless subtlety in our elder divines and moralists, 
 I will produce ten sophisms of equivocation in the 
 writings of our modern preceptors : and for one error 
 
PRUDENTIAL APHORISMS. 37 
 
 resulting from excess in distinguishing the indifferent, 
 I would show ten mischievous delusions from the habit 
 of cmifounding the diverse. 
 
 APHORISM VII. editor. 
 
 Whether you are reflecting for yourself, or reason- 
 ing with another, make it a rule to ask yourself the 
 precise meaning of the word, on which the point in 
 question appears to turn ; and if it may be (i. e. 
 by writers of authority has been) used in several senses, 
 then ask which of these the word is at present intended 
 to convey. By this mean, and scarcely without it, you 
 will at length acquire a facility in detecting the quid 
 pro quo. And believe me, in so doing you will en- 
 able yourself to disarm and expose four-fifths of the 
 main arguments of our most renowned irreligious phi- 
 losophers, ancient and modern. For the quid pro quo 
 is at once the rock and quarry, on and with which the 
 strong-holds of disbelief, materialism, and (more per- 
 nicious still) epicurean morality, are built. 
 
 APHORISM VIII. LEIGHTON. 
 
 If we seriously consider what religion is, we shall 
 find the saying of the wise king Solomon to be unex- 
 ceptionably true : Her ways are ways of 'pleasantness v 
 and all her paths are peace. 
 
 Doth religion require any thing of us more than that 
 we live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present 
 world ? Now what, I pray, can be more pleasant or 
 peaceable than these ? Temperance is always at leisure, 
 
38 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 luxury always in a hurry : the latter weakens the 
 body and pollutes the soul, the former is the sanctity, 
 purity, and sound state of both. It is one of Epi- 
 curus's fixed maxims, ' That life can never be plea- 
 sant without virtue.' Vices seize upon men with the 
 violence and rage of furies ; but the Christian virtues 
 replenish the breast which they inhabit, with a hea- 
 venly peace and abundant joy, and thereby render it 
 like that of an angel. The slaves of pleasure and 
 carnal affections, have within them, even now, an 
 earnest of future torments ; so that, in this present life, 
 we may truly apply to them that expression in the 
 Revelations, They that worship the beast have no rest 
 day nor night. ' There is perpetual peace with the 
 ' humble, 1 says the most devout A Kempis ; ' but the 
 * proud and the covetous are never at rest.' 
 
 COMMENT. 
 
 In the works of moralists, both Christian and Pagan, 
 it is often asserted (indeed there are few common-places 
 of more frequent recurrence) that the happiness even 
 of this life consists solely, or principally, in virtue; 
 that virtue is the only happiness of this life; that 
 virtue is the truest pleasure, &c. 
 
 I doubt not that the meaning, which the writers 
 intended to convey by these and the like expressions, 
 was true and wise. But I deem it safer to say, nor 
 do I doubt that in diverting men from sensual and 
 dishonest courses it will often be expedient to say, 
 that in all the outward relations of this life, in all our 
 outward conduct and actions, both in what Ave should 
 
PRUDENTIAL APHORISMS. 39 
 
 do, and in what we should abstain from, the dictates 
 of virtue are the very same with those of self-interest ; 
 that though the incitements of virtue do not proceed 
 from the same point, yet they tend to the same point 
 with the impulses of a reflecting and consistent selfish- 
 ness; that the outward object of virtue being the 
 greatest producible sum of happiness of all men, it must 
 needs include the object of an intelligent self-love, 
 which is the greatest possible happiness of one indi- 
 vidual; for what is true of all, must be true of each. 
 Hence, you cannot become better, (i. e. more virtuous), 
 but you will become happier : and you cannot become 
 worse, (i. e. more vicious), without an increase of 
 misery (or at the best a proportional loss of enjoy- 
 ment) as the consequence. If the thing were not in- 
 consistent with our well-being, and known to be so, it 
 would not have been classed as a vice. Thus what 
 in an enfeebled and disordered mind is called pru- 
 dence, is the voice of nature in a healthful state : as is 
 proved by the known fact, that the prudential duties, 
 (i. e. those actions which are commanded by virtue 
 because they are prescribed by prudence), the animals 
 fulfil by natural instinct. 
 
 The pleasure that accompanies or depends on a 
 healthy and vigorous body will be the consequence 
 and reward of a temperate life and habits of active in- 
 dustry, whether this pleasure were or were not the 
 chief or only determining motive thereto. Virtue may, 
 possibly, add to the pleasure a good of another kind, 
 a higher good, perhaps, than the worldly mind is 
 
40 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 capable of understanding, a spiritual complacency, of 
 which in your present sensualized state you can form 
 no idea. It may add, I say, but it cannot detract 
 from it. Thus the reflected rays of the sun that give 
 light, distinction, and endless multiformity to the 
 mind, give at the same time the pleasurable sensation 
 of warmth to the body. If then the time has not yet 
 come for any thing higher, act on the maxim of seek- 
 ing the most pleasure with the least pain : and, if only 
 you do not seek where you yourself know it will not 
 be found, this very pleasure and this freedom from the 
 disquietude of pain, existing in conjunction with their 
 immediate causes and necessary conditions, and with 
 the other almost certain consequences of these causes, 
 (for instance, the advantages of good character, the 
 respect and sympathy of your neighbours, sense of 
 increasing power and influence, &c.) may produce in 
 you a state of being directly and indirectly favour- 
 able to the germination and up-spring of a nobler 
 seed. They may prepare and predispose you to the 
 sense and acknowledgment of a principle, differing 
 not merely in degree but in kind from the faculties and 
 instincts of the higher and more intelligent species 
 of animals, (the ant, the beaver, the elephant), and 
 which principle is therefore your proper humanity. 
 And on this account and with this view alone may cer- 
 tain modes of pleasurable or agreeable sensation, with- 
 out confusion of terms, be honoured with the title of 
 refined, intellectual, ennobling pleasures. — For Plea- 
 sure (and happiness in its proper sense is but the 
 
PRUDENTIAL APHORISMS. 41 
 
 continuity and sum-total of the pleasure which is 
 allotted or happens to a man, and hence by the Greeks 
 called !uru%ja, i. e. good-hap, or more religiously kvdai- 
 povix, i. e. favourable providence) — Pleasure, I say, 
 consists in the harmony between the specific excita- 
 bility of a living creature, and the exciting causes cor- 
 respondent thereto. Considered therefore exclusively 
 in and for itself, the only question is, quantum ? not, 
 quale ? How much on the whole % the contrary, i. e. the 
 painful and disagreeable, having been subtracted. The 
 quality is a matter of taste : et de gustibus non est 
 disputandum. No man can judge for another. 
 
 This, I repeat, appears to me a safer language than 
 the sentences quoted above (that virtue alone is happi- 
 ness; that happiness consists in virtue, &c.) sayings 
 which I find it hard to reconcile with other positions 
 of still more frequent occurrence in the same divines, 
 or with the declaration of St. Paul : " If in this life 
 only we have hope, we are of all men most miserable. 1 ' 
 Such language the soundest moralists were obliged 
 to employ, before grace and truth were brought into 
 the world by Jesus Christ. And such language may, 
 I doubt not, even now be profitably addressed both 
 to individuals and to classes of men ; though in what 
 proportion it should be dwelt on, and to what extent 
 it is likely to be efficacious, a review of the different 
 epochs memorable for the turning of many from their 
 evil ways, and a review of the means by which this re- 
 formation of life has been principally effected, renders 
 me scrupulous in deciding. 
 
42 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 At all events, I should rely far more confidently on 
 the converse, viz. that to be vicious is to be miserable. 
 Few men are so utterly reprobate, so imbruted by their 
 vices, as not to have some lucid, or at least quiet and 
 sober, intervals ; and in such a moment, dum desceviunt 
 ires, few can stand up unshaken against the appeal to 
 their own experience — what have been the wages of 
 sin ? what has the devil done for you? What sort of 
 master have you found him ? Then let us in befitting 
 detail, and by a series of questions that ask no loud, 
 and are secure against any false, answer, urge home 
 the proof of the position, that to be vicious is to be 
 wretched: adding the fearful corollary, that if even 
 in the body, which as long as life is in it can never 
 be wholly bereaved of pleasurable sensations, vice is 
 found to be misery, what must it not be in the world 
 to come ? There, where even the crime is no longer 
 possible, much less the gratifications that once attended 
 it — where nothing of vice remains but its guilt and its 
 misery — vice must be misery itself, all and utter mi^ 
 sery. — So best, if I err not, may the motives of pru- 
 dence be held forth, and the impulses of self-love be 
 awakened, in alliance with truth, and free from the 
 danger of confounding things (the Laws of Duty, I 
 mean, and the Maxims of Interest) which it deeply con- 
 cerns us to keep distinct, inasmuch as this distinction 
 and the faith therein are essential to our moral nature, 
 and this again the ground-work and pre-condition of 
 the spiritual state, in which the Humanity strives after 
 Godliness and, in the name and power, and through 
 
PRUDENTIAL APHORISMS. 43 
 
 the prevenient and assisting grace, of the Mediator, 
 will not strive in vain. 
 
 APHORISM IX. editor. 
 
 The advantages of a life passed in conformity with 
 the precepts of virtue and religion, and in how many 
 and various respects they recommend virtue and re- 
 ligion, even on grounds of prudence, form a delightful 
 subject of meditation, and a source of refreshing thought 
 to good and pious men. Nor is it strange if, transported 
 with the view, such persons should sometimes discourse 
 on the charm of forms and colours to men whose 
 eyes are not yet couched; or that they occasionally 
 seem to invert the relations of cause and effect, and 
 forget that there are acts and determinations of the 
 will and affections, the consequences of which may be 
 plainly foreseen, and yet cannot be made our proper 
 and primary motives for such acts and determinations, 
 without destroying or entirely altering the distinct 
 nature and character of the latter. Sophron is well in- 
 formed that wealth and extensive patronage will be the 
 consequence of his obtaining the love and esteem of 
 Constantia. But if the foreknowledge of this conse- 
 quence were, and were found out to be, Sophron 's 
 main and determining motive for seeking this love and 
 esteem ; and if Constantia were a woman that merited, 
 or was capable of feeling, either one or the other; 
 would not Sophron find (and deservedly too) aversion 
 and contempt in their stead ? Wherein, if not in this, 
 
44 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 differs the friendship of worldlings from true friend- 
 ship ? Without kind offices and useful services, 
 wherever the power and opportunity occur, love 
 would be a hollow pretence. Yet what noble mind 
 would not be offended, if he were thought to value 
 the love for the sake of the services, and not rather 
 the services for the sake of the love ? 
 
 Dissertations on the profitableness of righteousness, 
 that " her ways are ways of pleasantness," we possess 
 many and eloquent, and in our most popular works. 
 Many such passages, and of great beauty, occur in the 
 volumes of Archbishop Leighton ; but they are not 
 particularly characteristic of his mind and genius. For 
 these reasons therefore, in addition to the scruples 
 avowed in the preceding pages, I have confined my 
 selection to a few specimens ; and shall now conclude 
 what I have thought expedient to observe in my own 
 person, by guarding against any possible misinter- 
 pretation of my sentiments by the two following apho- 
 risms: 
 
 APHORISM X. editor. 
 
 Though prudence in itself is neither virtue nor 
 spiritual holiness, yet without prudence, or in opposi- 
 tion to it, neither virtue nor holiness can exist. 
 
 APHORISM XI. editor. 
 
 Art thou under the tyranny of sin? a slave to 
 
 vicious habits ? at enmity with God, and a skulking 
 
 fugitive from thy own conscience? O, how idle the 
 
PRUDENTIAL APHORISMS. 45 
 
 dispute, whether the listening to the dictates of pru- 
 dence from prudential and self-interested motives be 
 virtue or merit, when the not listening is guilt, misery, 
 madness, and despair ! The best, the most Christian- 
 like pity thou canst show, is to take pity on thy own 
 soul. The best and most acceptable service thou canst 
 render, is to do justice and show mercy to thyself. 
 
 APHORISM XII. LEIGHTON. 
 
 What, you will say, have I beasts within me ? Yes, 
 you have beasts, and a vast number of them. And 
 that you may not think I intend to insult you, is anger 
 an inconsiderable beast, when it barks in your heart ? 
 What is deceit, when it lies hid in a cunning mind ; 
 is it not a fox ? Is not the man who is furiously bent 
 upon calumny, a scorpion ? Is not the person who is 
 eagerly set on resentment and revenge, a most ve- 
 nomous viper 1 What do you say of a covetous man ; 
 is he not a ravenous wolf? And is not the luxurious 
 man, as the prophet expresses it, a neighing horse? 
 Nay, there is no wild beast but is found within us. 
 And do you consider yourself as lord and prince of 
 the wild beasts, because you command those that are 
 without, though you never think of subduing or setting 
 bounds to those that are within you ? What advan- 
 tage have you by your reason, which enables you 
 to overcome lions, if, after all, you yourself are over- 
 come by anger ? To what purpose do you rule over 
 the birds, and catch them with gins, if you yourself, 
 with the inconstancy of a bird, or hurried hither and 
 thither, and sometimes flying high, are ensnared by 
 
46 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 pride, sometimes brought down and caught by plea- 
 sure ? But, as it is shameful for him who rules over 
 nations, to be a slave at home, and for the man who 
 sits at the helm of the state, to be meanly subjected to 
 the beck of a contemptible harlot, or even of an im- 
 perious wife ; will it not be, in like manner, disgraceful 
 for you, who exercise dominion over the beasts that 
 are without you, to be subject to a great many, and 
 those of the worst sort, that roar and domineer in 
 your distempered mind ? 
 
 APHORISM XIII. LEIGHTON. 
 
 There is a settled friendship, nay, a near relation 
 and similitude between God and good men; he is 
 even their father; but, in their education, he inures 
 them to hardships. When, therefore, you see them 
 struggling with difficulties, sweating, and employed 
 in up-hill work ; while the wicked, on the other hand, 
 are in high spirits, and swim in pleasures ; consider, 
 that we are pleased with modesty in our children, and 
 forwardness in our slaves : the former we keep under 
 by severe discipline, while we encourage impudence 
 in the latter. Be persuaded, that God takes the same 
 method. He does not pamper the good man with de- 
 licious fare, but tries him ; he accustoms him to hard- 
 ships, and, (which is a wonderful expression in a 
 heathen) prepares him for himself. 
 
 APHORISM XIV. LEIGHTON. 
 
 If what we are told concerning that glorious city, 
 obtain credit with us, we shall cheerfully travel towards 
 
PRUDENTIAL APHORISMS. 47 
 
 it, nor shall we be at all deterred by the difficulties 
 that may be in the way. But, however, as it is true, 
 and more suitable to the weakness of our minds, which 
 are rather apt to be affected with things present and 
 near, than such as are at a great distance, we ought 
 not to pass over in silence, that the way to the happi- 
 ness reserved in heaven, which leads through this 
 earth, is not only agreeable because of the blessed 
 prospect it opens, and the glorious end to which it con- 
 ducts, but also for its own sake, and on account of the 
 innate pleasure to be found in it, far preferable to any 
 other way of life that can be made choice of, or, in- 
 deed, imagined. Nay, that we may not, by low ex- 
 pressions, derogate from a matter so grand and so 
 conspicuous, that holiness and true religion which leads 
 directly to the highest felicity, is itself the only happi- 
 ness, as far as it can be enjoyed on this earth. What- 
 ever naturally tends to the attainment of any other 
 advantage, participates, in some measure, of the na- 
 ture of that advantage. Now, the way to perfect 
 felicity, if any thing can be so, is a means that, in a 
 very great measure, participates of the nature of its 
 end; nay, it is the beginning of that happiness, it 
 is also to be considered as a part of it, and differs from 
 it, in its completest state, not so much in kind, as in 
 degree. 
 
 APHORISM XV. LEIGHTON. 
 
 4 We are always resolving to live, and yet never set 
 < about life in good earnest*.' Archimedes was not 
 * Victuros agimus semper, nee vivimus unquam. 
 
48 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 singular in his fate ; but a great part of mankind die 
 unexpectedly, while they are poring upon the figures 
 they have described in the sand. O wretched mortals ! 
 who, having condemned themselves, as it were, to the 
 mines, seem to make it their chief study to prevent 
 their ever regaining their liberty. Hence, new em- 
 ployments are assumed in the place of old ones ; and, 
 as the Roman philosopher truly expresses it, ' one 
 ' hope succeeds another, one instance of ambition makes 
 ' way for another ; and we never desire an end of our 
 ' misery, but only that it may change its outward 
 ' form*.' When we cease to be candidates, and to 
 fatigue ourselves in soliciting interest, we begin to 
 give our votes and interest to those who solicit us in 
 their turn. When we are wearied of the trouble of 
 prosecuting crimes at the bar, we commence judges 
 ourselves ; and he who is grown old in the manage- 
 ment of other men's affairs for money, is at last em- 
 ployed in improving his own wealth. At the age of 
 fifty, says one, I will retire, and take my ease ; or 
 the sixtieth year of my life shall entirely disengage 
 me from public offices and business. Fool f art thou 
 not ashamed to reserve to thyself the last remains and 
 dregs of life ? Who will stand surety that thou shalt 
 live so long ? And what immense folly is it, so far to 
 forget mortality, as to think of beginning to live at 
 that period of years, to which a few only attain! 
 
 * Spes spem excipit, ambitionem ambitio, et miseriarum non 
 quseritur finis, sed schema tantum mutatur. 
 
REFLECTIONS RESPECTING MORALITY. 
 
REFLECTIONS RESPECTING MORALITY. 
 
 If Prudence, though practically inseparable from 
 Morality, is not to be confounded with the Moral Prin- 
 ciple ; still less may Sensibility, i. e. a constitutional 
 quickness of Sympathy with Pain and Pleasure, and a 
 keen sense of the gratifications that accompany social 
 intercourse, mutual endearments, and reciprocal pre- 
 ferences, be mistaken, or deemed a Substitute for either. 
 They are not even sure pledges of a good heart, 
 though among the most common meanings of that 
 many-meaning and too commonly misapplied expres- 
 sion. 
 
 So far from being either Morality, or one with the 
 Moral Principle, they ought not even be placed in the 
 same rank with Prudence. For Prudence is at least an 
 offspring of the Understanding ; but Sensibility (the 
 Sensibility, I mean, here spoken of), is for the greater 
 part a quality of the nerves, and a result of individual 
 bodily temperament. 
 
 Prudence is an active Principle, and implies a sacri- 
 fice of Self, though only to the same Self projected, as 
 it were, to a distance. But the very term Sensibility, 
 
 e 2 
 
52 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 marks its passive nature; and in its mere self, apart 
 from Choice and Reflection, it proves little more than 
 the coincidence or contagion of pleasurable or painful 
 Sensations in different persons. 
 
 Alas ! how many are |there in this over-stimulated 
 age, in which the occurrence of excessive and unhealthy 
 sensitiveness is so frequent, as even to have reversed 
 the current meaning of the word, nervous, — how many 
 are # there whose sensibility prompts them to remove 
 those evils alone, which by hideous spectacle or cla- 
 morous outcry are present to their senses and disturb 
 their selfish enjoyments. Provided the dunghill is not 
 before their parlour window, they are well contented 
 to know that it exists, and perhaps as the hotbed on 
 which their own luxuries are reared. Sensibility is not 
 necessarily Benevolence. Nay, by rendering us trem- 
 blingly alive to trifling misfortunes, it frequently pre- 
 vents it, and induces an effeminate Selfishness instead, 
 
 pampering the coward heart 
 
 With feelings all too delicate for use. 
 
 Sweet are the Tears, that from a Howard's eye 
 
 Drop on the cheek of one, he lifts from earth : 
 
 And He, who works me good with unmoved face, 
 
 Does it but half. He chills me, while he aids, 
 
 My Benefactor, not my Brother Man. 
 
 But even this, this cold benevolence, 
 
 Seems Worth, seems Manhood, when there rise before me 
 
 * This paragraph is abridged from the Watchman, No. IV. 
 March 25, 1796; respecting which the inquisitive Reader may 
 consult my " Literary Life." S. T. C. 
 
REFLECTIONS RESPECTING MORALITY. 53 
 
 The sluggard Pity's vision-weaving Tribe, 
 
 Who sigh for Wretchedness yet shun the wretched, 
 
 Nursing in some delicious Solitude 
 
 Their Slothful Loves and dainty Sympathies. 
 
 Sibylline Leaves, p. 180. 
 
 Lastly, where Virtue is, Sensibility is the ornament 
 and becoming Attire of Virtue. On certain occasions 
 it may almost be said to become * Virtue. But Sensi- 
 bility and all the amiable Qualities may likewise be- 
 come, and too often have become, the pandars of Vice 
 and the instruments of Seduction. 
 
 So must it needs be with all qualities that have their 
 rise only in parts and fragments of our nature. A 
 man of warm passions may sacrifice half his estate to 
 rescue a friend from Prison : for he is naturally sym- 
 pathetic, and the more social part of his nature hap- 
 pened to be uppermost. The same man shall after- 
 wards exhibit the same disregard of "money in an at- 
 tempt to seduce that friend's Wife or Daughter. 
 
 All the evil achieved by Hobbes and the whole 
 School of Materialists will appear inconsiderable if it 
 be compared with the mischief effected and occasioned 
 by the sentimental Philosophy of Sterne, and his nu- 
 
 * There sometimes occurs an apparent Play on words, which 
 not only to the Moralizer, but even to the philosophical Etymo- 
 logist, appears more than a mere Play. Thus in the double 
 sense of the word, become. I have known persons so anxious to 
 have their Dress become them, so totus in illo, as to convert it 
 at length into their proper self, and thus actually to become the 
 Dress. Such a one, (safeliest spoken of by the neuter Pronoun), 
 I consider as but a suit of live Finery. It is indifferent whether 
 we say — It becomes He, or, He becomes it. 
 
54 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 merous Imitators. The vilest appetites and the most 
 remorseless inconstancy towards their objects, acquired 
 the titles of the Heart, the irresistible Feelings, the too 
 tender Sensibility : and if the Frosts of Prudence, the 
 icy chains of Human Law thawed and vanished at the 
 genial warmth of Human Nature, who could help it ? 
 It was an amiable Weakness ! 
 
 About this time too the profanation of the word, 
 Love, rose to its height. The French Naturalists, 
 Buffon and others, borrowed it from the sentimental 
 Novellists : the Swedish and English Philosophers took 
 the contagion ; and the Muse of Science condescended 
 to seek admission into the Saloons of Fashion and 
 Frivolity, rouged like an Harlot, and with the Harlot's 
 wanton leer. I know not how the Annals of Guilt 
 could be better forced into the service of Virtue, than 
 by such a Comment on the present paragraph, as would 
 be afforded by a selection from the sentimental cor- 
 respondence produced in Courts of Justice within the 
 last thirty years, fairly translated into the true meaning 
 of the words, and the actual Object and Purpose of the 
 infamous Writers. Do you in good earnest aim at 
 Dignity of Character ? By all the treasures of a peace- 
 ful mind, by all the charms of an open countenance, 
 I conjure you, O youth ! turn away from those who 
 live in the Twilight between Vice and Virtue. Are not 
 Reason, Discrimination, Law, and deliberate Choice, 
 the distinguishing Characters of Humanity? Can 
 aught then worthy of a human Being proceed from 
 a Habit of Soul, which would exclude all these and 
 (to borrow a metaphor from Paganism) prefer the den 
 
REFLECTIONS RESPECTING MORALITY. 55 
 
 of Trophonius to the Temple and Oracles of the God 
 of Light ? Can any thing manly, I say, proceed from 
 those, who for Law and Light would substitute shape- 
 less feelings, sentiments, impulses, which as far as they 
 differ from the vital workings in the brute animals owe 
 the difference to their former connexion with the pro- 
 per Virtues of Humanity; as Dendrites derive the out- 
 lines, that constitute their value above other clay-stones, 
 from the casual neighbourhood and pressure of the 
 Plants, the names of which they assume ! Remember, 
 that Love itself in its highest earthly Bearing, as the 
 ground of the marriage union % becomes Love by an 
 inward fiat of the Will, by a completing and sealing 
 
 * It might be a mean of preventing many unhappy Marriages, 
 if the youth of both sexes had it early impressed on their minds, 
 that Marriage contracted between Christians is a true and per- 
 fect Symbol or Mystery ; that is, the actualizing Faith being 
 supposed to exist in the Receivers, it is an outward Sign co-es- 
 sential with that which it signifies, or a living Part of that, the 
 whole of which it represents. Marriage therefore, in the Chri- 
 stian sense (Ephesians v. 22, — 33), as symbolical of the union 
 of the Soul with Christ the Mediator, and with God through 
 Christ, is perfectly a sacramental ordinance, and not retained by 
 the Reformed Churches as one of the Sacraments, for two rea- 
 sons; first, that the Sign is not distinctive of the Church of 
 Christ, and the Ordinance not peculiar nor owing its origin to 
 the Gospel Dispensation ; secondly, it is not of universal obliga- 
 tion, not a means of Grace enjoined on all Christians. In other 
 and plainer words, Marriage does not contain in itself an open 
 Profession of Christ, and it is not a Sacrament of the Church, 
 but only of certain Individual Members of the Church. It is 
 evident, however, that neither of these Reasons affect or di- 
 
56 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 Act of Moral Election, and lays claim to permanence 
 only under the form of duty. 
 
 Again, I would impress it on the reader, that in 
 order to the full understanding of any Whole, it is 
 necessary to have learnt the nature of the component 
 parts, of each severally and, as far as is possible, ab- 
 stracted from the changes it may have undergone in 
 its combination with the others. On this account I 
 have deferred in order to give effectually the more in- 
 teresting and far more cheering contemplation of the 
 same Subjects in the reverse order ; Prudence, namely, 
 as it flows out of Morality, and Morality as the na- 
 
 minish the religious nature and dedicative force of the marriage 
 Vow, or detract from the solemnity of the Apostolic Declaration : 
 This is a great Mystery. 
 
 The interest, which the State has in the appropriation of one 
 Woman to one Man, and the civil obligations therefrom result- 
 ing, form an altogether distinct consideration. When I medi- 
 tate on the words of the Apostle, confirmed and illustrated as 
 they are, by so many harmonies in the Spiritual Structure of our 
 proper Humanity, (in the image of God, male and female cre- 
 ated he the Man), and then reflect how little claim so large a 
 number of legal cohabitations have to the name of Christian 
 Marriages — I feel inclined to doubt, whether the plan of cele- 
 brating Marriages universally by the civil magistrate, in the 
 first instance, and leaving the religious Covenant, and sacra- 
 mental Pledge to the election of the Parties themselves, adopted 
 during the Republic in England, and in our own times by the 
 French Legislature, was not in fact, whatever it might be in in- 
 tention, reverential to Christianity. At all events, it was their 
 own act and choice, if the Parties made bad worse by the pro- 
 fanation of a Gospel Mystery. 
 
REFLECTIONS RESPECTING MORALITY. 57 
 
 tural Overflowing of Religion, always the true though 
 sometimes the hidden Spring and Fountain-head of 
 all true Morality. 
 
 I have hitherto considered Prudence and Morality 
 as two Streams from different sources, and traced the 
 former to its supposed confluence with the latter. And 
 if it had been my present purpose and undertaking to 
 have placed Fruits from my own Garden before the 
 Reader, I should in like manner have followed the 
 course of Morality from its Twin Sources, the Affec- 
 tions and the Conscience, till (as the main Feeder into 
 some majestic Lake rich with hidden Springs of its own) 
 it flowed into, and became one with, the Spiritual Life. 
 
 Rut without a too glaring Rreach of the promise, 
 that the Ranquet for the greater part should consist 
 of Choice Clusters from the Vineyards of Archbishop 
 Leighton, this was not practicable, and now, I trust, 
 with the help of these introductory pages, no longer 
 necessary. 
 
 Still, however, it appears to me of the highest use 
 and of vital importance to let it be seen, that Religion 
 or the Spiritual Life is a something in itself, for which 
 mere Morality, were it even far more perfect in its kind 
 than experience authorises us to expect in unaided hu- 
 man Nature, is no Substitute, though it cannot but be 
 its Accompaniment. So far, therefore, I have adapted 
 the arrangement of the extracts to this principle, that 
 though I have found it impossible to separate the Mo- 
 ral from the Religious, the morality and moral views 
 of Leighton being every where taken from the point of 
 
58 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 Christian Faith, I have yet brought together under 
 one head, and in a separate Chapter, those subjects of 
 Reflection, that necessarily suppose or involve the faith 
 in an eternal state, and the probationary nature of our 
 existence under Time and Change. 
 
 These whether doctrinal or ascetic {disciplinary, 
 from the Greek atrxsaj, to exercise), whether they re- 
 spect the obstacles to the attainment of the Eternal, 
 irremoveable by the unrenewed and unaided Will of 
 Man ; or the removal of these Obstacles, with its Con- 
 currents and Consequents ; or, lastly, the Truths, neces- 
 sary to a rational belief in the Future, and which alone 
 can interpret the Past, or solve the Riddle of the Pre- 
 sent ; are especially meant in the term Spiritual. 
 
 Amply shall I deem myself remunerated if either b} r 
 the holy Charm, the good Spell of Leighton's Words, 
 than which few if any since the Apostolic age better 
 deserve the name of Evangelical, or by my own notes 
 and interpolations, the reflecting Reader should be 
 enabled to apprehend — for we may rightly apprehend 
 what no finite mind can fully comprehend — and attach 
 a distinct meaning to, the Mysteries into which his 
 Baptism is the initiation ; and thus to feel and know, that 
 Christian Faith is the perfection of Human 
 Reason. 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 
 
 APHORISM I. LEIGHTON. 
 
 What the Apostles were in an extraordinary way 
 befitting the first annunciation of a Religion for all 
 Mankind, this all Teachers of Moral Truth, who aim 
 to prepare for its reception by calling the attention of 
 men to the Law in their own hearts, may, without 
 presumption, consider themselves to be under ordinary 
 gifts and circumstances : namely, Ambassadors for the 
 Greatest of Kings, and upon no mean employment, the 
 great Treaty of Peace and Reconcilement betwixt him 
 and Mankind. 
 
 APHORISM II. LEIGHTON. 
 
 OF THE FEELINGS NATURAL TO INGENUOUS MINDS 
 TOWARDS THOSE WHO HAVE FIRST LED THEM TO 
 REFLECT. 
 
 Though Divine Truths are to be received equally 
 from every Minister alike, yet it must be acknowledged 
 that there is something (we know not what to call it) 
 of a more acceptable reception of those who at first 
 were the means of bringing men to God, than of 
 
62 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 others ; like the opinion some have of physicians, whom 
 they love. 
 
 APHORISM III. l. & ed. 
 
 The worth and value of Knowledge is in proportion 
 to the worth and value of its object. What, then, is 
 the best knowledge ? 
 
 The exactest knowledge of things, is, to know them 
 in their causes; it is then an excellent thing, and 
 worthy of their endeavours who are most desirous of 
 knowledge, to know the best things in their highest 
 causes; and the happiest way of attaining to this 
 knowledge, is, to possess those things, and to know 
 them in experience. 
 
 APHORISM IV. LEIGHTON. 
 
 It is one main point of happiness, that he that is 
 happy doth know and judge himself to be so. This 
 being the peculiar good of a reasonable creature, it is 
 to be enjoyed in a reasonable way. It is not as the 
 dull resting of a stone, or any other natural body in its 
 natural place ; but the knowledge and consideration of 
 it is the fruition of it, the very relishing and tasting 
 of its sweetness. 
 
 REMARK. 
 
 As in a Christian Land we receive the lessons of 
 Morality in connexion with the Doctrines of Revealed 
 Religion, we cannot too early free the mind from 
 prejudices widely spread, in part through the abuse, 
 but fat more from ignorance, of the true meaning of 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 63 
 
 doctrinal Terms, which, however they may have been 
 perverted to the purposes of Fanaticism, are not only 
 scriptural, but of too frequent occurrence in Scripture 
 to be overlooked or passed by in silence. The follow- 
 ing extract, therefore, deserves attention, as clearing the 
 doctrine of Salvation, in connexion with the divine 
 Foreknowledge, from all objections on the score of 
 Morality, by the just and impressive view which the 
 Archbishop here gives of those occasional revolutionary 
 moments, that Turn of the Tide in the mind and cha- 
 racter of certain Individuals, which (taking a religious 
 course, and referred immediately to the Author of all 
 Good) were in his day, more generally than at present, 
 entitled effectual calling. The theological inter- 
 pretation and the philosophic validity of this Apostolic 
 Triad, Election, Salvation, and Effectual Calling, (the 
 latter being the intermediate) will be found among the 
 Editor's Comments on the Aphorisms of Spiritual Im- 
 port. For our present purpose it will be sufficient if only 
 we prove, that the Doctrines are in themselves innocuous, 
 and may be both held and taught without any practical 
 ill-consequences, and without detriment to the moral 
 frame. 
 
 APHORISM V. LEIGHTON. 
 
 Two Links of the Chain (viz. Election and Salva- 
 tion) are up in heaven in God's own hand ; but this 
 middle one (i. e. Effectual Calling) is let down to 
 earth, into the hearts of his children, and they laying 
 hold on it have sure hold on the other two: for no 
 
64 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 power can sever them. If, therefore, they can read 
 the characters of God's image in their own souls, those 
 are the counter-part of the golden characters of His 
 love, in which their names are written in the book of 
 life. Their believing writes their names under the 
 promises of the revealed book of life (the Scriptures) 
 and thus ascertains them, that the same names are in 
 the secret book of life which God hath by himself from 
 eternity. So that finding the stream of grace in their 
 hearts, though they see not the fountain whence it 
 flows, nor the ocean into which it returns, yet they 
 know that it hath its source in their eternal election, 
 and shall empty itself into the ocean of their eternal 
 salvation. 
 
 If election, effectual calling' and salvation be in- 
 separably linked together, then, by any one of them a 
 man may lay hold upon all the rest, and may know 
 that his hold is sure ; and this is the way wherein we 
 may attain, and ought to seek, the comfortable as- 
 surance of the love of God. Therefore make your 
 calling sure, and by that, your election ; for that being 
 done, this follows of itself. We are not to pry im- 
 mediately into the decree, but to read it in the per- 
 formance. Though the mariner sees not the pole-star, 
 yet the needle of the compass which points to it, tells 
 him which way he sails : thus the heart that is touched 
 with the loadstone of divine love, trembling with godly 
 fear, and yet still looking towards God by fixed be- 
 lieving, interprets the fear by the love in the fear, and 
 tells the soul that its course is heavenward, towards 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 65 
 
 the haven of eternal rest. He that loves, may be sure 
 he was loved first ; and he that chooses God for his 
 delight and portion, may conclude confidently, that 
 God hath chosen him to be one of those that shall 
 enjoy him, and be happy in him for ever ; for that our 
 love and electing of him is but the return and reper- 
 cussion of the beams of his love shining upon us. 
 
 Although from present unsanctification, a man can- 
 not infer that he is not elected; for the decree may, 
 for part of a man's life, run (as it were) underground; 
 yet this is sure, that that estate leads to death, and 
 unless it be broken, will prove the black line of repro- 
 bation. A man hath no portion amongst the children 
 of God, nor can read one word of comfort in all the 
 promises that belong to them, while he remains unholy. 
 
 REMARK. 
 
 In addition to the preceding, I select the following 
 paragraphs as having no where seen the term, Spirit, 
 the Gifts of the Spirit, and the like, so effectually 
 vindicated from the sneers of the Sciolist on one hand, 
 and protected from the perversions of the Fanatic on 
 the other. In these paragraphs the Archbishop at 
 once shatters and precipitates the only draw-bridge 
 between the fanatical and the orthodox doctrine of 
 Grace, and the Gifts of the Spirit. In Scripture the 
 term, Spirit, as a power or property seated in the 
 human soul, never stands singly, but is always specified 
 by a genitive case following ; this being an Hebraism 
 instead of the adjective which the Writer would have 
 
66 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 used if he had thought, as well as written, in Greek. 
 It is " the Spirit of Meekness 1 ' (a meek Spirit), or "the 
 Spirit of Chastity," and the like. The moral Result, 
 the specific Form and Character in which the Spirit 
 manifests its presence, is the only sure pledge and token 
 of its presence : which is to be, and which safely may be, 
 inferred from its practical effects, but of which an im- 
 mediate knowledge or consciousness is impossible ; and 
 every Pretence to such knowledge is either hypocrisy 
 or fanatical delusion. 
 
 APHORISM VI. LEIGHTON. 
 
 If any pretend that they have the Spirit, and so 
 turn away from the straight rule of the holy Scrip- 
 tures, they have a spirit indeed, but it is a fanatical 
 spirit, the spirit of delusion and giddiness: but the 
 Spirit of God, that leads his children in the way of 
 truth, and is for that purpose sent them from heaven 
 to guide them thither, squares their thoughts and ways 
 to that rule whereof it is author, and that word which 
 was inspired by it, and sanctifies them to obedience. 
 He that saiih I know him, and heepeth not his com- 
 mandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 
 (1 John ii. 4.) 
 
 Now this Spirit which sanctifieth, and sanctifieth to 
 obedience, is within us the evidence of our election, 
 and the earnest of our salvation. And whoso are not 
 sanctified and led by this Spirit, the Apostle tells us 
 what is their condition : If any man have not the Spirit 
 of Christ, he is none of his. The stones which are 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 67 
 
 appointed for that glorious temple above, are hewn, 
 and polished, and prepared for it here ; as the stones 
 were wrought and prepared in the mountains, for 
 building the temple at Jerusalem. 
 
 COMMENT. 
 
 There are many serious and sincere Christians who 
 have not attained to a fullness of knowledge and in- 
 sight, but are well and judiciously employed in pre- 
 paring for it. Even these may study the master-works 
 of our elder Divines with safety and advantage, if they 
 will accustom themselves to translate the theological 
 terms into their moral equivalents; saying to them- 
 selves — This may not be all that is meant, but this is 
 meant, and it is that portion of the meaning, which 
 belongs to* me in the present stage of my progress. 
 For example : render the words, sanctification of the 
 Spirit, or the sanctifying influences of the Spirit, by, 
 Purity in Life and Action from a pure Principle. 
 
 He need only reflect on his own experience to be 
 convinced, that the Man makes the motive, and not 
 the motive the Man. What is a strong motive to one 
 man, is no motive at all to another. If, then, the 
 man determines the motive, what determines the Man 
 — to a good and worthy act, we will say, or a virtuous 
 Course of Conduct ? The intelligent Will, or the self- 
 determining Power ? True, in part it is ; and there- 
 fore the Will is pre-eminently the spiritual Constituent 
 n our Being. But will any reflecting man admit, that 
 his own Will is the only and sufficient determinant of 
 
68 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 all he isi, and all he does ? Is nothing to be attributed 
 to the harmony of the system to which he belongs, 
 and to the pre-established Fitness of the Objects and 
 Agents, known and unknown, that surround him, as 
 acting on the will, though, doubtless, with it likewise? 
 a process, which the co-instantaneous yet reciprocal 
 action of the Air and the vital Energy of the Lungs 
 in Breathing may help to render intelligible. 
 
 Again : in the World we see every where evidences 
 of a Unity, which the component Parts are so far from 
 explaining, that they necessarily pre-suppose it as the 
 cause and condition of their existing as those parts : 
 or even of their existing at all. This antecedent 
 Unity, or Cause and Principle of each Union, it has 
 since the time of Bacon and Kepler been customary 
 to call a Law. This Crocus, for instance: or any 
 other Flower, the Reader may have in sight or choose 
 to bring before his fancy. That the root, stem, leaves, 
 petals, &c. cohere to one plant, is owing to an an- 
 tecedent Power or Principle in the Seed, which existed 
 before a single particle of the matters that constitute 
 the size and visibility of the Crocus, had been at- 
 tracted from the surrounding Soil, Air, and Moisture. 
 Shall we turn to the Seed ? Here too the same ne- 
 cessity meets us. An antecedent Unity (I speak not 
 of the parent plant, but of an agency antecedent in 
 the order of operance, yet remaining present as the 
 conservative and reproductive Power) must here too 
 be supposed. Analyse the Seed with the finest tools, 
 and let the Solar Microscope come in aid of your 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 69 
 
 senses, what do you find ? Means and instruments, a 
 wondrous Fairy-tale of Nature, Magazines of Food, 
 Stores of various sorts, Pipes, Spiracles, Defences — a 
 House of many Chambers, and the Owner and In- 
 habitant invisible ! Reflect further on the countless 
 Millions of Seeds of the same Name, each more than 
 numerically differenced from every other : and further 
 yet, reflect on the requisite harmony of all surrounding 
 Things, each of which necessitates the same process of 
 thought, and the coherence of all of which to a System, 
 a World, demands its own adequate Antecedent Unity, 
 which must therefore of necessity be present to all and 
 in all, yet in no wise excluding or suspending the in- 
 dividual Law or Principle of Union in each. Now 
 will Reason, will Common Sense, endure the as- 
 sumption, that it is highly reasonable to believe a 
 Universal Power, as the cause and pre-condition of 
 the harmony of all particular Wholes, each of which 
 involves the working Principle of its own Union, in the 
 material and visible System — that it is reasonable, I 
 say, to believe this respecting the Aggregate of Objects, 
 which without a Subject (i. e. a sentient and intelligent 
 Existence) would be purposeless; and yet unreason- 
 able and even superstitious or enthusiastic to entertain 
 a similar Belief in relation to the System of intelligent 
 and self-conscious Beings, to the moral and personal 
 World ? But if in this too, in the great Community 
 of Persons, it is rational to infer a One universal Pre- 
 sence, a One present to all and in all, is it not most 
 irrational to suppose that a finite Will can exclude it ? 
 
70 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 Whenever, therefore, the Man is determined (i. e. im- 
 pelled and directed) to act in harmony of inter-com- 
 munion, must not something be attributed to this all- 
 present power as acting in the Will? and by what fitter 
 names can we call this than the law, as empowering; 
 the word, as informing; and the spirit, as ac- 
 tuating ? 
 
 What has been here said amounts (I am aware) 
 only to a negative Conception ; but this is all that is 
 required for a Mind at that period of its growth which 
 we are now supposing, and as long as Religion is con- 
 templated under the form of Morality. A positive 
 Insight belongs to a more advanced stage : for spiritual 
 truths can only spiritually be discerned. This we 
 know from Revelation, and (the existence of spiritual 
 truths being granted) Philosophy is compelled to draw 
 the same conclusion. But though merely negative, it 
 is sufficient to render the union of Religion and Mo- 
 rality conceivable ; sufficient to satisfy an unprejudiced 
 Inquirer, that the spiritual Doctrines of the Christian 
 Religion are not at war with the reasoning Faculty, and 
 that if they do not run on the same Line (or Radius) 
 with the Understanding, yet neither do they cut or cross 
 it. It is sufficient, in short, to prove, that some distinct 
 and consistent meaning may be attached to the as- 
 sertion of the learned and philosophic Apostle, that 
 44 the Spirit beareth witness with our spirit" — i. e. 
 with the Will, as the Supernatural in Man and the 
 Principle of our Personalty — of that, I mean, by which 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 71 
 
 we are responsible Agents ; Persons, and not merely 
 living Things*. 
 
 It will suffice to satisfy a reflecting mind, that even 
 at the porch and threshold of Revealed Truth there 
 is a great and worthy sense in which we may believe 
 the Apostle's assurance, that not only doth " the 
 Spirit aid our infirmities ;" that is, act on the Will by 
 a predisposing influence from without, as it were, 
 though in a spiritual manner, and without suspending 
 or destroying its freedom (the possibility of which is 
 proved to us in the influences of Education, of pro- 
 vidential Occurrences, and, above all, of Example) but 
 that in regenerate souls it may act in the will ; that 
 uniting and becoming one-f- with our will or spirit it 
 may " make intercession for us ;"" nay, in this intimate 
 
 * Whatever is comprized in the Chain and Mechanism of 
 Cause and Effect, of course necessitated, and having its ne- 
 cessity in some other thing, antecedent or concurrent — this is 
 said to he Natural; and the Aggregate and System of all such 
 things is Nature. It is, therefore, a contradiction in terms to 
 include in this the Free-will, of which the verbal definition is — 
 that which originates an act or state of Being. In this sense 
 therefore, which is the sense of St. Paul, and indeed of the 
 New Testament throughout, Spiritual and Supernatural are 
 synonymous. 
 
 t Some distant and faint similitude of this, that merely as a 
 similitude may be innocently used to quiet the Fancy, provided 
 it be not imposed on the understanding as an analogous fact 
 or as identical in kind, is presented to us in the power of the 
 Magnet to awaken and strengthen the magnetic power in a bar 
 of Iron, and (in the instance of the compound Magnet) acting 
 in and with the latter. 
 
72 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 union taking upon itself the form of our infirmities, 
 may intercede for us " with groanings that cannot be 
 uttered." Nor is there any danger of Fanaticism or 
 Enthusiasm as the consequence of such a belief, if 
 only the attention be carefully and earnestly drawn to 
 the concluding words of the sentence (Romans, viii. 
 v. 26.); if only the due force and the full import be 
 given to the term unutterable or incommunicable, in St. 
 Paul's use of it. In this, the strictest and most proper 
 use of the term, it signifies, that the subject, of which 
 it is predicated, is something which I cannot, which 
 from the nature of the thing it is impossible that I 
 should, communicate to any human mind (even of a 
 person under the same conditions with myself) so as to 
 make it in itself the object of his direct and immediate 
 consciousness. It cannot be the object of my own 
 direct and immediate Consciousness ; but must be in- 
 ferred. Inferred it may be from its workings : it 
 cannot be perceived in them. And, thanks to God ! 
 in all points in which the knowledge is of high and 
 necessary concern to our moral and religious welfare, 
 from the Effects it may safely be inferred by us, from 
 the Workings it may be assuredly known; and the 
 Scriptures furnish the clear and unfailing Rules for 
 directing the inquiry, and for drawing the conclusion. 
 If any reflecting mind be surprised that the aids of 
 the Divine Spirit should be deeper than our Conscious- 
 ness can reach, it must arise from the not having at- 
 tended sufficiently to the nature and necessary limits 
 of human Consciousness. For the same impossibility 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. IS 
 
 exists as to the first acts and movements of our own 
 will — the farthest back our recollection can follow the 
 traces, never leads us to the first foot-mark — the lowest 
 depth that the light of our Consciousness can visit even 
 with a doubtful Glimmering, is still at an unknown 
 distance from the Ground : and so, indeed, must it 
 be with all Truths, and all modes of Being that can 
 neither be counted, coloured, or delineated. Before 
 and After, when applied to such Subjects, are but 
 allegories, which the Sense or Imagination supply to 
 the Understanding. The Position of the Aristote- 
 leans, Nihil in intellectu quod non prius in sensu, on 
 which Mr. Locke's Essay is grounded, is irrefragable : 
 Locke erred only in taking half the truth for a whole 
 Truth. Conception is consequent on Perception. What 
 we cannot imagine, we cannot, in the proper sense of 
 the word, conceive. 
 
 I have already given one definition of Nature. 
 Another, and differing from the former in words only, 
 is this: Whatever is representable in the forms of 
 Time and Space, is Nature. But whatever is compre- 
 hended in Time and Space, is included in the Me- 
 chanism of Cause and Effect. And conversely, what- 
 ever, by whatever means, has its principle in itself, so 
 far as to originate its actions, cannot be contemplated 
 in any of the forms of Space and Time — it must, 
 therefore, be considered as Spirit or Spiritual by a 
 mind in that stage of its Developement which is here 
 Supposed, and which we have agreed to understand 
 under the name of Morality, or the Moral State : for 
 
74 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 in this stage we are concerned only with the forming 
 of negative conceptions, negative convictions ; and by 
 spiritual I do not pretend to determine what the Will 
 is, but what it is not — namely, that it is not Nature. 
 And as no man who admits a Will at all, (for we may 
 safely presume, that no man meaning to speak figura- 
 tively, would call the shifting Current of a stream the 
 will * of the River), will suppose it below Nature, 
 we may safely add, that it is super-natural; and this 
 without the least pretence to any positive Notion or 
 Insight. 
 
 Now Morality accompanied with Convictions like 
 these, I have ventured to call Religious Morality. Of 
 the importance I attach to the state of mind implied 
 in these convictions, for its own sake, and as the 
 natural preparation for a yet higher state and a more 
 substantive knowledge, proof more than sufficient, 
 perhaps, has been given in the length and minuteness 
 of this introductory Discussion, and in the foreseen 
 risk which I run of exposing the volume at large to 
 the censure which every work, or rather which every 
 writer, must be prepared to undergo, who, treating 
 of subjects that cannot be seen, touched, or in any 
 other way made matters of outward sense, is yet 
 anxious both to attach and to convey a distinct mean- 
 
 * " The River windeth at his own sweet Will." 
 Wordsworth's exquisite Sonnet on Westminster-bridge at Sun-rise. 
 
 But who does not see that here the poetic charm arises 
 from the known and felt impropriety of the expression, in the 
 technical sense of the word impropriety, among Grammarians ? 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 75 
 
 ing to the words he makes use of — the censure of 
 being dry, abstract, and (of all qualities most scaring 
 and opprobrious to the ears of the present generation) 
 metaphysical : though how it is possible that a work 
 not physical, that is, employed on Objects known or 
 believed on the evidence of senses, should be other 
 than metaphysical, that is, treating on Subjects, the 
 evidence of which is not derived from the Senses, is a 
 problem which Critics of this order find it convenient 
 to leave unsolved. 
 
 The Editor and Annotator of the present Volume, 
 will, indeed, have reason to think himself fortunate, if 
 this be all the Charge ! How many smart quotations, 
 which (duly cemented by personal allusions to the 
 Author's supposed Pursuits, Attachments, and In- 
 firmities), would of themselves make up " A Review" 
 of the Volume, might be supplied from the works of 
 Butler, Swift and Warburton. For instance : ' It 
 ' may not be amiss to inform the Public, that the 
 ' Compiler of the Aids to Reflection, and Comra enter 
 ' on a Scotch Bishop's platonico-calvinistic commentary 
 1 on St. Peter, belongs to the Sect of the JEolists, 
 6 whose fruitful imaginations lead them into certain 
 ' notions, which although in appearance very unac- 
 i countable, are not without their mysteries and their 
 6 meanings; furnishing plenty of Matter for such, 
 ' whose converting 1 Imaginations dispose them to reduce 
 ' all things into types ; who can make shadows, no 
 1 thanks to the Sun; and then mould them into sub- 
 * stances, no thanks to Philosophy; whose peculiar 
 
76 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 ' Talent lies infixing tropes and allegories to the 
 i letter, and refining what is literal into figure 
 ' and mystery.' — Tale of the Tub, Sect. xi. 
 
 And would it were my lot to meet with a Critic, 
 who, in the might of his own Convictions, and with 
 arms of equal Point and Efficiency from his own 
 Forge, would come forth as my Assailant ; or who, as 
 a friend to my purpose, would set forth the Objections 
 to the matter and pervading Spirit of these Aphorisms, 
 and the accompanying Elucidations. Were it my task 
 to form the mind of a young man of Talent, desirous 
 to establish his opinions and belief on solid principles, 
 and in the light of distinct understanding, I would 
 commence his theological studies, or, at least, that 
 most important part of them respecting the aids which 
 Religion promises in our attempts to realize the ideas 
 of Morality, by bringing together all the passages 
 scattered throughout the Writings of Swift and Butler, 
 that bear on Enthusiasm, Spiritual Operations, and 
 pretences to the Gifts of the Spirit, with the whole 
 train of New Lights, Raptures, Experiences, and the 
 like. For all that the richest Wit, in intimate union 
 with profound Sense and steady Observation, can 
 supply on these Topics, is to be found in the works of 
 these Satirists; though unhappily alloyed with much 
 that can only tend to pollute the Imagination. 
 
 Without stopping to estimate the degree of carica- 
 ture in the Portraits sketched by these bold Masters, 
 and without attempting to determine in how many of 
 the Enthusiasts, brought forward by them in proof 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 77 
 
 of the influence of false Doctrines, a constitutional 
 Insanity, that would probably have shown itself in 
 some other form, would be the truer Solution, I would 
 direct my Pupil's attention to one feature common to 
 the whole Group — the pretence, namely, of possessing, 
 or a Belief and Expectation grounded on other men's 
 assurances of their possessing, an immediate Conscious- 
 ness, a sensible Experience, of the Spirit in and during 
 its operation on the soul. It is not enough that you 
 grant them a consciousness of the Gifts and Graces 
 infused, or an assurance of the Spiritual Origin of the 
 same, grounded on their correspondence to the Scrip- 
 ture Promises, and their conformity with the Idea of 
 the divine Giver. No ! They all alike, it will be found, 
 lay claim (or at least look forward) to an inward per- 
 ception of the Spirit itself and of its operating. 
 
 Whatever must be misrepresented in order to 
 be ridiculed, is in fact not ridiculed; but the thing 
 substituted for it. It is a Satire on something else, 
 coupled with a Lie on the part of the Satirist, who 
 knowing, or having the means of knowing the truth, 
 chose to call one thing by the name of another. The 
 Pretensions to the Supernatural, pilloried by Butler, 
 sent to Bedlam by Swift, and (on their re-appearance 
 in public) gibbetted by Warburton, and anatomized 
 by Bishop Lavington, one and all have this for their 
 essential character, that the Spirit is made the imme- 
 diate Object of Sense or Sensation. Whether the Spi- 
 ritual Presence and Agency are supposed cognizable 
 by an indescribable Feeling or in unimaginable Vision 
 
78 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 by some specific visual energy ; whether seen, or heard, 
 or touched, smelt, and tasted — for in those vast Store- 
 houses of fanatical assertion, the volumes of Ecclesi- 
 astical History and religious Auto-biography, In- 
 stances are not wanting even of the three latter extra- 
 vagancies — this variety in the mode may render the 
 several pretensions more or less offensive to the Taste; 
 but with the same Absurdity for the Reason, this 
 being derived from a contradiction in terms common 
 and radical to them all alike, the assumption of a 
 something essentially supersensual, that is nevertheless 
 the object of Sense, i. e. not supersensual. 
 
 Well then ! — for let me be allowed still to suppose 
 the Reader present to me, and that I am addressing 
 him in the character of Companion and Guide — the 
 positions recommended for your examination not only 
 do not involve, but exclude, this inconsistency. And for 
 aught that hitherto appears, we may see with compla- 
 cency the Arrows of Satire feathered with Wit, weighted 
 with Sense, and discharged by a strong Arm, fly home 
 to their mark. Our Conceptions of a possible Spiritual 
 Communion, though they are but negative, and only 
 preparatory to a faith in its actual existence, stand 
 neither in the Level or the Direction of the Shafts. 
 
 If it be objected, that Swift and Warburton did not 
 choose openly to set up the interpretations of later and 
 more rational Divines against the decisions of their 
 own Church, and from prudential considerations did 
 not attack the doctrine in toto : that is their concern 
 (I would answer), and it is more charitable to think 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 79 
 
 otherwise. But we are in the silent school of Reflec- 
 tion, in the secret confessional of Thought. Should 
 we ' lie for God, 1 and that to our own Thoughts? 
 They indeed, who dare do the one, will soon be able 
 to do the other. So did the Comforters of Job : and 
 to the Divines, who resemble JoVs Comforters, we will 
 leave both attempts. 
 
 But (it may be said), a possible Conception is not 
 necessarily a true one ; nor even a probable one, where 
 the Facts can be otherwise explained. In the name of 
 the supposed Pupil 1 would reply — That is the very 
 question I am preparing myself to examine ; and am 
 now seeking the Vantage-ground where I may best 
 command the Facts. In my own person, I would ask 
 the Objector, whether he counted the Declarations of 
 Scripture among the Facts to be explained. But both 
 for myself and my Pupil, and in behalf of all rational 
 Enquiry, I would demand that the Decision should 
 not be such, in itself or in its effects, as would prevent 
 our becoming acquainted with the most important of 
 these Facts ; nay, such as would, for the mind of the 
 Decider, preclude their very existence. Unless ye 
 believe^ says the Prophet, ye cannot understand. Sup- 
 pose (what is at least possible) that the facts should 
 be consequent on the belief, it is clear that without the 
 belief the materials, on which the understanding is to 
 exert itself, would be wanting. 
 
 The reflections that naturally arise out of this last 
 remark, are those that best suit the stage at which we 
 last halted, and from which we now recommence our 
 
80 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 progress — the state of a Moral Man, who has already 
 welcomed certain truths of Religion, and is inquiring 
 after other and more special Doctrines : still however 
 as a Moralist, desirous indeed to receive them into 
 combination with Morality, but to receive them as 
 its Aid, not as its Substitute. Now, to such a man I 
 say; Before you reject the Opinions and Doctrines 
 asserted and enforced in the following Extract from 
 our eloquent Author, and before you give way to the 
 Emotions of Distaste or Ridicule, which the Prejudices 
 of the Circle in which you move, or your own fami- 
 liarity with the mad perversions of the doctrine by Fa- 
 natics in all ages, have connected with the very words, 
 Spirit, Grace, Gifts, Operations, &c. re-examine the 
 arguments advanced in the first pages of this Intro- 
 ductory Comment, and the simple and sober View of 
 the Doctrine, contemplated in the first instance as a 
 mere Idea of the Reason, flowing naturally from the 
 admission of an infinite omnipresent Mind as the 
 Ground of the Universe. Reflect again and again, 
 and be sure that you understand the Doctrine before you 
 determine on rejecting it. That no false judgements, 
 no extravagant conceits, no practical ill-consequences 
 need arise out of the Belief of the Spirit, and its possi- 
 ble communion with the Spiritual Principle in Man, or 
 can arise out of the right Belief, or are compatible with 
 the Doctrine truly and scripturally explained, Leigh- 
 ton, and almost every single Period in the Passage 
 here transcribed from him, will suffice to convince you. 
 On the other hand, reflect on the consequences of 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 81 
 
 rejecting it. For surely it is not the act of a reflecting 
 mind, nor the part of a Man of Sense to disown and 
 cast out one Tenet, and yet persevere in admitting and 
 clinging to another that has neither sense nor purpose, 
 that does not suppose and rest on the truth and reality 
 of the former ! If you have resolved that all belief of 
 a divine Comforter present to our inmost Being and 
 aiding our infirmities, is fond and fanatical — if the 
 Scriptures promising and asserting such communion 
 are to be explained away into the action of circum- 
 stances, and the necessary movements of the vast ma- 
 chine, in one of the circulating chains of which the 
 human Will is a petty Link — in what better light can 
 Prayer appear to you, than the groans of a wounded 
 Lion in his solitary Den, or the howl of a Dog with 
 his eyes on the Moon ? At the best, you can regard 
 it only as a transient bewilderment of the Social In- 
 stinct, as a social Habit misapplied ! Unless indeed 
 you should adopt the theory which I remember to 
 have read in the writings of the late Dr. Jebb, and for 
 some supposed beneficial re- action of Praying on the 
 Prayer's own Mind, should practise it as a species of 
 Animal- Magnetism to be brought about by a wilful 
 eclipse of the Reason, and a temporary make-believe 
 on the part of the Self-magnetizer ! 
 
 At all events, do not pre-judge a Doctrine, the utter 
 rejection of which must oppose a formidable obstacle to 
 your acceptance of Christianity itself, when the Books, 
 from which alone we can learn what Christianity is 
 and teaches, are so strangely written, that in a series of 
 
 G 
 
82 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 the most concerning points, including (historical facts 
 excepted) all the peculiar Tenets of the Religion, the 
 plain and obvious meaning of the words, that in which 
 they were understood by Learned and Simple for at 
 least sixteen Centuries, during the far larger part of 
 which the language was a living language, is no suf- 
 ficient guide to their actual sense or to the Writer's own 
 Meaning ! And this too, where the literal and received 
 Sense involves nothing impossible, or immoral, or con- 
 trary to reason. With such a persuasion, Deism would 
 be a more consistent Creed. But, alas ! even this will 
 fail you. The utter rejection of all present and living 
 communion with the Universal Spirit impoverishes 
 Deism itself, and renders it as cheerless as Atheism, 
 from which indeed it would differ only by an obscure 
 impersonation of what the Atheist receives unpersoni- 
 fied under the name of Fate or Nature. 
 
 APHORISM VII. l.&ed. 
 
 The proper and natural Effect, and in the absence 
 of all disturbing or intercepting forces, the certain and 
 sensible accompaniment of Peace (or Reconcilement) 
 with God, is our own inward Peace, a calm and quiet 
 temper of mind. And where there is a consciousness of 
 earnestly desiring, and of having sincerely striven after 
 the former, the latter may be considered as a Sense of 
 its presence. In this case, I say, and for a soul watch- 
 ful, and under the discipline of the Gospel, the Peace 
 with a man's self may be the medium or organ through 
 which the assurance of his Peace with God is conveyed. 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 83 
 
 We will not therefore condemn this mode of speaking, 
 though we dare not greatly recommend it. Be it, that 
 there is, truly and in sobriety of speech, enough of just 
 Analogy in the subjects meant, to make this use of the 
 words, if less than proper, yet something more than 
 metaphorical ; still we must be cautious not to transfer 
 to the Object the defects or the deficiency of the Organ, 
 which must needs partake of the imperfections of the 
 imperfect Beings to whom it belongs. Not without 
 the co-assurance of other senses and of the same sense 
 in other men, dare we affirm that what our Eye be- 
 holds, is verily there to be beheld. Much less may we 
 conclude negatively, and from the inadequacy or sus- 
 pension or affections of the Sight infer the non-ex- 
 istence, or departure, or changes of the Thing itself. 
 The Camelion darkens in the shade of him that bends 
 over it to ascertain its colours. In like manner, but 
 with yet greater caution, ought we to think respecting 
 a tranquil habit of the inward life, considered as a 
 spiritual Sense, as the medial Organ in and by which 
 our Peace with God, and the lively Working of his 
 Grace on our Spirit, are perceived by us. This Peace 
 which we have with God in Christ, is inviolable ; but 
 because the sense and persuasion of it may be in- 
 terrupted, the soul that is truly at peace with God may 
 for a time be disquieted in itself, through weakness of 
 faith, or the strength of temptation, or the darkness of 
 desertion, losing sight of that grace, that love and light 
 of God's countenance, on which its tranquillity and joy 
 depend. Thou didst hide thy face, saith David, and 
 
 g2 
 
 y 
 
84 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 1 was troubled. But when these eclipses are over, the 
 soul is revived with new consolation, as the face of the 
 earth is renewed and made to smile with the return of 
 the sun in the spring ; and this ought always to uphold 
 Christians in the saddest times, viz. that the grace and 
 love of God towards them depend not on their sense, 
 nor upon any thing in them, but is still in itself, inca- 
 pable of the smallest alteration. 
 
 A holy heart that gladly entertains grace, shall find 
 that it and peace cannot dwell asunder ; while an un- 
 godly man may sleep to death in the lethargy of car- 
 nal presumption and impenitency ; but a true, lively, 
 solid peace he cannot have. There is no peace to the 
 wicked, saith my God, Isa. lvii. 21. 
 
 APHORISM VIII. LEIGHTON. 
 
 WORLDLY HOPES. 
 
 Worldly hopes are not living, but lying hopes; 
 they die often before us, and we live to bury them, and 
 see our own folly and infelicity in trusting to them ; but 
 at the utmost, they die with us when we die, and can 
 accompany us no further. But the lively Hope, which 
 is the Christian's Portion, answers expectation to the 
 full, and much beyond it, and deceives no way but in 
 that happy way of far exceeding it. 
 
 A living hope, living in death itself ! The world 
 dares say no more for its device, than Duin spiro spero ; 
 but the children of God can add, by virtue of this 
 living hope, Dum exspiro spero. 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 85 
 
 APHORISM IX. LEIGHTON. 
 
 THE WORLDLING'S FEAR. 
 
 It is a fearful thing when a man and all his hopes 
 die together. Thus saith Solomon of the wicked, Prov. 
 xi. 7., When he dieth, then die his hopes ; (many of 
 them before, but at the utmost then *, all of them ;) 
 but the righteous hath hope in his death, Prov. xiv. 32. 
 
 APHORISM X. L. & ed. 
 
 WORLDLY MIRTH. 
 
 As fie that taketh away a garment in cold weather, 
 and as vinegar upon nitre, so is he that singeth songs 
 to a heavy heart, Prov. xxv. 20. Worldly mirth is so 
 far from curing spiritual grief, that even worldly grief, 
 where it is great and takes deep root, is not allayed 
 but increased by it. A man who is full of inward 
 heaviness, the more he is encompassed about with 
 mirth, it exasperates and enrages his grief the more ; 
 like ineffectual weak physic, which removes not the 
 humour, but stirs it and makes it more unquiet. But 
 spiritual joy is seasonable for all estates : in prosperity, 
 it is pertinent to crown and sanctify all other enjoy- 
 ments, with this which so far surpasses them ; and in 
 distress, it is the only Nepenthe-, the cordial of fainting 
 
 * One of the numerous proofs against those who with a strange 
 inconsistency hold the Old Testament to have been inspired 
 throughout, and yet deny that the doctrine of a future state is 
 taught therein. £t ^AjutA«JU"fe fojt^r.~-\ "?t>.<*J" 
 
 ">i*#h*<ij th ******* i ■ *-*& ■*£•'■ ' 
 
 * — / f 
 
86 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 spirits : so, Psal. iv. 7, He hath put joy into my heart. 
 This mirth makes way for itself, which other mirth 
 cannot do. These songs are sweetest in the night of 
 distress. 
 
 There is something exquisitely beautiful and touch- 
 ing in the first of these similes : and the second, though 
 less pleasing to the imagination, has the charm of pro- 
 priety, and expresses the transition with equal force 
 and liveliness. A Grief of recent birth is a sick In- 
 fant that must have its medicine administered in its 
 Milk, and sad Thoughts are the sorrowful Heart's 
 natural food. This is a Complaint that is not to be 
 cured by opposites, which for the most part only re- 
 verse the symptoms while they exasperate the Disease 
 — or like a Rock in the Mid Channel of a River swoln 
 by a sudden rain-flush from the mountain, which only 
 detains the excess of Waters from their proper Outlet, 
 and make them foam, roar, and eddy. The Soul in 
 her desolation hugs the sorrow close to her, as her sole 
 remaining garment: and this must be drawn off so 
 gradually, and the garment to be put in its stead so 
 gradually slipt on and feel so like the former, that the 
 Sufferer shall be sensible of the change only by the re- 
 freshment. The true Spirit of Consolation is well con- 
 tent to detain the tear in the eye, and finds a surer 
 pledge of its success in the smile of Resignation that 
 dawns through that, than in the liveliest shows of a 
 forced and alien exhilaration. 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 87 
 
 APHORISM XL editor. 
 
 Plotinus thanked God, that his Soul was not tied to 
 an immortal Body. 
 
 APHORISM XII. l. & ed. 
 
 What a full Confession do we make of our dissatisfac- 
 tion with the Objects of our bodily senses, that in our 
 attempts to express what we conceive the Best of Beings, 
 and the Greatest of Felicities to be, we describe by the 
 exact Contraries of all, that we experience here — the 
 one as infinite, incomprehensible, immutable, &c. the 
 other as incorruptible, nndefiled, and that passeth not 
 away. At all events, this Coincidence, say rather, 
 Identity of Attributes is sufficient to apprize us, that 
 to be inheritors of Bliss we must become the children 
 of God. 
 
 This Remark of Leighton's is ingenious and startling. 
 Another, and more fruitful, perhaps more solid, in- 
 ference from the fact would be, that there is something 
 in the human mind which makes it know (as soon as it 
 is sufficiently awakened to reflect on its own thoughts 
 and notices), that in all finite Quantity there is an In- 
 finite, in all measures of Time an Eternal; that the 
 latter are the basis, the substance, the true and abiding 
 reality of the former ; and that as we truly are, only 
 as far as God is with us, so neither can we truly possess 
 (i. e. enjoy) our Being or any other real Good, but by 
 living in the sense of his holy presence. 
 
 A Life of Wickedness is a Life of Lies : and an 
 
88 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 Evil Being, or the Being of Evil, the last and darkest 
 mystery. 
 
 APHORISM XIII. LEIGHTON. 
 
 THE WISEST USE OF THE IMAGINATION. 
 
 It is not altogether unprofitable; yea, it is great 
 wisdom in Christians to be arming themselves against 
 such temptations as may befal them hereafter, though 
 they have not as yet met with them; to labour to 
 overcome them before-hand, to suppose the hardest 
 things that may be incident to them, and to put on the 
 strongest resolutions they can attain unto. Yet all that 
 is but an imaginary effort ; and therefore there is no 
 assurance that the victory is any more than imaginary 
 too, till it come to action, and then, they that have 
 spoken and thought very confidently, may prove but 
 (as one said of the Athenians) fortes in tabula, patient 
 and courageous in picture or fancy; and, notwith- 
 standing all their arms, and dexterity in handling them 
 by way of exercise, may be foully defeated when they 
 are to fight in earnest. 
 
 APHORISM XIV. editor. 
 
 THE LANGUAGE OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 The Word of God speaks to Men, and therefore it 
 speaks the language of the Children of Men. This 
 just and pregnant Thought was suggested to Leigh ton 
 by Gen. xxii. 12. The same Text has led the Editor 
 to unfold and expand the Remark. — On moral subjects, 
 the Scriptures speak in the language of the Affections 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 89 
 
 which they excite in us ; on sensible objects, neither 
 metaphysically, as they are known by superior in- 
 telligences ; nor theoretically, as they would be seen by 
 us were we placed in the Sun ; but as they are repre- 
 sented by our human senses in our present relative 
 position. Lastly, from no vain, or worse than vain, 
 Ambition of seeming " to walk on the Sea 1 ' of My- 
 stery in my way to Truth, but in the hope of re- 
 moving a difficulty that presses heavily on the minds of 
 many who in Heart and Desire are believers, and which 
 long pressed on my own mind, I venture to add : that 
 on spiritual things, and allusively to the mysterious 
 union or conspiration of the Divine with the Human 
 in the Spirits of the Just, spoken of in Romans, viil£7., 
 the Word of God attributes the language of the Spirit 
 sanctified to the Holy One, the Sanctifier. 
 
 Now the Spirit in Man (that is, the Will) knows its 
 own State in and by its Acts alone : even as in geo- 
 metrical reasoning the Mind knows its constructive 
 faculty in the act of constructing, and contemplates 
 the act in the product {i. e. the mental figure or dia- 
 gram) which is inseparable from the act and co-instan- 
 taneous. 
 
 Let the Reader join these two positions: first, that 
 the Divine Spirit acting in the Human Will is de- 
 scribed as one with the Will so filled and actuated : 
 secondly, that our actions are the means, by which 
 alone the Will becomes assured of its own state : and 
 he will understand, though he may not perhaps adopt 
 
90 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 my suggestion, that the Verse, in which God speak- 
 ing of himself, says to Abraham, Now I know that 
 thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy 
 Son, thy only Son, from me — may be more than merely 
 figurative. An accommodation I grant ; but in the 
 thing expressed, and not altogether in the Expressions. 
 In arguing with Infidels, or with the weak in faith, 
 it is a part of religious Prudence, no less than of 
 religious Morality, to avoid whatever looks like an 
 evasion. To retain the literal sense, wherever the 
 harmony of Scripture permits, and reason does not 
 forbid, is ever the honester, and, nine times in ten, the 
 more rational and pregnant interpretation. 
 
 Of the Figures of Speech in the sacred Volume, 
 that are only Figures of Speech, the one of most fre- 
 quent occurrence is that which describes an effect by 
 the name of its most usual and best known cause: 
 the passages, for instance, in which Grief, Fury, Re- 
 pentance, &c, are attributed to the Deity. But these 
 are far enough from justifying the (I had almost said, 
 dishonest) fashion of metaphorical Glosses, in as well 
 as out of the Church ; and which our fashionable Di- 
 vines have carried to such an extent, as, in the doc- 
 trinal part of their Creed, to leave little else but Meta- 
 phors. But the Reader who wishes to find this latter 
 subject, and that of the Aphorism, treated more at 
 large, is referred to Southey's Omniana, Vol. II. p. 
 7—12. and to the Note in p. 62—67. of the Editor's 
 second Lay-Sermon. 
 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 91 
 
 APHORISM XV. L . & ED . 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN NO STOIC. 
 
 Seek not altogether to dry up the stream of Sorrow, 
 but to bound it, and keep it within its banks. Re- 
 ligion doth not destroy the life of nature, but adds 
 to it a life more excellent ; yea, it doth not only per- 
 mit, but requires some feeling of afflictions. Instead 
 of patience, there is in some men an affected pride of 
 spirit suitable only to the doctrine of the Stoics as 
 it is usually taken. They strive not to feel at all the 
 afflictions that are on them ; but where there is no feel- 
 ing at all, there can be no patience. 
 
 Of the sects of ancient philosophy the Stoic is, 
 doubtless, the nearest to Christianity, Yet even to 
 this Christianity is fundamentally opposite. For the 
 Stoic attaches the highest honour (or rather, attaches 
 honour solely) to the person that acts virtuously in 
 spite of his feelings, or who has raised himself above 
 the conflict by their extinction ; while Christianity in- 
 structs us to place small reliance on a Virtue that does 
 not begin by bringing the Feelings to a conformity 
 with the Commands of the Conscience. Its especial 
 aim, its characteristic operation, is to moralize the 
 affections. The Feelings, that oppose a right act, 
 must be wrong Feelings. The act, indeed, whatever 
 the Agents Jeelings might be, Christianity would com- 
 mand : and under certain circumstances would both 
 command and commend it — commend it, as a health- 
 
92 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 ful symptom in a sick Patient ; and command it, as one 
 of the ways and means of changing the Feelings, or 
 displacing them by calling up the opposite. 
 
 APHORISM XVI. leighton. 
 
 As excessive eating or drinking both makes the 
 body sickly and lazy, fit for nothing but sleep, and 
 besots the mind, as it clogs up with crudities the way 
 through which the spirits should pass *, bemiring them, 
 and making them move heavily, as a coach in a deep 
 way; thus doth all immoderate use of the world and 
 its delights wrong the soul in its spiritual condition, 
 makes it sickly and feeble, full of spiritual distempers 
 and inactivity, benumbs the graces of the Spirit, and 
 fills the soul with sleepy vapours, makes it grow secure 
 and heavy in spiritual exercises, and obstructs the way 
 and motion of the Spirit of God, in the soul. There- 
 fore, if you would be spiritual, healthful, and vigorous, 
 and enjoy much of the consolations of Heaven, be 
 sparing and sober in those of the earth, and what you 
 abate of the one, shall be certainly made up in the 
 other. 
 
 * Technical phrases of an obsolete System will yet retain 
 their places, nay, acquire universal currency, and become sterling 
 in the language, when they at once represent the feelings, and 
 give an apparent solution of them by visual images easily ma- 
 naged by the Fancy. Such are many terms and phrases from 
 the Humoral Physiology long exploded, yet are far more popu- 
 lar than any description would be from the Theory that has 
 taken its place. 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 93 
 
 APHORISM XVII. l.&ed. 
 
 INCONSISTENCY. 
 
 It is a most unseemly and unpleasant thing, to see a 
 man's life full of ups and downs, one step like a Chri- 
 stian, and another like a worldling ; it cannot choose but 
 both pain himself and mar the edification of others. 
 
 The same sentiment, only with a special application 
 to the maxims and measures of our Cabinet and States- 
 men, had been finely expressed by a sage Poet of the 
 preceding Generation, in lines which no Generation 
 will find inapplicable or superannuated. 
 
 God and the World we worship both together, 
 
 Draw not our Laws to Him, but His to ours ; 
 Untrue to both, so prosperous in neither, 
 
 The imperfect Will brings forth but barren Flowers ! 
 Unwise as all distracted Interests be, 
 Strangers to God, Fools in Humanity : 
 Too good for great things, and too great for good, 
 While still " I dare not" waits upon " I wou'd." 
 
 APHORISM XVII. CONTINUED, leighton. 
 THE ORDINARY MOTIVE TO INCONSISTENCY. 
 
 What though the polite man count thy fashion a 
 little odd and too precise, it is because he knows no- 
 thing above that model of goodness which he hath set 
 himself, and therefore approves of nothing beyond it : 
 he knows not God, and therefore doth not discern and 
 esteem what is most like Him. When courtiers come 
 down into the country, the common home-bred people 
 
94 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 possibly think their habit strange ; but they care not 
 for that, it is the fashion at court. What need, then, 
 that Christians should be so tender-foreheaded, as to 
 be put out of countenance because the world looks on 
 holiness as a singularity? It is the only fashion in the 
 highest court, yea, of the King of Kings himself. 
 
 APHORISM XVIII. LEIGHTON. 
 
 SUPERFICIAL RECONCILIATIONS, AND THE SELF-DECEIT 
 IN FORGIVING. 
 
 When, after variances, men are brought to an agree- 
 ment, they are much subject to this, rather to cover 
 their remaining malices with superficial verbal for- 
 giveness, than to dislodge them, and free the heart of 
 them. This is a poor self-deceit. As the philosopher 
 said to him, who being ashamed that he was espied by 
 him in a tavern in the outer room, withdrew himself 
 to the inner, he called after him, ' That is not the 
 i way out ; the more you go that way, you will be 
 4 the further in P So when hatreds are upon ad- 
 monition, not thrown out, but retire inward to hide 
 themselves, they grow deeper and stronger than before ; 
 and those constrained semblances of reconcilement are 
 but a false healing, do but skin the wound over, and 
 therefore it usually breaks forth worse again. 
 
 APHORISM XIX. LEIGHTON. 
 
 OF THE WORTH AND THE DUTIES OF THE PREACHER. 
 
 The stream of custom and our profession bring us 
 to the Preaching of the Word, and we sit out our hour 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 95 
 
 under the sound ; but how few consider and prize it 
 as the great ordinance of God for the salvation of 
 souls, the beginner and the sustainer of the Divine life 
 of grace within us ! And certainly, until we have 
 these thoughts of it, and seek to feel it thus ourselves, 
 although we hear it most frequently, and let slip no 
 occasion, yea, hear it with attention and some present 
 delight, yet still we miss the right use of it, and turn 
 it from its true end, while we take it not as that in- 
 grafted word which is able to save our souls, James 
 i. 81. 
 
 Thus ought they who preach to speak the word ; to 
 endeavour their utmost to accommodate it to this end, 
 that sinners may be converted, begotten again, and 
 believers nourished and strengthened in their spiritual 
 life ; to regard no lower end, but aim steadily at that 
 mark. Their hearts and tongues ought to be set on 
 fire with holy zeal for God and love to souls, kindled 
 by the Holy Ghost, that came down on the apostles in 
 the shape of fiery tongues. 
 
 And those that hear, should remember this as the 
 end of their hearing, that they may receive spiritual 
 life and strength by the word. For though it seems 
 a poor despicable business, that a frail sinful man like 
 yourselves should speak a few words in your hearing, 
 yet, look upon it as the way wherein God communicates 
 happiness to those who believe, and works that be- 
 lieving unto happiness, alters the whole frame of the 
 soul, and makes a new creation, as it begets it again to 
 the inheritance of glory. Consider it thus, which is its 
 true notion ; and then, what can be so precious ? 
 
96 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 APHORISM XX. LEIGHTON. 
 
 The difference is great in our natural life, in some 
 persons especially ; that they who in infancy were so 
 feeble, and wrapped up as others in swaddling clothes, 
 yet, afterwards come to excel in wisdom and in the 
 knowledge of sciences, or to be commanders of great 
 armies, or to be kings : but the distance is far greater 
 and more admirable, betwixt the small beginnings of 
 grace, and our after perfection, that fulness of know- 
 ledge that we look for, and that crown of immortality 
 which all they are born to, who are born of God. 
 
 But as in the faces or actions of some children, cha- 
 racters and presages of their after-greatness have ap- 
 peared (as a singular beauty in Moses's face, as they 
 write of him, and as Cyrus was made king among the 
 shepherds 1 children with whom he was brought up, 
 &c.) so also, certainly, in these children of God, there 
 be some characters and evidences that they are born 
 for Heaven by their new birth. That holiness and 
 meekness, that patience and faith which shine in the 
 actions and sufferings of the saints, are characters of 
 their Father's image, and show their high original, and 
 foretel their glory to come ; such a glory as doth not 
 only surpass the world's thoughts, but the thoughts of 
 the children of God themselves. 1 John iii. 2. 
 
 COMMENT. 
 
 This Aphorism would, it may seem, • have been 
 placed more fitly in the Chapter following. In placing 
 it here, I have been determined by the following Con- 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 97 
 
 victions : 1. Every State, and consequently that which 
 we have described as the State of Religious Morality, 
 which is not progressive, is dead or retrograde. 2. As 
 a pledge of this progression, or, at least, as the form 
 in which the propulsive tendency shows itself, there 
 are certain Hopes, Aspirations, Yearnings, that, with 
 more or less of consciousness, rise and stir in the Heart 
 of true Morality as naturally as the Sap in the full- 
 formed Stem of a Rose flows towards the Bud, within 
 which the Flower is maturing. S. No one, whose 
 own experience authorizes him to confirm the truth 
 of this statement, can have been conversant with the 
 Volumes of Religious Biography, can have perused 
 (for instance) the Lives of Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, 
 Wishart, Sir Thomas More, Bernard Gilpin, Bishop 
 Bedel, or of Egede, Swartz, and the Missionaries of 
 the Frozen World, without an occasional conviction, 
 that these men lived under extraordinary influences, 
 that in each instance and in all ages of the Christian 
 aera bear the same characters, and both in the ac- 
 companiments and the results evidently refer to a 
 common origin. And what can this be ? is the Ques- 
 tion that must needs force itself on the mind in the 
 first moment of reflection on a phenomenon so interest- 
 ing and apparently so anomalous. The answer is as 
 necessarily contained in one or the other of two as- 
 sumptions. These influences are either the Product 
 of Delusion (Insania Amabilis, and the Re-action of 
 disordered Nerves), or they argue the existence of a 
 
 H 
 
98 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 Relation to some real Agency, distinct from what is ex- 
 perienced or acknowledged by the world at large, for 
 which as not merely natural on the one hand, yet not 
 assumed to be miraculous * on the other, we have no 
 apter name than spiritual. Now if neither analogy 
 justifies nor the moral feelings permit the former as- 
 sumption ; and we decide therefore in favour of the 
 Reality of a State other and higher than the mere 
 Moral Man, whose Religion -f* consists in Morality, has 
 attained under these convictions ; can the existence of a 
 transitional state appear other than probable ? or that 
 these very Convictions, when accompanied by corre- 
 spondent dispositions ami stirrings of the Heart, are 
 among the Marks and Indications of such a state? 
 And thinking it not unlikely that among the Readers of 
 this Volume, there may be found some Individuals, 
 whose inward State, though disquieted by Doubts and 
 oftener still perhaps by blank Misgivings, may, never- 
 theless, betoken the commencement of a Transition 
 
 * In check of fanatical pretensions, it is expedient to con- 
 fine the terra miraculous, to cases where the Senses are appeale 
 to, in proof of something that transcends, or can be a part of the 
 Experience derived from the Senses. 
 
 t For let it not be forgotten, that Morality, as distinguished 
 from Prudence, implying (it matters not under what name, 
 whether of Honour, or Duty, or Conscience, still, I say, im- 
 plying), and being grounded in, an awe of the Invisible and a 
 Confidence therein beyond (nay occasionally in apparent con- 
 tradiction to) the inductions of outward Experience, is essen- 
 tially religious. 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 99 
 
 from a not irreligious Morality to a Spiritual Religion, 
 with a view to their interests I placed this Aphorism 
 under the present Head. 
 
 APHORISM XXI. LE1GHTON. 
 
 The most approved teachers of wisdom, in a human 
 way, have required of their scholars, that to the end 
 their minds might be capable of it, they should be pu- 
 rified from vice and wickedness. And it was Socrates's 
 custom, when any one asked him a question, seeking 
 to be informed by him, before he would answer them, 
 he asked them concerning their own qualities and course 
 of life. 
 
 APHORISM XXII. l. & ed. 
 
 KNOWLEDGE NOT THE ULTIMATE END OF RELIGIOUS 
 PURSUITS. 
 
 The Hearing and Reading of the Word, under 
 which I comprize theological studies generally, are 
 alike defective when pursued without increase of Know- 
 ledge, and when pursued chiefly for increase of Know- 
 ledge. To seek no more than a present delight, that 
 evanisheth with the sound of the words that die in the 
 air, is not to desire the word as meat, but as music, as 
 God tells the prophet Ezekiel of his people, Ezek. 
 xxxiii. 32. And lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely 
 song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play 
 well upon an instrument ;for they hear thy words, and 
 they do them not. To desire the word for the increase 
 of knowledge, although this is necessary and commend- 
 
 n2 
 
100 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 able, and, being rightly qualified, is a part of spiritual 
 accretion, yet, take it as going no further, it is not the 
 true end of the word. Nor is the venting of that know- 
 ledge in speech and frequent discourse of the word and 
 the divine truths that are in it; which, where it is 
 governed with Christian prudence, is not to be despised, 
 but commended ; yet, certainly, the highest knowledge, 
 and the most frequent and skilful speaking of the 
 word, severed from the growth here mentioned, misses 
 the true end of the word. If any one"^ head or tongue 
 should grow apace, and all the rest stand at a stay, it 
 would certainly make him a monster; and they are 
 no other, who are knowing and discoursing Christians, 
 and grow daily in that respect, but not at all in holi- 
 ness of heart and life, which is the proper growth of 
 the children of God. Apposite to their case is Epic- 
 tetus's comparison of the sheep ; they return not what 
 they eat in grass, but in wool. 
 
 APHORISM XXIII. LEIGHTON. 
 
 THE SUM OF CHURCH HISTORY. 
 
 In times of peace, the Church may dilate more, 
 and build as it were into breadth, but in times of trou- 
 ble, it arises more in height ; it is then built upwards : 
 as in cities where men are straitened, they build usually 
 higher than in the country. 
 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 101 
 
 APHORISM XXIV. l. & ed. 
 
 WORTHY TO BE FRAMED AND HUNG UP IN THE LIBRARY 
 OF EVERY THEOLOGICAL STUDENT. 
 
 Where there is a great deal of smoke, and no clear 
 flame, it argues much moisture in the matter, yet it 
 witnesseth certainly that there is fire there ; and there- 
 fore dubious questioning is a much better evidence, 
 than that senseless dead n ess which most take for be- 
 lieving. Men that know nothing in sciences, have no 
 doubts. He never truly believed, who was not made 
 first sensible and convinced of unbelief. 
 
 Never be afraid to doubt, if only you have the dis- 
 position to believe, and doubt in order that you may 
 end in believing the Truth. I will venture to add in my 
 own name and from my own conviction the following : 
 
 APHORISM XXV. editor. 
 
 He, who begins by loving Christianity better than 
 Truth, will proceed by loving his own Sect or Church 
 better than Christianity, and end in loving himself 
 better than all. 
 
 APHORISM XXVI. l.&ed. 
 
 THE ABSENCE OF DISPUTES, AND A GENERAL AVERSION 
 TO RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES, NO PROOF OF TRUE 
 UNANIMITY. 
 
 The boasted Peaceableness about questions of Faith 
 too often proceeds from a superficial Temper, and not 
 
102 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 seldom from a supercilious Disdain of whatever has no 
 marketable use or value, and from indifference to Re- 
 ligion itself. Toleration is an Herb of spontaneous 
 growth in the Soil of Indifference ; but the Weed has 
 none of the Virtues of the Medicinal Plant, reared by 
 Humility in the Garden of Zeal. Those, who regard 
 Religions as matters of Taste, may consistently include 
 all religious differences in the old Adage, De gustibus 
 non est disputandum. And many there be among 
 these of Gallio's temper, who care for none of these 
 things, and who account all questions in religion, as he 
 did, but matter of words and names. And by this all 
 religions may agree together. But that were not a 
 natural union produced by the active heat of the spirit, 
 but a confusion rather, arising from the want of it ; 
 not a knitting together, but a freezing together, as cold 
 congregates all bodies, how heterogeneous soever, sticks, 
 stones, and water ; but heat makes first a separation of 
 different things, and then unites those that are of the 
 same nature. 
 
 Much of our common union of minds, I fear, pro- 
 ceeds from no other than the aforementioned causes, 
 want of knowledge, and want of affection to religion. 
 You that boast you live conformably to the appoint 
 ments of the Church, and that no one hears of your 
 noise, we may thank the ignorance of your minds for 
 that kind of quietness. 
 
 The preceding Extract is particularly entitled to our 
 serious reflections, as in a tenfold degree more applica- 
 ble to the present times than to the age in which it was 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 103 
 
 written. We all know, that Lovers are apt to take 
 offence and wrangle on occasions that perhaps are but 
 trifles, and which assuredly would appear such to those 
 who regard Love itself as Folly. These Quarrels may, 
 indeed, be no proof of Wisdom ; but still, in the imper- 
 fect state of our Nature the entire absence of the same, 
 and this too on far more serious provocations, would 
 excite a strong suspicion of a comparative indifference 
 in the Parties who can love so coolly where they profess 
 to love so well. I shall believe our present religious 
 Tolerancy to proceed from the abundance of our 
 charity and good sense, when I see proofs that we are 
 equally cool and forbearing as Litigants and political 
 Partizans. 
 
 APHORISM XXVII. LEIGHTON. 
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF WORLDLY VIEWS (OR WHAT ARE 
 CALLED A MAN'S PROSPECTS IN LIFE), THE BANE OF 
 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 
 
 It is a base, poor thing for a man to seek himself: 
 far below that royal dignity that is here put upon 
 Christians, and that priesthood joined with it. Under 
 the Law, those who were squint-eyed were incapable 
 of the priesthood : truly, this squinting toward our own 
 interest, the looking aside to that, in God's affairs 
 especially, so deforms the face of the soul, that it makes 
 it altogether unworthy the honour of this spiritual 
 priesthood. Oh ! this is a large task, an infinite task. 
 The several creatures bear their part in this ; the sun 
 
104 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 says somewhat, and moon and stars, yea, the lowest 
 have some share in it ; the very plants and herbs of the 
 field speak of God; and yet, the very highest and best, 
 yea all of them together, the whole concert of Heaven 
 and earth, cannot show forth all His praise to the full. 
 No, it is but a part, the smallest part of that glory, 
 which they can reach. 
 
 APHORISM XXVIII. LEIGHTON. 
 
 DESPISE NONE : DESPAIR OF NONE. 
 
 The Jews would not willingly tread upon the smallest 
 piece of paper in their way, but took it up ; for pos- 
 sibly, said they, the name of God may be on it. 
 Though there was a little superstition in this, yet truly 
 there is nothing but good religion in it, if we apply it 
 to men. Trample not on any ; there may be some 
 work of grace there, that thou knowest not of. The 
 name of God may be written upon that soul thou 
 treadest on ; it may be a soul that Christ thought so 
 much of, as to give His precious blood for it ; there- 
 fore despise it not. 
 
 APHORISM XXIX LEIGHTON. 
 
 MEN OF LEAST MERIT MOST APT TO BE CONTEMPTUOUS, 
 BECAUSE MOST IGNORANT AND MOST OVERWEENING 
 OF THEMSELVES. 
 
 Too many take the ready course to deceive them- 
 selves ; for they look with both eyes on the failings and 
 defects of others, and scarcely give their good qualities 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 105 
 
 half an eye, while, on the contrary, in themselves, they 
 study to the full their own advantages, and their weak- 
 nesses and defects, (as one says), they skip over, as 
 children do their hard words in their lesson, that are 
 troublesome to read ; and making this uneven parallel, 
 what wonder if the result be a gross mistake of them- 
 selves ! 
 
 APHORISM XXX. LEIGHTON. 
 
 VANITY MAY STRUT IN RAGS, AND HUMILITY BE AR- 
 RAYED IN PURPLE AND FINE LINEN. 
 
 It is not impossible that there may be in some an 
 affected pride in the meanness of apparel, and in others, 
 under either neat or rich attire, a very humble un- 
 affected mind: using it upon some of the aforemen- 
 tioned engagements, or such like, and yet, the heart 
 not at all upon it. Magnus qui Jictilibus utitur tan- 
 quam argento, nee ille minor qui argento tanquam Jic- 
 tilibus , says Seneca : Great is he who enjoys his earthen- 
 ware as if it were plate, and not less great is the man 
 to whom all his plate is no more than earthenware. 
 
 APHORISM XXXI. L . & ei>. 
 
 OF THE DETRACTION AMONG RELIGIOUS PROFESSORS. 
 
 They who have attained to a self-pleasing pitch of 
 civility or formal religion, have usually that point of 
 presumption with it, that they make their own size 
 the model and rule to examine all by. What is below 
 it, they condemn indeed as profane ; but what is be- 
 
106 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 yond it, they account needless and affected preciseness : 
 and therefore are as ready as others to let fly invectives 
 or bitter taunts against it, which are the keen and 
 poisoned shafts of the tongue, and a persecution that 
 shall be called to a strict account. 
 
 The slanders, perchance, may not be altogether 
 forged or untrue : they may be the implements, not 
 the inventions, of Malice. But they do not on this 
 account escape the guilt of Detraction. Rather, it is 
 characteristic of the evil spirit in question, to work by 
 the advantage of real faults ; but these stretched and 
 aggravated to the utmost. It is not expressible 
 
 HOW DEEP A WOUND A TONGUE SHARPENED TO THIS 
 WORK WILL GIVE, WITH NO NOISE AND A VERY LITTLE 
 
 word. This is the true white gunpowder, which the 
 dreaming Projectors of silent Mischiefs and insensible 
 Poisons sought for in the Laboratories of Art and 
 Nature, in a World of Good; but which was to be 
 found, in its most destructive form, in " the World of 
 Evil, the Tongue." 
 
 APHORISM XXXII. LEIGHTON. 
 
 THE REMEDY. 
 
 All true remedy must begin at the heart ; otherwise 
 it will be but a mountebank cure, a false imagined 
 conquest. The weights and wheels are there, and the 
 clock strikes according to their motion. Even he that 
 speaks contrary to what is within him, guilefully con- 
 trary to his inward conviction and knowledge, yet 
 speaks conformably to what is within him in the temper 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 107 
 
 and frame of his heart, which is double, a heart and 
 a heart, as the Psalmist hath it, Psal. xii. 2. 
 
 APHORISM XXXIII. l. & ed. 
 
 It is an argument of a candid ingenuous mind, to 
 delight in the good name and commendation of others ; 
 to pass by their defects, and take notice of their vir- 
 tues ; and to speak and hear of those willingly, and 
 not endure either to speak or hear of the other ; for in 
 this indeed you may be little less guilty than the evil 
 speaker, in taking pleasure in it, though you speak it 
 not. He that willingly drinks in tales and calumnies, 
 will, from the delight he hath in evil hearing, slide 
 insensibly into the humour of evil speaking. It is 
 strange how most persons dispense with themselves in 
 this point, and that in scarcely any societies shall we 
 find a hatred of this ill, but rather some tokens of 
 taking pleasure in it ; and until a Christian sets himself 
 to an inward watchfulness over his heart, not suffering 
 in it any thought that is uncharitable, or vain self- 
 esteem, upon the sight of others 1 frailties, he will still 
 be subject to somewhat of this, in the tongue or ear at 
 least. So, then, as for the evil of guile in the tongue, 
 a sincere heart, truth in the inward parts, powerfully 
 redresses it; therefore it is expressed, Psal. xv. 2, 
 That speaketh the truth from his heart; thence it 
 flows. Seek much after this, to speak nothing with 
 God, nor men, but what is the sense of a single un- 
 feigned heart. O sweet truth ! excellent but rare sin- 
 cerity! he that loves that truth within, and who is 
 
108 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 himself at once the truth and the life, He alone 
 can work it there ! Seek it of him. 
 
 It is characteristic of the Roman Dignity and So- 
 briety, that, in the Latin, to favour the tongue (favere 
 linguae) means, to be silent. We say, Hold your 
 tongue! as if it were an injunction, that could not be 
 carried into effect but by manual force, or the pincers of 
 the Forefinger and Thumb ! And verily — I blush to say 
 it — it is not Women and Frenchmen only that would 
 rather have their tongues bitten than bitted, and feel 
 their souls in a strait- waistcoat, when they are obliged 
 to remain silent. 
 
 APHORISM XXXIV. leighton. 
 
 ON THE PASSION FOR NEW AND STRIKING THOUGHTS. 
 
 In conversation seek not so much either to vent thy 
 knowledge, or to increase it, as to know more spiritually 
 and effectually what thou dost know. And in this 
 way those mean despised truths, that every one thinks 
 he is sufficiently seen in, will have a new sweetness 
 and use in them, which thou didst not so, well perceive 
 before (for these flowers cannot be sucked dry), and in 
 this humble sincere way thou shalt grow in grace and 
 in knowledge too. 
 
 APHORISM XXXV. L . & ed. 
 
 THE RADICAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE GOOD MAN 
 AND THE VICIOUS MAN. 
 
 The godly man hates the evil he possibly by tempta- 
 tion hath been drawn to do, and loves the good he is 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 109 
 
 frustrated of, and, having intended, hath not attained 
 to do. The sinner, who hath his denomination from 
 sin as his course, hates the good which sometimes he is 
 forced to do, and loves that sin which many times he 
 does not, either wanting occasion and means, so that 
 he cannot do it, or through the check of an enlightened 
 conscience possibly dares not do; and though so 
 bound up from the act, as a dog in a chain, yet the 
 habit, the natural inclination and desire in him, is still 
 the same, the strength of his affection is carried to sin. 
 So in the weakest sincere Christian, there is that pre- 
 dominant sincerity and desire of holy walking, accord- 
 ing to which he is called a righteous person, the Lord 
 is pleased to give him that name, and account him so, 
 being upright in heart, though often failing. 
 
 Leighton adds, (e There is a Righteousness of a 
 " higher strain." I do not ask the Reader's full assent 
 to this position : I do not suppose him as yet prepared 
 to yield it. But thus much he will readily admit, that 
 here, if any where, we are to seek the fine Line which, 
 like stripes of Light in Light, distinguishes, not di- 
 vides, the summit of religious Morality from Spiritual 
 Religion. 
 
 " A Righteousness (Leighton continues), that is not 
 in him, but upon him. He is clothed with it." This, 
 Reader ! is the controverted Doctrine, so warmly as- 
 serted and so bitterly decried under the name of " im- 
 puted righteousness." Our learned Archbishop, 
 you see, adopts it ; and it is on this account principally, 
 that by many of our leading Churchmen his Orthodoxy 
 
110 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 has been more than questioned, and his name put in 
 the List of prescribed Divines, as a Calvinist. That 
 Leighton attached a definite sense to the words above 
 quoted, it would be uncandid to doubt ; and the ge- 
 neral Spirit of his Writings leads me to presume that 
 it was compatible with the eternal distinction between 
 Things and Persons, and therefore opposed to modern 
 Calvinism. But what it was, I have not (I own) been 
 able to discover. The sense, however, in which I 
 think he might have received this doctrine, and in 
 which I avow myself a believer in it, I shall have an 
 opportunity of showing in another place. My present 
 Object is to open out the Road by the removal of pre- 
 judices, so far at least as to throw some disturbing 
 Doubts on the secure Taking-for-granted, that the 
 peculiar Tenets of the Christian Faith asserted in the 
 Articles and Homilies of our National Church are in 
 contradiction to the Common Sense of Mankind. And 
 with this view, (and not in the arrogant expectation or 
 wish, that a mere ipse dixit should be received for 
 argument) I here avow my conviction, that the doc- 
 trine of imputed Righteousness, rightly and scrip- 
 turally interpreted, is so far from being either irrational 
 or immoral, that Reason itself prescribes the idea in 
 order to give a meaning and an ultimate Object to 
 Morality; and that the Moral Law in the Conscience 
 demands its reception in order to give reality and sub- 
 stantive existence to the idea presented by the Reason. 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. Ill 
 
 APHORISM XXXVI. leighton. 
 
 Your blessedness is not, — no, believe it, it is not 
 where most of you seek it, in things below you. How 
 can that be ? It must be a higher good to make you 
 happy. 
 
 COMMENT. 
 
 Every rank of Creatures, as it ascends in the scale 
 of Creation, leaves Death behind it or under it. The 
 Metal at its height of Being seems a mute Prophecy 
 of the coming Vegetation, into a mimic semblance of 
 which it crystallizes. The Blossom and Flower, the 
 Acme of Vegetable Life, divides into correspondent 
 Organs with reciprocal functions, and by instinctive 
 motions and approximations seems impatient of that 
 fixture, by which it is differenced in kind from the 
 flower-shaped Psyche, that flutters with free wing 
 above it. And wonderfully in the insect realm doth 
 the Irritability, the proper seat of Instinct, while yet 
 the nascent Sensibility is subordinated thereto — most 
 wonderfully, I say, doth the muscular Life in the In- 
 sect, and the musculo-arterial in the Bird, imitate and 
 typically rehearse the adaptive Understanding, yea, 
 and the moral affections and charities, of Man. Let us 
 carry ourselves back, in spirit, to the mysterious Week, 
 the teeming Work-days of the Creator : as they rose in 
 vision before the eye of the inspired Historian of " the 
 Generations of the Heaven and the Earth, in the days 
 that the Lord God made the Earth and the Heavens." 
 And who that hath watched their ways with an un- 
 
112 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 derstanding heart, could contemplate the filial and 
 loyal Bee ; the home-building, wedded, and divorceless 
 Swallow ; and above all the manifoldly intelligent * Ant 
 tribes, with their Commonwealths and Confederacies, 
 their Warriors and Miners, the Husbandfolk, that 
 fold in their tiny flocks on the honeyed Leaf, and the 
 Virgin Sisters with the holy Instincts of Maternal 
 Love, detached and in selfless purity — and not say to 
 himself, Behold the Shadow of approaching Humanity, 
 the Sun rising from behind, in the kindling Morn of 
 Creation ! Thus all lower Natures find their highest 
 Good in semblances and seekings of that which is 
 higher and better. All things strive to ascend, and 
 ascend in their striving. And shall man alone stoop ? 
 Shall his pursuits and desires, the reflections of his in- 
 ward life, be like the reflected Image of a Tree on the 
 edge of a Pool, that grows downward, and seeks a mock 
 heaven in the unstable element beneath it, in neighbour- 
 hood with the slim water-weeds and oozy bottom-grass 
 that are yet better than itself and more noble, in as far as 
 Substances that appear as Shadows are preferable to 
 Shadows mistaken for Substance ! No ! it must be a 
 higher good to make you happy. While you labour 
 for any thing below your proper Humanity, you seek 
 a happy Life in the region of Death. Well saith the 
 moral Poet— 
 
 Unless above himself he can 
 Erect himself, how mean a thing is man ! 
 
 * See Huber on Bees, and on Ants. 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 113 
 
 APHORISM XXXVII. leighton. 
 
 There is an imitation of men that is impious and 
 wicked, which consists in taking the copy of their sins. 
 Again, there is an imitation which though not so grossly 
 evil, yet, is poor and servile, being in mean things, yea, 
 sometimes descending to imitate the very imperfections 
 of others, as fancying some comeliness in them ; as some 
 of Basil's scholars, who imitated his slow speaking, 
 which he had a little in the extreme, and could not help. 
 But this is always laudable, and worthy of the best 
 minds, to be imitators of that which is good) whereso- 
 ever they find it ; for that stays not in any man's per- 
 son, as the ultimate pattern, but rises to the highest 
 grace, being man's nearest likeness to God, His image 
 and resemblance, bearing His stamp and superscrip- 
 tion, and belonging peculiarly to Him, in what hand 
 soever it be found, as carrying the mark of no other 
 owner than Him. 
 
 APHORISM XXXVIII. leighton. 
 
 Those who think themselves high-spirited, and will 
 bear least, as they speak, are often, even by that, 
 forced to bow most, or to burst under it ; while hu- 
 mility and meekness escape many a burden, and many 
 a blow, always keeping peace within, and often with- 
 out too. 
 
 APHORISM XXXIX. leighton. 
 
 Our condition is universally exposed to fears and 
 
 troubles, and no man is so stupid but he studies and 
 
 projects for some fence against them, some bulwark to 
 
 i 
 
114 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 break the incursion of evils, and so to bring his mind to 
 some ease, ridding it of the fear of them. Thus, men seek 
 safety in the greatness, or multitude, or supposed faith- 
 fulness of friends ; they seek by any means to be strongly 
 underset this way, to have many, and powerful, and 
 trust-worthy friends. But wiser men, perceiving the 
 unsafety and vanity of these and all external things, have 
 cast about for some higher course. They see a neces- 
 sity of withdrawing a man from externals, which do 
 nothing but mock and deceive those most who trust 
 most to them ; but they cannot tell whither to direct 
 him. The best of them bring him into himself, and 
 think to quiet him so, but the truth is, he finds as little 
 to support him there; there is nothing truly strong 
 enough within him, to hold out against the many sor- 
 rows and fears which still from without do assault him. 
 So then, though it is well done, to call off a man from 
 outward things, as moving sands, that he build not on 
 them, yet, this is not enough ; for his own spirit is as 
 unsettled a piece as is in all the world, and must have 
 some higher strength than its own, to fortify and fix it. 
 This is the way that is here taught, Fear not their 
 Jear t but sanctify the Lord your God in your hearts ; 
 and if you can attain this latter, the former will follow 
 of itself. 
 
 APHORISM XL. LEIGHTON. 
 
 WORLDLY TROUBLES IDOLS. 
 
 The too ardent Love or self-willed Desire of Power, 
 or Wealth, or Credit in the World, is (an Apostle has 
 assured us) Idolatry. Now among the words or syno- 
 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 115 
 
 nimes for Idols, in the Hebrew Language, there is one 
 that in its primary sense signifies Troubles (Tegirim), 
 other two that signify Terrors (Miphletzeth and 
 Emim). And so it is certainly. All our Idols prove 
 so to us. They fill us with nothing but anguish and 
 Troubles, with cares and fears, that are good for nothing 
 but to be fit punishments of the Folly, out of which 
 they arise. 
 
 APHORISM XLI. l. & ed. 
 
 ON THE RIGHT TREATMENT OF INFIDELS. 
 
 A regardless contempt of infidel writings is usually 
 the fittest answer ; Spreta vilescerent. But where the 
 holy profession of Christians is likely to receive either 
 the main or the indirect blow, and a word of defence may 
 do any thing to ward it off, there we ought not to spare 
 to do it. 
 
 Christian prudence goes a great way in the regu- 
 lating of this. Some are not capable of receiving ra- 
 tional answers, especially in Divine things ; they were 
 not only lost upon them, but religion dishonoured by 
 the contest. 
 
 Of this sort are the vulgar Railers at Religion, the 
 foul-mouthed Beliers of the Christian Faith and Hi- 
 story. Impudently false and slanderous Assertions 
 can be met only by Assertions of their impudent and 
 slanderous falsehood : and Christians will not, must not 
 condescend to this. How can mere Railing be answered 
 by them who are forbidden to return a railing answer ? 
 Whether or on what provocations such offenders may 
 be punished or coerced on the score of Incivility, and 
 
 i2 
 
116 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 Ill-neighbourhood, and for the abatement of a Nui- 
 sance, as in the case of other Scolds and Endangerers 
 of the public Peace, must be trusted to the Discretion 
 of the civil Magistrate. Even then, there is danger of 
 giving them importance, and flattering their vanity, by 
 attracting attention to their works, if the punishment 
 be slight ; and if severe, of spreading far and wide their 
 reputation as Martyrs, as the smell of a dead dog at a 
 distance is said to change into that of Musk. Experi- 
 ence hitherto seems to favour the plan of treating these 
 Betes puantes and Enfans de Diable, as their four- 
 footed Brethren, the SkinTe and Squash, are treated * 
 by the American Woodmen, who turn their backs upon 
 the fetid Intruder, and make appear not to see him, 
 even at the cost of suffering him to regale on the fa- 
 vourite viand of these animals, the brains of a stray 
 goose or crested Thraso of the Dunghill. At all events, 
 it is degrading to the majesty, and injurious to the 
 character of Religion, to make its safety the plea for 
 their punishment, or at all to connect the name of 
 Christianity with the castigation of Indecencies that 
 
 * About the end of the same year (says Kalm), another of 
 these Animals (Mephitis Americana) crept into our cellar ; but 
 did not exhale the smallest scent, because it was not disturbed. 
 A foolish old Woman, however, who perceived it at night, by the 
 shining, and thought, I suppose, that it would set the world on 
 fire, killed it : and at that moment its stench began to spread. 
 
 We recommend this anecdote to the consideration of sundry 
 old Women, on this side of the Atlantic, who, though they do not 
 wear the appropriate garment, are worthy to sit in their com- 
 mittee-room, like Bickerstaff in the Tatler, under the canopy of 
 their Grandam's Hoop-petticoat. 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 117 
 
 properly belong to the Beadle, and the perpetrators of 
 which would have equally deserved his Lash, though 
 the Religion of their fellow-citizens, thus assailed by 
 them, had been that of Fo or of Jaggernaut. 
 . On the other hand, we are to answer every one that 
 inquires a reason, or an account ; which supposes some- 
 thing receptive of it. We ought to judge ourselves 
 engaged to give it, be it an enemy, if he will hear ; if 
 it gain him not, it may in part convince and cool him ; 
 much more, should it be one who ingenuously inquires 
 for satisfaction, and possibly inclines to receive the 
 truth, but has been prejudiced by false misrepresenta- 
 tions of it. 
 
 APHORISM XLII. LEIGHTON. 
 
 PASSION NO FRIEND TO TRUTH. 
 
 Truth needs not the service of passion; yea, nothing 
 so disserves it, as passion when set to serve it. The 
 Spirit qf truth is withal the Spirit of meekness. The 
 Dove that rested on that great Champion of truth, who 
 is The Truth itself, is from Him derived to the lovers 
 of truth, and they ought to seek the participation of it. 
 Imprudence makes some kind of Christians lose much 
 of their labour, in speaking for religion, and drive those 
 further off, whom they would draw into it. 
 
 The confidence that attends a Christian's belief 
 makes the believer not fear men, to whom he answers, 
 but still he fears his God, for whom he answers, and 
 whose interest is chief in those things he speaks of. 
 The soul that hath the deepest sense of spiritual things, 
 
118 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 and the truest knowledge of God, is most afraid to 
 miscarry in speaking of Him, most tender and wary 
 how to acquit itself when engaged to speak of and for 
 God* 
 
 APHORISM XLIII. LEIGHT0N. 
 
 ON THE CONSCIENCE. 
 
 It is a fruitless verbal Debate, whether Conscience 
 be a Faculty or a Habit. When all is examined, Con- 
 science will be found to be no other than the mind of 
 a man, under the notion of a particular reference to 
 himself 'and his own actions. 
 
 COMMENT. 
 
 What Conscience is, and that it is the ground and an- 
 tecedent of human (or self) consciousness, and not any 
 modification of the latter, I have shown at large in a 
 Work announced for the Press, and described in the 
 Chapter following. I have selected the preceding Ex- 
 tract as an Exercise for Reflection ; and because I think 
 
 * To the same purpose are the two following sentences from 
 Hilary : 
 
 Etiam quae pro Religione dicimus, cum grandi metu et dis- 
 cipline dicere debemus. — Hilarius de Trinit. Lib. 7. 
 
 Non relictus est hominum eloquiis de Dei rebus alius quam 
 Dei sermo. — Idem. 
 
 The latter, however, must be taken with certain Qualifications 
 and Exceptions: as when any two or more Texts are in apparent 
 contradiction, and it is required to state a Truth that compre- 
 hends and reconciles both, and which, of course, cannot be ex- 
 pressed in the words of either. Ex. gr. the filial subordination 
 (My Father is greater than I J, in the equal Deity (My Father 
 and I are one J. 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 119 
 
 that in too closely following Thomas a Kempis, the 
 Archbishop has strayed from his own judgment. The 
 Definition, for instance, seems to say all, and in fact 
 says nothing ; for if I asked, How do you define the 
 human mind f the answer must at least contain, if not 
 consist of, the words, " a mind capable of Conscience? 
 For Conscience is no synonime of Consciousness, nor 
 any mere expression of the same as modified by the 
 particular Object. On the contrary, a Consciousness 
 properly human (i. e. Subconsciousness), with the sense 
 of moral responsibility, presupposes the Conscience, as 
 its antecedent Condition and Ground. Lastly, the sen- 
 tence, " It is a fruitless verbal Debate, 1 ' is an assertion of 
 the same complexion with the contemptuous Sneers at 
 Verbal Criticism by the Contemporaries of Bentley. 
 In Questions of Philosophy or Divinity, that have oc- 
 cupied the Learned and been the subjects of many suc- 
 cessive Controversies, for one instance of mere Logo- 
 machy I could bring ten instances of Logodcedaly, or 
 verbal Legerdemain, which have perilously confirmed 
 Prejudices, and withstood the advancement of Truth, 
 in consequence of the neglect of 'verbal debate, i. e. strict 
 discussion of Terms. In whatever sense, however, the 
 term Conscience may be used, the following Aphorism 
 is equally true and important.- It is worth noticing, 
 likewise, that Leigh ton himself in a following page (vol. 
 ii. p. 97), tells us, that A good Conscience is the Root of 
 a good Conversation : and then quotes from St. Paul 
 a text, Titus i. 15, in which the Mind and the Con- 
 science are expressly distinguished. 
 
120 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 APHORISM XLIV. leighton. 
 
 THE LIGHT OF KNOWLEDGE A NECESSARY ACCOMPANI- 
 MENT OF A GOOD CONSCIENCE. 
 
 If you would have a good conscience, you must by 
 all means have so much light, so much knowledge of 
 the will of God, as may regulate you, and show you 
 your way, may teach you how to do, and speak, and 
 think, as in His presence. 
 
 APHORISM XLV. leighton. 
 
 YET THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE RULE, THOUGH AC- 
 COMPANIED BY AN ENDEAVOUR TO ACCOMMODATE 
 OUR CONDUCT TO THIS RULE, WILL NOT OF ITSELF 
 FORM A GOOD CONSCIENCE. 
 
 To set the outward actions right, though with an 
 honest intention, and not so to regard and find out the 
 inward disorder of the heart, whence that in the actions 
 flows, is but to be still putting the index of a clock 
 right with your finger, while it is foul, or out of order 
 within, which is a continual business, and does no good. 
 Oh ! but a purified conscience, a soul renewed and re- 
 fined in its temper and affections, will make things go 
 right without, in all the duties and acts of our callings. 
 
 APHORISM XLV1. epitos. 
 
 THE DEPTH OF THE CONSCIENCE. 
 
 How deeply seated the Conscience is in the human 
 Soul, is seen in the effect which sudden Calamities pro- 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 121 
 
 duce on guilty men, even when unaided by any deter- 
 minate notion or fears of punishment after death. The 
 wretched Criminal, as one rudely awakened from a 
 long sleep, bewildered with the new light, and half re- 
 collecting, half striving to recollect, a fearful something, 
 he knows not what, but which he will recognize as 
 soon as he hears the name, already interprets the cala- 
 mities into judgments, Executions of a Sentence passed 
 by an invisible Judge ; as if the vast Pyre of the Last 
 Judgment were already kindled in an unknown Di- 
 stance, and some Flashes of it, darting forth at intervals 
 beyond the rest, were flying and lighting upon the face 
 of his Soul. The calamity may consist in loss of For- 
 tune, or Character, or Reputation ; but you hear no 
 regrets from him. Remorse extinguishes all Regret ; 
 and Remorse is the implicit Creed of the Guilty. 
 
 APHORISM XLVIL l. & ed. 
 
 God hath suited every creature He hath made with 
 a convenient good to which it tends, and in the obtain- 
 ment of which it rests and is satisfied. Natural bodies 
 have all their own natural place, whither, if not hin- 
 dered, they move incessantly till they be in it; and 
 they declare, by resting there, that they are (as I may 
 say) where they would be. Sensitive creatures are 
 carried to seek a sensitive good, as agreeable to their 
 rank in being, and, attaining that, aim no further. 
 Now, in this is the excellency of Man, that he is made 
 capable of a communion with his Maker, and, because 
 capable of it, is unsatisfied without it : the soul, being 
 
122 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 cut out (so to speak) to that largeness, cannot be filled 
 with less. Though he is fallen from his right to that 
 good, and from all right desire of it, yet, not from a 
 capacity of it, no, nor from a necessity of it, for the 
 answering and filling of his capacity. 
 
 Though the heart once gone from God turns con- 
 tinually further away from Him, and moves not to- 
 wards Him till it be renewed, yet, even in that wan- 
 dering, it retains that natural relation to God, as its 
 centre, that it hath no true rest elsewhere, nor can by 
 any means find it. It is made for Him, and is there- 
 fore still restless till it meet with Him. 
 
 It is true, the natural man takes much pains to quiet 
 his heart by other things, and digests many vexations 
 with hopes of contentment in the end and accomplish- 
 ment of some design he hath ; but still the heart mis- 
 gives. Many times he attains not the thing he seeks ; 
 but if he do, yet he never attains the satisfaction he 
 seeks and expects in it, but only learns from that to 
 desire something further, and still hunts on after a 
 fancy, drives his own shadow before him, and never 
 overtakes it ; and if he did, yet it is but a shadow. 
 And so, in running from God, besides the sad end, he 
 carries an interwoven punishment with his sin, the na- 
 tural disquiet and vexation of his spirit, fluttering to 
 and fro, and finding no rest for the sole qf his foot ; 
 the waters of inconstancy and vanity covering the whole 
 Jhce of the earth. 
 
 These things are too gross and heavy. The soul, 
 the immortal soul, descended from heaven, must either 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 123 
 
 be more happy, or remain miserable. The Highest, 
 the Increated Spirit, is the proper good, the Father of 
 spirits, that pure and full good which raises the soul 
 above itself; whereas all other things draw it down 
 below itself. So, then, it is never well with the soul, 
 but when it is near unto God, yea, in its union with 
 Him, married to Him : mismatching itself elsewhere, 
 it hath never any thing but shame and sorrow. All 
 that forsake Thee shall be ashamed, says the Prophet, 
 Jer. xvii. 1 3 ; and the Psalmist, They that are Jar off 
 from thee shall perish. Psal. lxxiii. 27- And this is 
 indeed our natural miserable condition, and it is often 
 expressed this way, by estrangedness and distance from 
 God. 
 
 The same sentiments are to be found in the works 
 of Pagan Philosophers and Moralists. Well then may 
 they be made a Subject of Reflection in our days. 
 And well may the pious Deist, if such a character now 
 exists, reflect that Christianity alone both teaches the 
 way, and provides the means, of fulfilling the obscure 
 promises of this great Instinct for all men, which the 
 Philosophy of boldest Pretensions confined to the sacred 
 Few. 
 
 APHORISM XLVIII. leighton. 
 
 A CONTRACTED SPHERE, OR WHAT IS CALLED RE- 
 TIRING FROM THE BUSINESS OF THE WORLD, NO 
 SECURITY FROM THE SPIRIT OF THE WORLD. 
 
 The heart may be engaged in a little business as 
 much, if thou watch it not, as in many and great affairs. 
 
124 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 A man may drown in a little brook or pool, as well as 
 in a great river, if he be down and plunge himself into 
 it, and put his head under water. Some care thou 
 must have, that thou may est not care. Those things 
 that are thorns indeed, thou must make a hedge of 
 them, to keep out those temptations that accompany 
 sloth, and extreme want that waits on it ; but let them 
 be the hedge: suffer them not to grow within the 
 garden. 
 
 APHORISM XLIX. leighton. 
 
 ON CHURCH-GOING, AS A PART OF RELIGIOUS MO- 
 RALITY, WHEN NOT IN REFERENCE TO A SPIRITUAL 
 RELIGION. 
 
 It is a strange folly in multitudes of us, to set our- 
 selves no mark, to propound no end in the hearing of 
 the Gospel. The merchant sails not merely that he 
 may sail, but for traffic, and traffics that he may be 
 rich. The husbandman plows not merely to keep 
 himself busy, with no further end, but plows that he 
 may sow, and sows that he may reap with advantage. 
 And shall we do the most excellent and fruitful work 
 fruitlessly, — hear only to hear, and look no further ? 
 This is indeed a great vanity, and a great misery, to 
 lose that labour, and gain nothing by it, which, duly 
 used, would be of all others most advantageous and 
 gainful : and yet all meetings are full of this ! 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 125 
 
 APHORISM L. leighiw. 
 
 ON THE HOPES AND SELF-SATISFACTION OF A RELIGIOUS 
 
 MORALIST, INDEPENDENT OF A SPIRITUAL FAITH 
 
 ON WHAT ARE THEY GROUNDED ? 
 
 There have been great disputes one way or another, 
 about the merit of good works ; but I truly think they 
 who have laboriously engaged in them have been very 
 idly, though very eagerly, employed about nothing, 
 since the more sober of the schoolmen themselves ac- 
 knowledge there can be no such thing as meriting 
 from the blessed God, in the human, or, to speak more 
 accurately, in any created nature whatsoever : nay so 
 far from any possibility of merit, there can be no room 
 for reward any otherwise than of the sovereign pleasure 
 and gracious kindness of God ; and the more ancient 
 writers, when they use the word merit, mean nothing 
 by it but a certain correlate to that reward which God 
 both promises and bestows of mere grace and be- 
 nignity. Otherwise, in order to constitute what is pro- 
 perly called merit, many things must concur, which no 
 man in his senses will presume to attribute to human 
 works, though ever so excellent ; particularly, that the 
 thing done must not previously be matter of debt, and 
 that it be entire, or our own act, unassisted by foreign 
 aid ; it must also be perfectly good, and it must bear 
 an adequate proportion to the reward claimed in con- 
 sequence of it. If all these things do not concur, the 
 act cannot possibly amount to merit. Whereas I think 
 
126 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 no one will venture to assert, that any one of these can 
 take place in any human action whatever. But why 
 should I enlarge here, when one single circumstance 
 overthrows all those titles : the most righteous of man- 
 kind would not be able to stand, if his works were 
 weighed in the balance of strict justice ; how much less 
 then could they deserve that immense glory which is 
 now in question ! Nor is this to be denied only con- 
 cerning the unbeliever and the sinner, but concerning 
 the righteous and pious believer, who is not only free 
 from all the guilt of his former impenitence and re- 
 bellion, but endowed with the gift of the Spirit. " For 
 the time is come that judgment must begin at the house 
 of God : and if it first begin at us, what shall the end 
 be of them that obey not the Gospel of God ? And if 
 the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the un- 
 godly and the sinner appear ?" 1 Peter iv. 17, 18. The 
 Apostle's interrogation expresses the most vehement 
 negation, and signifies that no mortal, in whatever de- 
 gree he is placed, if he be called to the strict examina- 
 tion of Divine Justice, without daily and repeated for- 
 giveness could be able to keep his standing, and much 
 less could he arise to that glorious height. ' That 
 c merit,' says Bernard, i on which my hope relies, con- 
 * sists in these three things ; the love of adoption, the 
 c truth of the promise, and the power of its perform- 
 ' ance.' This is the threefold cord which cannot be 
 broken. 
 
 COMMENT. 
 
 Often have I heard it said by advocates for the So- 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 127 
 
 cinian Scheme — True! we are all sinners; but even 
 in the Old Testament God has promised Forgiveness 
 on Repentance. One of the Fathers (I forget which) 
 supplies the Retort — True ! God has promised Par- 
 don on Penitence : but has he promised Penitence 
 on Sin ? — He that repenteth shall be forgiven : but 
 where is it said, He that sinneth shall repent ? But 
 Repentance, perhaps, the Repentance required in Scrip- 
 ture, the Passing into a new mind, into a new and con- 
 trary Principle of Action, this Metanoia *, is in the 
 Sinner's own power ? at his own Liking ? He has but 
 to open his eyes to the sin, and the Tears are close at 
 hand to wash it away ! — Verily, the exploded Tenet of 
 Transubstantiation is scarcely at greater variance with 
 the common Sense and Experience of Mankind, or 
 borders more closely on a contradiction in terms, than 
 this volunteer Transmentation, this Self-change, as the 
 easy f means of Self-salvation ! But the Reflections of 
 our evangelical Author on this subject will appropriately 
 commence the Aphorisms relating to Spiritual Religion. 
 
 * METavcio, the New Testament word, which we render by Re- 
 pentance, compounded of ptra, trans, and -.a;, mens, the Spirit, 
 or practical Reason. 
 
 t May I without offence be permitted to record the very ap- 
 propriate title, with which a stern Humorist lettered a collec- 
 tion of Unitarian Tracts?— " Salvation made easy; or, Every 
 Man his own Redeemer." 
 
ELEMENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY, 
 
 PRELIMINARY TO THE 
 
 APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 
 
Philip saith unto him : Lord show us the Father, and it suf- 
 ficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, He that hath seen me hath 
 seen the Father : and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father ? 
 Believest thou not, that I am in the Father and the Father in 
 me ? And I will pray the Father and he shall give you another 
 Comforter, even the Spirit of Truth : whom the world cannot 
 receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him. But ye 
 know him (for he dwelleth with you and shall be in you). And 
 in that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me 
 and I in you. John xiv. 8, 9, 10, 16, 17, 20. 
 
 
PRELIMINARY. 
 
 If there be aught Spiritual in Man, the Will must 
 be such. 
 
 If there be a Will, there must be a Spirituality in 
 Man. 
 
 I suppose both positions granted. The Reader ad- 
 mits the reality of the power, agency, or mode of Being 
 expressed in the term, Spirit ; and the actual existence 
 of a Will. He sees clearly, that the idea of the former 
 is necessary to the conceivability of the latter ; and that, 
 vice versa, in asserting the fact of the latter he pre- 
 sumes and instances the truth of the former — just as 
 in our common and received Systems of Natural Phi- 
 losophy, the Being of imponderable Matter is assumed 
 to render the Lode-stone intelligible, and the Fact of 
 the Lode-stone adduced to prove the reality of impon- 
 derable Matter. 
 
 In short, I suppose the Reader, whom I now invite 
 to the third and last Division of the work, already dis- 
 posed to reject for himself and his human Brethren 
 the insidious title of " Nature's noblest Animal? or 
 
 k2 
 
132 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 to retort it as the unconscious Irony of the Epicurean 
 Poet on the animalizing tendency of his own philo- 
 sophy. I suppose him convinced, that there is more 
 in man than can be rationally referred to the life of 
 Nature and the mechanism of Organization ; that he 
 has a Will not included in this mechanism ; and that the 
 Will is in an especial and pre-eminent sense the spi- 
 ritual part of our Humanity. 
 
 Unless then we have some distinct notion of the 
 Will, and some acquaintance with the prevalent errors 
 respecting the same, an insight into the nature of Spi- 
 ritual Religion is scarcely possible ; and our reflections 
 on the particular truths and evidences of a Spiritual 
 State will remain obscure, perplexed, and unsafe. To 
 place my Reader on this requisite Vantage-ground, is 
 the purpose of the following Exposition. 
 
 We have begun, as in geometry, with defining our 
 Terms ; and we proceed, like the Geometricians, with 
 stating our postulates ; the difference being, that the 
 Postulates of Geometry no man can deny, those of Mo- 
 ral Science are such as no good man will deny. For 
 it is not in our power to disclaim our Nature, as sen- 
 tient Beings ; but it is in our power to disclaim our 
 Nature as Moral Beings. It is possible (barely pos- 
 sible, I admit) that a man may have remained igno- 
 rant or unconscious of the Moral Law within him : and 
 a man need only persist in disobeying the Law of Con- 
 science to make it possible for himself to deny its ex- 
 istence, or to reject and repel it as a phantom of Super- 
 stition. Were it otherwise, the Creed would stand 
 
PRELIMINARY. 133 
 
 in the same relation to Morality as the Multiplication 
 Table. 
 
 This then is the distinction of Moral Philosophy — 
 not that I begin with one or more Assumptions: for 
 this is common to all science; but — that I assume a 
 something, the proof of which no man can give to an- 
 other, yet every man may jind for himself. If any man 
 assert, that he can not find it, I am bound to disbelieve 
 him ! I cannot do otherwise without unsettling the 
 very foundations of my own moral Nature. For I 
 either find it as an essential of the Humanity common 
 to Him and Me : or I have not found it at all, except 
 as an Hypochondriast finds Glass Legs. If, on the 
 other hand, he will not find it, he excommunicates him- 
 self. He forfeits his personal Rights, and becomes a 
 Thing: i. e. one who may rightfully be employed, or 
 used, as a* means to an end, against his will, and with- 
 out regard to his interest. 
 
 All the significant objections of the Materialist and 
 Necessitarian are contained in the term, Morality, all 
 the Objections of the Infidel in the term, Religion ! 
 
 * On this principle alone is it possible to justify capital, or 
 ignominious Punishments (or indeed any punishment not having 
 the reformation of the Criminal, as one of its objects) . Such 
 Punishments, like those inflicted on Suicides, must be regarded 
 as posthumous : the wilful extinction of the moral and personal 
 Life being, for the purposes of punitive Justice, equivalent to 
 a wilful destruction of the natural Life. If the speech of Judge 
 Burnet to the Horse-stealer (You are not hanged for stealing 
 a Horse ; but, that Horses may not be stolen) can be vindicated 
 at all, it must be on this principle; and not on the all-un- 
 settling scheme of Expedience, which is the anarchy of Morals. 
 
134 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 The very terms, I say, imply a something granted, 
 which the Objection supposes not granted. The term 
 presumes what the Objection denies, and in denying 
 presumes the contrary. For it is most important to 
 observe, that the Reasoners on both sides commence 
 by taking something for granted, our Assent to which 
 they ask or demand : i. e. both set off with an As- 
 sumption in the form of a Postulate. But the Epi- 
 curean assumes what according to himself he neither is 
 nor can be under any obligation to assume, and de- 
 mands what he can have no right to demand : for he 
 denies the reality of all moral Obligation, the existence 
 of any Right. If he use the words, Right and Ob- 
 ligation, he does it deceptively, and means only Com- 
 pulsion and Power. To overthrow the Faith in aught 
 higher or other than Nature and physical Necessity, 
 is the very purpose of his argument. He desires you 
 only to take for granted, that all reality is included in 
 Nature, and he may then safely defy you to ward off 
 his conclusion — that nothing is excluded ! 
 
 But as he cannot morally demand, neither can he 
 rationally expect, your Assent to this premise : for he 
 cannot be ignorant, that the best and greatest of Men 
 have devoted their lives to the enforcement of the con- 
 trary; that the vast majority of the human Race in all 
 ages and in all nations have believed in the contrary ; 
 and that there is not a Language on Earth, in which 
 he could argue, for ten minutes, in support of his 
 scheme without sliding into words and phrases, that 
 imply the contrary. It has been said, that the Arabic 
 
PRELIMINARY. 135 
 
 has a thousand names for a Lion ; but this would be a 
 trifle compared with the number of superfluous words 
 and useless Synonimes that would be found in an In- 
 dex Expurgatorius of any European Dictionary con- 
 structed on the principles of a consistent and strictly 
 consequential Materialism ! 
 
 The Christian likewise grounds his philosophy on as- 
 sertions ; but with the best of all reasons for making them 
 — viz. that he ought so to do. He asserts what he can 
 neither prove, nor account for, nor himself comprehend ; 
 but with the strongest of inducements, that of under- 
 standing thereby whatever else it most concerns him to 
 understand aright. And yet his Assertions have no- 
 thing in them of Theory or Hypothesis ; but are in im- 
 mediate reference to three ultimate Facts; namely, 
 the Reality of the law of conscience ; the existence 
 of a responsible will, as the subject of that law ; 
 and lastly, the existence of Evil — of Evil essentially 
 such, not by accident of outward circumstances, not 
 derived from its physical consequences, or from any 
 cause, out of itself. The first is a Fact of Conscious- 
 ness ; the second a Fact of Reason necessarily concluded 
 from the first ; and the third a Fact of History inter- 
 preted by both. 
 
 Omnia exeunt in mysterium, says a Schoolman : i. e. 
 There is nothing, the absolute ground of which is not 
 a Mystery. The contrary were indeed a contradiction 
 in terms: for how can that, which is to explain all 
 things, be susceptible of an explanation ? It would be to 
 suppose the same thing first and second at the same time. 
 
 If I rested here, I should merely have placed my 
 
136 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 Creed in direct opposition to that of the Necessitarians, 
 who assume (for observe both Parties begin in an As- 
 sumption, and cannot do otherwise) that motives act 
 on the Will, as bodies act on bodies ; and that whether 
 mind and matter are essentially the same or essentially 
 different, they are both alike under one and the same 
 law of compulsory Causation. But this is far from 
 exhausting my intention. I mean at the same time to 
 oppose the Disciples of Shaftesbury and those who, 
 substituting one Faith for another, have been well 
 called the pious Deists of the last Century, in order to 
 distinguish them from the Infidels of the present age, 
 who persuade themselves, (for the thing itself is not 
 possible) that they reject all Faith. I declare my dis- 
 sent from these too, because they imposed upon them- 
 selves an Idea for a Reality : a most sublime Idea indeed, 
 and so necessary to human Nature, that without it no 
 Virtue is conceivable ; but still an Idea ! In contradic- 
 tion to their splendid but delusory Tenets, I profess a 
 deep conviction that Man was and is a fallen Creature, 
 not by accidents of bodily constitution, or any other 
 cause, which human Wisdom in a course of ages might 
 be supposed capable of removing ; but diseased in his 
 Will, in that Will which is the true and only strict 
 synonime of the word, I, or the intelligent Self. Thus 
 at each of these two opposite Roads (the Philosophy of 
 Hobbes and that of Shaftesbury), 1 have placed a di- 
 recting Post, informing my Fellow-travellers, that on 
 neither of these Roads can they see the Truths to 
 which I would direct their attention. 
 
 But the place of starting was at the meeting of Jour 
 
PRELIMINARY. 137 
 
 Roads, and one only was the right road. I proceed 
 therefore to preclude the opinion of those likewise, who 
 indeed agree with me as to the moral Responsibility 
 of Man in opposition to Hobbes and the Anti-Moral- 
 ists, and that He was a fallen Creature, essentially dis- 
 eased, in opposition to Shaftesbury and the Misin- 
 terpreters of Plato; but who differ from me in ex- 
 aggerating the diseased weakness of the Will into an 
 absolute privation of all Freedom, thereby making mo- 
 ral responsibility, not a mystery above comprehension, 
 but a direct contradiction, of which we do distinctly 
 comprehend the absurdity. Among the consequences 
 of this Doctrine, is that direful one of swallowing up 
 all the Attributes of the supreme Being in the one At- 
 tribute of infinite Power, and thence deducing that 
 Things are good and wise because they were created, 
 and not created through Wisdom and Goodness. 
 Thence too the awful Attribute of Justice is explained 
 away into a mere right of absolute Property ; the sa- 
 cred distinction between Things and Persons is erased ; 
 and the selection of Persons for Virtue and Vice in this 
 Life, and for eternal Happiness or Misery in the next, 
 is represented as the result of a mere Will, acting in 
 the blindness and solitude of its own Infinity. The 
 Title of a Work written by the great and pious Boyle 
 is " Of the Awe, which the human Mind owes to the 
 supreme Reason. 1 ' This, in the language of these 
 gloomy Doctors, must be translated into — " the hor- 
 ror, which a Being capable of eternal Pleasure or Pain 
 is compelled to feel at the idea of an infinite Power, 
 
188 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 about to inflict the latter on an immense majority of 
 human Souls, without any power on their part either 
 to prevent it or the actions which are (not indeed its 
 causes but) its assigned signals, and preceding links 
 of the same iron chain ! 
 
 Against these Tenets I maintain, that a Will con- 
 ceived separate from Intelligence is a Non-entity, and 
 a mere Phantasm of Abstraction ; and that a Will, the 
 state of which does in no sense originate in its own act, 
 is an absolute contradiction. It might be an Instinct, 
 an Impulse, a plastic Power, and, if accompanied with 
 consciousness, a Desire ; but a Will it could not be ! 
 And this every Human Being knows with equal clear- 
 ness, though different minds may reflect on it with dif- 
 ferent degrees of distinctness ; for who would not smile 
 at the notion of a Rose willing' to put forth its Buds 
 and expand them into Flowers ? That such a phrase 
 would be deemed a poetic Licence proves the differ- 
 ence in the things : for all metaphors are grounded on 
 an apparent likeness of things essentially different. I 
 utterly disclaim the idea, that any human Intelli- 
 gence, with whatever power it might manifest itself, 
 is alone adequate to the office of restoring health to 
 the Will : but at the same time I deem it impious and 
 absurd to hold, that the Creator would have given us 
 the faculty of Reason, or that the Redeemer would in 
 so many varied forms of Argument and Persuasion 
 have appealed to it, if it had been either totally useless 
 or wholly impotent. Lastly, I find all these several 
 Truths reconciled and united in the belief, that the 
 
PRELIMINARY. 139 
 
 imperfect human understanding can be effectually 
 exerted only in subordination to, and in a dependent 
 alliance with, the means and aidances supplied by the 
 all-perfect and supreme Reason ; but that under these 
 conditions it is not only an admissible, but a necessary, 
 instrument of ameliorating both ourselves and others. 
 
 We may now proceed to our reflections on the Spirit 
 of Religion. The first three or four Aphorisms I have 
 selected from the Theological Works of Dr. Henry 
 More, a contemporary of Archbishop Leighton's, and 
 like him, held in suspicion by the Calvinists of that 
 time as a Latitudinarian and Platonizing Divine, and pro- 
 bably, like him, would have been arraigned as a Cal- 
 vinist by the Latitudinarians (I cannot say, Platonists) 
 of this Day, had the suspicion been equally groundless. 
 One or two the Editor has ventured to add from his 
 own Reflections. The purpose, however, is the same 
 in all — that of declaring, in the first place, what Spi- 
 ritual Religion is not, what is not a Religious Spirit, 
 and what are not to be deemed influences of the Spirit. 
 If after these Disclaimers the Editor shall without 
 proof be charged by any with renewing or favouring 
 the errors of the Familists, Vanists, Seekers, Behmen- 
 ists, or by whatever other names Church History re- 
 cords the poor bewildered Enthusiasts, who in the 
 swarming time of our Republic turned the facts of the 
 Gospel into allegories, and superseded the written Or- 
 dinances of Christ by a pretended Teaching and sensi- 
 
140 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 ble Presence of the Spirit, he appeals against them to 
 their own consciences, as wilful Slanderers. But if 
 with proof, I have in these Aphorisms signed and 
 sealed my own Condemnation. 
 
 " These things I could not forbear to write. For the 
 Light within me, that is, my Reason and Conscience, 
 does assure me, that the Ancient and Apostolic Faith 
 according to the historical Meaning thereof, and in the 
 literal sense of the Creed, is solid and true : and that 
 Familism in its fairest form and under whatever dis- 
 guise is a smooth Tale to seduce the simple from their 
 Allegiance to Christ." 
 
 Henry More's Theological Works, p. 372. 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 
 
 \ 
 
And here it will not be impertinent to observe, that what the 
 eldest Greek Philosophy entitled the Reason (nots) and Ideas, 
 the philosophic Apostle names the Spirit and Truths spiritually 
 discerned : while to those who in the pride of Learning or in the 
 over- weening meanness of modern Metaphysics decry the doc- 
 trine of the Spirit in Man and its possible communion with the 
 Holy Spirit, as vulgar enthusiasm ; I submit the following Sen- 
 tences from a Pagan Philosopher, a Nobleman and a Minister 
 of State — " Ita dico, Lucili ! sacer intra nos Spiritus se- 
 det, malorum bonorumque nostrorum observator et custos. 
 Hie prout a nobis tractatus est, ita nos ipse tractat. Bonus vir 
 sine Deo nemo est." Seneca. 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 
 
 APHORISM I. h. more. 
 
 Every one is to give a reason of his faith; but 
 Priests and Ministers more punctually than any, their 
 province being to make good every sentence of the 
 Bible to a rational enquirer into the truth of these 
 Oracles. Enthusiasts find it an easy thing to heat the 
 fancies of unlearned and unreflecting Hearers; but 
 when a sober man would be satisfied of the Grounds 
 from whence they speak, he shall not have one syllable 
 or the least tittle of a pertinent Answer. Only they 
 will talk big of the spirit, and inveigh against Reason 
 with bitter Reproaches, calling it carnal or fleshly, 
 though it be indeed no soft flesh, but enduring and 
 penetrant steel, even the sword of the Spirit, and such 
 as pierces to the Heart. 
 
 APHORISM II. h. more. 
 
 There are two very bad things in this resolving of 
 men's Faith and Practice into the immediate suggestion 
 of a Spirit not acting on our Understandings, or 
 rather into the illumination of such a Spirit as they can 
 
144 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 give no account of, such as does not enlighten their rea- 
 son or enable them to render their doctrine intelligible 
 to others. First, it defaces and makes useless that 
 part of the Image of God in us, which we call rea- 
 son : and secondly, it takes away that advantage, which 
 raises Christianity above all other Religions, that she 
 dare appeal to so solid a faculty. 
 
 APHORISM III. editor. 
 
 It is the glory of the Gospel Charter and the Chri- 
 stian Constitution, that its Author and Head is the 
 Spirit of Truth, Essential Reason as well as Absolute 
 and Incomprehensible Will. Like a just Monarch, he 
 refers even his own causes to the Judgment of his high 
 Courts. — He has his King's Rench in the Reason, his 
 Court of Equity in the Conscience; that the repre- 
 sentative of his Majesty and universal Justice, this 
 the nearest to the King's heart, and the Dispenser of 
 his particular Decrees. He has likewise his Court of 
 Common Pleas in the Understanding, his Court of 
 Exchequer in the Prudence. The Laws are his Laws. 
 And though by Signs and Miracles he has mercifully 
 condescended to interline here and there with his own 
 hand the great Statute-book, which he had dictated to 
 his Amanuensis, Nature; yet has he been graciously 
 pleased to forbid our receiving as the King's Mandates 
 aught that is not stamped with the Great Seal of the 
 Conscience, and countersigned by the Reason. 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 145 
 
 APHORISM IV. 
 
 ON AN UNLEARNED MINISTRY, UNDER PRETENCE OF 
 A CALL OF THE SPIRIT, AND INWARD GRACES SUPER- 
 SEDING OUTWARD HELPS. 
 
 Tell me, Ye high-flown Perfectionists, Ye Boasters 
 of the Light within you, could the highest perfection 
 of your inward Light ever show to you the History 
 of past Ages, the state of the World at present, the 
 Knowledge of Arts and Tongues, without Books or 
 Teachers ? How then can you understand the Pro- 
 vidence of God, or the age, the purpose, the fulfilment 
 of Prophecies, or distinguish such as have been ful- 
 filled from those to the fulfilment of which we are to 
 look forward? How can you judge concerning the 
 authenticity and uncorruptedness of the Gospels, and 
 the other sacred Scriptures ? And how without this 
 knowledge can you support the truth of Christianity ? 
 How can you either have, or give a reason for the faith 
 which you profess? This Light within, that loves 
 Darkness, and would exclude those excellent Gifts of 
 God to Mankind, Knowledge and Understanding, what 
 is it but a sullen self-sufficiency within you, engender- 
 ing contempt of Superiors, pride and a Spirit of Divi- 
 sion, and inducing you to reject for yourselves and to 
 undervalue in others the Helps without, which the 
 Grace of God has provided and appointed for his 
 Church — nay, to make them grounds or pretexts of 
 your dislike or suspicion of 'Christ's Ministers who have 
 
146 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 fruitfully availed themselves of the Helps afforded 
 them? — Henry More. 
 
 APHORISM V. 
 
 There are Wanderers, whom neither pride nor a 
 perverse humour have led astray ; and whose condi- 
 tion is such, that I think few more worthy of a man's 
 best directions. For the more imperious Sects having 
 put such unhandsome vizards on Christianity, and 
 the sincere Milk of the Word having been every where 
 so sophisticated by the humours and inventions of 
 men, it has driven these anxious Melancholists to 
 seek for a Teacher that cannot deceive, the Voice of 
 the eternal Word within them ; to which if they be 
 faithful, they assure themselves it will be faithful to 
 them in return. Nor would this be a groundless Pre- 
 sumption, if they had sought this Voice in the Reason 
 and the Conscience, with the Scripture articulating 
 the same, instead of giving heed to their Fancy and 
 mistaking bodily disturbances, and the vapors result- 
 ing therefrom, for inspiration and the teaching of the 
 Spirit. — Henry More. 
 
 APHORISM VI. 
 
 When every man is his own end, all things will 
 come to a bad end. Blessed were those days, when 
 every man thought himself rich and fortunate by the 
 good success of the public wealth and glory. We want 
 public Souls, we want them. I speak it with compas- 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 147 
 
 sion : there is no sin and abuse in the world that affects 
 my thought so much. Every man thinks, that he is a 
 whole Commonwealth in his private Family. Omnes 
 quae sua sunt quaerunt. All seek their own. — Bishop 
 Hacket's Sermons, p. 449. 
 
 comment. 
 
 Selfishness is common to all ages and countries. In 
 all ages Self-seeking is the Rule, and Self-sacrifice the 
 Exception. But if to seek our private advantage in 
 harmony with, and by the furtherance of, the public 
 prosperity, and to derive a portion of our happiness 
 from sympathy with the prosperity of our fellow-men 
 — if this be Public Spirit, it would be morose and 
 querulous to pretend that there is any want of it in 
 this country and at the present time. On the contrary, 
 the number of " public souls" and the general readi- 
 ness to contribute to the public good, in science and in 
 religion, in patriotism and in philanthropy, stand pro- 
 minent * among the characteristics of this and the pre- 
 
 * The very marked, positive as well as comparative, magni- 
 tude and prominence of the Bump, entitled Benevolence 
 (see Spurzheim's Map of the Human Skull J on the head of the 
 late Mr. John Thurtel, has wofully unsettled the faith of many 
 ardent Phrenologists, and strengthened the previous doubts of a 
 still greater number into utter disbelief. On my mind this fact 
 (for a fact it is) produced the direct contrary effect ; and inclined 
 me to suspect, for the first time, that there may be some truth 
 in the Spurzheimian Scheme. Whether future Craniologists 
 may not see cause to new-name this and one or two other of 
 these convex gnomons, is quite a different question. At present, 
 
 l2 
 
148 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 ceding generation. The habit of referring Actions 
 and Opinions to fixed laws; Convictions rooted in 
 Principles; Thought, Insight, System; — these, had 
 the good Bishop lived in our times, would have been 
 his Desiderata, and the theme of his Complaints. 
 " We want thinking Souls, we want them" 
 
 This and the three preceding Extracts will suffice as 
 precautionary Aphorisms. And here again, the Reader 
 may exemplify the great advantages to be obtained 
 from the habit of tracing the proper meaning and hi- 
 story of Words. We need only recollect the common 
 and idiomatic phrases in which the word " Spirit" oc- 
 curs in a physical or material sense (ex. gr. fruit has 
 lost its spirit and flavour), to be convinced that its 
 property is to improve, enliven, actuate some other 
 thing, not to be or constitute a thing in its own name. 
 The enthusiast may find one exception to this where 
 the material itself is called Spirit. And when he calls 
 to mind, how this spirit acts when taken alone by the 
 unhappy persons who in their first exultation will boast 
 that it is Meat, Drink, Fire, and Clothing to them, all 
 in one —when he reflects, that its properties are to 
 inflame, intoxicate, madden, with exhaustion, lethargy, 
 
 and according to the present use of words, any such change 
 would be premature : and we must be content to say, that Mr. 
 Thurtel's Benevolence was insufficiently modified by the un- 
 protrusive and unindicated Convolutes of the Brain, that secrete 
 honesty and common-sense. The organ of Destructiveness was 
 indirectly ■potentiated by the absence or imperfect developement 
 of the Glands of Reason and Conscience, in this " unfortunate 
 Gentleman !". 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 149 
 
 and atrophy for the Sequels — well for him, if in some 
 lucid interval he should fairly put the question to his 
 own mind, how far this is analogous to his own case, 
 and whether the Exception does not confirm the Rule. 
 The Letter without the Spirit killeth ; but does it 
 follow, that the Spirit is to kill the Letter ? To kill 
 that which it is its appropriate office to enliven ? 
 
 However, where the Ministry is not invaded, and 
 the plain sense of the Scriptures is left undisturbed, 
 and the Believer looks for the suggestions of the Spirit 
 only or chiefly in applying particular passages to his 
 own individual case and exigencies ; though in this there 
 may be much weakness, some Delusion and imminent 
 Danger of more, I cannot but join with Henry More 
 in avowing, that I feel knit to such a man in the bonds 
 of a common faith far more closely, than to those who 
 receive neither the Letter, nor the Spirit, turning the 
 one into metaphor and oriental hyperbole, in order to 
 explain away the other into the influence of motives 
 suggested by their own understandings, and realized 
 by their own strength. 
 
APHORISMS 
 
 WHICH IS INDEED SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 
 
 In the selection of the Extracts that form the re- 
 mainder of this Volume and of the Comments affixed, 
 the Editor had the following Objects principally in 
 view. First, to exhibit the true and scriptural mean- 
 ing and intent of several Articles of Faith, that are 
 rightly classed among the Mysteries and peculiar Doc- 
 trines of Christianity. Secondly, to show the perfect 
 rationality of these Doctrines, and their freedom from 
 all just Objection when examined by their proper Or- 
 gan, the Reason and Conscience of Man. Lastly, to 
 exhibit from the Works of Leighton, who perhaps of 
 all our learned protestant Theologians best deserves 
 the title of a Spiritual Divine, an instructive and affect- 
 ing picture of the contemplations, reflections, conflicts, 
 consolations and monitory experiences of a philosophic 
 and richly -gifted mind, amply stored with all the know- 
 ledge that Books and long intercourse with men of the 
 most discordant characters can give, under the con- 
 victions, impressions, and habits of a Spiritual Religion. 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 151 
 
 To obviate a possible disappointment in any of my 
 Readers, who may chance to be engaged in theological 
 studies, it may be well to notice, that in vindicating the 
 peculiar tenets of our Faith, I have not entered on the 
 Doctrine of the Trinity, or the still profounder Mystery 
 of the Origin of Moral Evil — and this for the reasons 
 following : 1 . These Doctrines are not (strictly speak- 
 ing) subjects of Reflection, in the proper sense of this 
 word: and both of them demand a power and per- 
 sistency of Abstraction, and a previous discipline in the 
 highest forms of human thought, which it would be 
 unwise, if not presumptuous, to expect from any, who 
 require " Aids to Reflection, 1 ' or would be likely to seek 
 them in the present Work. 2. In my intercourse with 
 men of various ranks and ages, I have found the far 
 larger number of serious and inquiring Persons little if 
 at all disquieted by doubts respecting Articles of Faith, 
 that are simply above their comprehension. It is only 
 where the Belief required of them jars with their mo- 
 ral feelings ; where a Doctrine in the sense, in which 
 they have been taught to receive it, appears to con- 
 tradict their clear notions of Right and Wrong, or to be 
 at variance with the divine Attributes of Goodness and 
 Justice ; that these men are surprised, perplexed, and 
 alas ! not seldom offended and alienated. Such are the 
 Doctrines of Arbitrary Election and Reprobation ; the 
 Sentence to everlasting Torment by an eternal and 
 necessitating Decree; vicarious Atonement, and the 
 necessity of the Abasement, Agony and ignominious 
 Death of a most holy and meritorious Person, to ap- 
 
152 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 pease the Wrath of God. Now it is more especially 
 for such Persons, unwilling Sceptics, who believing 
 earnestly ask help for their unbelief, that this Volume 
 was compiled, and the Comments written : and there- 
 fore, to the Scripture Doctrines, intended by the above- 
 mentioned, my principal attention has been directed. 
 
 But lastly, the whole Scheme of the Christian Faith, 
 including all the Articles of Belief common to the 
 Greek and Latin, the Roman and the Protestant 
 Church, with the threefold proof, that it is ideally, 
 morally, and historically true, will be found exhibited 
 and vindicated in a proportionally larger Work, the 
 
 I principal Labour of my Life since Manhood, and which 
 I am now preparing for the Press under the title, As- 
 
 \ sertion of Religion, as necessarily involving Revelation ; 
 and of Christianity, as the only Revelation of per- 
 manent and universal validity. 
 
 APHORISM I. LEIGHTON. 
 
 Where, if not in Christ, is the Power that can per- 
 suade a Sinner to return, that can bring home a Heart 
 to God ? 
 
 Common mercies of God, though they have a lead- 
 ing faculty to repentance, (Rom. ii. 4.) yet, the re- 
 bellious heart will not be led by them. The judg- 
 ments of God, public or personal, though they ought 
 to drive us to God, yet the heart, unchanged, runs 
 the further from God. Do we not see it by ourselves 
 and other sinners about us ? They look not at all to- 
 wards Him who smites, much less do they return ; or 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 153 
 
 if any more serious thoughts of returning arise upon 
 the surprise of an affliction, how soon vanish they, 
 either the stroke abating, or the heart, by time, growing 
 hard and senseless under it ! Leave Christ out, I say, 
 and all other means work not this way; neither the 
 works nor the word of God sounding daily in his ear, 
 Return, return. Let the noise of the rod speak it too, 
 and both join together to make the cry the louder, yet 
 the wicked will do wickedly, Dan. xii. 10. 
 
 COMMENT. 
 
 By the phrase " in Christ," I mean all the superna- 
 tural Aids vouchsafed and conditionally promised in 
 the Christian Dispensation : and among them the Spirit 
 of Truth, which the world cannot receive, were it only 
 that the knowledge of spiritual Truth is of necessity 
 immediate and intuitive: and the World or Natural 
 Man possesses no higher intuitions than those of the 
 pure Sense, which are the subjects of Mathematical 
 Science. But Aids, observe ! Therefore, not by the 
 Will of man alone ; but neither without the Will. 
 The doctrine of modern Calvinism, as layed down by 
 Jonathan Edwards and the late Dr. Williams, which 
 represents a Will absolutely passive, clay in the hands 
 of a Potter, destroys all Will, takes away its essence 
 and definition, as effectually as in saying — This Circle 
 is square — I should deny the figure to be a Circle at 
 all. It was. in strict consistency therefore, that these 
 Writers supported the Necessitarian Scheme, and made 
 the relation of Cause and Effect the Law of the Uni- 
 
 J 
 
154 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 verse, subjecting to its mechanism the moral World 
 no less than the material or physical. It follows, that 
 all is Nature. Thus, though few Writers use the 
 term Spirit more frequently, they in effect deny its 
 existence, and evacuate the term of all its proper mean- 
 ing. With such a system not the Wit of Man nor all 
 the Theodices ever framed by human ingenuity before 
 and since the attempt of the celebrated Leibnitz, can 
 reconcile the Sense of Responsibility, nor the fact of 
 the difference in kind between regret and remorse. 
 The same compulsion of Consequence drove the Fa- 
 thers of Modern (or Pseudo-) Calvinism to the origina- 
 tion of Holiness in Power, of Justice in Right of Pro- 
 perty, and whatever other outrages on the common 
 sense and moral feelings of Mankind they have sought 
 to cover, under the fair name of Sovereign Grace. 
 I will not take on me to defend sundry harsh and 
 
 1 inconvenient Expressions in the Works of Calvin. 
 Phrases equally strong and Assertions not less rash 
 
 / and startling are no rarities in the Writings of Luther : 
 for Catachresis was the favourite Figure of Speech in 
 that age. But let not the opinions of either on this 
 most fundamental Subject be confounded with the 
 New-England System, now entitled Calvinistic. The 
 fact is simply this. Luther considered the Pretensions 
 to Free-will boastful, and better suited to the budge 
 Doctors of the Stoic Fur, than to the Preachers of the 
 Gospel, whose great Theme is the Redemption of the 
 Will from Slavery ; the restoration of the Will to per- 
 fect Freedom being the end and consummation of the 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 155 
 
 redemptive Process, and the same with the entrance 
 of the Soul into Glory, *. e. its union with Christ: 
 " glory" (John xvii. 5.) being one of the names of 
 the Spiritual Messiah. Prospectively to this we are to 
 understand the words of our Lord, At that day ye 
 shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, 
 John xiv. 20 : the freedom of a finite will being pos- 
 sible under this condition only, that it has become one 
 with the will of God. Now as the difference of a cap- 
 tive and enslaved Will, and no Will at all, such is the 
 difference between the Lutheranism of Calvin and the 
 Calvinism of Jonathan Edwards. 
 
 APHORISM II. LEIGHTON. 
 
 There is nothing in religion farther out of Nature's 
 reach, and more remote from the natural man's liking 
 and believing, than the doctrine of Redemption by a 
 Saviour, and by a crucified Saviour. It is compara- 
 tively easy to persuade men of the necessity of an 
 amendment of conduct ; it is more difficult to make 
 them see the necessity of Repentance in the Gospel 
 sense, the necessity of a change in the principle of 
 action ; but to convince men of the necessity of the 
 Death of Christ is the most difficult of all. And yet the 
 first is but varnish and white-wash without the second ; 
 and the second but a barren notion without the last. 
 Alas ! of those who admit the doctrine in words, how 
 large a number evade it in fact, and empty it of all its 
 substance and efficacy, making the effect the efficient 
 cause, or attributing their election to Salvation to a 
 
156 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 supposed Foresight of their Faith, Obedience. But it 
 is most vain to imagine a faith in such and such men, 
 which, being foreseen by God, determined him to elect 
 them for salvation: were it only that nothing at all 
 is future^ or can have this imagined juturition, but as 
 it is decreed, and because it is decreed by God so to 
 be. 
 
 COMMENT. 
 
 No impartial person, competently acquainted with 
 the History of the Reformation, and the works of the 
 earlier protestant Divines at home and abroad, even 
 to the close of Elizabeth's reign, will deny that the 
 Doctrines of Calvin on Redemption and the natural 
 state of fallen Man, are in all essential points the same 
 as those of Luther, Zuinglius, and the first reformers 
 collectively. These Doctrines have, however, since 
 the re-establishment of the Episcopal Church at the 
 return of the second Charles, been as generally* ex- 
 
 * At a period, in which Doctors Marsh and Wordsworth 
 have, by the Zealots on one side, been charged with popish 
 principles on account of their Anti-bibliolaijry , and the sturdy 
 Adherents of the doctrines common to Luther and Calvin, and 
 the literal interpreters of the Articles and Homilies, are (I wish 
 I could say, altogether without any fault of their own) regarded 
 by the Clergy generally as virtual Schismatics, Dividers of, 
 though not from, the Church, it is serving the cause of charity 
 to assist in circulating the following instructive passage from 
 the Life of Bishop Hackett respecting the disputes between the 
 Augustinians, or Luthero-calvinistic Divines and the Grotians 
 of his Age: in which controversy (says his Biographer) he, 
 Hacket, " was ever very moderate." 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 157 
 
 changed for what is commonly entitled Arminianism, 
 but which, taken as a complete and explicit Scheme of 
 Belief, it would be both historically and theologically 
 more accurate to call Grotianism, or Christianity ac- 
 cording to Grotius. The change was not, we may 
 readily believe, effected without a struggle. In the 
 Romish Church this latitudinarian System, patronized 
 by the Jesuits, was manfully resisted by Jansenius, 
 Arnauld, and Pascal; in our own Church by the 
 Bishops Davenant, Sanderson, Hall, and the Arch- 
 
 " But having been bred under Bishop Davenant and Dr. 
 Ward in Cambridge, he was addicted to their sentiments. Arch- 
 bishop Usher would say, that Davenant understood those con- 
 troversies better than ever any man did since St. Augustin. 
 But he (Bishop Hackett) used to say, that he was sure he had 
 three excellent men of his mind in this controversy, 1. Padre 
 Paulo (Father Paul) whose Letter is extant to Heinsius, anno 
 1604. 2. Thomas Aquinas. 3. St. Augustin. But besides and above 
 them all, he believed in his Conscience that St. Paul was of the 
 same mind likewise. Yet at the same time he would profess, 
 that he disliked no Arminians, but such as revile and defame 
 every one who is not so : and he would often commend Arminius 
 himself for his excellent Wit and Parts, but only tax his want 
 of reading and knowledge in Antiquity. And he ever held, it 
 was the foolishest thing in the world to say the Arminians were 
 popishly inclined, when so many Dominicans and Jansenists 
 were rigid followers of Augustin in these points : and no less 
 foolish to say that the Anti-arminians were Puritans or Pres- 
 byterians when Ward, and Davenant, and Prideaux, and Brown- 
 rig, those stout Champions for Episcopacy, were decided Anti- 
 Arminians : while Arminius himself was ever a Presbyterian. 
 Therefore he greatly commended the moderation of our Church, 
 which extended equal Communion to both." 
 
 i 
 
158 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 bishops Usher and Leighton : and in the latter half of 
 the preceding Aphorism the Reader has a specimen of 
 the reasonings by which Leighton strove to invalidate 
 or counterpoise the reasonings of the Innovators. 
 
 Passages of this sort are, however, of rare occur- 
 rence in Leighton's works. Happily for thousands, 
 he was more usefully employed in making his Readers 
 feel, that the Doctrines in question, scripturally treated, 
 and taken as co-organized parts of a great organic 
 whole, need no such reasonings. And better still 
 would it have been, had he left them altogether for 
 those, who severally detaching the great Features of 
 Revelation from the living Context of Scripture, do 
 by that very act destroy their life and purpose. And 
 then, like the Eyes of the Aranea prodigiosa*, they 
 become clouded microscopes, to exaggerate and distort 
 all the other parts and proportions. No offence then 
 will be occasioned, I trust, by the frank avowal that I 
 have given to the preceding passage a place among the 
 Spiritual Aphorisms for the sake of the Comment: 
 the following Remark having been the first marginal 
 Note I had pencilled on Leighton's Pages, and thus 
 (remotely, at least), the occasion of the present Work. 
 
 Leighton, I observed, throughout his inestimable 
 Work, avoids all metaphysical views of Election, re- 
 latively to God, and confines himself to the Doctrine in 
 its relation to Man : and in that sense too, in which every 
 Christian may judge who strives to be sincere with his 
 
 * The gigantic Indian Spider. See Baker's Microscopic 
 Experiments. 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 159 
 
 own heart. The following may, I think, be taken as a 
 safe and useful Rule in religious inquiries. Ideas, that 
 derive their origin and substance from the Moral Being, 
 and to the reception of which as true objectively (i. e. as 
 corresponding to a reality out of the human mind) we 
 are determined by a practical interest exclusively, may 
 not, like theoretical or speculative Positions, be pressed 
 onward into all their possible logical consequences. 
 The Law of Conscience, and not the Canons of dis- 
 cursive Reasoning, must decide in such cases. At 
 least, the latter has no validity, which the single Veto 
 of the former is not sufficient to nullify. The most 
 pious conclusion is here the most legitimate. 
 
 It is too seldom considered, though most worthy of 
 consideration, how far even those Ideas or Theories of 
 pure Speculation, that bear the same name with the 
 Objects of Religious Faith, are indeed the same. Out 
 of the principles necessarily presumed in all discursive 
 Thinking, and which being, in the first place, universal, 
 and secondly, antecedent to every particular exercise 
 of the Understanding, are therefore referred to the 
 Reason, the human Mind (wherever its powers are 
 sufficiently developed, and its attention strongly di- 
 rected to speculative or theoretical inquiries,) forms 
 certain Essences, to which for its own purposes it gives 
 a sort of notional Subsistence. Hence they are called 
 Entia^rationalia : the conversion of which into Entia 
 realia, or real Objects, by aid of the Imagination, has 
 in all times been the fruitful Stock of empty Theories, 
 and mischievous Superstitions, of surreptitious Pre- 
 
160 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 mises and extravagant Conclusions. For as these sub- 
 stantiated Notions were in many instances expressed by 
 the same terms, as the objects of religious Faith ; as in 
 most instances they were applied, though deceptively, 
 to the explanation of real experiences ; and lastly, from 
 the gratifications, which the pride and ambition of man 
 received from the supposed extension of his Knowledge 
 and Insight ; it was too easily forgotten or overlooked, 
 that the stablest and most indispensable of these notional 
 Beings were but the necessary forms of Thinking, 
 taken abstractedly : and that like the bread thless Lines, 
 depthless Surfaces, and perfect Circles of Geometry, 
 they subsist wholly and solely in and for the Mind, 
 that contemplates them. Where the evidence of the 
 Senses fails us, and beyond the precincts of sensible 
 experience, there is no Reality attributable to any 
 Notion, but what is given to it by Revelation, or the 
 Law of Conscience, or the necessary interests of Mo- 
 rality. 
 
 Take an instance ; 
 
 It is the office, and as it were, the instinct of Rea- 
 son to bring a unity into all our conceptions and se- 
 veral knowledges. On this all system depends : and 
 without this we could reflect connectedly neither on 
 nature or our own minds. Now this is possible only 
 on the assumption or hypothesis of a one as the ground 
 and cause of the Universe, and which in all succession 
 and through all changes is the subject neither of Time 
 or Change. The one must be contemplated as Eternal 
 and Immutable. 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 161 
 
 Well ! the Idea, which is the basis of Religion, com- 
 manded by the Conscience and required by Morality, 
 contains the same truths, or at least Truths that can 
 be expressed in no other terms ; but this Idea presents 
 itself to our mind with additional Attributes, and these 
 too not formed by mere Abstraction and Negation — 
 with the Attributes of Holiness, Providence, Love, 
 Justice, and Mercy. It comprehends, moreover, the 
 independent [extra-mundane) existence and personality 
 of the supreme one, as our Creator, Lord, and Judge. 
 
 The hypothesis of a one Ground and Principle of 
 the Universe (necessary as an hypothesis ; but having 
 only a logical and conditional necessity) is thus raised 
 into the Idea of the living god, the supreme Object 
 of our Faith, Love, Fear, and Adoration. Religion 
 and Morality do indeed constrain us to declare him 
 Eternal and Immutable. But if from the Eternity of 
 the Supreme Being a Reasoner should deduce the im- 
 possibility of a Creation; or conclude with Aristotle, that 
 the Creation was co-eternal ; or, like the later Platonists, 
 should turn Creation into Emanation, and make the 
 universe proceed from Deity, as the Sunbeams from 
 the Solar Orb ; — or if from the divine Immutability he 
 should infer, that all Prayer and Supplication must be 
 vain and superstitious : then however evident and logic- 
 ally necessary such conclusions may appear, it is scarcely 
 worth our while to examine, whether they are so or 
 not. The Positions themselves mu st be false. For 
 were they true, the Idea would lose the sole ground 
 of its reality. It would be no longer the Idea intended 
 
 M 
 
162 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 by the Believer in his premise — in the Premise, with 
 which alone Religion and Morality are concerned. 
 The very subject of the discussion would be changed. 
 It would no longer be the God, in whom we believe ; 
 but a stoical fate, or the superessential one of Plotinus, 
 to whom neither Intelligence, or Self-consciousness, or 
 Life, or even Being dare be attributed ; or lastly, the 
 World itself, the indivisible one and only substance 
 (substantia una et unicd) of Spinoza, of which all 
 Phsenomena, all particular and individual Things, 
 Lives, Minds, Thoughts, and Actions are but modi- 
 fications. 
 
 Let the Believer never be alarmed by Objections 
 wholly speculative, however plausible on speculative 
 grounds such objections may appear, if he can but 
 satisfy himself, that the Result is repugnant to the 
 dictates of Conscience, and irreconcilable with the in- 
 terests of Morality. For to baffle the Objector we have 
 only to demand of him, by what right and under what 
 authority he converts a Thought into a Substance, or 
 asserts the existence of a real somewhat corresponding 
 to a Notion not derived from the experience of his 
 Senses. It will be of no purpose for him to answer, 
 that it is a legitimate Notion. The Notion may have 
 its mould in the understanding ; but its realization must 
 be the work of the fancy. 
 
 A reflecting Reader will easily apply these remarks 
 to the subject of Election, one of the stumbling stones 
 in the ordinary conceptions of the Christian Faith, to 
 which the Infidel points in scorn, and which far better 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 163 
 
 men pass by in silent perplexity. Yet surely, from 
 mistaken conceptions of the Doctrine. I suppose the 
 person, with whom I am arguing, already so far a 
 Believer, as to have convinced himself, both that a 
 state of enduring Bliss is attainable under certain con- 
 ditions ; and that these conditions consist in his com- 
 pliance with the directions given and rules prescribed 
 in the Christian Scriptures. These rules he likewise 
 admits to be such, that, by the very law and constitu- 
 tion of the human mind, a full and faithful compliance 
 with them cannot but have consequences, of some sort 
 or other. But these consequences are moreover di- 
 stinctly described, enumerated, and promised in the 
 same Scriptures, in which the Conditions are recorded ; 
 and though some of them may be apparent to God 
 only, yet the greater number are of such a nature that 
 they cannot exist unknown to the Individual, in and 
 for whom they exist. As little possible is it, that he 
 should find these consequences in himself, and not find 
 in them the sure marks and the safe pledges, that he is 
 at the time in the right road to the Life promised under 
 these conditions. Now I dare assert, that no such 
 man, however fervent his charity, and however deep 
 his humility, may be, can peruse the records of Hi- 
 story with a reflecting spirit, or " look round the world" 
 with an observant eye, and not find himself compelled 
 to admit, that all men are not on the right Road. He 
 cannot help judging, that even in Christian countries 
 Many, a fearful Many ! have not their faces turned 
 toward it. 
 
 m 2 
 
164 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 This then is mere matter of fact. Now comes the 
 question. Shall the Believer, who thus hopes on the 
 appointed grounds of Hope, attribute this distinction 
 exclusively to his own resolves and strivings ? or if 
 not exclusively, yet primarily and principally ? Shall 
 he refer the first movements and preparations to his 
 own Will and Understanding, and bottom his claim to 
 the Promises on his own comparative excellence ? If not, 
 if no man dare take this honour to himself, to whom 
 shall he assign it, if not to that Being in whom the 
 Promise originated and on whom its Fulfilment de- 
 pends ? If he stop here, who shall blame him ? By 
 what argument shall his reasoning be invalidated, 
 that might not be urged with equal force against any 
 essential difference between Obedient and Disobedient, 
 Christian and Worldling ? that would not imply that 
 both sorts alike are, in the sight of God, the Sons of 
 God by adoption ? If he stop here, I say, who shall 
 drive him from his position ? For thus far he is prac- 
 tically concerned — this the Conscience requires, this the 
 highest interests of Morality demand. It is a question 
 of Facts, of the Will and the Deed, to argue against 
 which on the abstract notions and possibilities of the 
 speculative Reason is as unreasonable, as an attempt 
 to decide a question of Colours by pure Geometry, 
 or to unsettle the classes and specific characters of Na- 
 tural History by the Doctrine of Fluxions. 
 
 But if the Self-examinant will abandon this position, 
 and exchange the safe circle of Religion and practical 
 Reason for the shifting Sand-wastes and Mirages of 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 165 
 
 Speculative Theology; if instead of seeking after the 
 marks of Election in himself he undertakes to deter- 
 mine the ground and origin, the possibility and mode 
 of Election itself in relation to God; — in this case, and 
 whether he does it for the satisfaction of curiosity, or 
 from the ambition of answering those, who would call 
 God himself to account, why and by what right certain 
 Souls were born in Africa instead of England ? or why 
 (seeing that it is against all reason and goodness to 
 choose a worse when being omnipotent he could have 
 created a better) God did not create Beasts Men, and 
 Men Angels ? or why God created any men but with 
 pre-knowledge of their obedience, and left any oc- 
 casion for Election ? — in this case, I say, we can only 
 regret, that the Inquirer had not been better instructed 
 in the nature, the bounds, the true purposes and proper 
 objects of his intellectual faculties, and that he had not 
 previously asked himself, by what appropriate Sense, 
 or Organ of Knowledge, he hoped to secure an insight 
 into a Nature which was neither an Object of his 
 Senses, nor a part of his Self-consciousness ! and so 
 leave him to ward off shadowy Spears with the shadow 
 of a Shield, and to retaliate the nonsense of Blasphemy 
 with the Abracadabra of Presumption. He that will 
 fly without wings must fly in his dreams : and till he 
 awakes, will not find out, that to fly in a dream is but 
 to dream of flying. 
 
 Thus then the Doctrine of Election is in itself a 
 necessary inference from an undeniable fact — necessary 
 at least for all who hold that the best of men are what 
 they are through the grace of God. In relation to the 
 
166 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 Believer it is a Hope, which if it spring out of Christian 
 Principles, be examined by the tests and nourished by 
 the means prescribed in Scripture, will become a lively, 
 an assured Hope, but which cannot in this life pass into 
 knowledge, much less certainty of fore-knowledge. 
 The contrary belief does indeed make the article of 
 Election both tool and parcel of a mad and mischievous 
 fanaticism. But with what force and clearness does 
 not the Apostle confute, disclaim, and prohibit the pre- 
 tence, treating it as a downright contradiction in terms ! 
 See Romans, viii. 24. 
 
 But though I hold the doctrine handled as Leighton 
 handles it (that is practically, morally, humanly) ra- 
 tional, safe, and of essential importance, I see many * 
 reasons resulting from the peculiar circumstances, under 
 
 * Exempli gratia: at the date of St. Paul's Epistles the (Ro- 
 man) World may be resembled to a Mass in the Furnace in the 
 first moment of fusion, here a speck and there a spot of the 
 melted Metal shining pure and brilliant amid the scum and dross. 
 To have received the name of Christian was a privilege, a high 
 and distinguishing favour. No wonder therefore, that in St. 
 Eaul's writings the words, Elect and Election, often, nay, most 
 often mean the same as eccalumeni, ecclesia, i. e. those who 
 have been called out of the World : and it is a dangerous per- 
 version of the Apostle's word to interpret it in the sense, in 
 which it was used by our Lord, viz. in opposition to the Called. 
 (Many are called but few chosen). In St. Paul's sense and at 
 that time the Believers collectively formed a small and select 
 number ; and every Christian, real or nominal, was one of the 
 Elect. Add too, that this ambiguity is increased by the acci- 
 dental circumstance, that the kyriak, MA.es Dominica, Lord's 
 House, Kirk ; and Ecclesia, the sum total of the Eccalumeni, 
 fvocati, Called-out; are both rendered by the same word Church. 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 167 
 
 which St. Paul preached and wrote, why a discreet 
 Minister of the Gospel should avoid the frequent use 
 of the term, and express the meaning in other words 
 perfectly equivalent and equally scriptural : lest in say- 
 ing truth he might convey error. 
 
 Had my purpose been confined to one particular 
 Tenet, an apology might be required for so long a 
 Comment. But the Reader will, I trust, have already 
 perceived, that my Object has been to establish a ge- 
 neral Rule of interpretation and vindication applicable 
 to all doctrinal Tenets, and especially to the (so called) 
 Mysteries of the Christian Faith : to provide a Safety- 
 lamp for religious inquirers. Now this I find in the 
 principle, that all Revealed Truths are to be judged 
 of by us, as far as they are possible subjects of human [ 
 Conception, or grounds of Practice, or in some way 
 connected with our moral and spiritual Interests. In 
 order to have a reasons/or forming a judgment on any 
 given article, we must be sure that we possess a Reason, 
 by and according to which a judgment may be formed. 
 Now in respect of all Truths, to which a real independ- 
 ent existence is assigned, and which yet are not con- 
 tained in, or to be imagined under, any form of Space 
 or Time, it is strictly demonstrable, that the human 
 Reason, considered abstractly as the source of positive 
 Science and theoretical Insight, is not such a Reason. 
 At the utmost, it has only a negative voice. In other 
 words, nothing can be allowed as true for the human 
 Mind, which directly contradicts this Reason. But 
 even here, before we admit the existence of any such 
 
168 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 contradiction, we must be careful to ascertain, that there 
 is no equivocation in play, that two different subjects 
 are not confounded under one and the same word. A 
 striking instance of this has been adduced in the dif- 
 ference between the notional One of the Ontologists, 
 and the Idea of the Living God. 
 
 But if not the abstract or speculative Reason, and 
 yet a Reason there must be in order to a rational Be- 
 lief — then it must be the Practical Reason of Man, 
 comprehending the Will, the Conscience, the Moral 
 Being with its inseparable Interests and Affections — 
 that Reason, namely, which is the Organ of Wisdom, 
 and (as far as Man is concerned) the Source of living 
 and actual Truths. 
 
 From these premises we may further deduce, that 
 every doctrine is to be interpreted in reference to those, 
 to whom it has been revealed, or who have or have 
 had the means of knowing or hearing the same. For 
 instance: the Doctrine that there is no name under 
 Heaven, by which a man can be saved, but the name 
 of Jesus. If the word here rendered Name, may be 
 understood (as it well may, and as in other texts it 
 must be) as meaning the Power, or originating Cause, 
 I see no objection on the part of the Practical Reason 
 to our belief of the declaration in its whole extent. It 
 is true universally or not true at all. If there be any 
 redemptive Power not contained in the Power of Jesus, 
 then Jesus is not the Redeemer : not the Redeemer 
 of the World, not the Jesus (i. e. Saviour) of Maxikind. 
 But if with Tertullian and Augustin we make the 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 169 
 
 Text assert the condemnation and misery of all who 
 are not Christians by Baptism and explicit Belief in 
 the Revelation of the New Covenant — then I say, the 
 doctrine is true to all intents and purposes. It is true, 
 in every respect, in which any practical, moral, or spi- 
 ritual Interest or End can be connected with its truth. 
 It is true in respect to every man who has had, or who 
 might have had, the Gospel preached to him. It is 
 true and obligatory for every Christian Community 
 and for every individual Believer, wherever the op- 
 portunity is afforded of spreading the Light of the 
 Gospel and making hnotvn the name of the only Sa- 
 viour and Redeemer. For even though the uninformed 
 Heathens should not perish, the guilt of their Perish- 
 ing will attach to those who not only had no certainty 
 of their safety, but who were commanded to act on 
 the supposition of the contrary. But if, on the other 
 hand, a theological Dogmatist should attempt to per- 
 suade me, that this Text was intended to give us an 
 historical knowledge of God's future Actions and Deal- 
 ings — and for the gratification of our Curiosity to in- 
 form us, that Socrates and Phocion, together with all 
 the Savages in the untravelled Woods and Wilds of 
 Africa and America, will be sent to keep company with 
 the Devil and his Angels in everlasting Torments — 
 1 should remind him, that the purpose of Scripture 
 was to teach us our duty, not to enable us to sit in 
 judgment on the souls of our fellow creatures. 
 
 One other instance will, I trust, prevent all miscon- 
 ception of my meaning. I am clearly convinced, that 
 
170 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 the scriptural and only true * Idea of God will, in its 
 developement, be found to involve the Idea of the Tri- 
 unity. But I am likewise convinced, that previous to 
 the promulgation of the Gospel the Doctrine had no 
 claim on the Faith of Mankind : though it might have 
 been a legitimate Contemplation for a speculative philoso- 
 pher, a Theorem in Metaphysics valid in the Schools. 
 I form a certain notion in my mind, and say : this is 
 what / understand by the term, God. From books and 
 conversation I find, that the Learned generally connect 
 the same notion with the same word. I then apply 
 the Rules, laid down by the Masters of Logic, for 
 the involution and evolution of Terms, and prove (to 
 as many as agree with me in my premises) that the 
 Notion, God, involves the Notion, Trinity. I now 
 pass out of the Schools, and enter into discourse with 
 some friend or neighbour, unversed in the formal 
 sciences, unused to the processes of Abstraction, neither 
 Logician or Metaphysician; but sensible and single- 
 minded, " an Israelite indeed,' 1 trusting in " the Lord 
 God of his Fathers, even the God of Abraham, of 
 Isaac, and of Jacob." If I speak of God to him, what 
 will he understand me to be speaking of? What does 
 he mean, and suppose me to mean, by the word ? An 
 Accident or Product of the reasoning faculty, or an 
 Abstraction which the human Mind forms by reflect- 
 
 * Or (I might have added) any Idea which does not either 
 identify the Creator with the Creation ; or else represent the 
 Supreme Being as a mere impersonal Law or Ordo ordinans, 
 cliffering from the Law of Gravitation only hy its universality. 
 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 171 
 
 ing on its own thoughts and forms of thinking ? No. 
 By God he understands me to mean an existing and 
 self-subsisting reality*, a real and personal Being — 
 
 * I have elsewhere remarked on the assistance which those 
 that labour after distinct conceptions would receive from the re- 
 introduction of the terms objective and subjective, objective and 
 subjective reality, &c. as substitutes for real and notional, and 
 to the exclusion of the false antithesis between real and ideal. 
 For the Student in that noblest of the Sciences, the Scire 
 teipsum, the advantage would be especially great*. The few 
 sentences that follow, in illustration of the terms here advocated, 
 will not, I trust, be a waste of the Reader's Time. 
 
 The celebrated Euler having demonstrated certain properties 
 of Arches, adds : '" All experience is in contradiction to this ; 
 but this is no reason for doubting its truth." The words sound 
 paradoxical; but mean no more than this — that the mathe- 
 matical properties of Figure and Space are not less certainly the 
 properties of Figure and Space because they can never be per- 
 fectly realized in wood, stone, or iron. Now this assertion of 
 Euler's might be expressed at once, briefly and simply, by say- 
 ing, that the properties in question were subjectively true, though 
 not objectively — or that the Mathematical Arch possessed a 
 subjective reality, though incapable of being realized objectively. 
 
 In like manner if I had to express my conviction, that Space / 
 was not itself a Thing, but a mode or form of perceiving, or the K 
 inward ground and condition in the Percipient, in consequence 
 of which Things are seen as outward and co-existing, I convey 
 
 * See the " Selection from Mr. Coleridge' 's Literary Correspondence 1 " 
 in Blackwood's Ed. Magazine, for October 1821, Letter ii. p. 244 — 253, 
 which, however, should any of my Readers take the trouble of consult- 
 ing, he must be content with such parts as he finds intelligible at the 
 first perusal. For from defects in the MS., and without any fault on 
 the part of the Editor, too large a portion is so printed that the man must 
 be equally bold and fortunate in his conjectural readings who can make 
 out any meaning at all. 
 
172 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 even the Person, the i am, who sent Moses to his 
 Forefathers in Egypt. Of the actual existence of 
 this at once by the words, Space is subjective, or Space is real 
 in and for the Subject alone. 
 
 If I am asked, why not say in and for the mind, which every 
 -one would understand? I reply: we know indeed, that all 
 minds are Subjects; but are by no means certain, that all 
 Subjects are Minds. For a Mind is a Subject that knows itself, 
 or a Subject that is its own Object. The inward principle of 
 Growth and individual Form in every Seed and Plant is a Sub- 
 ject, and without any exertion of poetic privilege Poets may 
 speak of the Soul of the Flower. But the man would be a 
 Dreamer, who otherwise than poetically should speak of Roses 
 and Lilies as self-conscious Subjects. Lastly, by the assistance 
 of the terms, Object and Subject, thus used as correspondent 
 Opposites, or as Negative and Positive in Physics (ex. gr. Neg. 
 and Pos. Electricity) we may arrive at the distinct import and 
 proper use of the strangely misused word, Idea. And as the 
 Forms of Logic are all borrowed from Geometry (Ratiocinatio 
 discursiva formas suas sive canonas recipit ab intuitu), I may 
 be permitted so to elucidate my present meaning. Every Line 
 may be, and by the ancient Geometricians was, considered as a 
 point produced, the two extremes being its poles, while the 
 Point itself remains in, or is at least represented by, the mid- 
 point, the Indifference of the two poles or correlative opposites. 
 Logically applied, the two extremes or poles are named Thesis 
 and Antithesis : thus in the line 
 
 I 
 
 T A 
 
 we have T = Thesis, A = Antithesis, and I = Punctum In- 
 differens sive Amphotericum, which latter is to be conceived as 
 both in as far as it may be either of the two former. Observe : 
 not both at the same time in the same relation : for this would 
 be the Identity of T and A, not the Indifference. But so, that 
 relatively to A I is equal to T, and relatively to T it becomes 
 === A. Thus in chemistry Sulphuretted Hydrogen is an Acid 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 173 
 
 this divine Person he has the same historical assurance 
 as of theirs ; confirmed indeed by the Book of Nature, 
 
 relatively to the more powerful Alkalis, and an Alkali relatively 
 to a powerful Acid. Yet one other remark, and I pass to the 
 question. In order to render the constructions of pure Mathe- 
 matics applicable to Philosophy, the Pythagoreans, I imagine, 
 represented the Line as generated, or, as it were, radiated, by a 
 Point not contained in the Line but independent, and (in the 
 language of that School) transcendent to all production, which 
 it caused but did not partake in. Facit, non patitur. This was 
 the Punctum invisibile, et presuppositum : and in this way the 
 Pythagoreans guarded against the error of Pantheism, into 
 which the later schools fell. The assumption of this Point I 
 call the logical prothesis. We have now therefore four Re- 
 lations of Thought expressed: viz. 1. Prothesis, or the Identity 
 of T and A, which is neither, because in it, as the transcendent 
 of both, both are contained and exist as one. Taken absolutely, 
 this finds its application in the Supreme Being alone, the Pytha- 
 gorean tetractys; the ineffable name, to which no Image 
 dare be attached ; the Point, which has no (real) Opposite or 
 Counter-point, &c. But relatively taken and inadequately, the 
 germinal power of every seed (see p. 68) might be generalized 
 under the relation of Identity. 2. Thesis or Position. 3. Anti- 
 thesis, or Opposition. 4. Indifference. (To which when we 
 add the Synthesis or Composition, in its several forms of Equi- 
 librium, as in quiescent Electricity; of Neutralization, as of 
 Oxygen and Hydrogen in Water ; and of Predominance, as of 
 Hydrogen and Carbon with Hydrogen predominant, in pure 
 Alcohol, or of Carbon and Hydrogen, with the comparative 
 predominance of the Carbon, in Oil ; we complete the five most 
 general Forms or Preconceptions of Constructive Logic). 
 
 And now for the Answer to the Question, What is an idea, 
 If it mean neither an Impression on the Senses, nor a definite 
 Conception, nor an abstract Notion ? (And if it does mean 
 either of these, the word is superfluous : and while it remains 
 
174 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 as soon and as far as that stronger and better Light 
 has taught him to read and construe it — confirmed by 
 
 undetermined which of these is meant by the word, or whether 
 it is not which you please, it is worse than superfluous. See 
 the Statesman's Manual, Appendix ad finern). But sup- 
 posing the word to have a meaning of its own, what does it 
 mean ? What is an idea ? In answer to this I commence with 
 the absolutely Real, as the prothesis; the subjectively Real as 
 the thesis ; the objectively Real as the antithesis : and I 
 affirm, that Idea is the indifference of the two— so namely, 
 that if it be conceived as in the Subject, the Idea is an Object, 
 and possesses Objective Truth; but if in an Object, it is then a 
 Subject, and is necessarily thought of as exercising the powers 
 of a Subject. Thus an idea conceived as subsisting in an 
 Object becomes a law ; and a Law contemplated subjectively 
 (in a mind) is an Idea. 
 
 In the third and last Section of my " Elements of Discourse;" 
 in which (after having in the two former sections treated of the 
 Common or Syllogistic Logic — the science of legitimate Con- 
 clusions ; and the Critical Logic, or the Criteria of Truth and 
 Falsehood in all Premises) I have given at full my scheme of 
 Constructive Reasoning, or " Logic as the Organ of Philosophy," 
 in the same sense as the Mathematics are the Organ of Science ; 
 the Reader will find proofs of the Utility of this Scheme, in- 
 cluding the five-fold Division above-stated, and numerous ex- 
 amples of its application. Nor is it only in Theology that its 
 importance will be felt, but equally, nay in a greater degree, as 
 an instrument of Discovery and universal Method in Physics, 
 Physiology, and Statistics. As this third Section does not pre- 
 tend to the forensic and comparatively popular character and 
 utility of the parts preceding, one of the Objects of the present 
 Note is to obtain the opinions of judicious friends respecting 
 the expedience of publishing it, in the same form, indeed, and as 
 an Annexment to the " Elements of Discourse," yet so as that 
 each may be purchased separately. 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 175 
 
 it, I say, but not derived from it. Now by what right 
 can I require this Man (and of such men the great 
 majority of serious Believers consisted, previous to the 
 Light of the Gospel) to receive a Notion of mine, 
 wholly alien from his habits of thinking, because it 
 may be logically deduced from another Notion, with 
 which he was almost as little acquainted, and not at all 
 concerned ? Grant for a moment, that the latter (i. e. 
 the Notion, with which I first set out) as soon as it is 
 combined with the assurance of a corresponding Reality 
 becomes identical with the true and effective Idea of 
 God ! Grant, that in thus realizing the Notion I am 
 warranted by Revelation, the Law of Conscience, and 
 the interests and necessities of my Moral Being ! Yet 
 by what authority, by what inducement, am I entitled 
 to attach the same reality to a second Notion, a Notion 
 drawn from a Notion ? It is evident, that if I have 
 the same Right, it must be on the same grounds. Re- 
 velation must have assured it, my Conscience required 
 it — or in some way or other I must have an interest 
 in this belief. It must concern me, as a moral and 
 responsible Being. Now these grounds were first given 
 in the Redemption of Mankind by Christ, the Saviour 
 and Mediator: and by the utter incompatibility of 
 "these offices with a mere Creature. On the doctrine 
 of Redemption depends the Faith, the Duty, of be- 
 lieving in the Divinity of our Lord. And this again 
 is the strongest Ground for the reality of that Idea, in I 
 which alone this Divinity can be received without breach 
 of the faith in the unity of the Godhead. But such is 
 the Idea of the Trinity. Strong as the motives are that 
 
176 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 induce me to defer the full discussion of this great 
 Article of the Christian Creed, I cannot withstand the 
 request of several Divines, whose situation and ex- 
 tensive services entitle them to the utmost deference, 
 that I should so far deviate from my first intention as 
 at least to indicate the point on which I stand, and to 
 prevent the misconception of my purpose : as if I held 
 the doctrine of the Trinity for a truth which Men 
 could be called on to believe by mere force of reasoning, 
 independently of any positive Revelation. In short, 
 it had been reported in certain circles, that I considered 
 this doctrine as a demonstrable part of the Religion of 
 Nature. Now though it might be sufficient to say, 
 this I regard the very phrase " Repealed Religion" 
 as a pleonasm, inasmuch as a religion not revealed is, 
 in my judgment, no religion at all ; I have no objection 
 to announce more particularly and distinctly what I 
 do and what I do not maintain on this point : provided 
 that in the following paragraph, with this view in- 
 serted, the reader will look for nothing more than a 
 plain statement of my Opinions. The grounds on 
 which they rest, and the arguments by which they are 
 to be vindicated, are for another place. 
 
 I hold then, it is true, that all the (so called) De- 
 monstrations of a God either prove too little, as that 
 from the Order and apparent Purpose in Nature; or 
 too much, viz. that the World is itself God ; or they 
 clandestinely involve the conclusion in the Premises, 
 passing off the mere analysis or explication of an 
 Assertion for the Proof of it, — a species of logical 
 legerdemain not unlike that of the Jugglers at a Fair, 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 177 
 
 who putting into their mouths what seems to be a 
 walnut, draw out a score yards of Ribbon — as in 
 the Postulate of a First Cause. And lastly, all these 
 Demonstrations presuppose the Idea or Conception of 
 a God without being able to authenticate it, i. e. to 
 give an account whence they obtained it. For it is clear, 
 that the Proof first mentioned and the most natural 
 and convincing of all (the Cosmological I mean or 
 that from the Order in Nature) presupposes the Onto- 
 logical — i. e. the proof of a God from the necessity and 
 necessary Objectivity of the Idea. If the latter can 
 assure us of a God as an existing Reality, the former 
 will go far to prove his Power, Wisdom, and Benevo- 
 lence. All this I hold. But I also hold, that this 
 Truth, the hardest to demonstrate, is the one which of 
 all others least needs to be demonstrated; that though 
 there may be no conclusive demonstrations of a good, 
 wise, living and personal God, there are so many con- 
 vincing reasons for it, within and without — a grain of 
 sand sufficing, and a whole universe at hand to echo 
 the decision ! — that for every mind not devoid of all 
 reason, and desperately conscience-proof, the Truth 
 which it is the least possible to prove, it is little less 
 than impossible not to believe ! only indeed just so 
 much short of impossible, as to leave some room for 
 the will and the moral election, and thereby to keep it 
 a truth of Religion, and the possible subject of a Com- 
 mandment*. 
 
 * In a letter to a Friend on the mathematical Atheists of the 
 French Revolution, La Lande and others, or rather on a young man 
 
 N 
 
178 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 On this account I do not demand of a Deist, that 
 he should adopt the doctrine of the Trinity. For he 
 might very well be justified in replying, that he re- 
 jected the doctrine, not because it could not be de- 
 monstrated, nor yet on the score of any incompre- 
 hensibilities and seeming contradictions that might be 
 objected to it, as knowing that these might be, and in 
 fact had been, urged with equal force against a personal 
 God under any form capable of Love and Veneration ; 
 but because he had not the same theoretical necessity, 
 the same interests and instincts of Reason for the one 
 hypothesis as for the other. It is not enough, the 
 Deist might justly say, that there is no cogent reason 
 why I should not believe the Trinity: you must show 
 I me some cogent reason why I should. 
 
 But the case is quite different with a Christian, who 
 
 of distinguished abilities, but an avowed and proselyting Partizan 
 of their Tenets, I concluded with these words: " The man 
 who will believe nothing but by force of demonstrative evidence 
 (even though it is strictly demonstrable that the demonstrability 
 required would countervene all the purposes of the Truth in 
 question, all that render the belief of the same desirable or 
 obligatory) is not in a state of mind to be reasoned with on any 
 subject. But if he further denies the fact of the Law of Con- 
 science, and the essential difference between Right and Wrong, 
 I confess, he puzzles me. I cannot without gross inconsistency 
 appeal to his Conscience and Moral Sense, or I should admonish 
 him that, as an honest man, he ought to advertise himself, with 
 a Cavete omnes ! Scelus sum. And as an honest man myself, 
 I dare not advise him on prudential grounds to keep his opinions 
 secret, lest I should make myself his accomplice, and be helping 
 him on ivith a Wrap-rascal." 
 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 179 
 
 accepts the Scriptures as the Word of God, yet refuses 
 his assent to the plainest declarations of these Scrip- 
 tures, and explains away the most express texts into 
 metaphor and hyperbole, because the literal and ob- 
 vious interpretation is (according to his notions) absurd 
 and contrary to reason. He is bound to show, that it 
 is so in any sense, not equally applicable to the texts 
 asserting the Being, Infinity, and Personality of God 
 the Father, the Eternal and Omnipresent one, who 
 created the Heaven and the Earth. And the more is 
 he bound to do this, and the greater is my right to 
 demand it of him, because the doctrine of Redemption 
 from Sin supplies the Christian with motives and rea- 
 sons for the divinity of the Redeemer far more con- 
 cerning and coercive subjectively, i. e. in the economy 
 
 of his own Soul, than are all the inducements that can 
 
 ..... -i . 
 influence the Deist objectively, 1. e. m the interpretation < 
 
 of Nature. 
 
 Do I then utterly exclude the speculative Reason 
 
 from Theology? No! It is its office and rightful j 
 
 privilege to determine on the negative truth of whatever I 
 
 we are required to believe. The Doctrine must not 
 
 contradict any universal principle : for this would be a 
 
 Doctrine that contradicted itself. Or Philosophy? 
 
 No. It may be and has been the servant and pioneer 
 
 of Faith by convincing the mind, that a Doctrine is 
 
 cogitable, that the soul can present the Idea to itself ; 
 
 and th£t if we determine to contemplate, or think of, 
 
 the su*ect at all, so and in no other form can this be 
 
 effected. So far are both Logic and Philosophy to be 
 
 n 2 
 
180 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 received and trusted. But the duty, and in some cases 
 and for some persons even the right, of thinking on 
 subjects beyond the bounds of sensible experience ; the 
 grounds of the real truth ; the Life, the Substance, 
 the Hope, the Love, in one word, the Faith; these 
 are Derivatives from the practical, moral, and spiritual 
 Nature and Being of Man. 
 
 APHORISM III. 
 
 That Religion is designed to improve the nature and 
 faculties of Man, in order to the right governing of our 
 actions, to the securing the peace and progress, ex- 
 ternal and internal, of Individuals and of Communities, 
 and lastly, to the rendering us capable of a more per- 
 fect state, entitled the kingdom of God, to which the 
 present Life is probationary — this is a Truth, which 
 all who have truth only in view, will receive on its own 
 evidence. If such then be the main end of Religion 
 altogether (the improvement namely of our nature and 
 faculties), it is plain, that every Part of Religion is to 
 be judged by its relation to this main end. And since 
 the Christian Scheme is Religion in its most perfect 
 and effective Form, a revealed Religion, and therefore, 
 in a special sense proceeding from that Being who 
 made us and knows what we are, of course therefore 
 adapted to the needs and capabilities of Human Na- 
 ture ; nothing can be a part of this holy faith that is 
 not duly proportioned to this end. — Extract^ with 
 slight alterations from Burnet's Preface to VoT ii. of 
 the Hist, of the Reformation. 
 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 181 
 COMMENT. 
 
 This Aphorism should be borne in mind, whenever 
 a theological Resolve is proposed to us as an article of 
 Faith. Take, for instance, the Determinations passed 
 at the Synod of Dort, concerning the Absolute De- 
 crees of God in connexion with his Omniscience and 
 Fore-knowledge. Or take the Decision in the Council 
 of Trent on the Difference between the two kinds of 
 Transubstantiation, the one in which both the Sub- 
 stance and the Accidents are changed, the same matter 
 remaining — as in the conversion of Water to Wine at 
 Cana; the other, in which the Matter and the Sub- 
 stance are changed, the Accidents remaining unaltered, 
 as in the Eucharist — this latter being Transubstantia- 
 tion par eminence! Or rather take the still more 
 tremendous Dogma, that it is indispensable to a saving 
 Faith carefully to distinguish the one kind from the 
 other, and to believe both, and to believe the necessity 
 of believing both in order to Salvation ! For each or 
 either of these extra-scriptural Articles of Faith the 
 preceding Aphorism supplies a safe criterion. Will 
 the belief tend to the improvement of any of my moral 
 or intellectual faculties ? But before I can be convinced 
 that a Faculty will be improved, I must be assured 
 that it exists. On all these dark sayings, therefore, of 
 Dort or Trent, it is quite sufficient to ask, by what 
 faculty, organ, or inlet of knowledge we are to assure 
 ourselves, that the words mean any thing, or correspond 
 to any object out of our own mind or even in it : unless 
 indeed the mere craving and striving to think on, after 
 
182 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 all the materials for thinking have been exhausted, can 
 be called an object. When a number of trust-worthy 
 Persons assure me, that a portion of Fluid which they 
 saw to be Water, by some change in the Fluid itself 
 or in their Senses, suddenly acquired the Colour, 
 Taste, Smell, and exhilarating property of Wine, I 
 perfectly understand what they tell me, and likewise 
 by what faculties they might have come to the know- 
 ledge of the Fact. But if any one of the number not 
 satisfied with my acquiescence in the Fact, should 
 insist on my believing, that the Matter remained the 
 same, the Substance and the Accidents having been 
 removed in order to make way for a different Substance 
 with different Accidents, I must entreat his permission 
 to wait till I can discover in myself any faculty, by 
 which there can be presented to me a Matter distin- 
 guishable from Accidents, and a Substance that is dif- 
 ferent from both. It is true, I have a faculty of arti- 
 culation ; but I do not see that it can be improved by 
 my using it for the formation of words without mean- 
 ing, or at best, for the utterance of Thoughts, that 
 mean only the act of so thinking, or of trying so to 
 think. But the end of Religion is the improvement of 
 our Nature and Faculties. Ergo, &c. Q. E. D. I 
 sum up the whole in one great practical Maxim. The 
 Object of religious Contemplation, and of a truly Spi- 
 ritual Faith, is the ways of God to Man. Of the 
 Workings of the Godhead, God himself has told us, 
 My Ways are not as your Ways, nor my Thoughts as 
 your Thoughts. 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 183 
 
 APHORISM IV. 
 
 THE CHARACTERISTIC DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE DIS- 
 CIPLINE OF THE ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS AND THE 
 DISPENSATION OF THE GOSPEL. 
 
 By undeceiving, enlarging, and informing the In- 
 tellect, Philosophy sought to purify, and to elevate the 
 Moral Character. Of course, those alone could re- 
 ceive the latter and incomparably greater Benefit, who 
 by natural capacity and favourable contingencies of 
 Fortune were fit Recipients of the former. How small 
 the number, we scarcely need the evidence of History 
 to assure us. Across the Night of Paganism, Philo- 
 sophy flitted on, like the Lanthorn-fly of the Tropics, 
 a Light to itself, and an Ornament, but alas ! no more 
 than an ornament, of the surrounding Darkness. 
 
 Christianity reversed the order. By means accessible 
 to all, by inducements operative on all, and by con- 
 victions, the grounds and materials of which all men 
 might find in themselves, her first step was to cleanse 
 the Heart. But the benefit did not stop here. In 
 preventing the rank vapours that steam up from the 
 corrupt Heart, Christianity restores the Intellect like- 
 wise to its natural clearness. By relieving the mind 
 from the distractions and importunities of the unruly 
 passions, she improves the quality of the Understand- 
 ing : while at the same time she presents for its con- 
 templations Objects so great and so bright as cannot 
 but enlarge the Organ, by which they are contem- 
 plated. The Fears, the Hopes, the Remembrances, 
 
184 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 the Anticipations, the inward and outward Experience, 
 the Belief and the Faith, of a Christian form of them- 
 selves a Philosophy and a Sum of Knowledge, which a 
 Life spent in the Grove of Academus, or the " painted 
 Porch. 1 ' could not have attained or collected. The 
 result is contained in the fact of a wide and still widen- 
 ing Christendom. 
 
 Yet I dare not say, that the effects have been pro- 
 portionate to the divine wisdom of the Scheme. Too 
 soon did the Doctors of the Church forget that the 
 Heart, the Moral Nature, was the Beginning and the 
 End; and that Truth, Knowledge, and Insight were 
 comprehended in its expansion. This was the true and 
 first apostasy — when in Council and Synod the divine 
 Humanities of the Gospel gave way to speculative Sy- 
 stems, and Religion became a Science of Shadows under 
 the name of Theology, or at best a bare Skeleton of 
 Truth, without life or interest, alike inaccessible and 
 unintelligible to the majority of Christians. For these 
 therefore there remained only rites and ceremonies and 
 spectacles, shows and semblances. Thus among the 
 learned the substance of things hoped for (Heb. xi. 1.) 
 passed off into Notions ; and for the Unlearned the sur- 
 faces of Things became * Substance. The Christian 
 world was for centuries divided into the Many, that 
 did not think at all, and the Few who did nothing but 
 
 * Virium et proprietatum, quae non nisi de (^stantibus pre- 
 dicate possunt, formis superstantibus Attributio, est Supeksti- 
 tio. 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 185 
 
 think — both alike unreflecting, the one from defect of 
 the Act, the other from the absence of an Object. 
 
 APHORISM V. 
 
 There is small chance of Truth at the goal where 
 there is not child-like Humility at the Starting-post. 
 
 COMMENT. 
 
 Humility is the safest Ground of Docility : and Do- 
 cility the surest Promise of Docibility. Where there 
 is no working of Self-love in the heart that secures a 
 leaning beforehand ; where the great Magnet of the 
 Planet is not overwhelmed or obscured by partial 
 masses of Iron in close neighbourhood to the Compass 
 of the Judgment, though hidden or unnoticed ; there 
 will this great Desideratum be found of a child-like 
 Humility. Do I then say, that I am to be influenced 
 by no Interest ? Far from it ! There is an Interest of 
 Truth : or how could there be a Love of Truth ? And 
 that a love of Truth for its own sake, and merely as 
 Truth, is possible, my Soul bears witness to itself in 
 its inmost recesses. But there are other Interests — 
 those of Goodness, of Beauty, of Utility. It would be 
 a sorry proof of the Humility I am extolling, were I 
 to ask for Angels 1 wings to overfly my own Human 
 Nature. I exclude none of these. It is enough if 
 the " lene clinamen^ the gentle Bias, be given by no 
 interest that concerns myself other than as I am a 
 Man, and included in the great Family of Mankind ; 
 but which does therefore especially concern me, because 
 being a common Interest of all men it must needs 
 
186 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 concern the very essentials of my Being, and because 
 these essentials, as existing in me, are especially intrusted 
 to my particular charge. 
 
 Widely different from this social and truth-attracted 
 Bias, different both in its nature and its effects, is the 
 Interest connected with the desire of distinguishing 
 yourself from other men, in order to be distinguished 
 by them. Hoc revera. est inter te et veritatem. This 
 Interest does indeed stand between thee and truth. I 
 might add between thee and thy own soul. It is 
 scarcely more at variance with the love of truth than 
 it is unfriendly to the attainment that deserves that 
 name. By your own act you have appointed the 
 Many as your Judges and Appraisers : for the anxiety 
 to be admired is a loveless passion, ever strongest with 
 regard to those by whom we are least known and least 
 cared for, loud on the Hustings, gay in the Ball-room, 
 mute and sullen at the family Fireside. What you 
 have acquired by patient thought and cautious dis- 
 crimination, demands a portion of the same effort in 
 those who are to receive it from you. But Applause 
 and Preference are things of Barter ; and if you trade 
 in them, Experience will soon teach you that there are 
 easier and less unsuitable ways to win golden judgments 
 than by at once taxing the patience and humiliating the 
 self-opinion of your judges. To obtain your end, your 
 words must be as indefinite as their Thoughts : and how 
 vague and general these are even on objects of Sense, the 
 few who at a mature age have seriously set about the dis- 
 cipline of their faculties, and have honestly taken stock, 
 best know by recollection of their own state. To be 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 187 
 
 admired you must make your auditors believe at least 
 that they understand what you say ; which, be assured, 
 they never will, if it be worth understanding, or if you 
 understand your own soul. But while your prevailing 
 motive is to be compared and appreciated, is it credible, 
 is it possible, that you should in earnest seek for a 
 knowledge which is and must remain a hidden Light, 
 a secret Treasure ? Have you children, or have you 
 lived among children, and do you not know, that in all 
 things, in food, in medicine, in all their doings and ab- 
 stainings they must believe in order to acquire a reason 
 for their belief? But so is it with religious truths for 
 all men. These we must all learn as children. The 
 ground of the prevailing error on this point is the 
 ignorance, that in spiritual concernments to believe 
 and to understand are not diverse things, but the same 
 thing in different periods of its growth. Belief is the ' 
 seed, received into the will, of which the Understand- 
 ing or Knowledge is the Flower, and the thing believed 
 is the fruit. Unless ye believe (saith the Prophet) ye 
 cannot understand : and unless ye be humble as child- 
 ren, ye not only will not, but ye ccmnot believe. Of 
 such therefore is the Kingdom of Heaven. Yea, 
 blessed is the calamity that makes us humble : though 
 so repugnant thereto is our nature, in our present state, 
 that after a while, it is to be feared, a second and 
 sharper calamity would be wanted to cure us of our 
 pride in having become so humble. 
 
 Lastly, there are among us, though fewer and less 
 in fashion than among our ancestors, Persons who, like 
 
188 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 Shaftsbury, do not belong to " the herd of Epicurus, 11 
 I yet prefer a philosophic Paganism to the morality of 
 the Gospel. Now it would conduce, methinks, to the 
 child-like Humility, we have been discoursing of, if the 
 use of the term, Virtue, in that high, comprehensive, 
 and notional sense in which it was used by the ancient 
 Stoics, were abandoned, as a relic of Paganism, to these 
 modern Pagans : and if Christians restoring the word 
 to its original import, viz. Manhood or Manliness, 
 used it exclusively to express the quality of Fortitude ; 
 Strength of Character in relation to the resistance 
 opposed by Nature and the irrational Passions to the 
 Dictates of Reason ; Energy of Will in preserving the 
 Line of Rectitude tense and firm against the warping 
 forces and treacheries of Temptation. Surely, it were 
 far less unseemly to value ourselves on this moral 
 i Strength than on Strength of Body, or even Strength 
 of Intellect. But we will rather value it for ourselves : 
 and bearing in mind the old adage, Quis custodiet ipsum 
 Custodem ? we will value it the more, yea, then only 
 will we allow it true spiritual Worth, when we possess 
 it as a gift of Grace, a boon of Mercy undeserved, a 
 fulfilment of a free Promise (1 Corinth, x. 13.) What 
 more is meant in this last paragraph, let the venerable 
 Hooker say for me in the following 
 
 APHORISM VI. 
 
 What is Virtue but a Medicine, and Vice but a 
 Wound ? Yea, we have so often deeply wounded our- 
 selves with Medicine, that God hath been fain to make 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 189 
 
 wounds medicinable; to cure by Vice where Virtue 
 hath stricken ; to suffer the just man to fall, that being 
 raised he may be taught what power it was which up- 
 held him standing. I am not afraid to affirm it boldly 
 with St. Augustine, that Men puffed up through a 
 proud Opinion of their own Sanctity and Holiness re- 
 ceive a benefit at the hands of God, and are assisted 
 with his Grace when with his Grace they are not as- 
 sisted, but permitted (and that grievously) to trans- 
 gress. Whereby, as they were through over-great 
 Liking of themselves supplanted {tripped up), so the 
 dislike of that which did supplant them may establish 
 them afterwards the surer. Ask the very Soul of 
 Peter, and it shall undoubtedly itself make you this 
 answer : My eager protestations made in the glory of 
 my spiritual strength, I am ashamed of. But my 
 shame and the Tears, with which my Presumption and 
 my Weakness were bewailed, recur in the songs of my 
 Thanksgiving. My Strength had been my Ruin, my 
 Fall hath proved my Stay. Sermon on the Nature of 
 Pride, Hooker's Works, p. 521. 
 
 APHORISM VII. editor. 
 
 The Being and Providence of One Living God, 
 Holy, Gracious, Merciful, the Creator and Preserver 
 of all things, and a Father of the Righteous ; the Mo- 
 ral Law in its * utmost height, breadth, and purity ; 
 a State of Retribution after Death ; the a Resurrection 
 of the Dead ; and a Day of Judgment — all these were 
 known and received by the Jewish People, as esta- 
 
190 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 blished Articles of the National Faith, at or before 
 the Proclaiming of Christ by the Baptist. They are 
 the ground-work of Christianity, and essentials in the 
 Christian Faith, but not its characteristic and peculiar 
 Doctrines: except indeed as they are confirmed, en- 
 livened, realized and brought home to the whole Being 
 of Man, Head, Heart, and Spirit, by the truths and 
 influences of the Gospel. 
 Peculiar to Christianity are : 
 
 I. The belief that a Means of Salvation has been 
 effected and provided for the Human Race by the in- 
 carnation of the Son of God in the person of Jesus 
 Christ; and that his Life on earth, his Sufferings, 
 Death, and Resurrection are not only proofs and mani- 
 festations, but likewise essential and effective parts of 
 the great redemptive Act, whereby also the Obstacle 
 from the corruption of our Nature is rendered no 
 longer insurmountable. 
 
 II. The belief in the possible appropriation of this 
 benefit by Repentance and Faith, including the Aids 
 that render an effective Faith and Repentance them- 
 selves possible. 
 
 III. The belief in the reception (by as many as " shall 
 be Heirs of Salvation'") of a living and spiritual Prin- 
 ciple, a Seed of Life capable of surviving this natural 
 life, and of existing in a divine and immortal State. 
 
 IV. The belief in the awakening of the Spirit * in 
 them that truly believe, and in the communion of the 
 Spirit, thus awakened, with the Holy Spirit. 
 
 * See pp. 68—72. 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 191 
 
 V. The belief in the accompanying and consequent 
 gifts, graces, comforts, and privileges of the Spirit, 
 which acting primarily on the heart and will cannot 
 but manifest themselves in suitable works of Love and 
 Obedience, i. e. in right acts with right affections, from 
 right principles. 
 
 Further, as Christians, we are taught, that these 
 Works are the appointed signs and evidences of our 
 Faith ; and that, under limitation of the power, the 
 means, and the opportunities afforded us individually, 
 they are the rule and measure, by which we are bound 
 and enabled to judge, of what spirit we are : and all 
 these with the doctrine the Fathers re-proclaimed in 
 the everlasting Gospel, we receive in the full assur- 
 ance, that God beholds and will finally judge us with 
 a merciful consideration of our infirmities, a gracious 
 acceptance of our sincere though imperfect strivings, 
 a forgiveness of our defects through the mediation, 
 and a completion of our deficiencies by the perfect 
 righteousness, of the Man Christ Jesus, even the Word 
 that was in the beginning with God, and who, being 
 God, became Man for the redemption of Mankind. 
 
 COMMENT. 
 
 I earnestly entreat the Reader to pause awhile, and 
 to join with me in reflecting on the preceding Apho- 
 rism. It has been my aim throughout this work to 
 enforce two points: 1. That Morality arising out of 
 the Reason and Conscience of Men, and Prudence, 
 which in like manner flows out of the Understanding 
 
192 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 and the natural Wants and Desires of the Individual, 
 are two distinct things ; 2. That Morality with Pru- 
 dence as its instrument has, considered abstractedly, 
 not only a value but a worth in itself. Now the ques- 
 tion is (and it is a question which every man must an- 
 swer for himself) " From what you know of yourself; 
 of your own Heart and Strength ; and from what Hi- 
 story and personal Experience have led you to conclude 
 of mankind generally ; dare you trust to it ? Dare you 
 trust to it ? To it, and to it alone ? If so, well 1 It is 
 at your own risk. I judge you not. Before Him, 
 who cannot be mocked, you stand or fall. But if not, 
 if you have had too good reason to know, that your 
 heart is deceitful and your strength weakness : if you 
 are disposed to exclaim with Paul — the Law indeed 
 is holy, just, good, spiritual ; but I am carnal, sold 
 under sin : for that which I do, I allow not ; and what 
 I would, that do I not ! — in this case, there is a Voice 
 that says, Come unto me : and I will give you rest. 
 This is the Voice of Christ : and the Conditions, under 
 which the promise was given by him, are that you be- 
 lieve in him, and believe his words. And he has fur- 
 ther assured you, that if you do so, you will obey him. 
 You are, in short, to embrace the Christian Faith 
 as your Religion — those Truths which St. Paul be- 
 lieved qfier his conversion, and not those only which he 
 believed no less undoubtingly while he was persecuting 
 Christ, and an enemy of the Christian Religion. With 
 what consistency could I offer you this volume as Aids 
 to Reflection if I did not call on you to ascertain in 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 193 
 
 the first instance what these truths are ? But these I 
 could not lay before you without first enumerating 
 certain other points of belief, which though truths, in- 
 dispensable truths, and truths comprehended or rather 
 pre-supposed in the Christian Scheme, are yet not these 
 Truths. (1 John v. 17.) 
 
 While doing this, I was aware that the Positions, in 
 the first paragraph of the preceding Aphorism, to which 
 the numerical marks are affixed, will startle some of my 
 Readers. Let the following sentences serve for the 
 notes corresponding to the marks ; 
 
 1 Be you holy: even as God is holy.— What more 
 does he require of thee, O man ! than to do justice, 
 love mercy, and walk humbly with the Lord thy God ? 
 To these summary passages from Moses and the Pro- 
 phets (the first exhibiting the closed, the second the 
 expanded, Hand of the Moral Law) I might add the 
 Authorities of Grotius and other more orthodox and 
 not less learned Divines, for the opinion, that the 
 Lord's Prayer was a selection, and the famous Pass- 
 age [The Hour is now coming, John v. 28, 29.] a 
 citation by our Lord from the Liturgy of the Jewish 
 Church. But it will be sufficient to remind the reader, 
 that the apparent difference between the prominent 
 moral truths of the Old and those of the New Testament 
 results from the latter having been written in Greek ; 
 while the conversations recorded by the Evangelists 
 took place in Hebrew or Syro-chaldaic. Hence it 
 happened that where our Lord cited the original text, 
 his Biographers substituted the Septuagint Version, 
 
194 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 while our English Version is in both instances immediate 
 and literal — in the Old Testament from the Hebrew 
 Original, in the New Testament from the freer Greek 
 Translation* Thus in the Text, Love your Neigh- 
 bour as yourself, Neighbour in our New, and Stranger 
 in our Qld Testament represent one and the same 
 Hebrew word. The text, " I give you a new com- 
 mandment," has no connexion with the present subject. 
 3 There is a current mistake on this point likewise, 
 though this article of the Jewish Belief is not only 
 asserted by St. Paul, but is elsewhere spoken of as 
 common to the Twelve Tribes. The mistake consists 
 in supposing the Pharisees to have been a distinct Sect, 
 and in strangely over-rating the number of the Sad- 
 ducees. The former were distinguished not by holding, 
 as matters of religious belief, articles different from the 
 Jewish Church at large ; but by their pretences to a 
 more rigid orthodoxy, a more scrupulous performance. 
 They were, in short (if I may dare use a phrase which 
 I dislike as profane and denounce as uncharitable), the 
 Evangelicals and strict Professors of the Bay. The 
 latter, the Sadducees, whose opinions much more 
 nearly resembled those of the Stoics than the Epi- 
 cureans (a remark that will appear paradoxical to those 
 only who have abstracted their notions of the Stoic 
 Philosophy from Epictetus, Mark Antonine, and cer- 
 tain brilliant inconsistencies of Seneca), were a handful 
 of rich men, romanized Jews, not more numerous than 
 Infidels among us, and held by the People at large in 
 at least equal abhorrence. Their great argument was: 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 195 
 
 that the Belief of a future State of rewards and punish- 
 ments injured or destroyed the purity of the Moral 
 Law for the more enlightened Classes, and weakened 
 the influence of the Laws of the Land for the People, 
 the vulgar Multitude. 
 
 I will now suppose the Reader to have thoughtfully 
 re-perused the Paragraph containing the Tenets pecu- 
 liar to Christianity, and if he have his religious prin- 
 ciples yet to form, I should expect to overhear a trou- 
 bled Murmur : How can I comprehend this ? How is 
 this to be proved ? To the first question I should an- 
 swer : Christianity is not a Theory, or a Speculation ; 
 but a Life. Not A Philosophy of Life, but a Life and 
 a living Process. To the second: Try it. It has 
 been eighteen hundred Years in existence : and has one 
 Individual left a record, like the following ? [I tried 
 it ; and it did not answer. I made the experiment 
 faithfully according to the directions ; and the result 
 has been, a conviction of my own credulity.] Have 
 you, in your own experience, met with any one in 
 whose words you could place full confidence, and 
 who has seriously affirmed, [I have given Christianity 
 a fair trial. I was aware, that its promises were made 
 only conditionally. But my heart bears me witness, that 
 I have to the utmost of my power complied with these 
 conditions. Both outwardly and in the discipline of 
 my inward acts and affections, I have performed the 
 duties which it enjoins, and I have used the means, 
 
 o 2 
 
196 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 which it prescribes. Yet my Assurance of its truth 
 has received no increase. Its promises have not been 
 fulfilled : and I repent me of my delusion !] If neither 
 your own experience nor the History of almost two 
 thousand years ha» presented a single testimony to 
 this purport ; and if you have read and heard of many 
 who have lived and died bearing witness to the con- 
 trary : and if you have yourself met with some one, in 
 whom on any other point you would place unqualified 
 trust, who has on his own experience made report to 
 you, that " he is faithful who promised, and what he 
 promised he has proved himself able to perform C is it 
 bigotry, if I fear that the Unbelief, which prejudges 
 and prevents the experiment, has its source elsewhere 
 than in the uncorrupted judgement; that not the strong 
 free Mind, but the enslaved Will, is the true original In- 
 fidel in this instance ? It would not be the first time, 
 that a treacherous Bosom-Sin had suborned the Under- 
 standings of men to bear false witness against its avowed 
 Enemy, the right though unreceived Owner of the 
 House, who had long warned it out, and waited only 
 for its ejection to enter and take possession of the same. 
 I have elsewhere in the present Work, though more 
 at large in the "Elements of Discourse 11 which, God per- 
 mitting, will follow it, explained the difference between 
 the Understanding and the Reason, by Reason mean- 
 ing exclusively the speculative or scientific Power so 
 called, the Nous or Mens of the Ancients. And wider 
 still is the distinction between the Understanding and 
 the Spiritual Mind. But no Gift of God does or can 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 197 
 
 contradict any other Gift, except by misuse or mis- 
 direction. Most readily therefore do I admit, that 
 there can be no contrariety between Revelation and 
 the Understanding ; unless you call the fact, that the 
 Skin, though sensible of the warmth of the Sun, can 
 convey no notion of its figure, or its joyous light, or of 
 the colours, it impresses on the clouds, a contrariety be- 
 tween the Skin and the Eye; or infer that the cutaneous 
 and the optic nerves contradict each other. 
 
 But we have grounds to believe, that there are yet 
 other Rays or Effluences from the Sun, which neither 
 Feeling nor Sight can apprehend, but which are to be 
 inferred from the effects. And were it even so with 
 regard to the Spiritual Sun, how would this contradict 
 the Understanding or the Reason ? It is a sufficient 
 proof of the contrary, that the Mysteries in question 
 are not in the direction of the Understanding or the 
 (speculative) Reason. They do not move on the same 
 line or plane with them, and therefore cannot contradict 
 them. But besides this, in the Mystery that most im- 
 mediately concerns the Believer, that of the birth into 
 a new and spiritual life, the common sense and experi- 
 ence of mankind come in aid of their faith. The ana- 
 logous facts, which we know to be true, not only facili- 
 tate the apprehension of the facts promised to us, and 
 expressed by the same words in conjunction with a di- 
 stinctive epithet ; but being confessedly not less incom- 
 prehensible, the certain knowledge of the one disposes 
 us to the belief of the other. It removes at least all 
 objections to the truth of the doctrine derived from the 
 
198 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 mysteriousness of its subject. The Life, we seek after, 
 is a mystery ; but so both in itself and in its origin is 
 the Life we have. In order to meet this question, 
 however, with minds duly prepared, there are two pre- 
 liminary enquiries to be decided ; the first respecting the 
 purport, the second respecting the language of the 
 Gospel. 
 
 First then of the purport, viz. what the Gospel does 
 not, and what it does profess to be. The Gospel is 
 not a system of Theology, nor a Syntagma of theo- 
 retical propositions and conclusions for the enlargement 
 of speculative knowledge, ethical or metaphysical. But 
 it is a History, a series of Facts and Events related 
 or announced. These do indeed, involve, or rather I 
 should say they at the same time are, most important 
 doctrinal Truths; but still Facts and Declaration of 
 Facts. 
 
 Secondly of the language. This is a wide subject. 
 But the point, to which I chiefly advert, is the necessity 
 of thoroughly understanding the distinction between 
 analogous, and metaphorical language. Analogies are 
 used in aid of Conviction: Metaphors, as means of 
 Illustration. The language is analogous, wherever a 
 thing, power, or principle in a higher dignity is ex- 
 pressed by the same thing, power, or principle in a 
 lower but more known form. Such, for instance, is 
 the language of Johniii. 6. That zvhich is born of the 
 Flesh, is Flesh ; that which is born of the Spirit, is 
 Spirit. The latter half of the verse contains the fact 
 asserted ; the former half the analogous fact, by which 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 199 
 
 it is rendered intelligible. If any man choose to call 
 this metaphorical or figurative, I ask him whether with 
 Hobbs and Bolingbroke he applies the same rule to 
 the moral attributes of the Deity ? Whether he re- 
 gards the divine Justice, for instance, as a metaphorical 
 term, a mere figure of speech ? If he disclaims this, 
 then I answer, neither do I regard the words, bom 
 again, or spiritual life, as figures or metaphors. I 
 have only to add, that these analogies are the material, 
 or (to speak chemically) the base, of Symbols and sym- 
 bolical expressions; the nature of which as always taute- 
 gorical (i. e. expressing the same subject but with a 
 difference) in contra-distinction from metaphors and 
 similitudes, that are always allegorical (i. e. expressing 
 a different subject but with a resemblance) will be 
 found explained at large in the Statesman's Manual, 
 p. 35—38. 
 
 Of metaphorical language, on the other hand, let the 
 following be taken as instance and illustration. I am 
 speaking, we will suppose, of an Act, which in its own 
 nature, and as a producing and efficient cause, is tran- 
 scendent ; but which produces sundry effects, each of 
 which is the same in kind with an effect produced by a 
 Cause well known and of ordinary occurrence. Now 
 when I characterize or designate this transcendent Act, 
 in exclusive reference to these its effects, by a suc- 
 cession of names borrowed from their ordinary causes ; 
 not for the purpose of rendering the Act itself, or the 
 manner of the Agency, conceivable, but in order to 
 show the nature and magnitude of the Benefits received 
 

 200 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 from it, and thus to excite the due admiration, grati- 
 tude, and love in the Receivers ; — in this case I should 
 be rightly described as speaking metaphorically. And 
 in this case to confound the similarity in respect of the 
 effects relatively to the Recipients with an identity in 
 respect of the causes or modes of causation relatively 
 to the transcendent Act or the Divine Agent, is a con- 
 fusion of metaphor with analogy, and of figurative with 
 literal ; and has been and continues to be a fruitful 
 source of superstition or enthusiasm in Believers, and 
 of objections and prejudices to Infidels and Sceptics. 
 But each of these points is worthy of a separate con- 
 sideration : and apt occasions will be found of revert- 
 ing to them severally in the following Aphorisms or 
 the comments thereto attached. 
 
 APHORISM VIII. LEIGHTON. 
 
 Faith elevates the soul not only above Sense and 
 sensible things, but above Reason itself. As Reason 
 corrects the errors which Sense might occasion, so 
 supernatural Faith corrects the errors of natural Rea- 
 son judging according to Sense. 
 
 COMMENT. 
 
 The Editor's remarks on this aphorism from Arch- 
 bishop Leighton cannot be better introduced, or their 
 purport more distinctly announced, than by the follow- 
 ing sentence from Harrington, with no other change 
 than was necessary to make the words express without 
 aid of the context what from the context it is evident 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 201 
 
 was the Writer's meaning. " The definition and pro- 
 per character of Man — that, namely, which should 
 contra-distinguish him from the Animals — is to be 
 taken from his Reason rather than from his Under- 
 standing: in regard that in other creatures there may 
 be something of Understanding but there is nothing of 
 Reason." See the Friend, vol. i. p. 263 — 277: and 
 the Appendix (Note C.) to the Statesman's Manual. 
 Sir Thomas Brown, in his Religio Medici, complains, 
 that there are not impossibilities enough in Religion 
 for his active faith ; and adopts by choice and in free 
 preference such interpretations of certain texts and de- 
 clarations of Holy Writ, as place them in irreconcilable 
 contradiction to the demonstrations of science and the 
 experience of mankind, because (says he) I love to lose 
 myself in a mystery, and 'tis my solitary recreation to 
 pose my apprehension with those involved enigmas and 
 riddles of the Trinity and Incarnation " — and because 
 he delights (as thinking" it no vulgar part of faith) to 
 believe a thing not only above but contrary to Reason, 
 and against the evidence of our proper senses. For the 
 worthy knight could answer all the objections of the 
 Devil and Reason (! !) " with the odd resolution he had 
 learnt of Tertullian : Certum est quia impossibile est. 
 It is certainly true because it is quite impossible !" Now 
 this I call Ultra-fidianism *. 
 
 * There is this advantage in the occasional use of a newly 
 minted term or title expressing the doctrinal schemes of par- 
 ticular sects or parties, that it avoids the inconvenience that 
 presses on either side, whether we adopt the name which the 
 Party itself has taken up to express it's peculiar tenets by, 
 
202 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 Again, there is a scheme constructed on the principle 
 of retaining the social sympathies, that attend on the 
 
 or that by which the same Party is designated by its opponents. 
 If we take the latter, it most often happens that either the 
 persons are invidiously aimed at in the designation of the 
 principles, or that the name implies some consequence or oc- 
 casional accompaniment of the principles denied by the parties 
 themselves, as applicable to them collectively. On the other 
 hand, convinced as I am, that current appellations are never 
 wholly indifferent or inert ; and that, when employed to express 
 the characteristic Belief or Object of a religious confederacy, 
 they exert on the Many a great and constant, though insensible, 
 influence ; I cannot but fear that in adopting the former I may 
 be sacrificing the interests of Truth beyond what the duties of 
 courtesy can demand or justify. In a tract published in the year 
 1816, I have stated my objections to the word Unitarians: as a 
 name which in its proper sense can belong only to the Maintainers 
 of the Truth impugned by the persons, who have chosen it as 
 their designation. " For Unity or Unition, and indistinguish- 
 able Unicity or Sameness, are incompatible terms. We never 
 speak of the Unity of Attraction, or the Unity of Repulsion ; 
 but of the Unity of Attraction and Repulsion in each corpuscle. 
 Indeed, the essential diversity of the conceptions, Unity and Same- 
 ness, was among the elementary principles of the old Logicians : 
 and Leibnitz in his critique on Wissowatius has ably exposed 
 the sophisms grounded on the confusion of the two terms. But 
 in the exclusive sense, in which the name, Unitarian, is appro- 
 priated by the Sect, and in which they mean it to be understood, 
 it is a presumptuous Boast and an uncharitable calumny. No 
 one of the Churches to which they on this article of the Chri- 
 stian Faith stand opposed, Greek or Latin, ever adopted the 
 term, Trini — or Tri-uni-tarians as their ordinary and proper 
 name : and had it been otherwise, yet Unity is assuredly no lo- 
 gical Opposite to Tri-unity, which expressly includes it. The 
 triple Alliance is a fortiori Alliance. The true designation of 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 203 
 
 name of Believer, at the least possible expenditure of 
 ^Belief — a scheme of picking and choosing Scripture 
 
 their characteristic Tenet, and which would simply and in- 
 offensively express a fact admitted on all sides, is Psilanthropism 
 or the assertion of the mere humanity of Christ." 
 
 I dare not hesitate to avow my regret, that any scheme of 
 doctrines or tenets should be the subject of penal law : though 
 I can easily conceive, that any scheme, however excellent in itself, 
 may be propagated, and however false or injurious, may be as- 
 sailed, in a manner and by means that would make the Advocate 
 or Assailant justly punishable. But then it is the manner, the 
 means, that constitute the crime. The merit or demerit of the 
 Opinions themselves depends on their originating and determin- 
 ing causes, which may differ in every different Believer, and are 
 certainly known to Him alone, who commanded us ; Judge not, 
 lest ye be judged. At all events, in the present state of the Law 
 I do not see where we can begin, or where we can stop, without 
 inconsistency and consequent hardship. Judging by all that we 
 can pretend to know or are entitled to infer, who among us will 
 take on himself to deny that the late Dr. Priestley was a good and 
 benevolent man, as sincere in his love, as he was intrepid and 
 indefatigable in his pursuit, of Truth ? Now let us construct 
 three parallel tables, the first containing the Articles of Belief, 
 moral and theological, maintained by the venerable Hooker, as 
 the representative of the Established Church, each article being 
 distinctly lined and numbered ; the second the Tenets and Per- 
 suasions of Lord Herbert, as the representative of the platonizing 
 Deists ; and the third, those of Dr. Priestley. Let the points, in 
 which the second and third agree with or differ from the first, 
 be considered as to the comparative number modified by the 
 comparative weight and importance of the several points — and 
 Jet any competent and upright Man be appointed the Arbiter, 
 to decide according to his best judgment, without any reference 
 to the truth of the opinions, which of the two differed from the 
 
204 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 texts for the support of doctrines that had been learned 
 beforehand from the higher oracle of Common Sense ; 
 
 -first the more widely ! I say this, well aware that it would be 
 abundantly more prudent to leave it unsaid. But I say it in 
 the conviction, that the liberality in the adoption of admitted 
 misnomers in the naming of doctrinal systems, if only they have 
 been negatively legalized, is but an equivocal proof of liberality 
 towards the persons who dissent from us. On the contrary, I 
 more than suspect that the former liberality does in too many men 
 arise from a latent pre-disposition to transfer their reprobation 
 and intolerance from the Doctrines to the Doctors, from the Be- 
 lief to the Believers. Indecency, Abuse, Scoffing on subjects 
 dear and aweful to a multitude of our fellow-citizens, Appeals to 
 the vanity, appetites, and malignant passions of ignorant and 
 incompetent judges — these are flagrant overt-acts, condemned by 
 the Law written in the heart of every honest man, Jew, Turk, 
 and Christian. These are points respecting which the humblest 
 honest man*feelsithis duty to hold himself infallible, and dares 
 not hesitate in giving utterance to the verdict of his conscience, 
 in the Jury-box as fearlessly as by his fireside. It is far otherwise 
 with respect to matters of faith and inward conviction : and with 
 respect to these I say — Tolerate no Belief, that you judge false 
 and of injurious tendency : and arraign no Believer. The Man 
 is more and other than his Belief: and God only knows, how 
 small or how large a part of him the Belief in question may be, 
 for good or for evil. Resist every false doctrine : and call no man 
 heretic. The false doctrine does not necessarily make the man 
 a heretic; but an evil heart can make any doctrine heretical. 
 
 Actuated by these principles, I have objected to a false and 
 deceptive designation in the case of one System. Persuaded, 
 that the doctrines, enumerated in p. 190, 191, are not only 
 essential to the Christian Religion, but those which contra-di- 
 stinguish the religion as Christian, I merely repeat this persua- 
 sion in another form, when I assert, that (in my sense of the 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 205 
 
 which, as applied to the truths of Religion, means the 
 popular part of the philosophy in fashion. Of course, 
 
 word, Christian) Unitarianism is not Christianity. But do I say, 
 that those, who call themselves Unitarians, are not Christians ? 
 God forbid ! I would not think, much less promulgate, a judge- 
 ment at once so presumptuous and so uncharitable. Let a 
 friendly antagonist retort on my scheme of faith, in the like 
 manner : I shall respect him all the more for his consistency as 
 a reasoner, and not confide the less in his kindness towards me 
 as his Neighbour and Fellow-christian. This latter and most 
 endearing name I scarcely know how to withhold even from my 
 friend, Hyman Hurwitz, as often as I read what every Re- 
 verer of Holy Writ and of the English Bible ought to read, his 
 admirable Vindici^e Hebraic^; ! It has trembled on the verge, 
 as it were, of my lips, every time I have conversed with that 
 pious, learned, strong-minded, and single-hearted Jew, an 
 Israelite indeed and without guile — 
 
 Cujus cura sequi naturam, legibus uti, 
 
 Et mentem vitiis, ora negare dolis ; 
 Virtutes opibus, verum prseponere falso, 
 
 Nil vacuum sensu dicere, nil facere. 
 Post obitum vivam secum, secum requiescam, 
 Nee fiat melior sors mea sorte sua ! 
 
 From a poem of Hildebert on his Master > 
 the persecuted Berengarius. 
 
 Under the same feelings I conclude this Aid to Reflection by 
 applying the principle to another misnomer not less inappro- 
 priate and far more influential. Of those, whom I have found 
 most reason to respect and value, many have been members of 
 the Church of Rome : and certainly I did not honour those the 
 least, who scrupled even in common parlance to call our Church 
 a reformed Church. A similar scruple would not, methinks, 
 
206 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 the scheme differs at different times and in different 
 Individuals in the number of articles excluded ; but, 
 
 disgrace a Protestant as to the use of the words. Catholic or Ro- 
 man Catholic ; and if (tacitly at least, and in thought) he re- 
 memhered that the Romish Anti-catholic Church would more 
 truly express the fact. — Romish, to mark that the corruptions in 
 discipline, doctrine, and practice do, for the far larger part, owe 
 both their origin and perpetuation to the Romish Court, and 
 the local Tribunals of the City of Rome ; and neither are or 
 ever have been Catholic, i. e. universal, throughout the Roman 
 Empire, or even in the whole Latin or Western Church — and 
 _4«£z-catholic, because no other Church acts on so narrow and 
 excommunicative a principle, or is characterized by such a jea- 
 lous spirit of monopoly. Instead of a Catholic (universal) spirit 
 it may be truly described as a spirit of Particularism counter- 
 feiting Catholicity by a negative totality, and heretical self-cir- 
 cumscription — in the first instances cutting off, and since then 
 cutting herself off from, all the other members of Christ's Body. 
 For the rest, I think as that man of true catholic spirit and 
 apostolic zeal, Richard Baxter, thought ; and my readers will 
 thank me for conveying my reflections in his own words, in the 
 following golden passage from his Life, " faithfully published 
 from his own original MSS. by Matthew Silvester, 1696." 
 
 " My censures of the Papists do much differ from what they 
 were at first. I then thought, that their errors in the doctrines 
 of faith were their most dangerous mistakes. But now I am 
 assured that their misexpressions and misunderstanding us, with 
 our mistakings of them and inconvenient expressing of our own 
 opinions, have made the difference in most points appear much 
 greater than it is ; and that in some it is next to none at all. 
 But the great and unreconcilable differences lie in their Church 
 Tyranny; in the usurpations of their Hierarchy, and Priesthood, 
 under the name of spiritual authority exercising a temporal 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 207 
 
 it may always be recognized by this permanent cha- 
 racter, that its object is to draw religion down to the 
 Believer's intellect, instead of raising his intellect up to 
 religion. And this extreme I call Minimifidianism. 
 Now if there be one Preventive of both these ex- 
 tremes more efficacious than another, and preliminary 
 to all the rest, it is the being made fully aware of the 
 diversity of Reason and Understanding. And this is 
 the more expedient, because though there is no want 
 of authorities ancient and modern for the distinction of 
 the faculties and the distinct appropriation of the terms, 
 yet our best writers too often confound the one with 
 the other. Even Lord Bacon himself, who in his No- 
 vum Organum has so incomparably set forth the na- 
 
 Lordship ; in their corruptions and abasement of God's Worship, 
 but above all in their systematic befriending of Ignorance and Vice. 
 " At first I thought that Mr. Perkins well proved, that a Papist 
 cannot go beyond a reprobate ; but now I doubt not that God 
 hath many sanctified ones among them who have received the 
 true doctrine of Christianity so practically that their con- 
 tradictory errors prevail not against them, to hinder their love of 
 God and their salvation : but that their errors are like a con- 
 querable dose of poison which a healthful nature doth overcome. 
 And I can never believe that a man may not be saved by that re- 
 ligion, which doth but bring him to the true Love of God and to 
 a heavenly mind and life : nor that God will ever cast a Soul into 
 hell, that truly loveth him. Also at first it would disgrace any 
 doctrine with me if I did but hear it called popery and anti- 
 christian ; but I have long learned to be more impartial, and to 
 know that Satan can use even the names of Popery and Anti- 
 christ, to bring a truth into suspicion and discredit." — Baxter's 
 Life, part I. p. 131. 
 
208 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 ture of the difference, and the unfitness of the latter 
 faculty for the objects of the former, does nevertheless 
 in sundry places use the term Reason where he means 
 the Understanding, and sometimes, though less fre- 
 quently, Understanding for Reason. In consequence 
 of thus confounding the two terms, or rather of wasting 
 both words for the expression of one and the same 
 faculty, he left himself no appropriate term for the 
 other and higher gift of Reason, and was thus under 
 the necessity of adopting fantastic and mystical phrases, 
 ex. gr. the dry light (lumen siccum), the lucific vision, 
 &c, meaning thereby nothing more than Reason in 
 contra-distinction from the Understanding. Thus 
 too in the preceding Aphorism, by Reason Leighton 
 means the human Understanding, the explanation an- 
 nexed to it being (by a noticeable coincidence) word for 
 word the very definition which the Founder of the 
 Critical Philosophy gives of the Understanding — 
 namely, " the Faculty judging according to Sense.' 1 
 
 On the contrary, Reason is the Power of universal 
 and necessary Convictions, the Source and Substance 
 of Truths above Sense, and having their evidence in 
 themselves. Its presence is always marked by the 
 necessity of the position affirmed : this necessity being 
 conditional, when a truth of Reason is applied to Facts 
 of Experience or to the rules and maxims of the Un- 
 derstanding, but absolute, when the subject matter is 
 itself the growth or offspring of the Reason. Hence 
 arises a distinction in the Reason itself, derived from the 
 different mode of applying it, and from the objects to 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 209 
 
 which it is directed : according as we consider one and 
 the same gift, now as the ground of formal principles, 
 and now as the origin of Ideas. Contemplated di- 
 stinctively in reference to formal (or abstract) truth, it 
 is the speculative Reason ; but in reference to actual 
 (or moral) truth, as the fountain of ideas and the Light 
 of the Conscience, we name it the practical Reason. 
 Whenever by self- subjection to this universal Light, 
 the Will of the Individual, the particular Will, has 
 become a Will of Reason, the man is regenerate : and 
 Reason is then the Spirit of the regenerated man, 
 whereby the Person is capable of a quickening inter- 
 communion with the Divine Spirit. And herein con- 
 sists the mystery of Redemption, that this has been 
 rendered possible for us. " And so it is written: the 
 first man Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam 
 a quickening Spirit." (1 Cor. xv. 45.) We need only 
 compare the passages in the writings of the Apostles 
 Paul and John concerning the Spirit and Spiritual 
 Gifts, with those in the Proverbs and in the Wisdom 
 of Solomon respecting Reason, to be convinced that 
 the terms are synonymous. In this at once most com- 
 prehensive and most appropriate acceptation of the 
 word, Reason is pre-eminently spiritual, and a Spirit, 
 even our Spirit, through an effluence of the same 
 grace.by which we are privileged to say Our Father ! 
 On the other hand, the Judgements of the Under- 
 standing are binding only in relation to the objects of 
 our Senses, which we reflect under the forms of the 
 Understanding. It is, as Leighton rightly defines it, 
 

 210 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 " the Faculty judging according to Sense." Hence 
 we add the epithet human, without tautology : and 
 speak of the human Understanding, in disj unction from 
 that of Beings higher or lower than man. But there 
 is, in this sense, no human Reason. There neither is 
 nor can be but one Reason, one and the same : even 
 the Light that lighteth every man's individual Under- 
 standing (Discursus) and thus maketh it a reasonable 
 Understanding, Discourse of Reason — " one only, 
 yet manifold ; it goeth through all understanding, and 
 remaining in itself regenerateth all other powers." 
 (Wisdom of Solomon c. viii.) The same Writer calls 
 it likewise " an influence from the Glory of the 
 Almighty" this being one of the names of the Messiah, 
 as the Logos, or co-eternal Filial Word. And most no- 
 ticeable for its coincidence is a fragment of Heraclitus, 
 as I have indeed already noticed elsewhere. " To dis- 
 course rationally it behoves us to derive strength from 
 that which is common to all men : for all human Un- 
 derstandings are nourished by the one Divine Word. 11 
 Beasts, we have said, partake of Understanding. If 
 any man deny this, there is a ready way of settling the 
 question. Let him give a careful perusal to Hubert 
 two small volumes, on Bees and on Ants (especially 
 the latter), and to Kirby and Spence's Introduction to 
 Entomology : and one or other of two things must 
 follow. He will either change his opinion as irrecon- 
 cilable with the facts : or he must deny the facts, which 
 yet I cannot suppose, inasmuch as the denial would be 
 tantamount to the no less extravagant than uncharitable 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 211 
 
 assertion, that Hiiber, and the several eminent Na- 
 turalists, French and English, Swiss, German, and 
 Italian, by whom Hubert observations and experi- 
 ments have been repeated and confirmed, had all con- 
 spired to impose a series of falsehoods and fairy-tales 
 on the world. I see no way at least, by which he can 
 get out of this dilemma, but by over-leaping the ad- 
 mitted Rules and Fences of all legitimate Discussion, 
 and either transferring to the word, Understanding, the 
 definition already appropriated to Reason, or defining 
 Understanding in genere by the specific and accessioned 
 perfections which the human Understanding derives 
 from its co-existence with Reason and Free-will in the 
 same individual person; in plainer words, from its 
 being exercised by a self-conscious and responsible 
 Creature. And after all the supporter of Harington's 
 position would have a right to ask him, by what other 
 name he would designate the faculty in the instances 
 referred to ? If it be not Understanding, what is it ? 
 
 In no former part of this volume has the Editor 
 felt the same anxiety to obtain a patient Attention. 
 For he does not hesitate to avow, that on his success 
 in establishing the validity and importance of the di- 
 stinction between Reason and Understanding, herestshis 
 hopes of carrying the Reader along with him through 
 all that is to follow. Let the Student but clearly see 
 and comprehend the diversity in the things themselves, 
 the expediency of a correspondent distinction and ap- 
 propriation of the words will follow of itself. Turn 
 back for a moment to the Aphorism, and having re- 
 
 p 2 
 
212 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 perused the first paragraph of this Comment thereon, 
 regard the two following narratives as the illustration. 
 I do not say proof: for I take these from a multitude 
 of facts equally striking for the one only purpose of 
 placing my meaning out of all doubt. 
 
 I. Huber put a dozen Humble-bees under a Bell- 
 glass along with a comb of about ten silken cocoons so 
 unequal in height as not to be capable of standing 
 steadily. To remedy this two or three of the Humble- 
 bees got upon the comb, stretched themselves over its 
 edge, and with their heads downwards fixed their fore- 
 feet on the table on which the comb stood, and so with 
 their hind feet kept the comb from falling. When 
 these were weary, others took their places. In this 
 constrained and painful posture, fresh bees relieving 
 their comrades at intervals, and each working in its 
 turn, did these affectionate little insects support the 
 comb for nearly three days : at the end of which they 
 had prepared sufficient wax to build pillars with. But 
 these pillars having accidentally got displaced, the bees 
 had recourse again to the same manoeuvre (or rather 
 pedceuvre), till Huber pitying their hard case, &c. 
 
 II. " I shall at present describe the operations of a 
 single ant that I observed sufficiently long to satisfy' 
 my curiosity. 
 
 " One rainy day, I observed a Labourer digging the 
 ground near the aperture which gave entrance to the 
 ant-hill. It placed in a heap the several fragments it 
 had scraped up, and formed them into small pellets, 
 which it deposited here and there upon the nest. It 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 215 
 
 returned constantly to the same place, and appeared to 
 have a marked design, for it laboured with ardour and 
 perseverance. I remarked a slight furrow, excavated 
 in the ground in a straight line, representing the plan 
 of a path or gallery. The Labourer, the whole of whose 
 movements fell under my immediate observation, gave 
 it greater depth and breadth, and cleared out its 
 borders : and I saw at length, in which I could not be 
 deceived, that it had the intention of establishing an 
 avenue which was to lead from one of the stories to the 
 under-ground chambers. This path, which was about 
 two or three inches in length, and formed by a single 
 ant, was opened above and bordered on each side by a 
 buttress of earth ; its concavity en forme de gouttiere 
 was of the most perfect regularity, for the architect 
 had not left an atom too much. The work of this ant 
 was so well followed and understood, that I could almost 
 to a certainty guess its next proceeding, and the very 
 fragment it was about to remove. At the side of the 
 opening where this path terminated, was a second open- 
 ing to which it was necessary to arrive by some road. 
 The same ant engaged in and executed alone this un- 
 dertaking. It furrowed out and opened another path, 
 parallel to the first, leaving between each a little wall 
 of three or four lines in height. Those ants who lay 
 the foundation of a wall, a chamber, or gallery, from 
 working separately occasion now and then a want of 
 coincidence in the parts of the same or different ob- 
 jects. Such examples are of no unfrequent occurrence, 
 but they by no means embarrass them. What follows 
 
214 AIDS TO KEFLECTION. 
 
 proves that the workman, on discovering his error, 
 knew how to rectify it. A wall had been erected with 
 the view of sustaining a vaulted ceiling, still incomplete, 
 that had been projected from the wall of the opposite 
 chamber. The workman who began constructing it, 
 had given it too little elevation to meet the opposite 
 partition upon which it was to rest. Had it been con- 
 tinued on the original plan, it must infallibly have met 
 the wall at about one half of its height, and this it was 
 necessary to avoid. This state of things very forcibly 
 claimed my attention, when one of the ants arriving at 
 the place, and visiting the works, appeared to be struck 
 by the difficulty which presented itself; but this it as 
 soon obviated, by taking down the ceiling and raising 
 the wall upon which it reposed. It then in my pre- 
 sence, constructed a new ceiling with the fragments 
 of the former one. 11 — Hubers Natural Hist, (tf' Ants, 
 p. 38—41. 
 
 Now I assert, that the faculty manifested in the 
 acts here narrated does not differ in kind from Under- 
 standing, and that it does so differ from Reason. 
 .What I conceive the former to be, physiologically 
 considered, will be shown hereafter. In this place I 
 take the Understanding as it exists in Men, and in 
 exclusive reference to its intelligential functions ; and 
 it is in this sense of the word that I am to prove the 
 necessity of contra-distinguishing it from Reason. 
 
 Premising then, that two or more Subjects having 
 the same essential characters are said to fall under the 
 same General Definition, I lay it down, as a self- 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 215 
 
 evident truth (it is, in fact, an identical proposition), 
 that whatever subjects fall under one and the same 
 General Definition are of one and the same kind : con- 
 sequently, that which does not fall under this definition, 
 must differ in kind from each and all of those that do. 
 Difference in degree does indeed suppose sameness in 
 kind : and difference in kind precludes distinction from 
 differences of degree. Heterogenea non comparari, 
 ergo nee distingui, possunt. The inattention to this 
 Rule gives rise to the numerous Sophisms comprised 
 by Aristotle under the head of Maral3a,<ris sig aX\o ysvos, 
 i. e. Transition into a new kind, or the falsely applying 
 to X what had been truly asserted of A, and might 
 have been true of X, had it differed from A in its 
 degree only. The sophistry consists in the omission 
 to notice what not being noticed will be supposed not 
 to exist ; and where the silence respecting the differ- 
 ence in kind is tantamount to an assertion that the 
 difference is merely in degree. But the fraud is 
 especially gross, where the heterogeneous subject, thus 
 clandestinely slipt in, is in its own nature insusceptible 
 of degree : such as, for instance, Certainty or Circu- 
 larity, contrasted with Strength, or Magnitude. 
 
 To apply these remarks for our present purpose, 
 we have only to describe Understanding and Reason, 
 each by its characteristic qualities. The comparison 
 will show the difference. 
 
 UNDERSTANDING. REASON. 
 
 1. Understanding is dis- 1. Reason is fixed, 
 cursive. 
 
216' 
 
 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 2. The Understanding; 
 in all its judgments refers 
 to some other Faculty as 
 its ultimate Authority. 
 
 3. Understanding; is the 
 Faculty of Reflection. 
 
 2. The Reason in all its 
 decisions appeals to itself, 
 as the ground and stib- 
 stance of their truth. (He- 
 brew's, vi. v. 13.) 
 
 3. Reason of Contem- 
 plation. Reason indeed is 
 far nearer to Sense than to 
 Understanding: for Rea- 
 son (says our great Hook- 
 er) is a direct Aspect of 
 Truth, an inward Behold- 
 ing, having a similar rela- 
 tion to the Intelligible or 
 Spiritual, as sense has to 
 the Material or Phenome- 
 nal. 
 
 The Result is : that neither falls under the de- 
 finition of the other. They differ in hind: and had 
 my object been confined to the establishment of this 
 fact, the preceding Columns would have superseded 
 all further disquisition. But I have ever in view the 
 especial interests of my youthful Readers, whose re- 
 flective power is to be cultivated, as well as their par- 
 ticular reflections to be called forth and guided. Now 
 the main chance of their reflecting on religious subjects 
 aright, and of their attaining to the contemplation of 
 spiritual truths at all, rests on their insight into the 
 nature of this disparity still more than on their con- 
 viction of its existence. I now, therefore, proceed to 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 217 
 
 a brief analysis of the Understanding, in elucidation 
 of the definitions already given. 
 
 The Understanding then (considered exclusively as 
 an organ of human intelligence), is the Faculty by 
 which we reflect and generalize. Take, for instance, 
 any Object consisting of many parts, a House or a 
 Group of Houses: and if it be contemplated, as a 
 Whole, i. e. (as many constituting a One), it forms 
 what in the technical language of Psychology is called 
 a total impression. Among the various component 
 parts of this we direct our attention especially to such 
 as we recollect to have noticed in other total impressions. 
 Then, by a voluntary Act we withhold our attention 
 from all the rest to reflect exclusively on these ; and 
 these we henceforward use as common characters, by 
 virtue of which the several Objects are referred to one 
 and the same sort *. Thus, the whole Process may be 
 reduced to three acts, all depending on and supposing 
 a previous impression on the Senses : first, the appro- 
 priation of our Attention ; 2. (and in order to the con- 
 tinuance of the first) Abstraction, or the voluntary 
 withholding of the Attention ; and 3, Generalization. 
 And these are the proper Functions of the Under- 
 
 * According as we attend more or less to the differences, the 
 Sort becomes, of course, more or less comprehensive. Hence 
 there arises for the systematic Naturalist the necessity of sub- 
 dividing the Sorts into Orders, Classes, Families, &c. : all 
 which, however, resolve themselves for the mere Logician into 
 the conception of Genus and Species, i. e. the comprehending, 
 and the comprehended. 
 
218 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 standing : and the power of so doing is what we mean 
 when we say we possess Understanding, or are created 
 with the Faculty of Understanding. 
 
 [It is obvious, that the third Function includes the 
 act of comparing one object with another. In a note 
 (for, not to interrupt the argument, I avail myself of 
 this most useful contrivance), I have shown, that the 
 act of comparing supposes in the comparing Faculty 
 certain inherent Forms, that is, Modes of reflecting 
 not referable to the Objects reflected on, but pre-de- 
 termined by the Constitution and (as it were) me- 
 chanism of the Understanding itself. And under some 
 one or other of these Forms*, the Resemblances and 
 
 * Were it not so, how could the first comparison have been 
 possible ? It would involve the absurdity of measuring a thing 
 by itself. But if we fix on some one thing, the length of our 
 own foot, or of our hand and arm from the elbow joint, it is 
 evident that in order to do this we must have the conception 
 of Measure. Now these antecedent and most general Con- 
 ceptions are what is meant by the constituent forms of the 
 Understanding : we call them constituent because they are not 
 acquired by the Understanding, but are implied in its constitu- 
 tion. As rationally might a Circle be said to acquire a centre 
 and circumference, as the Understanding to acquire these its 
 inherent forms, or ways of conceiving. This is what Leibnitz 
 meant, when to the old adage of the Peripatetics, Nihil in intel- 
 lectu quod non prius in Sensu (There is nothing in the Under- 
 standing not derived from the Senses, or — There is nothing 
 e-oreceived that was not previously perceived); he replied— prater 
 intellectum ipsum (except the Understanding itself). 
 
 And here let me remark for once and all : whoever would 
 reflect to any purpose — whoever is in earnest in his pursuit of 
 Self-knowledge, and of one of the principal means to this, an 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 219 
 
 Differences must be subsumed in order to be con- 
 ceivable, and a fortiori therefore in order to be com- 
 
 insight into the meaning of the words he uses, and the dif- 
 ferent meanings properly or improperly conveyed by one and 
 the same word, according as it is used in the Schools or the 
 Market, according as the kind or a high degree is intended (ex. 
 gr. Heat, Weight, &c. as employed scientifically, compared 
 with the same word used popularly)— whoever, I say, seriously 
 proposes this as his Object, must so far overcome his dislike of 
 pedantry, and his dread of being sneered at as a Pedant, as not 
 to quarrel with an uncouth word or phrase, till he is quite sure 
 that some other and more familiar would not only have ex- 
 pressed the precise meaning with equal clearness, but have been 
 as likely to draw his attention to this meaning exclusively. The 
 ordinary language of a Philosopher in conversation or popular 
 writings, compared with the language he uses in strict reason- 
 ing, is as his Watch compared with the Chronometer in his 
 Observatory. He sets the former by the Town-clock, or even, 
 perhaps, by the Dutch clock in his kitchen, not because he 
 believes it right, but because his neighbour's and his Cook go 
 by it. To afford the reader an opportunity for exercising the 
 forbearance here recommended, 1 turn back to the phrase, 
 " most general Conceptions,'' and observe, that in strict and 
 severe propriety of language I should have said generalise or 
 generific rather than general, and Concipiencies or Conceptive 
 Acts rather than conceptions. 
 
 It is an old Complaint, that a Man of Genius no sooner appears, 
 but the Host of Dunces are up in arms to repel the invading 
 Alien. This observation would have made more converts to its 
 truth, I suspect, had it been worded more dispassionately, and 
 with a less contemptuous antithesis. For " Dunces" let us 
 substitute " the Many," or the " touto? xoct/aoq" {this world) of 
 the Apostle, and we shall perhaps find no great difficulty in 
 accounting for the fact. To arrive at the root, indeed, and last 
 
220 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 parable. The Senses do not compare, but merely 
 furnish the materials for comparison. But this the 
 
 Ground of the problem, it would be necessary to investigate the 
 nature and effects of the sense of Difference on the human mind 
 where it is not held in check by Reason and Reflection. We 
 need not go to the savage tribes of North America, or the yet 
 ruder Natives of the Indian Isles, to learn, how slight a degree 
 of Difference will, in uncultured minds, call up a sense of Di- 
 versity, an inward perplexity and contradiction, as if the 
 Strangers were and yet were not of the same kind with them- 
 selves. Who has not had occasion to observe the effect which 
 the gesticulations and nasal tones of a Frenchman produce on 
 our own Vulgar ? Here we may see the origin and primary 
 import of our " Unkindhess." It is a sense of C/wkind, and not 
 the mere negation but the positive Opposite of the sense of kind. 
 Alienation, aggravated now by fear, now by contempt, and not 
 seldom by a mixture of both, aversion, hatred, enmity, are so 
 many successive shapes of its growth and metamorphosis. In 
 application to the present case, it is sufficient to say, that Pindar's 
 remark on sweet Music holds equally true of Genius : as many 
 as are not delighted by it are disturbed, perplexed, irritated. 
 The Beholder either recognizes it as a projected Form of his own 
 Being, that moves before him with a Glory round its head, or 
 recoils from it as from a Spectre. But this speculation would 
 lead us too far ; we must be content with having referred to it 
 as the ultimate ground of the fact, and pass to the more obvious 
 and proximate causes. And as the first, I 'would rank the 
 Person's not understanding what yet he expects to understand, 
 and as if he had a right to do so. An original Mathematical 
 Work, or any other that requires peculiar and (so to say) technical 
 marks and symbols, will excite no uneasy feelings — not in the 
 mind of a competent Reader, for he understands it ; and not 
 with others, because they neither expect nor are expected to 
 understand it. The second place we may assign to the Mis- 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 221 
 
 Reader will find explained in the Note ; and will now 
 cast his eye back to the sentence immediately preced- 
 ing this parenthesis.] 
 
 understanding, which is almost sure to follow in cases where 
 the incompetent person, finding no outward marks (Diagrams, 
 arbitrary signs, and the like) to inform him at first sight, that 
 the Subject is one which he does not pretend to understand, 
 and to be ignorant of which does not detract from his estimation 
 as a man of abilities generally, will attach some meaning to 
 what he hears or reads ; and as he is out of humour with the 
 Author, it will most often be such a meaning as he can quarrel 
 with and exhibit in a ridiculous or offensive point of view. 
 
 But above all, the whole World almost of Minds, as far as 
 regards intellectual efforts, may be divided into two classes of 
 the Busy-indolent and Lazy-indolent. To both alike all Think- 
 ing is painful, and all attempts to rouse them to think, whether 
 in the re-examination of their existing Convictions, or for the 
 reception of new light, are irritating. ee It may all be very deep 
 and clever ; but really one ought to be quite sure of it before 
 one wrenches one's brain to find out what it is. I take up a 
 Book as a Companion, with whom I can have an easy cheerful 
 chit-chat on what we both know beforehand, or else matters of 
 fact. In our leisure hours we have a right to relaxation and 
 amusement." 
 
 Well! but in their studious hours, when their Bow is to 
 be bent, when they are apud Musas, or amidst the Muses ? 
 Alas ! it is just the same ! The same craving for amusement, 
 i. e. to be away from the Muses ! for relaxation, i. e. the unbend- 
 ing of a Bow which in fact had never been strung ! There are 
 two ways of obtaining their applause. The first is : Enable 
 them to reconcile in one and the same occupation the love of 
 Sloth and the hatred of Vacancy ! Gratify indolence, and yet 
 save them from Ennui — in plain English, from themselves ! 
 For, spite of their antipathy to dry reading, the keeping com- 
 
AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 Now when a person speaking to us of any particular 
 Object or Appearance refers it by means of some 
 
 pany with themselves is, after all, the insufferable annoyance : 
 and the true secret of their dislike to a work of Thought and 
 Inquiry lies in its tendency to make them acquainted with their 
 own permanent Being. The other road to their favour is, to 
 introduce to them their own thoughts and predilections, tricked 
 out in the fine language, in which it would gratify their vanity 
 to express them in their own conversation, and with which 
 they can imagine themselves showing off: and this (as has 
 been elsewhere remarked) is the characteristic difference between 
 the second-rate Writers of the last two or three generations, 
 and the same class under Elizabeth and the Stuarts. In the 
 latter we find the most far-fetched and singular thoughts in 
 the simplest and most native language ; in the former, the most 
 obvious and common-place thoughts in the most far-fetched 
 and motley language. But lastly, and as the sine qui non of 
 their patronage, a sufficient arc must be left for the Reader's 
 mind to oscillate in— freedom of choice, 
 
 To make the shifting cloud be what you please, 
 
 save only where the attraction of Curiosity determines the line 
 of Motion. The Attention must not be fastened down : and 
 this every work of Genius, not simply narrative, must do before 
 it can be justly appreciated. 
 
 In former times a popular work meant one that adapted the 
 results of studious Meditation or scientific Research to the 
 capacity of the People, presenting in the Concrete, by instances 
 and examples, what had been ascertained in the Abstract and 
 by discovery of the Law. Now, on the other hand, that is a 
 popular Work which gives back to the People their own errors 
 and prejudices, and flatters the Many by creating them, under 
 the title of the public, into a supreme and inappellable 
 Tribunal of intellectual Excellence. P. S. In a continuous 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 223 
 
 common character to a known class (which he does in 
 giving it a Name), we say, that we understand him ; 
 i. e. we understand his words. The Name of a thing, 
 in the original sense of the word, Name [Nomen, 
 Noo/xsvov, to intelligibile, id quod intelligitur) expresses 
 that which is understood in an appearance, that which 
 we place (or make to stand) under it, as the condition 
 of its real existence, and in proof that it is not an 
 accident of the Senses, or Affection of the Individual, 
 not a phantom or Apparition, i. e. an Appearance that 
 is only an Appearance. (See Gen. ii. 19. 20. Thus 
 too, in Psalm xx. v. 1. and in fifty other places of the 
 Bible, the identity of nomen with numen, i. e. invisible 
 power and presence, the nomen substantivum of all 
 real Objects, and the ground of their reality, inde- 
 pendent of the Affections of Sense in the Percipient). 
 In like manner, in a connected succession of Names, 
 as the Speaker passes from one to the other, we say 
 that we understand his discourse (i. e. discursio intel- 
 lects, discursus, from discurso or discurro, to course 
 or pass rapidly from one thing to another). Thus, in 
 all instances, it is words, names, or, if images, yet 
 images used as words or names, that are the alone 
 subjects of Understanding. In no instance do we 
 
 work, the frequent insertion and length of Notes would need an 
 Apology : in a hook of Aphorisms and detached Comments 
 none is necessary, it heing understood beforehand, that the 
 Sauce and the Garnish are to occupy the greater part of the 
 Dish. S. T. C. 
 
224 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 understand a thing in itself; but only the name to 
 which it is referred. Sometimes indeed, when several 
 classes are recalled conjointly, we identify the words 
 with the Object — though by courtesy of idiom rather 
 than in strict propriety of language. Thus, we may 
 say that we understand a Rainbow, when recalling 
 successively the several Names for the several sorts of 
 Colours, we know that they are to be applied to one 
 and the same Phenomenon, at once distinctly and 
 simultaneously; but even in common parlance we 
 should not say this of a single colour. No one would 
 say he understands Red or Blue. He sees the Colour, 
 and had seen it before in a vast number and variety 
 of objects ; and he understands the word red, as re- 
 ferring his fancy or memory to this his collective 
 experience. 
 
 If this be so, and so it most assuredly is — if the 
 proper functions of the understanding be that of ge- 
 neralizing the notices received from the Senses in order 
 to the construction of Names ; of referring particular 
 notices (i. e. impressions or sensations) to their proper 
 Name ; and, vice versa, names to their correspondent 
 class or kind of Notices — then it follows of necessity, 
 that the understanding is truly and accurately defined 
 in the words of Leigh ton and Kant, a Faculty judging 
 according to Sense. 
 
 Now whether in defining the speculative Reason 
 (i. e. the Reason considered abstractedly as an in- 
 tellective Power) we call it " the source of necessary 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 225 
 
 and universal Principles, according to which the 
 Notices of the Senses are either affirmed or denied ;" 
 or describe it as " the Power by which we are enabled 
 to draw from particular and contingent Appearances 
 universal and necessary conclusions*: it is equally 
 
 * Take a familiar illustration. My Sight and Touch convey 
 to me a certain impression, to which my Understanding applies 
 it's pre-conceptions {conceptus antecedentes et generalissimt) of 
 Quantity and Relation, and thus refers it to the Class and Name 
 of three-cornered Bodies — We will suppose it the Iron of a 
 Turf-spade. It compares the sides, and finds that any two 
 measured as one are greater than the third ; and according to a 
 law of the imagination, there arises a presumption that in all 
 other Bodies of the same figure (i. e. three-cornered and equi- 
 lateral) the same proportion exists. After this, the senses have 
 been directed successively to a number of three-cornered bodies 
 of unequal sides — and in these too the same proportion has been 
 found without exception till at length it becomes a fact of ex- 
 perience, that in all Triangles hitherto seen the two sides are 
 greater than the third : and there will exist no ground or analogy 
 for anticipating an exception to a Rule, generalized from so vast 
 a number of particular instances. So far and no farther could 
 the Understanding carry us : and as far as this " the faculty, 
 judging according to sense," conducts many of the inferior ani- 
 mals, if not in the same, yet in instances analogous and fully 
 equivalent. 
 
 The Reason supersedes the whole process : and on the first 
 conception presented by the Understanding in consequence of 
 the first sight of a tri-angular Figure, of whatever sort it might 
 chance to be, it affirms with an assurance incapable of future 
 increase, with a perfect certainty, that in all possible Triangles 
 any two of the inclosing Lines ivill and must be greater than the 
 third. In short, Understanding in its highest form of Ex- 
 perience remains commensurate with the experimental notices 
 
 Q. 
 
226 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 evident that the two definitions differ in their essential 
 characters, and consequently (by Axiom, p. 215) the 
 Subjects differ in kind. q. e. d. 
 
 of the senses, from which it is generalized. Reason, on the 
 other hand, either pre-determines Experience, or avails itself of 
 a past Experience to supersede its necessity in all future time ; 
 and affirms truths which no Sense could perceive, nor Experi- 
 ment verify, nor Experience confirm. 
 
 Yea, this is the test and character of a truth so affirmed, that 
 in its own proper form it is inconceivable. For to conceive is a 
 function of the Understanding, which can be exercised only 
 on subjects subordinate thereto. And yet to the forms of the 
 Understanding all truth must be reduced, that is to be fixed as 
 an object of reflection, and to be rendered expressible. And 
 here we have a second test and sign of a truth so affirmed, that 
 it can come forth out of the moulds of the Understanding only 
 in the disguise of two contradictory conceptions, each of which 
 is partially true, and the conjunction of both conceptions be- 
 comes the representative or expression ( = the exponent) of a 
 truth beyond conception and inexpressible. Examples. Before 
 Abraham was, I. am. — God is a Circle whose centre is every 
 where and circumference no where. — The Soul is all in every part. 
 
 If this appear extravagant, it is an extravagance which no 
 man can indeed learn from another, but which (were this possi- 
 ble) I might have learnt from Plato, Kepler, and Bacon ; from 
 Luther, Hooker, Pascal, Leibnitz, and Fenelon. But in this 
 last paragraph I have, I see, unwittingly overstepped my pur- 
 pose, according to which we were to take Reason as a simply 
 intellectual power. Yet even as such, and with all the dis- 
 advantage of a technical and arbitrary Abstraction, it has been 
 made evident— 1. that there is an Intuition or immediate Be- 
 holding, accompanied by a conviction of the necessity and uni- 
 versality of the truth so beheld not derived from the Senses, 
 which Intuition, when it is construed by pure Sense, gives birth 
 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 227 
 
 The dependence of the Understanding on the re- 
 presentations of the Senses, and its consequent pos- 
 
 to the Science of Mathematics, and when applied to Objects 
 supersensuous or spiritual is the Organ of Theology and Phi- 
 losophy; — and 2. that there is likewise a reflective and dis- 
 cursive Faculty, or mediate Apprehension which, taken by itself 
 and uninfluenced by the former, depends on the Senses for the 
 Materials on which it is exercised, and is contained within the 
 Sphere of the Senses. And this Faculty it is, which in ge- 
 neralizing the Notices of the Senses constitutes Sensible Ex- 
 perience, and gives rise to Maxims or Rules which may be- 
 come more and more general, but can never be raised into 
 universal Verities, or beget a consciousness of absolute Cer- 
 tainty ; though they may be sufficient to extinguish all doubt. 
 (Putting Revelation out of view, take our first Progenitor in 
 the 50th or 100th year of his existence. His Experience 
 would probably have freed him from all doubt, as the Sun sunk 
 in the Horizon that it would re-appear the next morning. But 
 compare this state of Assurance with that which the same Man 
 would have had of the 37th Proposition of Euclid, supposing 
 him like Pythagoras to have discovered the Demonstration). 
 Now is it expedient, I ask, or conformable to the laws and 
 purposes of Language, to call two so altogether disparate Sub- 
 jects by one and the same name? Or, having two names in 
 our language, should we call each of the two diverse subjects by 
 both — i.e. by either name, as caprice might dictate? Knot, 
 then as we have the two words, Reason and Understanding 
 (as indeed what Language of cultivated Man has not ?) what 
 should prevent us from appropriating the former to the Power 
 distinctive of Humanity? We need only place the derivatives 
 from the two terms in opposition [ex. gr. " A and B are both 
 rational Beings ; but there is no comparison between them in 
 point of intelligence," or " She always concludes rationally, 
 though not a Woman of much Understanding") to see, that we 
 
 q2 
 
228 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 teriority thereto, as contrasted with the independence 
 and antecedency of Reason, are strikingly exemplified 
 in the Ptolemaic System (that truly wonderful product 
 and highest boast of the Faculty, judging according 
 to the Senses!) compared with the Newtonian, as the 
 Offspring of a yet higher Power, arranging, correcting, 
 and annulling the representations of the Senses accord- 
 ing to its own inherent Laws and constitutive Ideas. 
 
 APHORISM IV. • editor. 
 
 In Wonder all Philosophy began : in Wonder it 
 
 ends: and Admiration fills up the interspace. But 
 
 the first Wonder is the Offspring of Ignorance : the 
 
 cannot reverse the order — i. e. call the higher Gift Understand- 
 ing, and the lower Reason. What should prevent us ? I asked. 
 Alas ! that which has prevented us — the cause of this confusion 
 in the terms — is only too obvious : viz. inattention to the mo- 
 mentous distinction in the things, and (generally) to the duty 
 and habit recommended in the Vth Introductory Aphorism of 
 this Volume, (see p. 2.) But the cause of this, and of all its 
 lamentable Effects and Subcauses, " false doctrine, blindness 
 of Heart and contempt of the Word,'' is best declared by the 
 philosophic Apostle : " they did not like to retain God in their 
 knowlege," (Rom. i. 28,) and though they could not ex- 
 tinguish 9 the Light that lighteth every man," and which 
 " shone in the Darkness ;" yet because the Darkness could not 
 comprehend the Light, they refused to bear witness of it, and 
 worshipped, instead, the shaping Mist, which the Light had 
 drawn upward from the Ground (i. e. from the mere Animal 
 nature and instinct), and which that Light alone had made 
 visible (i. e. by super-inducing on the animal instinct the prin- 
 ciple of Self-consciousness) . 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 229 
 
 last is the Parent of Adoration. The First is the 
 birth -throe of our knowlege : the Last is its euthanasy 
 and apotheosis. 
 
 sequelae: or thoughts suggested by the pre- 
 ceding APHORISM. 
 
 As in respect of the first Wonder we are all on the 
 same Level, how comes it that the philosophic mind 
 should in all ages be the privilege of a Few ? The 
 most obvious reason is this : The Wonder takes place 
 before the period of Reflection, and (with the great 
 Mass of Mankind) long before the Individual is capable 
 of directing his attention freely and consciously to the 
 Feeling, or even to its exciting Causes. Surprise (the 
 form and dress which the Wonder of Ignorance usually 
 puts on) is worn away, if not precluded, by Custom 
 and Familiarity. So is it with the Objects of the 
 Senses, and the ways and fashions of the World around 
 us: even as with the Beat of our own hearts, which 
 we notice only in moments of Fear and Perturbation. 
 But with regard to the concerns of our inward Being, 
 there is yet another cause that acts in concert with the 
 power in Custom to prevent a fair and equal exertion 
 of reflective Thought. The great fundamental Truths 
 and Doctrines of Religion, the existence and attributes 
 of God, and the Life after Death, are in Christian 
 Countries taught so early, under such circumstances, 
 and in such close and vital association with whatever 
 makes or marks reality for our infant minds, that the 
 words ever after represent sensations, feelings, vital 
 
23G AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 assurances, sense of reality — rather than thoughts, or 
 any distinct conception. Associated, / had almost 
 said identified, with the parental Voice, Look, Touch, 
 with the living warmth and pressure of the Mother, 
 on whose lap the Child is first made to kneel, within 
 whose palms its little hands are folded, and the motion 
 of whose eyes it's eyes follow and imitate — (yea, what 
 the blue sky is to the Mother, the Mother's upraised 
 Eyes and Brow are to the Child, the Type and 
 Symbol of an invisible Heaven!) — from within and 
 from without, these great First Truths, these good and 
 gracious Tidings, these holy and humanizing Spells, 
 in the preconformity to which our very humanity may 
 be said to consist, are so infused, that it were but a 
 tame and inadequate expression to say, we all take 
 them for granted. At a later period, in Youth or 
 early Manhood, most of us, indeed, (in the higher and 
 middle classes at least) read or hear certain Proofs 
 of these truths — which we commonly listen to, when 
 we listen at all, with much the same feelings as a 
 popular Prince on his Coronation Day, in the centre 
 of "a fond and rejoicing Nation, may be supposed to 
 hear the Champion's challenge to all the Non-existents, 
 that deny or dispute his Rights and Royalty. In fact, 
 the order of Proof is most often reversed or trans- 
 posed. As far, at least, as I dare judge from the 
 goings on in my own mind, when with keen delight 
 first read the works of Derham, Niewentiet, and 
 yonet, I should say, that the full and life-like con- 
 viction of a gracious Creator is the Proof (at all events, 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 231 
 
 performs the office and answers all the purpose of a 
 Proof) of the wisdom and benevolence in the con- 
 struction of the Creature. 
 
 Do I blame this ? Do I wish it to be otherwise ? 
 God forbid ! It is only one of its accidental, but too 
 frequent, consequences, of which I complain, and against 
 which I protest. I regret nothing that tends to make 
 the Light become the Life of men, even as the Life in 
 the eternal Word is their alone true light. But I do 
 regret, that in after years — when by occasion of some 
 new dispute on some old heresy, or any other accident, 
 the attention has for the first time been distinctly at- 
 tracted to the superstructure raised on these funda- 
 mental truths, or to truths of later revelation supple- 
 mental of these and not less important — all the doubts 
 and difficulties, that cannot but arise where the Under- 
 standing, " the mind of the flesh" is made the measure 
 of spiritual things; all the sense of strangeness and 
 seeming contradiction in terms ; all the Marvel and the 
 Mystery that belong equally to both ; are first thought 
 of and applied in objection exclusively to the latter. 
 I would disturb no man's faith in the great articles of 
 the (falsely so called) Religion of Nature. But before 
 the man rejects, and calls on other men to reject, the 
 revelations of the Gospel and the Religion of all 
 Christendom, I would have him place himself in the 
 state and under all the privations of a Simonides, when 
 on the fortieth day of his meditation the sage and phi- 
 losophic Poet abandoned the Problem in despair. Ever 
 and anon he seemed to have hold of the truth ; but 
 
%32 AIDS TO RE FLECTION. 
 
 when he asked himself, what he meant by it, it escaped 
 from him, or resolved itself into meanings, that de- 
 stroyed each other. I would have the Sceptic, while 
 yet a Sceptic only, seriously consider whether a Doc- 
 trine, of the truth of which a Socrates could obtain no 
 other assurance than what he derived from his strong 
 wish that it should be true ; or that which Plato found 
 a Mystery hard to discover, and when discovered, 
 communicable only to the fewest of men; can, con- 
 sonantly with History or Common Sense, be classed 
 among the Articles, the Belief of which is ensured to 
 all men by their mere common sense ? Whether, with- 
 out gross outrage to fact, they can be said to constitute 
 a Religion of Nature, or a Natural Theology antece- 
 dent to Revelation or superseding its necessity ? Yes ! 
 in prevention (for there is little chance, I fear, of a cure) 
 of the pugnacious dogmatism of partial Reflection, I 
 would prescribe to every man, who feels a commencing 
 alienation from the Catholic Faith, and whose studies 
 and attainments authorise him to argue on the subject 
 at all, a patient and thoughtful perusal of the argu- 
 ments and representations which Bayle supposes to 
 have passed through the mind of Simonides. Or I 
 should be fully satisfied if I could induce these Es- 
 chewers of Mystery to give a patient, manly, and im- 
 partial perusal to the single Treatise of Pomponatius, 
 De Fato*. 
 
 * The Philosopher, whom the Inquisition would have burnt 
 alive as an Atheist, had not Leo X. and Cardinal Bemho decided 
 that the Work might be formidable to those semi-pagan Chri- 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 233 
 
 When they have fairly and satisfactorily overthrown 
 the objections and cleared away the difficulties urged 
 by this sharp-witted Italian against the Doctrines 
 which they profess to retain, then let them commence 
 their attack on those which they reject. As far as the 
 supposed irrationality of the latter is the ground of 
 Argument, I am much deceived if on reviewing their 
 forces they would not find the ranks woefully thinned 
 by the success of their own fire in the preceding En- 
 gagement — unless, indeed, by pure heat of Controversy, 
 and to storm the lines of their Antagonists, they can 
 bring to life again the Arguments, which they had 
 themselves killed off in the defence of their own posi- 
 tions. In vain shall we seek for any other mode of 
 meeting the broad facts of the scientific Epicurean, or 
 the requisitions and queries of the all-analysing Pyr- 
 rhonist, than by challenging the tribunal to which they 
 appeal, as incompetent to try the question. In order 
 to non-suit the infidel Plaintiff, we must remove the 
 cause from the Faculty, that judges according to Sense, 
 and whose judgments, therefore, are valid only on ob- 
 jects of Sense, to the Superior Courts of Conscience 
 and intuitive Reason ! " The words I speak unto you, 
 are Spirit,' 1 '' and such only " are life,' 1- ' i. e. have an 
 inward and actual power abiding in them. 
 
 But the same truth is at once Shield and Bow. The 
 Shaft of Atheism glances aside from it to strike and 
 
 stians who regarded Revelation as a mere Make-weight to their 
 boasted Religion of Nature ; but contained nothing dangerous 
 to the Catholic Church or offensive to a true Believer. 
 
9M AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 pierce the breast-plate of the Heretic. Well for the 
 Latter, if plucking the weapon from the wound he 
 recognizes an arrow from his own Quiver, and abandons 
 a cause that connects him with such Confederates ! 
 Without further rhetoric, the sum and substance of the 
 Argument is this : an insight into the proper functions 
 and subaltern rank of the Understanding may not, 
 indeed, disarm the Psilanthropist of his metaphorical 
 Glosses, or of his Versions fresh from the forge and 
 with no other stamp than the private mark of the 
 individual Manufacturer ; but it will deprive him of 
 the only rational pretext for having recourse to tools 
 so liable to abuse, and of such perilous example. 
 
 COMMENT. 
 
 Since the preceding pages were composed, and 
 during an interim of depression and disqualification, I 
 heard with a delight and an interest, that I might with- 
 out hyperbole call medicinal, that the contra-distinc- 
 tion of Understanding from Reason, for which during 
 twenty years I have been contending, " casting my 
 bread upon the Waters 1 ' with a perseverance, which 
 in the existing state of the public taste nothing but 
 the deepest conviction of its importance could have in- 
 spired — has been lately adopted and sanctioned by the 
 present distinguished Professor of Anatomy, in the 
 Course of Lectures given by him at the Royal College 
 of Surgeons, on the Zoological part of Natural Hi- 
 story ; and, if I am rightly informed * in one of the 
 vloquent and impressive introductory Discourses. In 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 235 
 
 explaining the Nature of Instinct, as deduced from 
 the actions and tendencies of animals successively pre- 
 sented to the Observation of the Comparative Physio- 
 logist in the ascending Scale of Organic Life — or rather, 
 I should have said, in an attempt to determine that 
 precise import of the Term., which is required by the 
 facts * — the Professor explained the nature of what I 
 have elsewhere called the Adaptive Power, i. e. the 
 faculty of adapting means to proximate ends. [N. B. 
 I mean here a relative end — that which relatively to 
 one thing is an end, though relatively to some other it 
 
 * The word, Instinct, brings together a number of facts into 
 one class by the assertion of a common ground, the nature of 
 which ground it determines negatively only — i. e. the word does 
 not explain what this common ground is ; but simply indicates, 
 that there is such a ground, and that it is different in kind from 
 that in which the responsible and consciously voluntary Actions of 
 Men originate. Thus, in its true and primary import, Instinct 
 stands in antithesis to Reason ; and the perplexity and contra- 
 dictory statements into which so many meritorious Naturalists, 
 and popular Writers on Natural History (Priscilla Wakefield, 
 Kirby, Spence, Hiiber, and even Reimarus) have fallen on this 
 subject, arise wholly from their taking the word in opposition 
 to Understanding. I notice this because I would not lose any 
 opportunity of impressing on the mind of my youthful readers 
 the important truth that Language (as the embodied and arti- 
 culated Spirit of the Race, as the growth and emanation of a 
 People, and not the work of any individual Wit or Will) is 
 often inadequate, sometimes deficient, but never false or de- 
 lusive. We have only to master the true origin and original 
 import of any native and abiding word, to find in it, if not the 
 solution of the facts expressed by it, yet a finger-mark pointing 
 to the road on which this solution is to be sought for. 
 
^36 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 is itself a means. It is to be regretted, that we have 
 no single word to express these ends, that are not the 
 end : for the distinction between these and an end in 
 the proper sense of the term is an important one.] 
 The Professor, I say, not only explained, first, the 
 Nature of the Adaptive Power in genere, and, secondly, 
 the distinct character of the same Power as it exists 
 specifically and exclusively in the human being, and 
 acquires the name of Understanding; but he did it 
 in a way which gave the whole sum and substance of 
 my convictions, of all I had so long wished, and so 
 often, but with such imperfect success, attempted to 
 convey, free from all semblance of Paradoxy, and from 
 all occasion of offence — omnem offendiculi* ansam 
 prsecidens. It is, indeed, for the fragmentary reader 
 only that I have any scruple. In those who have had 
 the patience to accompany me so far on the up-hill 
 road to manly Principles, I can have no reason to 
 guard against that disposition to hasty offence from 
 
 * Neque quicquam addubito, quin ea candidis omnibus faciat 
 satis. Quid autem facias istis qui vel ob ingenii pertinaciam 
 sibi satisfied nolint, vel stupidiores sint quam ut satisfactionem 
 intelligant? Nam quemadmodum Siraonides dixit, Thessalos 
 hebetiores esse quam ut possint a se decipi, ita quosdam videas 
 stupidiores quam ut placari queant. Adhuc non mirum est 
 invenire quod calumnietur qui nihil aliud quaerit nisi quod 
 calumnietur. {Erasmi Epist. ad Dorpium.) At all events, the 
 following Exposition having been received at second hand, and 
 passing through the medium of my own prepossessions, if any 
 fault be found with it, the fault probably, and the blame 
 certainly, belongs to the Reporter. 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. &>7 
 
 Anticipation of Consequences, that faithless and love- 
 less spirit of fear which plunged Galilseo into a Pri- 
 son* — a spirit most unworthy of an educated man, 
 who ought to have learnt that the Mistakes of scien- 
 tific men have never injured Christianity, while every 
 new truth discovered by them has either added to its 
 evidence, or prepared the mind for its reception. 
 
 * And which (I might have added) in a more enlightened 
 age, and in a Protestant Country, impelled more than one Ger- 
 man University to anathematize Fr. Hoffman's discovery of 
 Carbonic Acid Gas, and of its effects on animal life, as hostile to 
 religion, and tending to Atheism ! Three or four Students at 
 the university of Jena, in the attempt to raise a Spirit for the 
 discovery of a supposed hidden treasure, were strangled or 
 poisoned by the fumes of the Charcoal they had been burning in 
 a close Garden-house of a vineyard near Jena, while employed in 
 their magic fumigations and charms. One only was restored 
 to Life : and from his account of the Noises and Spectres (in 
 his ears and eyes) as he was losing his senses, it was taken for 
 granted that the bad Spirit had destroyed them. Frederic Hoff- 
 man admitted that it was a very bad spirit that had tempted them, 
 the Spirit of Avarice and Folly ; and that a very noxious Spirit 
 (Gas, or Geistj is the german for Spirit) was the immediate 
 cause of their death. But he contended that this latter Spirit 
 was the Spirit of Charcoal, which would have produced the 
 same effect, had the young men heen chanting psalms instead 
 of incantations : and acquitted the Devil of all direct concern in 
 the business. The Theological Faculty took the alarm : even 
 Physicians pretended to be horror-struck at Hoffman's audacity. 
 The Controversy and its appendages embittered several years of 
 this great and good man's life. 
 
238 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 ON INSTINCT IN CONNEXION WITH THE UNDER- 
 STANDING. 
 
 It is evident, that the Definition of a Genus or Class 
 is an adequate definition only of the lowest species of 
 that Genus: for each higher species is distinguished 
 from the lower by some additional character, while the 
 General Definition includes only the characters com- 
 mon to all the Species. Consequently it describes the 
 lowest only. Now I distinguish a Genus or kind of 
 Powers under the name of Adaptive Power, and give 
 as its generic definition — the Power of selecting, and 
 adapting means to proximate ends; and as an in- 
 stance of the lowest species of this Genus, I take the 
 stomach of a Caterpillar. I ask myself, under what 
 words I can generalize the action of this Organ ; and 
 I see, that it selects and adapts the appropriate means 
 (i. e. the assimilable part of the vegetable congesta) to 
 the proximate end, i. e. the growth or reproduction of 
 the Insect's Body. This we call vital power, or 
 vita propria of the Stomach ; and this being the lowest 
 species, its definition is the same with the definition of 
 the hind. 
 
 Well ! from the Power of the Stomach I pass to 
 the Power exerted by the whole animal. I trace it 
 wandering from spot to spot, and plant to plant, till it 
 finds the appropriate vegetable; and again on this 
 chosen vegetable, I mark it seeking out and fixing on 
 the part of the plant, bark, leaf, or petal, suited to 
 its nourishment : or (should the animal have assumed 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 239 
 
 the butterfly form), to the deposition of its eggs, and 
 the sustentation of the future Larva. Here I see a 
 power of selecting and adapting means to proximate 
 ends according to circumstances : and this higher spe- 
 cies of Adaptive Power we call Instinct. 
 
 Lastly, I reflect on the facts narrated and described 
 in the preceding extracts from Hiiber, and see a power 
 of selecting and adapting the proper means to the 
 proximate ends, according to varying- circumstances. 
 And what shall we call this yet higher species ? We 
 name the former, Instinct: we must call this Instinc- 
 tive Intelligence. 
 
 Here then we have three Powers of the same kind, 
 Life, Instinct, and instinctive Intelligence: the essential 
 characters that define the genus existing equally in all 
 three. But in addition to these, I find one other cha- 
 racter common to the highest and lowest: viz. that 
 the purposes are all manifestly pre- determined by the 
 peculiar organization of the Animals ; and though it 
 may not be possible to discover any such immediate 
 dependency in all the Actions, yet the Actions being 
 determined by the purposes, the result is equivalent : 
 and both the Actions and the Purposes are all in a 
 necessitated reference to the preservation and con- 
 tinuance of the particular Animal or of the Progeny. 
 There is selection, but not choice : volition rather than 
 Will. The possible hnowlege of a thing, or the desire 
 to have that thing representable by a distinct corre- 
 spondent Thought, does not, in the animal, suffice to 
 render the thing an object, or the ground of a purpose. 
 
240 AIDS TO REFLECTION, 
 
 I select and adapt the proper means to the separation 
 of a stone from a rock, which I neither can, or desire 
 to, make use of for food, shelter, or ornament : because, 
 perhaps, I wish to measure the angles of its primary- 
 crystals, or, perhaps, for no better reason than the 
 apparent difficulty of loosening the stone — stat pro 
 ratione Voluntas — and thus make a motive out of the 
 absence of all motive, and a reason out of the arbitrary 
 will to act without any reason. 
 
 Now what is the conclusion from these premises P 
 Evidently this : that if I suppose the Adaptive Power 
 in its highest species or form of Instinctive Intelligence 
 to co-exist with Reason, Free will, and Self-conscious- 
 ness, it instantly becomes understanding : in other 
 words, that Understanding differs indeed from the 
 noblest form of Instinct, but not in itself or in its own 
 essential properties, but in consequence of its co-exist- 
 ence with far higher Powers of a diverse kind in one 
 and the same Subject. Instinct in a rational, re- 
 sponsible, and self-conscious Animal, is Understanding. 
 
 Such I apprehend to have been the Professor's View 
 and Exposition of Instinct — and in confirmation of 
 its truth, I would merely request my Readers, from 
 the numerous well-authenticated instances on record, 
 to recall some one of the extraordinary actions of Dogs 
 for the preservation of their Masters 1 lives, and even 
 for the avenging of their deaths. In these instances 
 we have the third species of the Adaptive Power, in 
 connexion with an apparently moral end — with an 
 end in the proper sense of the word. Here the Adap- 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 241 
 
 tive Power co-exists with a purpose apparently vo- 
 luntary, and the action seems neither predetermined 
 by the organization of the Animal, nor in any direct 
 reference to his own preservation, or to the continuance 
 of his race. It is united with an imposing semblance 
 of Gratitude, Fidelity, and disinterested Love. We 
 not only value the faithful Brute : we attribute worth 
 to him. This, I admit, is a problem, of which I have 
 no solution to offer. One of the wisest of uninspired 
 men has not hesitated to declare the Dog a great my- 
 stery, on account of this dawning of a moral nature 
 unaccompanied by any the least evidence of Reason, 
 in whichever of the two senses we interpret the word — 
 whether as the practical Reason, i. e. the power of 
 proposing an ultimate end, the determinability of the 
 Will by ideas; or as the sciential Reason, i. e. the 
 faculty of concluding universal and necessary truths 
 from particular and contingent appearances. But in 
 a question respecting the possession of Reason, the 
 absence of all proof is tantamount to a proof of the 
 contrary. It is, however, by no means equally clear 
 to me, that the Dog may not possess an analogon of 
 Words, which I have elsewhere shown to be the proper 
 objects of the " Faculty, judging according to Sense." 
 But to return to my purpose : I intreat the Reader 
 to reflect on any one fact of this kind, whether occurring 
 in his own experience, or selected from the numerous 
 anecdotes of the Dog preserved in the writings of 
 Zoologists. I will then confidently appeal to him, 
 whether it is in his power not to consider the faculty 
 
242 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 displayed in these actions as the same in kind with 
 the Understanding, however inferior in degree. Or 
 should he even in these instances prefer calling it 
 Instinct, and this in contra- distinction from Under- 
 standing, I call on him to point out the boundary 
 between the two, the chasm or partition-wall that di- 
 vides or separates the one from the other. If he can, 
 he will have done what none before him have been able 
 to do, though many and eminent men have tried hard 
 for it: and my recantation shall be among the first 
 trophies of his success. If he cannot, I must infer that 
 he is controlled by his dread of the Consequences, by 
 an apprehension of some injury resulting to Religion 
 or Morality from this opinion; and I shall console 
 myself with the hope, that in the sequel of this work 
 he will find proofs of the direct contrary tendency. 
 Not only is this view of the Understanding, as differ- 
 ing in degree from Instinct and in kind from Reason, 
 innocent in its possible influences on the religious cha- 
 racter, but it is an indispensable preliminary to the 
 removal of the most formidable obstacles to an intelli- 
 gent Belief of the peculiar Doctrines of the Gospel, of 
 the characteristic Articles of the Christian Faith, with 
 which the Advocates of the truth in Christ have to 
 contend ; the evil heart of Unbelief alone excepted. 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 243 
 
 REFLECTIONS BY THE EDITOR INTRODUCTORY TO 
 
 APHORISM THE X th . 
 
 The most momentous question a man can ask is, 
 Have I a Saviour ? And yet, as far as the individual 
 Querist is concerned, it is premature and to no purpose, 
 except another question has been previously put and 
 answered (alas ! too generally put after the wounded 
 Conscience has already given the answer!) viz. Have 
 I any need of a Saviour ? For him who needs none 
 (O bitter irony of the evil Spirit, whose whispers the 
 proud Soul takes for its own thoughts, and knows not 
 how the Tempter is scoffing the while !) there is none, 
 as long as he feels no need. On the other hand, it is 
 scarce possible to have answered this question in the 
 affirmative, and not ask — first, in what the necessity 
 consists ? secondly, whence it proceeded ? and, thirdly, 
 how far the answer to this second question is or is not 
 contained in the answer to the first? I intreat the 
 intelligent Reader, who has taken me as his temporary 
 guide on the strait, but yet, from the number of cross 
 roads, difficult way of religious Inquiry, to halt a mo- 
 ment, and consider the main points that in this last 
 division of our work have been already offered for his 
 reflection. I have attempted then to fix the proper 
 meaning of the words Nature and Spirit, the one being 
 the antithesis to the other : so that the most general 
 and negative definition of Nature is, Whatever is not 
 Spirit; and vice versa of Spirit, That which is not 
 comprehended in Nature : or in the language of our 
 
 it 2 
 
244 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 elder Divines, that which transcends Nature. But 
 Nature is the term in which we comprehend all things 
 that are representable in the forms of Time and Space, 
 and subjected to the Relations of Cause and Effect : 
 and the cause of whose existence therefore is to be 
 sought for perpetually in something Antecedent. The 
 word itself expresses this in the strongest manner 
 possible : Natura, that which is about to be born, that 
 which is always becoming. It follows, therefore, that 
 whatever originates its own acts, or in any sense con- 
 tains in itself the cause of its own state, must be spiritual, 
 and consequently super-natural: yet not on that ac- 
 count necessarily miraculous. And such must the re- 
 sponsible Will in us be, if it be at all. (See p. 131 — 
 189). 
 
 . A prior step had been to remove all misconceptions 
 from the subject; to show the reasonableness of a 
 belief in the reality and real influence of a universal and 
 divine Spirit; the compatibility and possible communion 
 of such a Spirit with the Spiritual in Principle Indivi- 
 duals; and the analogy offered by the most undeniable 
 truths of Natural Philosophy *. (See p. 67 — 74). 
 
 * It has in its consequences proved no trifling evil to the 
 Christian World, that Aristotle's Definitions of Nature are all 
 grounded on the petty and rather rhetorical than philosophical 
 Antithesis of Nature to Art— a conception inadequate to the 
 demands even of his Philosophy. Hence in the progress of his 
 reasoning, he confounds the Natura Naturata (that is, the sum 
 total of the Facts and Phenomena of the Senses) with an hypo- 
 thetical Natura Naturans, a Goddess Nature, that has no better 
 claim to a place in any sober system of Natural Philosophy 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 245 
 
 These Views of the Spirit, and of the Will as 
 Spiritual, form the ground-work of our Scheme. 
 Among the numerous Corollaries or Appendents, the 
 first that presented itself respects the question, Whether 
 there is any faculty in man by which a knowlege of 
 spiritual truths, or of any truths not abstracted from 
 Nature, is rendered possible? and an Answer is at- 
 tempted in the Comment on Aphorism Vlllth. And 
 here I beg leave to remark, that in this Comment the 
 only Novelty, and, if there be Merit, the only Merit 
 is — that there being two very different Meanings, and 
 two different Words, I have here and in former Works 
 appropriated one meaning to one of the Words, and 
 the other to the other — instead of using the words in- 
 differently and by hap-hazard: a confusion, the ill 
 effects of which in this instance are so great and of 
 such frequent occurrence in the works of our ablest 
 Philosophers and Divines, that I should select it before 
 all others in proof of Hobbes's Maxim : that it is a 
 short and downhill passage from errors in words to 
 errors in things. The distinctness of the Reason from 
 
 than the Goddess Multitudo; yet to which Aristotle not rarely 
 gives the name and attributes of the Supreme Being. The 
 result was, that the Idea of God thus identified with this hypo- 
 thetical Nature becomes itself but an Hypothesis, or at best 
 but a precarious inference from incommensurate premises and 
 on disputable Principles : while in other passages, God is con- 
 ibunded with (and everywhere, in Aristotle's genuine works, 
 included in) the Universe : which most grievous error it is the 
 great and characteristic Merit of Plato to have avoided and 
 denounced. 
 
246 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 the Understanding, and the imperfection and limited 
 sphere of the latter, have been asserted by many both 
 before and since Lord Bacon*; but still the habit of 
 using Reason and Understanding as synonymes, acted 
 as a disturbing force. Some it led into mysticism, 
 others it set on explaining away a clear difference in 
 hind into a mere superiority in degree : and it partially 
 eclipsed the truth for all. 
 
 In close connexion with this, and therefore forming 
 the Comment on the Aphorism next following, is the 
 Subject of the legitimate exercise of the Understanding 
 and its limitation to Objects of Sense ; with the errors 
 both of unbelief and of misbelief, that result from its 
 extension beyond the sphere of possible Experience. 
 Wherever the forms of Reasoning appropriate only to 
 the natural world are applied to spiritual realities, it 
 may be truly said, that the more strictly logical the 
 Reasoning is in all its parts, the more irrational it is 
 as a whole. 
 
 The Reader thus armed and prepared, I now venture 
 
 * Take one passage among many from the posthumous Tracts 
 (1660) of John Smith, not the least Star in that hright Con- 
 stellation of Cambridge Men, the contemporaries of Jeremy 
 Taylor. " While we reflect on our own idea of Reason, we know 
 that our own Souls are not it, but only partake of it ; and that 
 we have it xa T «. peQefyv and not x<xt' ou«jjv. Neither can it be 
 called a Faculty, but far rather a Light, which we enjoy, but 
 the Source of which is not in ourselves, nor rightly by any in- 
 dividual to be denominated mine." This pure intelligence he 
 then proceeds to contrast with the Discursive Faculty, i. e. the 
 Understanding. 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 247 
 
 to present the so called mysteries of Faith, i. e. the 
 peculiar tenets and especial Constituents of Christianity, 
 or Religion in spirit and in truth. In right order I 
 must have commenced with the Articles of the Trinity 
 and the Apostacy, including the question respecting 
 the Origin of Evil, and the Incarnation of the Word. 
 And could I have followed this order, some difficulties 
 that now press on me would have been obviated. But 
 (as has already been explained) the limits of the pre- 
 sent Volume rendered it alike impracticable and in- 
 expedient; for the necessity of my argument would 
 have called forth certain hard though most true say- 
 ings, respecting the hollowness and tricksy sophistry 
 of the so called " Natural Theology," " Religion of 
 Nature," " Light of Nature," &c. which a brief ex- 
 position could not save from innocent misconceptions, 
 much less protect against plausible misinterpretation. 
 And yet both Reason and Experience have convinced 
 me, that in the greater number of our Alogi, who 
 feed on the husks of Christianity, the disbelief of the 
 Trinity, the Divinity of Christ included, has its origin 
 and support in the assumed self-evidence of this Na- 
 tural Theology, and in their ignorance of the insur- 
 mountable difficulties which (on the same mode of 
 reasoning) press upon the fundamental articles of their 
 own Remnant of a Creed. But arguments, which 
 would prove the falsehood of a known truth, must 
 themselves be false, and can prove the falsehood of no 
 other position in eodem genere. 
 
 This hint I have thrown out as a Spark that may 
 
5248 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 perhaps fall where it will kindle. The Reader desirous 
 of more is again referred to the Work already an- 
 nounced. And worthily might the wisest of men make 
 inquisition into the three momentous points here spoken 
 of, for the purposes of speculative Insight, and for the 
 formation of enlarged and systematic views of the 
 destination of Man, and the dispensation of God. But 
 the practical Inquirer (I speak not of those who inquire 
 for the gratification of Curiosity, and still less of those 
 who labour as students only to shine as disputants; 
 but of one, who seeks the truth, because he feels the 
 want of it), the practical Inquirer, I say, hath already 
 placed his foot on the rock, if he have satisfied himself 
 that whoever needs not a Redeemer is more than 
 human. Remove for him the difficulties and objections, 
 that oppose or perplex his belief of a crucified Saviour; 
 convince him of the reality of Sin, which is impossible 
 without a knowlege of its true nature and inevitable 
 Consequences ; and then satisfy him as to the fact 
 historically, and as to the truth spiritually, of a re- 
 demption therefrom by Christ ; do this for him, and 
 there is little fear that he will permit either logical 
 quirks or metaphysical puzzles to contravene the plain 
 dictate of his Common Sense, that the Sinless One that 
 redeemed Mankind from Sin, must have been more 
 than Man ; and that He who brought Light and Im- 
 mortality into the World, could not in his own nature 
 have been an inheritor of Death and Darkness. It is 
 morally impossible, that a man with these convictions 
 should suffer the Objection of Incomprehensibility (and 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 249 
 
 this on a subject of Faith) to overbalance the manifest 
 absurdity and contradiction in the notion of a Mediator 
 between God and the Human Race, at the same in- 
 finite distance from God as the Race for whom he 
 mediates. 
 
 The Origin of Evil, meanwhile, is a question interest- 
 ing only to the Metaphysician, and in a system of 
 moral and religious Philosophy. The Man of sober 
 mind, who seeks for truths that possess a moral and 
 practical interest, is content to be certain, first, that 
 Evil must have had a beginning, since otherwise it 
 must either be God, or a co-eternal and co-equal Rival 
 of God ; both impious notions, and the latter foolish 
 to boot. 2dly, That it could not originate in God ; 
 for if so, it would be at once Evil and not Evil, or 
 God would be at once God (that is, infinite Goodness) 
 and not God — both alike impossible positions. Instead 
 therefore of troubling himself with this barren con- 
 troversy, he more profitably turns his inquiries to that 
 Evil which most concerns himself, and of which he 
 may find the origin. 
 
 The entire Scheme of necessary Faith may be re- 
 duced to two heads, 1. the Object and Occasion, and 
 2. the fact and effect, of our redemption by Christ : and 
 to this view does the order of the following Comments 
 correspond. I have begun with Original Sin, and 
 proceeded in the following Aphorism to the doctrine 
 of Redemption. The Comments on the remaining 
 Aphorisms are all subsidiary to these, or written in 
 the hope of making the minor tenets of general belief 
 
250 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 be believed in a spirit worthy of these. They are, in 
 short, intended to supply a febrifuge against aguish 
 Scruples and Horrors, the hectic of the Soul ! and " for 
 servile and thrall-like fear to substitute that adoptive 
 and chearful boldness, which our new alliance with 
 God requires of us as Christians. 1 ' (Milton). Not the 
 Origin of Evil, not the Chronology of Sin, or the 
 chronicles of the original Sinner; but Sin originant, 
 underived from without, and no passive link in the 
 adamantine chain of Effects, each of which is in its 
 turn an instrument of Causation, but no one of them 
 a Cause ! not with Sin inflicted, which would be a 
 Calamity ! not with Sin (i. e. an evil tendency) im- 
 planted, for which let the Planter be responsible ! But 
 I begin with Original Sin. And for this purpose I 
 have selected the Aphorism from the ablest and most 
 formidable Antagonist of this Doctrine, Bishop Jeremy 
 Taylor, and from the most eloquent work of this most 
 eloquent of Divines. Had I said, of Men, the Soul of 
 Cicero would forgive me, and Demosthenes nod assent* ! 
 
 * We have the assurance of Bishop Horsley, that the Church 
 of England does not demand the literal Understanding of the 
 Document contained in the second (from verse 8) and third 
 Chapters of Genesis as a point of faith, or regard a different 
 interpretation as affecting the orthodoxy of the interpreter: 
 Divines of the most unimpeachable orthodoxy, and the most 
 averse to the allegorizing of Scripture history in general, having 
 from the earliest ages of the Christian Church adopted or per- 
 mitted it in this instance. And indeed no unprejudiced man 
 can pretend to doubt, that if in any other work of Eastern 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 251 
 
 APHORISM X. JEREMY TAYLOR. J^ 
 
 ON ORIGINAL SIN. 
 
 Is there any such Thing ? That is not the question. 
 For it is a Fact acknowleged on all hands almost : and 
 
 Origin he met with Trees of Life and of Knowlege ; talking and 
 conversable Snakes; 
 
 Inque rei signum Serpentem serpere jussum ; 
 he would want no other proofs that it was an Allegory he was 
 reading, and intended to be understood as such. Nor, supposing 
 him conversant with Oriental works of any thing like the same 
 antiquity, could it surprise him to find events of true history 
 in connexion with, or historical personages among the Actors 
 and Interlocutors of, the Parable. In the temple-language of 
 Egypt the Serpent was the Symbol of the Understanding in its 
 twofold function, namely, as the faculty of means to proximate 
 or medial ends, analogous to the instinct of the more intelligent 
 Animals, Ant, Bee, Beaver, &c. and opposed to the practical 
 Reason, as the Determinant of the ultimate End ; and again, as 
 the discursive and logical Faculty possessed individually by 
 each Individual — the Logos Iv wary, in distinction from the 
 Nous, i. e. Intuitive Reason, the Source of Ideas and absolute 
 Truths, and the Principle of the Necessary and the Universal 
 in our Affirmations and Conclusions. Without or in contra- 
 vention to the Reason {i. e. " the spiritual mind" of St. Paul, 
 and " the Light that lighteth every man" of St. John) this Under- 
 standing ($pmp« o-apxo?, or carnal mind) becomes the sophistic 
 Principle, the wily Tempter to Evil by counterfeit Good ; the 
 Pander and Advocate of the Passions and Appetites; ever in 
 league with, and always first applying to, the Desire, as the in- 
 ferior nature in Man, the Woman in our Humanity; and through 
 the Desire prevailing on the Will (the Manhood, Virtus) 
 against the command of the Universal Reason, and against the 
 
252 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 even those who will not confess it in words, confess it 
 in their complaints. For my part I cannot but confess 
 
 Light of Reason in the Will itself. (N.B. This essential in- 
 herence of an intelligential Principle ($&>; voepo") in the Will 
 («g^^ Se^Tixri), or rather the Will itself thus considered, the 
 Greeks expressed by an appropriate word (/3oiAr,). This, but 
 little differing from Origin's interpretation or hypothesis, is sup- 
 ported and confirmed by the very old Tradition of the Homo 
 androgynus, i. e. that the original Man, the Individual first 
 created, was bi-sexual : a chimaera, of which and of many other 
 mythological traditions the most probable explanation is, that 
 they were originally symbolical Glyphs or Sculptures, and after- 
 wards translated into words, yet literally, i. e. into the common 
 names of the several Figures and Images composing the Symbol, 
 while the symbolic meaning was left to be decyphered as before, 
 and sacred to the Initiate. As to the abstruseness and subtlety 
 of the Conceptions, this is so far from being an objection to this 
 oldest Gloss on this venerable Relic of Semitic, not impossibly 
 ante-diluvian, Philosophy, that to those who have carried their 
 researches farthest back into Greek, Egyptian, Persian, and 
 Indian Antiquity, it will seem a strong confirmation. Or if I 
 chose to address the Sceptic in the language of the Day, I 
 might remind him, that as Alchemy went before Chemistry, 
 and Astrology before Astronomy, so in all countries of civilized 
 Man have Metaphysics outrun Common Sense. Fortunately for 
 us that they have so ! For from all we know of the wnmeta- 
 physical tribes of New Holland and elsewhere, a Common Sense 
 not preceded by Metaphysics is no very enviable Concern. O 
 be not cheated, my youthful Reader ! by this shallow prate ! 
 The creed of true Common Sense is composed of the Results 
 of Scientific Meditation, Observation, and Experiment, as far 
 as they are generally intelligible. It differs therefore in dif- 
 ferent countries and in every different age of the same Country. 
 The Common Sense of a People is the moveable index of its 
 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 253 
 
 that to be, which I feel and groan under, and by which 
 all the world is miserable. 
 
 average judgment and information. Without Metaphysics 
 Science could have had no language, and Common Sense no 
 materials. 
 
 But to return to my subject. It cannot be impugned, that 
 the Mosaic Narrative thus interpreted gives a just and faithful 
 exposition of the birth and parentage and successive moments of 
 phenomenal Sin (Peccatum phenomenon : Crimen primarium et 
 commune), that is, of Sin as it reveals itself in time, and is an 
 immediate Object of Consciousness. And in this sense most 
 truly does the Apostle assert, thajt in Adam we all fell. The 
 first human Sinner is the adequate Representative of all his 
 Successors. And with no less truth may it be said, that it is the 
 same Adam that falls in every man, and from the same reluct- 
 ance to abandon the too dear and undivorceable Eve : and the 
 same Eve tempted by the same serpentine and perverted Under- 
 standing which, framed originally to be the Interpreter of the 
 Reason and the ministering Angel of the Spirit, is henceforth sen- 
 tenced and bound over to the service of the Animal Nature, its 
 needs and its cravings, dependent on the Senses for all its Materials, 
 with the World of Sense for its appointed Sphere : " Upon thy 
 belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy 
 life." I have shown elsewhere, that as the Instinct of the mere 
 intelligence differs in degree not in kind, and circumstantially not 
 essentially from the Vis Vitae, or Vital Power in the assimila- 
 tive and digestive functions of the Stomach and other organs of 
 Nutrition, that even so the Understanding, in itself and distinct 
 from the Reason and Conscience, differs in degree only from 
 the Instinct in the Animal. It is still but " a beast of the 
 field," though " more subtle than any beast of the field," and 
 therefore in its corruption and perversion " cursed above any" — 
 a pregnant Word ! of which, if the Reader wants an exposition 
 or paraphrase, he may find one more than two thousand years 
 
254 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 Adam turned his back on the Sun, and dwelt in the 
 Dark and the Shadow. He sinned, and brought evil 
 
 old among the fragments of the Poet Menander. (See Cumber- 
 land's Observer, No. CL. vol. iii. p. 289, 290.) This is the 
 Understanding which in its " every Thought" is to be brought 
 " under obedience to Faith;" which it can scarcely fail to be, if 
 only it be first subjected to the Reason, of which spiritual Faith 
 is even the Blossoming and the fructifying process. For it is 
 indifferent whether I say that Faith is the interpenetration of 
 the Reason and the Will, or that it is at once the Assurance 
 and the Commencement of the approaching Union between the 
 Reason and the Intelligible Realities, the Living and Substantial 
 Truths, that are even in this life its most proper Objects. 
 
 I have thus put the reader in possession of my own opinions 
 respecting the Narrative in Gen. ii. and iii. " E ?tv oSv 8>j, w; B/mfo 
 
 8oxe7, hpog /uv$og, ft^.j]6s'ffT«T0i/ xa) apy^ouirccrav $iXoa6$rit*-<»., Ivaifieai ftsv 
 ffejSotff/ia, ffiii/sTOig Te (paivav* Ig ie rb nav hpfxvjviiiyg yari^im Or I might 
 
 ask with Augustine, Why not both ? Why not at once Symbol 
 and History ? or rather how should it be otherwise ? Must not 
 of necessity the first man be a Symbol of Mankind, in the 
 fullest force of the word, Symbol, rightly defined — viz. A 
 Symbol is a sign included in the Idea, which it represents : ex. gr. 
 an actual part chosen to represent the whole, as a lip with a 
 chin prominent is a Symbol of Man ; or a lower form or species 
 of a higher in the same kind: by which definition the Symbolical 
 is distinguished toto genere from the Allegoric and Metaphorical. 
 But, perhaps, parables, allegories, and allegorical or typical ap- 
 plications, are incompatible with inspired Scripture ! The writings 
 of St. Paul are sufficient proof of the contrary. Yet I readily 
 acknowlege, that allegorical applications are one thing, and alle- 
 gorical interpretation another : and that where there is no ground 
 for supposing such a sense to have entered into the intent and 
 purpose of the sacred Penman, they are not to be commended. 
 So far, indeed, am I from entertaining any predilection for them, 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 255 
 
 into his Supernatural endowments, and lost the Sacra- 
 ment and instrument of Immortality, the Tree of Life 
 in the centre of the Garden. He then fell under the 
 evils of a sickly Body, and a passionate and ignorant 
 Soul. His Sin made him sickly, his Sickness made 
 him peevish : his Sin left him ignorant, his Ignorance 
 made him foolish and unreasonable. His sin left him 
 to his Nature : and by Nature, whoever was to be born 
 at all was to be born a child, and to do before he could 
 understand, and to be bred under laws to which he was 
 always bound, but which could not always be exacted ; 
 and he was to choose when he could not reason, and had 
 passions most strong when he had his understanding 
 most weak ; and the more need he had of a curb, the 
 less strength he had to use it ! And this being the 
 case of all the world, what was every man's evil became 
 
 or any favourable opinion of the Rabbinical Commentators and 
 Traditionists, from whom the fashion was derived, that in 
 carrying it as far as our own Church has carried it, I follow her 
 judgment and not my own. But in the first place, I know 
 but one other part of the Scriptures not universally held to be 
 parabolical, which, not without the sanction of great authorities, 
 I am disposed to regard as an Apologue or Parable, namely, 
 the Book of Jonas; the reasons for believing the Jewish Nation 
 collectively to be therein impersonated, seeming to me unanswer- 
 able. (See the Appendix to the Statesman's Manual, Note II.) 
 Secondly, as to Chapters now in question — that such interpre- 
 tation is at least tolerated by our church, I have the word of 
 one of her most Zealous Champions. And lastly, it is my de- 
 liberate and conscientious conviction, that the proofs of such 
 having been the intention of the inspired Writer or Compiler 
 of the book of Genesis, lie on the face of the Narrative itself. 
 
256 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 all men's greater evil ; and though alone it was very 
 bad, yet when they came together it was made much 
 worse. Like ships in a storm, every one alone hath 
 enough to do to outride it; but when they meet, 
 besides the evils of the Storm, they find the intolerable 
 calamity of their mutual concussion; and every Ship 
 that is ready to be oppressed with the tempest, is a 
 worse Tempest to every Vessel against which it is vio- 
 lently dashed. So it is in Mankind. Every man hath 
 evil enough of his own, and it is hard for a man to live 
 up to the rule of his own Reason and Conscience. 
 But when he hath Parents and Children, Friends and 
 Enemies, Buyers and Sellers, Lawyers and Clients, 
 a Family and a Neighbourhood — then it is that every 
 man dashes against another, and one relation requires 
 what another denies; and when one speaks another 
 will contradict him ; and that which is well spoken is 
 sometimes innocently mistaken ; and that upon a good 
 cause produces an evil effect ; and by these, and ten 
 thousand other concurrent causes, man is made more 
 than most miserable. 
 
 COMMENT. 
 
 The first question we should put to ourselves, when 
 we have read a passage that perplexes us in a work of 
 authority, is : What does the Writer mean by all this ? 
 And the second question should be, What does he 
 intend by all this ? In the passage before us, Taylor's 
 meaning is not quite clear. A Sin is an Evil which 
 has its ground or origin in the Agent, and not in the 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 257 
 
 Circumstances. Circumstances are compulsory from 
 the absence of a power to resist or control them : and 
 if this absence likewise be the effect of Circumstance 
 (i. e. if it have been neither directly nor indirectly caused 
 by the Agent himself) the Evil derives from the Cir- 
 cumstances ; and therefore (in the Apostle's sense of the 
 word, Sin, when he speaks of the exceeding sinful- 
 ness of Sin) such evil is not sin ; and the person who 
 suffers it, or who is the compelled instrument of its 
 infliction on others, may feel regret, but cannot feel 
 remorse. So likewise of the word origin, original, or 
 originant. The reader cannot too early be warned 
 that it is not applicable, and, without abuse of language, 
 can never be applied, to a mere link in a chain of 
 effects, where each, indeed, stands in the relation of a 
 cause to those that follow, but is at the same time the 
 effect of all that precede. For in these cases a cause 
 amounts to little more than an antecedent. At the 
 utmost it means only a conductor of the causative in- 
 fluence : and the old axiom, Causa causae causa causati, 
 applies, with a never-ending regress to each several 
 link, up the whole chain of nature. But this (as I have 
 elsewhere shown at large) is Nature : and no Natural 
 thing or act can be called originant, or be truly said 
 to have an origin* in any other. The moment we 
 
 * This sense of the word is implied even in its metaphorical 
 or figurative use. Thus we may say of a River that it ori- 
 ginates in such or such a fountain; but the water of a Canal is 
 derived from such or such a River. The Power which we call 
 Nature, may he thus denned : A Power subject to the Law of 
 
) 
 
 258 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 assume an Origin in Nature, a true Beginning, an 
 actual First — that moment we rise above Nature, and 
 
 Continuity {Lex Continui. In Natura non datur Saltus.) -which 
 law the human Understanding, by a necessity arising out of its 
 own constitution, can conceive only under the form of Cause 
 and Effect. That this form (or law) of Cause and Effect is 
 (relatively to the World without, or to Things as they subsist 
 independently of our perceptions) only a form or mode of think- 
 ing; that it is a law inherent in the Understanding itself (just 
 as the symmetry of the miscellaneous objects seen by the kaleido- 
 scope inheres in (i. e. results from) the mechanism of the ka- 
 leidoscope itself) — this becomes evident as soon as we attempt 
 to apply the pre-conception directly to any operation of Nature. 
 For in this case we are forced to represent the cause as being 
 at the same instant the effect, and vice versa the effect as being 
 the cause— a relation which we seek to express by the terms 
 Action and Re-action ; but for which the term Reciprocal Action 
 or the Law of Reciprocity (germanice Wechselwirkung) would 
 be both more accurate and more expressive. 
 
 These are truths which can scarcely be too frequently im- 
 pressed on the Mind that is in earnest in the wish to reflect 
 aright. Nature is a Line in constant and continuous evolution. 
 Its beginning is lost in the Super- natural : and for our under- 
 standing, therefore, it must appear as a continuous line without 
 beginning or end. But where there is no discontinuity there can 
 be no origination . and every appearance of origination in Nature 
 is but a shadow of our own casting. It is a reflection from our 
 own Will or Spirit. Herein, indeed, the Will consists. This is 
 the essential character by which will is opposed to Nature, as 
 Spirit, and raised above Nature as self-determining Spirit — this, 
 namely, that it is a power of originating an act or state. 
 
 A young friend or, as he was pleased to describe himself, a 
 pupil of mine, who is beginning to learn to think, asked me to 
 explain by an instance what is meant by " originating an act 
 
 ;o 
 it 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 259 
 
 are compelled to assume a supernatural Power. (Gen. 
 I. v. 1.) 
 
 or state." My answer was — This morning 1 awoke with a dull 
 pain, which I knew from experience the Getting up would re- 
 move ; and yet by adding to the drowsiness and by weakening or 
 depressing the volition {voluntas sensorialis seu mechanica) the 
 very pain seemed to hold me back, to fix me (as it were) to the 
 bed. After a peevish ineffectual quarrel with this painful dis- 
 inclination, I said to myself: Let me count twenty, and the 
 moment I come to nineteen I will leap out of bed. So said, 
 and so done. Now should you ever find yourself in the same 
 or in a similar state, and should attend to the Goings-on within 
 you, you will learn what 1 mean by originating an act. At the 
 same time you will see that it belongs exclusively to the Will 
 [arbitrium); that there is nothing analogous to it in outward 
 experiences ; and that I had, therefore, no way of explaining it 
 but by referring you to an Act of your own, and to the peculiar 
 self-consciousness preceding and accompanying it. As we know 
 what Life is by Being, so we know what Will is by Acting. 
 That in willing (replied my young Friend) we appear to ourselves 
 to constitute an actual Beginning, and that this seems unique, 
 and without any example in our sensible experience, or in the 
 phenomena of Nature, is an undeniable fact. But may it not 
 be an illusion arising from our ignorance of the antecedent 
 causes ? You may suppose this (I rejoined) That the soul of 
 every man should impose a Lie on itself; and that this Lie, 
 and the acting on the faith of its being the most important of 
 all truths and the most real of all realities, should form the main 
 contra-distinctive character of Humanity, and the only basis of 
 that distinction between Things and Persons on which our 
 whole moral and criminal Law is grounded — You can suppose 
 this ! I cannot, as I could in the case of an arithmetical or 
 geometrical proposition, render it impossible for you to suppose 
 it. Whether you can reconcile such a supposition with the 
 
 s2 
 
260 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 It will be an equal convenience to myself and to my 
 Readers, to let it be agreed between us, that we will 
 
 belief of an All-wise Creator, is another question. But, taken 
 singly, it is doubtless in your power to suppose this. Were it 
 not, the belief of the contrary would be no subject of a Com- 
 mand, no part of a moral or religious Duty. You would not, 
 however, suppose it without a reason. But all the pretexts that 
 ever have been or ever can be offered for this supposition, are 
 built on certain Notions of the Understanding that have been 
 generalized from Conceptions; which conceptions, again, are 
 themselves generalized or abstracted from objects of Sense. 
 Neither the one or the other, therefore, have any force except in 
 application to objects of Sense and within the sphere of sensible 
 Experience. What but absurdity can follow, if you decide on 
 Spirit by the laws of Matter? if you judge that which, if it be 
 at all, must be .swper-sensual, by that faculty of your mind, the 
 very definition of which is " the Faculty judging according to 
 Sense?" These then are unworthy the name of reasons: they 
 are only pretexts. But without reason to contradict your own 
 Consciousness in defiance of your own Conscience, is contrary to 
 Reason. Such and such Writers, you say, have made a great 
 sensation. If so, I am sorry for it ; but the fact I take to be 
 this. From a variety of causes the more austere Sciences have 
 fallen into discredit, and Impostors have taken advantage of 
 the general ignorance to give a sort of mysterious and terrific im- 
 portance to a parcel of trashy Sophistry, the Authors of which 
 would not have employed themselves more irrationally in sub- 
 mitting the works of Rafael or Titian to Canons of Criticism 
 deduced from the Sense of Smell. Nay, less so. For here the 
 Objects and the Organs are only disparate : while in the other 
 case they are absolutely diverse. I conclude this note by re- 
 minding the reader, that my first object is to make myself 
 understood. When he is in full possession of my meaning, then 
 let him consider whether it deserves to be received as the truth. 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 261 
 
 generalize the word Circumstance so as to understand 
 by it, as often as it occurs in this Comment, all and 
 every thing not connected with the Will, past or pre- 
 sent, of a Free Agent. Even though it were the 
 blood in the chambers of his Heart, or his own inmost 
 Sensations, we will regard them as circumstantial, ex- 
 trinsic, ox from without. 
 
 In this sense of the word Original, and in the sense 
 before given of Sin, it is evident that the phrase, 
 Original Sin, is a Pleonasm, the epithet not adding 
 to the thought, but only enforcing it. For if it 
 be Sin, it must be original: and a State or Act, that 
 has not its origin in the will, may be calamity, de- 
 formity, disease, or mischief; but a Sin it cannot be. 
 It is not enough that the Act appears voluntary, or 
 that it is intentional ; or that it has the most hateful 
 passions or debasing appetite for its proximate cause 
 and accompaniment. All these may be found in a 
 Mad-house, where neither Law nor Humanity permit 
 
 Had it been my immediate purpose to make him believe me as 
 well as understand me, I should have thought it necessary to 
 warn him that & finite Will does indeed originate an act, and may 
 originate a state of being; but yet only in and for the Agent 
 himself. A finite Will constitutes a true Beginning; but with 
 regard to the series of motions and changes by which the free aet 
 is manifested and made effectual, ihefinite Will gives a beginning 
 only by co-incidence with that absolute Will, which is at the 
 same time Infinite Power ! Such is the language of Religion, 
 and of Philosophy too in the last instance. But I express the 
 same truth in ordinary language when I say, that a finite Will, 
 or the Will of a finite Free-agent, acts outwardly by confluence 
 with the Laws of Nature. 
 
262 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 us to condemn the Actor of Sin. The Reason of Law 
 declares the Maniac not a Free-Agent ; and the Verdict 
 follows of course— Not guilty. Now Mania, as di- 
 stinguished from Ideocy, Frenzy, Delirium, Hypo- 
 chondria, and Derangement (the last term used spe- 
 cifically to express a suspension or disordered state of 
 the Understanding or Adaptive Power) is the Occupa- 
 tion or Eclipse of Reason, as the Power of ultimate 
 ends. The Maniac, it is well known, is often found 
 clever and inventive in the selection and adaptation of 
 means to his ends ; but his ends are madness. He has 
 lost his Reason. For though Reason, in finite Beings, 
 is not the Will — or how could the Will be opposed to 
 the Reason ? — yet it is the condition, the sine qua non 
 of a Free-will. 
 
 We will now return to the Extract from Jeremy 
 Taylor on a theme of deep interest in itself, and trebly 
 important from its bearings. For without just and 
 distinct views respecting the Article of Original Sin, 
 it is impossible to understand aright any one of the 
 peculiar doctrines of Christianity. Now my first com- 
 plaint is, that the eloquent Bishop, while he admits 
 the fact as established beyond controversy by universal 
 experience, yet leaves us wholly in the dark as to the 
 main point, supplies us with no answer to the principal 
 question — why he names it Original Sin ? It cannot 
 be said, We know what the Bishop means, and what 
 matters the name ? for the nature of the fact, and in 
 what light it should be regarded by us, depends on 
 the nature of our answer to the question, whether 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 263 
 
 Original Sin is or is not the right and proper designa- 
 tion. I can imagine the same quantum of Sufferings, 
 and yet if I had reason to regard them as symptoms 
 of a commencing Change, as pains of growth, the tem- 
 porary deformity and misproportions of immaturity, or 
 (as in the final sloughing of the Caterpillar) as throes 
 and struggles of the waxing or evolving Psyche, I 
 should think it no stoical flight to doubt, how far I 
 was authorised to declare the Circumstance an Evil at 
 all. Most assuredly I would not express or describe 
 the fact as an evil having an origin in the Sufferers 
 themselves, or as Sin. 
 
 Let us, however, waive this objection. Let it be sup- 
 posed that the Bishop uses the word in a different and 
 more comprehensive Sense, and that by Sin he under- 
 stands Evil of all kind connected with or resulting from 
 Actions — though I do not see how we can represent 
 the properties even of inanimate Bodies (of poisonous 
 substances for instance) except as Acts resulting from 
 the constitution of such bodies ! Or if this sense, though 
 not unknown to the Mystic Divines, should be too 
 comprehensive and remote, we will suppose the Bishop 
 to comprise under the term Sin, the Evil accompany- 
 ing or consequent on human Actions and Purposes: — 
 though here too, I have a right to be informed, for 
 what reason and on what grounds Sin is thus limited 
 to human Agency? And truly, I should be at no 
 loss to assign the reason. But then this reason would 
 instantly bring me back to my first definition; and 
 any other reason, than that the human Agent is endowed 
 
 
264 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 with Reason, and with a Will which can place itself 
 either in subjection or in opposition to his Reason — 
 in other words, that Man is alone of all known Animals 
 a responsible Creature — I neither know or can imagine. 
 
 Thus, then, the Sense which Taylor — and with him 
 the Antagonists generally of this Article as propounded 
 by the first Reformers — attaches to the words, Original 
 Sin, needs only be carried on into its next consequence, 
 and it will be found to imply the sense which I have 
 given— namely, that Sin is Evil having an Origin. 
 But inasmuch as it is evil, in God it cannot originate : 
 and yet in some Spirit (i. e. in some supernatural 
 power) it must. For in Nature there is no origin. 
 Sin therefore is spiritual Evil: but the spiritual in 
 Man is the Will. Now when we do not refer to any 
 particular Sins, but to that state and constitution of 
 the Will, which is the ground, condition and common 
 Cause of all Sins; and when we would further express 
 the truth, that this corrupt Nature of the Will must 
 in some sense or other be considered as its own act, 
 that the corruption must have been self-originated ; — 
 in this case and for this purpose we may, with no less 
 propriety than force, entitle this dire spiritual evil and 
 source of all evil, that is absolutely such, Original Sin. 
 (I have said, " the corrupt Nature of the Will." I 
 might add, that the admission of a Nature into a 
 spiritual essence by its own act is a corruption.) 
 
 Such, I repeat, would be the inevitable conclusion, 
 if' Taylor's Sense of the term were carried on into its 
 immediate consequences. But the whole of his most 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 265 
 
 eloquent Treatise makes it certain that Taylor did 
 not carry it on: and consequently Original Sin, ac- 
 cording to his conception, is a Calamity which being 
 common to all men must be supposed to result from 
 their common Nature : in other words, the universal 
 Calamity of Human Nature ! 
 
 Can we wonder, then, that a mind, a heart like 
 Taylor's, should reject, that he should strain his 
 faculties to explain away, the belief that this Calamity, 
 so dire in itself, should appear to the All-merciful God 
 a rightful cause and motive for inflicting on the wretched 
 Sufferers a Calamity infinitely more tremendous ? nay, 
 that it should be incompatible with Divine Justice not 
 to punish it by everlasting torment ? Or need we be 
 surprised if he found nothing, that could reconcile 
 his mind to such a belief, in the circumstance that the 
 acts now consequent on this Calamity and either di- 
 rectly or indirectly effects of the same were, five or 
 six thousand years ago in the instance of a certain 
 Individual and his Accomplice, anterior to the Ca- 
 lamity, and the Cause or Occasion of the same ? that 
 what in all odier men is Disease, in these two Per- 
 sons was Guilt? that what in us is hereditary, and 
 consequently Nature, in them was original, and con- 
 sequently Sin ? Lastly, might it not be presumed, that 
 so enlightened, and at the same time so affectionate, 
 a Divine, would even fervently disclaim and reject the 
 pretended justifications of God grounded on flimsy 
 analogies drawn from the imperfections of human 
 ordinances and human justice-courts — some of very 
 
266 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 doubtful character even as human Institutes, and 
 all of them just only as far as they are necessary, and 
 rendered necessary chiefly by the weakness and wicked- 
 ness, the limited powers and corrupt passions, of man- 
 kind ? The more confidently might this be presumed 
 of so acute and practised a Logician, as Jeremy Taylor, 
 in addition to his other extra-ordinary Gifts, is known 
 to have been, when it is demonstrable that the most 
 current of these justifications rests on a palpable equi- 
 vocation : viz. the gross misuse of the word Right*. An 
 
 * It may conduce to the readier comprehension of this point 
 if I say, that the Equivoque consists in confounding the almost 
 technical Sense of the Noun Substantive, Right (a sense most 
 often determined by the genitive case following, as the Right 
 of Property, the Right of Husbands to chastise their Wives, 
 and so forth) with the popular sense of the Adjective, right : 
 though this likewise has, if not a double sense, yet a double 
 application — the first, when it is used to express the fitness of a 
 mean to a relative End, ex. gr. " the right way to obtain the 
 right distance at which a Picture should be examined," &c. ; 
 and the other, when it expresses a perfect conformity and com- 
 mensurateness with the immutable Idea of Equity, or perfect 
 Rectitude. Hence the close connexion between the words, 
 righteousness and godliness, i. e. godlikeness. 
 
 I should be tempted to subjoin a few words on a predominating 
 doctrine closely connected with the present argument — the 
 Paleian Principle of General Consequences; but the in- 
 adequacy of this Principle as a criterion of Right and Wrong, 
 and above all its utter unfitness as a Moral Guide, have been 
 elsewhere so fully stated (Friend, vol. ii. p. 216 — 240), that 
 even in again referring to the Subject, I must shelter myself 
 under Seneca's rule, that what we cannot too frequently think 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 267 
 
 instance will explain my meaning. In as far as, from 
 the known frequency of dishonest or mischievous per- 
 sons, it may have been found necessary, in so far is 
 the Law justifiable in giving Landowners the Right of 
 proceeding against a neighbour or fellow-citizen for even 
 a slight trespass on that which the Law has made their 
 Property : — nay, of proceeding in sundry instances cri- 
 minally and even capitally. (Where at least from the 
 known poverty of the Trespasser it is fore-known that the 
 consequences will be penal . Thus : three poor men were 
 fined Twenty Pounds each, the one for knocking down 
 a Hare, the other for picking it up, and third for carry- 
 ing it off: and not possessing as many Pence, were sent 
 to Jail.) But surely, either there is no religion in the 
 
 of, we cannot too often be made to recollect. It is, however, of 
 immediate importance to the point in discussion, that the Reader 
 should be made to see how altogether incompatible the principle 
 of judging by General Consequences is with the Idea of an 
 Eternal, Omnipresent and Omniscient Being ! tbat he should 
 be made aware of the absurdity of attributing any form of Ge- 
 neralization to the all-perfect Mind. To generalize is a faculty 
 and function of the Human Understanding, and from its im- 
 perfection and limitation are the use and the necessity of ge- 
 neralizing derived. Generalization is a Substitute for Intuition, 
 for the Power of intuitive (that is, immediate) knowlege. As a 
 Substitute, it is a gift of inestimable Value to a finite Intelligence, 
 such as Man in his present state is endowed with and capable 
 of exercising ; but yet a Substitute only, and an imperfect one 
 to boot. To attribute it to God is the grossest Anthropomor- 
 phism : and grosser instances of Anthropomorphism than are 
 to be found in the controversial writings on Original Sin and 
 Vicarious Satisfaction, the Records of Superstition do not supply. 
 
268 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 world, and nothing obligatory in the precepts of the 
 Gospel, or there are occasions in which it would be very 
 wrong in the Proprietor to exercise the Right, which 
 yet it may be highly expedient that he should possess. 
 On this ground it is, that Religion is the sustaining 
 Opposite of Law. 
 
 That Jeremy Taylor, therefore, should have striven 
 fervently against the Article so interpreted and so 
 vindicated, is (for me, at least,) a subject neither of 
 Surprise nor of Complaint. It is the doctrine which 
 he substitutes, it is the weakness and inconsistency 
 betrayed in the defence of this substitute, it is the un- 
 fairness with which he blackens the established Article 
 — for to give it, as it had been caricatured by a few 
 Ultra-Calvinists during the fever of the (so called) 
 quinquarticular Controversy, was in effect to blacken 
 it — and then imposes another scheme, to which the 
 same objections apply with even increased force, a 
 scheme which seems to differ from the former only by 
 adding fraud and mockery to injustice : these are the 
 things that excite my wonder, it is of these that I com- 
 plain ! For what does the Bishop's scheme amount 
 to? God, he tells us, required of Adam a perfect 
 obedience, and made it possible by endowing him 
 " with perfect rectitudes and super-natural heights of 
 grace" proportionate to the obedience which he re- 
 quired. As a consequence of his disobedience, Adam 
 lost this rectitude, this perfect sanity and proportion- 
 ateness of his intellectual, moral and corporeal state, 
 powers and impulses ; and as the penalty of his crime, 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 26*9 
 
 he was deprived of all super-natural aids and graces. 
 The Death, with whatever is comprised in the scrip- 
 tural sense of the word, Death, began from that mo- 
 ment to work in him, and this consequence he conveyed 
 to his offspring, and through them to all his posterity, 
 i. e. to all mankind. They were born diseased in mind, 
 body and will. For what less than disease can we call 
 a necessity of error and a predisposition to sin and 
 sickness ? Taylor, indeed, asserts, that though perfect 
 Obedience became incomparably more difficult, it was 
 not, however, absolutely impossible. Yet he himself 
 admits that the contrary was universal; that of the count- 
 less millions of Adam's Posterity, not a single Individual 
 ever realized, or approached to the realization of, this 
 possibility; and (if my memory does not deceive me) 
 Taylor himself has elsewhere exposed — and if he have 
 not, yet Common Sense will do it for him — the sophistry 
 in asserting of a whole what may be true, but is true only, 
 of each of its component parts. Any one may snap a 
 horse- hair : therefore, any one may perform the same 
 feat with the horse's tail. On a level floor (on the 
 hardened sand, for instance, of a sea-beach) I chalk 
 two parallel strait lines, with a width of eight inches. 
 It is possible for a man, with a bandage over his eyes, 
 to keep within the path for two or three paces : there- 
 fore, it is possible for him to walk blindfold for two or 
 three leagues without a single deviation ! And this 
 possibility would suffice to acquit me of injustice, 
 though I had placed man-traps within an inch of one 
 
270 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 line, and knew that there were pit-falls and deep wells 
 beside the other ! 
 
 This assertion, therefore, without adverting to its 
 discordance with, if not direct contradiction to, the 
 tenth and thirteenth Articles of our Church, I shall 
 not, I trust, be thought to rate below its true value, if 
 I treat it as an infinitesimal possibility that may be 
 safely dropped in the calculation : and so proceed with 
 the argument. The consequence then of Adam's Crime 
 was, by a natural necessity, inherited by Persons who 
 could not (the Bishop affirms) in any sense have been 
 accomplices in the crime or partakers in the guilt: 
 and yet consistently with the divine Holiness, it was 
 not possible that the same perfect Obedience should 
 not be required of them. Now what would the Idea 
 of Equity, what would the Law inscribed by the 
 Creator in the heart of Man, seem to dictate in this 
 case ? Surely, that the supplementary Aids, the super- 
 natural Graces correspondent to a Law above Nature, 
 should be increased in proportion to the diminished 
 strength of the Agents, and the increased resistance to 
 be overcome by them ! But no ! not only the conse- 
 quence of Adam's act, but the penalty due to his 
 crime, was perpetuated. His descendants were despoiled 
 or left destitute of these Aids and Graces, while the 
 obligation to perfect obedience was continued; an obli- 
 gation too, the non-fulfilment of which brought with 
 it Death and the unutterable Woe that cleaves to an 
 immortal Soul for ever alienated from its Creator I 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 271 
 
 Observe, Reader ! all these results of Adam's Fall 
 enter into Bishop Taylor's scheme of Original Sin 
 equally as into that of the first Reformers. In this 
 respect the Bishop's doctrine is the same with that 
 layed down in the Articles and Homilies of the Esta- 
 blished Church. The only difference that has hitherto 
 appeared, consists in the aforesaid mathematical pos- 
 sibility of fulfilling the whole Law, which in the Bishop's 
 scheme is affirmed to remain still in human Nature, or 
 (as it is elsewhere expressed) in the Nature of the 
 human Will*. But though it were possible to grant 
 
 * Availing himself of the equivocal sense, and (I most readily 
 admit) the injudicious use, of the word " free" in the — even on 
 this account— faulty phrase, "free only to sin," Jeremy Taylor 
 treats the notion of a power in the Will of determining itself to 
 Evil without an equal power of determining itself to Good, as a 
 "foolery." I would this had been the only instance in his 
 " Deus Justificatus" of that inconsiderate contempt so frequent 
 in the polemic treatises of minor Divines, who will have Ideas 
 of Reason, Spiritual Truths that can only be spiritually dis- 
 cerned, translated for them into adequate conceptions of the 
 Understanding. The great articles of Corruption and Re- 
 demption are propounded to us as Spiritual Mysteries ; and every 
 interpretation, that pretends to explain them into comprehensible 
 notions, does by its very success furnish presumptive proof of 
 its failure. The acuteness and logical dexterity, with which 
 Taylor has brought out the falsehood or semblance of falsehood 
 in the Calvinistic scheme, are truly admirable. Had he next 
 concentered his thoughts in tranquil meditation, and asked 
 himself: What then is the truth? If a Will be at all, what 
 must a will be !— he might, I think, have seen that a Nature in 
 a Will implies already a Corruption of that Will ; that a Nature 
 
272 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 this existence of a power in all men, which in no one 
 man was ever exemplified, and where the wow-actu- 
 alization of such power is, a priori, so certain, that 
 the belief or imagination of the contrary in any Indi- 
 vidual is expressly given us by the Holy Spirit as a 
 test, whereby it may be known that the truth is not in 
 him ! as an infallible sign of imposture or self-delusion ! 
 Though it were possible to grant this, which, con- 
 sistently with Scripture and the principles of reasoning 
 which we apply in all other cases, it is not possible to 
 grant ; and though it were possible likewise to over- 
 look the glaring sophistry of concluding, in relation to 
 a series of indeterminate length, that whoever can do 
 any one, can therefore do all ; a conclusion, the futility 
 of which must force itself on the common-sense of 
 every man who understands the proposition ; — still the 
 question will arise — Why, and on what principle of 
 equity, were the unoffending sentenced to be born with 
 so fearful a disproportion of their powers to their 
 duties ? Why were they subjected to a Law, the ful- 
 filment of which was all but impossible, yet the penalty 
 on the failure tremendous ? Admit that for those who 
 
 is as inconsistent with freedom, as free choice with an incapacity 
 of choosing aught but evil. And lastly, a free power in a Na- 
 ture to fulfil a Law above Nature ! — I, who love and honour this 
 good and great man with all the reverence that can dwell " on 
 this side idolatry," dare not retort on this assertion the charge 
 of Foolery ; but I find it a Paradox as startling to my Reason as 
 any of the hard sayings of the Dorp Divines were to his Under- 
 standing, s. t. c. 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 273 
 
 had never enjoyed a happier lot, it was no punishment 
 to be made inhabit a ground which the Creator had 
 cursed, and to have been born with a body prone to 
 sickness, and a Soul surrounded with temptation, and 
 having the worst temptation within itself in its own 
 temptibility ! To have the duties of a Spirit with the 
 wants and appetites of an Animal ! Yet on such im- 
 perfect Creatures, with means so scanty and impedi- 
 ments so numerous, to impose the same task-work that 
 had been required of a Creature with a pure and entire 
 nature, and provided with super-natural Aids — if this 
 be not to inflict a penalty ! — Yet to be placed under a 
 Law, the difficulty of obeying and the consequences 
 of not obeying which are both infinite, and to have 
 momently to struggle with this difficulty, and to live 
 in momently hazard of these consequences — if this be 
 no punishment ! — words have no correspondence with 
 thoughts, and thoughts are but shadows of each other, 
 shadows that own no substance for their anti-type ! 
 
 Of such an outrage on common-sense Taylor was in- 
 capable. He himself calls it a penalty ; he admits that 
 in effect it is a punishment : nor does he seek to sup- 
 press the question that so naturally arises out of this 
 admission — On what principle of Equity were the in- 
 nocent offspring of Adam punished at all ? He meets 
 it, and puts-in an answer. He states the problem, 
 and gives his solution — namely, that " God on Adam's 
 Account was so exasperated with Mankind, that being 
 angry he would still continue the punishment !" The 
 case (says the Bishop) is this : " Jonathan and Michal 
 
274 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 were Saul's Children. It came to pass, that Seven of 
 Saul's Issue were to be hanged : all equally innocent, 
 equally culpable." [Before I quote further, I feel 
 myself called on to remind the Reader, that these two 
 last words were added by Jeremy Taylor without the 
 least ground of Scripture, according to which (2 Samuel, 
 Ixxi.) no crime was laid to their charge, no blame im- 
 puted to them. Without any pretence of culpable con- 
 duct on their part, they were arraigned as Children of 
 Saul, and sacrificed to a point of state-expedience. In 
 recommencing the quotation, therefore, the Reader ought 
 to let the sentence conclude with the words — ]"all equally 
 innocent. David took the five Sons of Michal, for she 
 had left him unhandsomely. Jonathan was his Friend: 
 and therefore he spared his Son, Mephibosheth. Now 
 here it was indifferent as to the guilt of the persons 
 {Bear in mind, Reader ! that no guilt was attached to 
 either of them !) whether David should take the Sons 
 of Michal or Jonathan's ; but it is likely that as upon 
 the kindness that David had to Jonathan he spared 
 his son ; so upon the just provocation of Michal, he 
 made that evil fall upon them, which, it may be, they 
 should not have suffered if their mother had been kind. 
 Adam was to God as Michal to David." (Taylor's 
 Polem. Tracts, p. 711.) 
 
 This Answer, this Solution, proceeding too from a 
 Divine so pre-eminently gifted, and occurring (with 
 other passages not less startling) in a vehement re- 
 futation of the received doctrine on the express ground 
 of its opposition to the clearest conceptions and 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 275 
 
 best feelings of mankind — this it is, that surprises 
 me ! It is of this that I complain I The Almighty 
 Father exasperated with those, whom the Bishop has 
 himself in the same treatise described as " innocent 
 and most unfortunate 1 * — the two things best fitted to 
 conciliate love and pity ! Or though they did not re- 
 main innocent, yet those whose abandonment to a mere 
 nature, while they were left amenable to a law above 
 nature, he affirms to be the irresistible cause, that they, 
 one and all, did sin ! And this decree illustrated and 
 justified by its analogy to one of the worst actions of 
 an imperfect Mortal ! Let such of my Readers as 
 possess the Volume of Polemical Discourses, or the 
 opportunity of consulting it, give a thoughtful perusal 
 to the pages from 869 to 893 ( Third Edition enlarged, 
 1674). I dare anticipate their concurrence with the 
 judgment which I here transcribe from the blank space 
 at the end of the Deus Justificatus in my own Copy ; 
 and which, though twenty years have elapsed since it 
 was written, I have never seen reason to recant or 
 modify. " This most eloquent Treatise may be 
 compared to a Statue of Janus, with the one face, 
 which we must suppose fronting the Calvinistic Tenet, 
 entire and fresh, as from the Master's hand ; beaming 
 with life and force, a witty scorn on the Lip, and a 
 Brow at once bright and weighty with satisfying rea- 
 son ! the other, looking toward the i something" to be 
 put in its place,' maimed, featureless, and weather- 
 bitten into an almost visionary confusion and indi- 
 stinctness. 1 ' 
 
 t & 
 
276 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 With these expositions I hasten to contrast the 
 scriptural article respecting Original Sin, or the corrupt 
 and sinful Nature of the Human Will, and the belief 
 which alone is required of us, as Christians. And here 
 the first thing to be considered, and which will at once 
 remove a world of error, is : that this is no Tenet first 
 introduced or imposed by Christianity ; and which, 
 should a man see reason to disclaim the authority of 
 the Gospel, would no longer have any claim on his at- 
 tention. It is no perplexity that a man may get rid 
 of by ceasing to be a Christian, and which has no 
 existence for a philosophic Deist. It is a Fact, af- 
 firmed, indeed, in the Christian Scriptures alone with 
 the force and frequency proportioned to its consummate 
 importance ; but a fact acknowleged in tvery Religion 
 that retains the least glimmering of the patriarchal 
 faith in a God infinite yet personal ! A fact assumed 
 or implied as the basis of every Religion, of which any 
 relics remain of earlier date than the last and total 
 Apostacy of the Pagan World, when the faith in the 
 great I am, the Creator^ was extinguished in the sen- 
 sual polytheism, which is inevitably the final result of 
 Pantheism or the Worship of Nature ; and the only 
 form under which the pantheistic Scheme — that, accord- 
 ing to which the World is God, and the material uni- 
 verse itself the one only absolute Being — can exist for 
 a People, or become the popular Creed. Thus in the 
 most ancient Books of the Brahmins, the deep sense 
 of this Fact, and the doctrines grounded on obscure 
 traditions of the promised Remedy, are seen struggling, 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 277 
 
 and now gleaming, now flashing, through the Mist of 
 Pantheism, and producing the incongruities and gross 
 contradictions of the Brahmin Mythology: while in 
 the rival Sect — in that most strange Phenomenon, the 
 religious Atheism of the Buddheists ! with whom God 
 is only universal Matter considered abstractedly from 
 all particular forms — the fact is placed among the de- 
 lusions natural to man, which, together with other 
 superstitions grounded on a supposed essential differ- 
 ence between Right and Wrong, the Sage is to de- 
 compose and precipitate from the menstruum of his 
 more refined apprehensions ! Thus in denying the 
 fact, they virtually acknowlege it. 
 
 From the remote East turn to the mythology of 
 Minor Asia, to the Descendants of Javan who dwelt 
 in the tents qfShem, and possessed the Isles. Here 
 again, and in the usual form of an historic Solution, 
 we find the same Fact, and as characteristic of the 
 Human Race, stated in that earliest and most vene- 
 rable My thus (or symbolic Parable) of Prometheus — 
 that truly wonderful Fable, in which the characters 
 of the rebellious Spirit and of the Divine Friend of 
 Mankind (0eo; <pi\dvQpujiros) are united in the same 
 Person : and thus in the most striking manner noting 
 the forced amalgamation of the Patriarchal Tradition 
 with the incongruous Scheme of Pantheism. This and 
 the connected tale of Io, which is but the sequel of 
 the Prometheus, stand alone in the Greek Mythology, 
 in which elsewhere both Gods and Men are mere 
 Powers and Products of Nature. And most noticeable 
 
278 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 it is, that soon after the promulgation and spread of 
 the Gospel had awakened the moral sense, and had 
 opened the eyes even of its wiser Enemies to the ne- 
 cessity of providing some solution of this great problem 
 of the Moral World, the beautiful Parable of Cupid 
 and Psyche was brought forward as a rival Fall of 
 Man : and the fact of a moral corruption connatural 
 with the human race was again recognized. In the 
 assertion of Original Sin the Greek Mythology rose 
 and set. 
 
 But not only was the fact acknowleged of a Law 
 in the Nature of Man resisting the Law of God. (And 
 whatever is placed in active and direct Oppugnancy 
 to the Good is, ipso facto, positive Evil.) It was like- 
 wise an acknowleged Mystery, and one which by the 
 nature of the Subject must ever remain such — a pro- 
 blem, of which any other solution, than the statement 
 of the Fact itself, was demonstrably impossible. That 
 it is so, the least reflection will suffice to convince every 
 man, who has previously satisfied himself that he is 
 a responsible Being. It follows necessarily from the 
 postulate of a responsible Will. Refuse to grant this, 
 and I have not a word to say. Concede this, and you 
 concede all. For this is the essential attribute of a 
 Will, and contained in the very idea, that whatever 
 determines the Will acquires this power from a previous 
 determination of the Will itself. The Will is ultimately 
 self-determined, or it is no longer a Will under the 
 law of perfect Freedom, but a Nature under the me- 
 chanism of Cause and Effect. And if by an act, to 
 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 279 
 
 which it had determined itself, it has subjected itself 
 to the determination of Nature (in the language of St. 
 Paul, to the Law of the Flesh), it receives a nature into 
 itself, and so far it becomes a Nature : and this is a 
 corruption of the Will and a corrupt Nature. It is 
 also a Fall of Man, inasmuch as his Will is the con- 
 dition of his Personality; the ground and condition of 
 the attribute which constitutes him Man. And the 
 ground-work of Personal Being is a capacity of ac- 
 knowleging the Moral Law (the Law of the Spirit, 
 the Law of Freedom, the Divine Will) as that which 
 should, of itself, suffice to determine the Will to a free 
 obedience of the Law, the Law working thereon by its 
 own exceeding lawfulness. This, and this alone, is 
 positive Good : good in itself, and independent of all 
 relations. Whatever resists and, as a positive force, 
 opposes this in the Will is therefore evil. But an 
 Evil in the Will is an evil Will ; and as all moral Evil 
 (i. e. all evil that is evil without reference to its con- 
 tingent physical consequences) is of the Will, this evil 
 Will must have its source in the Will. And thus we 
 might go back from act to act, from evil to evil, ad 
 infinitum without advancing a step. 
 
 We call an Individual a bad Man, not because an 
 action is contrary to the Law, but because it has led 
 us to conclude from it some Principle opposed to the 
 Law, some private Maxim or By-law in the Will 
 contrary to the universal Law of right Reason in the 
 Conscience, as the Ground of the action. But this evil 
 Principle again must be grounded in some other Prin- 
 
280 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 ciple which has been made determinant of the Will 
 by the Will's own self-determination. For if not, it 
 must have its ground in some necessity of Nature, in 
 some instinct or propensity imposed not acquired, 
 another's work not our own. Consequently, neither 
 Act nor Principle could be imputed ; and relatively to 
 the Agent, not original, not Sin. 
 
 Now let the grounds, on which the fact of an Evil 
 inherent in the Will is affirmable in the instance of any 
 one Man, be supposed equally applicable in every 
 instance, and concerning all men : so that the fact is 
 asserted of the Individual, not because he has com- 
 mitted this or that crime, or because he has shown 
 himself to be this or that Man, but simply because he 
 is a Man. Let the evil be supposed such as to imply 
 the impossibility of an Individual's referring to any 
 particular time at which it might be conceived to have 
 commenced, or to any period of his existence at which 
 it was not existing. Let it be supposed, in short, that 
 the subject stands in no relation whatever to Time, 
 can neither be called in time or out of' time ; but that 
 all relations of Time are as alien and heterogeneous in 
 this question, as the relations and attributes of Space 
 (north or south, round or square, thick or thin) are to 
 our Affections and Moral Feelings. Let the reader 
 suppose this, and he will have before him the precise 
 import of the scriptural doctrine of Original Sin : or 
 rather of the Fact acknowleged in all Ages, and re- 
 cognized, but not originating, in the Christian Scriptures. 
 
 In addition to this Memento it will be well to re- 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 281 
 
 mind the Inquirer, that the stedfast conviction of the 
 existence, personality, and moral attributes of God is 
 pre-supposed in the acceptance of the Gospel, or re- 
 quired as its indispensable preliminary. It is taken 
 for granted as a point which the Hearer had already 
 decided for himself, a point finally settled and put at 
 rest : not by the removal of all difficulties, or by any 
 such increase of Insight as enabled him to meet every 
 objection of the Epicurean or the Sceptic with a full 
 and precise answer; but because he had convinced 
 himself that it was folly as well as presumption in so 
 imperfect a Creature to expect it ; and because these 
 difficulties and doubts disappeared at the beam, when 
 tried against the weight and convictive power of the 
 reasons in the other scale. It is, therefore, most unfair 
 to attack Christianity, or any article which the Church 
 has declared a Christian Doctrine, by arguments, 
 which, if valid, are valid against all religion. Is there 
 a Disputant who scorns a mere Postulate, as the basis 
 of any argument in support of the Faith ; who is too 
 high-minded to beg his ground, and will take it by a 
 strong hand ? Let him fight it out with the Atheists, or 
 the Manichaeans ; but not stoop to pick up their arrows, 
 and then run away to discharge them at Christianity 
 or the Church ! 
 
 The only true way is to state the doctrine, believed 
 equally by Saul of Tarsus, "yet breathing out threaten- 
 ings and slaughter against" the Church of Christ, as 
 by Paul the Apostle " fully preaching the Gospel of 
 Christ. 11 A moral Evil is an Evil that has its origin in 
 

 282 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 a Will. An Evil common to all must have a ground 
 common to all. But the actual existence of moral evil we 
 are bound in conscience to admit ; and that there is an 
 Evil common to all is a Fact ; and this Evil must there- 
 fore have a common ground. Now this evil- ground 
 cannot originate in the Divine Will : it must therefore 
 be referred to the Will of Man. And this evil Ground 
 we call Original Sin. It is a Mystery, that is, a Fact, 
 which we see, but cannot explain ; and the doctrine a 
 truth which we apprehend, but can neither compre- 
 hend nor communicate. And such by the quality of 
 the Subject (viz. a responsible Will) it must be, if it 
 be truth at all. 
 
 A sick man, whose complaint was as obscure as his 
 sufferings were severe and notorious, was thus ad- 
 dressed by a humane Stranger : My poor Friend ! I 
 find you dangerously ill, and on this account only, and 
 having certain information of your being so, and that 
 you have not wherewithal to pay for a Physician, I 
 have come to you. Respecting your disease, indeed, 
 I can tell you nothing, that you are capable of under- 
 standing, more than you know already, or can only be 
 taught by reflection on your own experience. But I 
 have rendered the Disease no longer irremediable. I 
 have brought the remedy with me : and I now offer 
 you the means of immediate relief, with the assurance 
 of gradual convalescence, and a final perfect Cure ; no- 
 thing more being required on your part, but your best 
 endeavours to follow the prescriptions I shall leave with 
 you. It is, indeed, too probable, from the nature of 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 283 
 
 your disease, that you will occasionally neglect or trans- 
 gress them. But even this has been calculated on in 
 the plan of your cure, and the remedies provided, if 
 only you are sincere and in right earnest with yourself, 
 and have your heart in the work. Ask me not, how 
 such a Disease can be conceived possible ! Enough for 
 the present that you know it to be real : and I come to 
 cure the Disease, not to explain it. 
 
 Now, what if the Patient or some of his Neighbors 
 should charge this good Samaritan with having given 
 rise to the mischievous notion of an inexplicable Dis- 
 ease, involving the honour of the King of the Country? 
 should inveigh against him as the Author and first 
 Introducer of the Notion, though of the numerous 
 medical works composed ages before his arrival, and 
 by Physicians of the most venerable Authority, it was 
 scarcely possible to open a single volume without find- 
 ing some description of the Disease, or some lamenta- 
 tion of its malignant and epidemic character ! And> 
 lastly, what if certain pretended Friends of this good 
 Samaritan, in their zeal to vindicate him against this 
 absurd charge, should assert that he was a perfect 
 Stranger to this Disease, and boldly deny that he had 
 ever said or done any thing connected with it, or that 
 implied its existence ? 
 
 In this Apologue or imaginary Case, Reader ! you 
 have the true bearings of Christianity on the fact and 
 doctrine of Original Sin. The doctrine (that is, the 
 confession of a known fact) Christianity has only in I 
 common with every Religion, and with every Philo* ' 
 
284 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 sophy, in which the reality of a responsible Will and 
 the essential difference between Good and Evil were 
 recognized. Peculiar to the Christian Religion are 
 the Remedy and (for all purposes but those of a merely 
 speculative Curiosity) the Solution ! By the annuncia- 
 tion of the Remedy it affords all the solution that our 
 moral interests require; and even in that which re- 
 mains, and must remain, unfathomable the Christian 
 finds a new motive to walk humbly with the Lord his 
 God! 
 
 Should a professed Believer ask you whether that, 
 which is the ground of responsible action in your will, 
 could in any way be responsibly present in the Will of 
 Adam ? Answer him in these words : You, Sir ! can 
 no more demonstrate the Negative, than I can conceive 
 the Affirmative. The corruption of my will may very 
 warrantably be spoken of as a Consequence of Adam's 
 Fall, even as my Birth of Adam's Existence ; as a conse- 
 quence, a link in the historic Chain of Instances, whereof 
 Adam is the first. But that it is on account of Adam ; 
 or that this evil principle was, a priori, inserted or in- 
 fused into my Will by the Will of another — which is 
 indeed a contradiction in terms, my Will in such case 
 being no Will — this is nowhere asserted in Scripture 
 explicitly or by implication. It belongs to the very 
 \ essence of the doctrine, that in respect of Original Sin 
 every man is the adequate representative of all men. 
 What wonder, then, that where no inward ground of 
 preference existed, the choice should be determined by 
 outward relations, and that the first in time should be 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 285 
 
 taken as the Diagram ? Even in Genesis the word, 
 Adam, is distinguished from a Proper Name by an 
 Article before it. It is the Adam, so as to express the 
 genus, not the Individual — or rather, perhaps, I should 
 say, as well as the Individual. But that the word with 
 its equivalent, the old man, is used symbolically and 
 universally by St. Paul, (1 Cor. xv. 22. 45. Eph. iv. 
 22. Col. iii. 9. Rom. vi. 6.) is too evident to need 
 any proof. 
 
 I conclude with this remark. The doctrine of Ori- 
 ginal Sin concerns all men. But it concerns Chri- 
 stians in particular no otherwise than by its connexion 
 with the doctrine of Redemption; and with the Divinity 
 and Divine Humanity of the Redeemer as a corollary 
 or necessary inference from both mysteries. Beware 
 of Arguments against Christianity, that cannot 
 stop there, and consequently ought not to have 
 commenced there. Something I might have added 
 to the clearness of the preceding views, if the limits of 
 the work had permitted me to clear away the several 
 delusive and fanciful assertions respecting the state * of 
 our First Parents, their wisdom, science, and angelic 
 Faculties, assertions without the slightest ground in 
 Scripture ! Or if consistently with the wants and pre- 
 paratory studies of those, for whose use the Volume 
 
 * For a specimen of these Rabbinical Dotages I refer, not to 
 the writings of Mystics and Enthusiasts, but to the shrewd and 
 witty Dr. South, one of whose most elaborate Sermons stands 
 prominent among the many splendid extravaganzas on this 
 subject. 
 
286 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 was especially intended, I could have entered into the 
 momentous subject of a Spiritual Fall or Apostacy 
 antecedent to the formation of Man — a belief, the scrip- 
 tural grounds of which are few and of diverse inter- 
 pretation, but which has been almost universal in the 
 Christian Church. Enough, however, has been given, 
 I trust, for the Reader to see and (as far as the subject 
 is capable of being understood) to understand this long 
 controverted Article in the sense, in which alone it is 
 binding on his faith. Supposing him, therefore, to 
 know the meaning of original sin, and to have decided 
 for himself on the fact of its actual existence, as the 
 antecedent ground and occasion of Christianity, we 
 may now proceed to Christianity itself, as the Edifice 
 raised on this ground, i. e. to the great Constituent 
 Article of the Faith in Christ, as the Remedy of the 
 Disease — the Doctrine of Redemption. 
 
 But before we proceed to this momentous doctrine, 
 let me briefly remind the young and friendly Pupil, to 
 whom I would still be supposed to address myself, that 
 in the Aphorism to follow, the word Science, is used 
 in its strict and narrowest sense. By a Science I here 
 mean any Chain of Truths that are either absolutely 
 certain, or necessarily true for the human mind from 
 the laws and constitution of the mind itself. In neither 
 case is our conviction derived, or capable of receiving 
 any addition, from outward Experience, or empirical 
 data — i. e. matter-of-fact given to us through the me- 
 dium of the Senses— though these Data may have been 
 the occasion, or may even be an indispensable condi- 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 287 
 
 tion, of our reflecting on the former and thereby be- 
 coming conscious of the same. On the other hand, a 
 connected series of conclusions grounded on empirical 
 Data, in contra-distinction from Science, I beg leave 
 (no better term occurring) in this place and for this 
 purpose, to denominate a Scheme.. 
 
 APHORISM XI. editor. 
 
 In whatever age and country, it is the prevailing 
 mind and character of the nation to regard the present 
 life as subordinate to a Life to come, and to mark the 
 present state, the World of their Senses, by signs, in- 
 struments and mementos of its connexion with a future 
 state and a spiritual World ; where the Mysteries of 
 Faith are brought within the hold of the People at 
 large, not by being explained away in the vain hope of 
 accommodating them to the average of their Under- 
 standing, but by being made the objects of Love 
 by their combination with events and epochs of Hi- 
 story, with national traditions, with the monuments and 
 dedications of Ancestral faith and zeal, with memorial 
 and symbolical observances, with the realizing in- 
 fluences of social devotion, and above all, by early 
 and habitual association with Acts of the Will; there 
 Religion is. There, however obscured by the hay and 
 straw of human Will-work, the foundation is safe ! In 
 that country, and under the predominance of such 
 Maxims, the national church is no mere State-Institute. 
 It is the State itself in its intensest federal union ; yet 
 at the same moment the Guardian and Representative 
 
288 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 of all personal Individuality. For the Church is the 
 Shrine of Morality : and in Morality alone the Citizen 
 asserts and reclaims his personal independence, his 
 integrity. Our outward Acts are efficient, and most 
 often possible, only by coalition. As an efficient power, 
 the Agent is but a fraction of Unity : he becomes an 
 integer only in the recognition and performance of the 
 Moral Law. Nevertheless it is most true (and a truth 
 which cannot with safety be overlooked) that Morality, 
 as Morality, has no existence for a People. It is either 
 absorbed and lost in the quicksands of Prudential 
 Calculus, or it is taken up and transfigured into the 
 duties and mysteries of Religion. And no wonder: 
 since Morality (including the personal being, the I 
 am, as its subject) is itself a Mystery, and the ground 
 and supposition of all other Mysteries, relatively to 
 Man. 
 
 APHORISM XII. editor. 
 
 Schemes of conduct, grounded on calculations of Self- 
 interest ; or on the average Consequences of Actions, 
 supposing them general; form a branch of Political 
 Economy, to which let all due honour be given. Their 
 utility is not here questioned. But however estimable 
 within their own sphere such schemes, or any one of 
 them in particular, may be, they do not belong to Moral 
 Science, to which both in kind and purpose they are 
 in all casesjbreign, and when substituted for it, hostile. 
 Ethics, or the Science of Morality, does indeed in no 
 wise exclude the consideration of Action; but it con- 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 289 
 
 templates the same in its originating spiritual Source, 
 without reference to Space or Time or Sensible Exist- 
 ence. Whatever springs out of " the perfect Law of 
 Freedom," which exists only by its unity with the 
 Will, inherence in the Word, and communion with 
 the Spirit, of God — that (according to the principles of 
 Moral Science) is good — it is Light and Righteous- 
 ness and very Truth. Whatever seeks to separate 
 itself from the Divine Principles, and proceeds from a 
 false centre in the Agent's particular Will, is evil — a 
 work of darkness and contradiction! It is Sin and 
 essential Falsehood. Not the outward Deed, con- 
 structive, destructive or neutral; not the Deed as a 
 possible Object of the Senses; is the Object of Ethical 
 Science. For this is no Compost, Collectorium or 
 Inventory of Single Duties : nor does it seek in the 
 "multitudinous Sea," in the predetermined waves, tides 
 and currents of Nature that freedom, which is ex- 
 clusively an attribute of Spirit. Like all other pure 
 Sciences, whatever it enunciates, and whatever it con- 
 cludes, it enunciates and concludes absolutely. Strict- 
 ness is its essential Character : and its first Proposition 
 is, " Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet 
 offend in one point, he is guilty of all." {James ii. 10.) 
 For as the Will or Spirit, the Source and Substance 
 of Moral Good, is one, and all in every part : so must 
 it be the Totality, the whole articulated Series of 
 Single Acts, taken as Unity, that can alone, in the se- 
 verity of Science, be recognized as the proper Counter- 
 part and adequate Representative of a good Will. Is 
 
290 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 it in this or that limb, or not rather in the whole body, 
 the entire Organismus, that the Law of Life reflects 
 itself? Much less then can the Law of the Spirit 
 work in fragments. 
 
 APHORISM XIII. editor. 
 
 Wherever there exists a permanent * Learned Class, 
 having authority and possessing the respect and con- 
 fidence of the Country; and where the Science of 
 Ethics is acknowleged and taught in this class as a 
 regular part of a learned education to its future Mem- 
 bers generally, but as the special study and indispensa- 
 ble ground-work of such as are intended for Holy 
 Orders ; — there the Article of Original Sin will be an 
 Axiom of Faith in all Classes. Among the Learned 
 an undisputed truth, and with the People a fact, which 
 no man imagines it possible to deny, the Doctrine, 
 thus inwoven in the faith of all and co-eval with the 
 
 * A Learned Order must be supposed to consist of three 
 Classes. First, those who are employed in adding to the exist- 
 ing Sum of Power and Knowlege. Second, and most numerous 
 Class, those whose office it is to diffuse through the community 
 at large the practical Results of Science, and that kind and 
 degree of knowlege and cultivation, which for all is requisite 
 or clearly useful. Third, the Formers and Instructors of the 
 Second — in Schools, Halls, and Universities, or through the 
 medium of the Press. The second Class includes not only the 
 Parochial Clergy, and all others duly ordained to the Ministerial 
 Office ; but likewise all the Members of the Legal and Medical 
 Professions, who have received a learned education under ac- 
 credited and responsible Teachers. 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 291 
 
 consciousness of each, will for each and all possess a 
 reality, subjective indeed, yet virtually equivalent to 
 that which we intuitively give to the Objects of our 
 Senses. 
 
 With the Learned this will be the case : because the 
 Article is the first — I had almost said, spontaneous — 
 product of the Application of Moral Science to Hi- 
 story, of which it is the Interpreter. A Mystery in 
 its own right, and by the necessity and essential cha- 
 racter of its Subject — (for the Will, like the Life, in 
 every act and product pre-supposes itself, a Past always 
 present, a Present that evermore resolves itself into a 
 Past !) — the Doctrine of Original Sin gives to all the 
 other Mysteries of Religion a common Basis, a con- 
 nexion of dependency, an intelligibility of relation, and 
 a total harmony, that supersede extrinsic proof. There 
 is here that same proof from unity of purpose, that 
 same evidence of Symmetry, which in the contempla- 
 tion of a human skeleton flashed conviction on the 
 mind of Galen and kindled meditation into a hymn 
 of praise. 
 
 Meanwhile the People, not goaded into doubt by 
 the lessons and examples of their Teachers and Su- 
 periors ; not drawn away from the Fixed Stars of 
 Heaven, the form and magnitude of which are the 
 same for the naked eye of the Shepherd as for the 
 Telescope of the Sage — from the immediate truths, I 
 mean, of Reason and Conscience to an exercise, they 
 have not been trained to, of a Faculty which has been 
 imperfectly developed, on a subject not within the 
 
 u2 
 
292 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 sphere of the Faculty nor in any way amenable to its 
 judgment; the People will need no arguments to 
 receive a doctrine confirmed by their own experience 
 from within and from without, and intimately blended 
 with the most venerable Traditions common to all races, 
 and the Traces of which linger in the latest twilight of 
 Civilization. 
 
 Among the revulsions consequent on the brute be- 
 wilderments of a godless Revolution, a great and active 
 Zeal for the interests of Religion may be one. I dare 
 not trust it, till I have seen what it is that gives Re- 
 ligion this interest, till I am satisfied that they are not 
 the Interests of this World ; necessary and laudable 
 interests, perhaps, but which may, I dare believe, be 
 secured as effectually and more suitably by the Pru- 
 dence of this World, and by this World's powers 
 and motives. At all events, I find nothing in the 
 fashion of the day to deter me from adding, that 
 the Reverse of the preceding — that where Religion is 
 valued and patronized as a supplement of Law, or an 
 Aid extraordinary of Police ; where Moral Science is 
 exploded as the mystic Jargon of Dark Ages ; where 
 a lax System of Consequences, by which every iniquity 
 on earth may be (and how many have been !) de- 
 nounced and defended with equal plausibility, is 
 publicly and authoritatively taught as Moral Philo- 
 sophy ; where the Mysteries of Religion, and Truths 
 supersensual, are either cut and squared for the com- 
 prehension of the Understanding, " the faculty judging 
 according to Sense,"" or desperately torn asunder from 
 

 APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 293 
 
 the Reason, nay, fanatically opposed to it; lastly, 
 where Private* Interpretation is every thing and the 
 Church nothing — there the Mystery of Original Sin 
 will be either rejected, or evaded, or perverted into the 
 monstrous fiction of Hereditary Sin, Guilt inherited ; 
 
 * The Author of the Statesman's Manual must be the 
 most inconsistent of men, if he can be justly suspected of a lean- 
 ing to the Romish Church : or if it be necessary for him to repeat 
 his fervent Amen to the Wish and Prayer of our late good old 
 King, that every Adult in the British Empire should be able to 
 read his Bible, and have a Bible to read ! Nevertheless, it may 
 not be superfluous to declare, that in thus protesting against the 
 licence of private interpretation, the Editor does not mean to 
 condemn the exercise or deny the right of individual judgment. 
 He condemns only the pretended right of every Individual, 
 competent and incompetent, to interpret Scripture in a sense of 
 his own, in opposition to the judgment of the Church, with- 
 out knowlege of the Originals or of the Languages, the History, 
 Customs, Opinions, and Controversies of the Age and Country 
 in which they were written ; and where the Interpreter judges in 
 ignorance or in contempt of uninterrupted Tradition, the una- 
 nimous Consent of Fathers and Councils, and the universal 
 Faith of the Church in all ages. It is not the attempt to form a 
 judgment, which is here called in question ; but the grounds, 
 or rather the no-grounds, on which the judgment is formed and 
 relied on — the self-willed and separative {schismatic) Setting- 
 up (hceresis). See note to page 19. 
 
 My fixed Principle is : that a Christianity without a 
 Church exercising Spiritual authority is Vanity and 
 Dissolution. And my belief 'is, that when Popery is rushing 
 in on us like an inundation, the Nation will find it to be so. I 
 say Popery : for this too I hold for a delusion, that Romanism 
 or Roman Catholicism is separable from Popery. Almost as 
 readily could I suppose a Circle without a Centre. 
 
* 
 
 294 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 in the Mystery of Redemption metaphors will be ob- 
 truded for the reality ; and in the mysterious Appurte- 
 nants and Symbols of Redemption (Regeneration, 
 Grace, the Eucharist, and Spiritual Communion) the 
 realities will be evaporated into metaphors. 
 
 APHORISM XIV. LEIGHTON. 
 
 As in great Maps or Pictures you will see the border 
 decorated with meadows, fountains, flowers, &c. re- 
 presented in it, but in the middle you have the main 
 design : so amongst the works of God is it with the 
 fore-ordained Redemption of Man. All his other 
 works in the world, all the beauty of the creatures, 
 the succession of ages and the things that come to pass 
 in them, are but as the Border to this as the Main- 
 piece. But as a foolish unskilful beholder, not dis- 
 cerning the excellency of the principal piece in such 
 maps or pictures, gazes only on the fair Border, and 
 goes no farther— thus do the greatest part of us as to 
 this great Work of God, the redemption of our per- 
 sonal Being, and the re-union of the Human with the 
 Divine, by and through the Divine Humanity of the 
 Incarnate Word. 
 
 APHORISM XV. LUTHER. 
 
 It is a hard matter, yea, an impossible thing for thy 
 human strength, whosoever thou art (without God's 
 assistance), at such a time when Moses setteth on thee 
 with the Law(see Aphorism XII.), when the holy Law 
 written in thy heart accuseth and condemneth thee, 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 295 
 
 forcing thee to a comparison of thy heart therewith, 
 and convicting thee of the incompatibleness of thy Will 
 and Nature with Heaven and Holiness and an imme- 
 diate God — that then thou shouldest be able to be of 
 such a mind as if no Law nor Sin had ever been ! I 
 say it is in a manner impossible that a human creature, 
 when he feeleth himself assaulted with trials and 
 temptations, and the Conscience hath to do with God, 
 and the tempted man knoweth that the root of tempta- 
 tion is within him, should obtain such mastery over 
 his thoughts as then to think no otherwise than that 
 
 FROM EVERLASTING NOTHING HATH BEEN BUT ONLY 
 AND ALONE CHRIST, ALTOGETHER GRACE AND DE- 
 LIVERANCE ! 
 
 COMMENT. 
 
 In irrrational Agents, viz. the Animals, the Will is 
 hidden or absorbed in the Law. The Law is their 
 Nature. In the original purity of a rational Agent 
 the uncorrupted Will is identical with the Law. Nay, 
 inasmuch as a Will perfectly identical with the Law 
 is one with the divine Will, we may say, that in the 
 unfallen rational Agent the Will constitutes the Law. 
 But it is evident that the holy and spiritual Power and 
 Light, which by a prolepsis or anticipation we have 
 named Law, is a grace, an inward perfection, and 
 without the commanding, binding and menacing cha- 
 racter which belongs to a Law, acting as a Master or 
 Sovereign distinct from, and existing, as it were, ex- 
 ternally for, the Agent who is bound to obey it. Now 
 
296 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 this is St. Paul's sense of the Word : and on this he 
 grounds his whole reasoning. And hence too arises 
 the obscurity and apparent paradoxy of several texts. 
 That the Law is a Law for you ; that it acts on the 
 Will not in it ; that it exercises an agency from wit/t- 
 out, by fear and coercion; proves the corruption of 
 your Will, and presupposes it. Sin in this sense came 
 by the Law : for it has its essence, as Sin, in that counter- 
 position of the Holy Principle to the Will, which oc- 
 casions this Principle to be a Law. Exactly (as in all 
 other points) consonant with the Pauline doctrine is 
 the assertion of John, when speaking of the re-adoption 
 of the redeemed to be Sons of God, and the consequent 
 resumption (I had almost said, re-absorption) of the 
 Law into the Will (vopov ?s\tw tov fr t g stevQe^ias, James 
 i. 25. See page 26,) he says — For the law was given 
 by Moses; but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ. 
 P.S. That by the Law St. Paul meant only the cere- 
 monial Law is a notion, that could originate only in 
 utter inattention to the whole strain and gist of the 
 Apostles'* Argument. 
 
 APHORISM XVI. LEIGHTON AND ED. 
 
 Christ's Death was both voluntary and violent. 
 There was external violence : and that was the accom- 
 paniment, or at most the occasion, of his Death. But 
 there was internal willingness, the spiritual Will, the 
 Will of the Spirit, and this was the proper cause. By 
 this Spirit he was restored from Death : neither indeed 
 " was it possible for him to be holden of it." (Acts ii. 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 297 
 
 v. 24> — 27.). " Being put to death in the flesh, but 
 quickened by the Spirit," says St. Peter. But he is 
 likewise declared elsewhere to have died by that same 
 Spirit, which here in opposition to the violence is said 
 to quicken him. Thus Hebrews ix. 14. Through the 
 eternal Spirit he offered himself. And even from 
 Peter's words, and without the epithet, eternal, to aid 
 the interpretation, it is evident that the Spirit, here 
 opposed to the Flesh, Body or Animal Life, is of a 
 higher nature and power than the individual Soul, 
 which cannot of itself return to re-inhabit or quicken 
 the Body. 
 
 If these points were niceties, and an over-refining in 
 doctrine, is it to be believed that the Apostles, John, 
 Peter and Paul, with the Author of the Ep. to the 
 Hebrews, would have layed so great stress on them ? 
 But the true Life of Christians is to eye Christ in 
 every step of his life — not only as their Rule but as 
 their Strength : looking to him as their Pattern both 
 in doing and in suffering, and drawing power from him 
 for going through both: being without him able for 
 nothing. Take comfort then, thou that believest ! It 
 is he that lifts up the Soul from the Gates of Death: 
 and he hath said, / will raise thee up at the last day. 
 Thou that believest in him, believe him and take com- 
 fort. Yea, when thou art most sunk in thy sad ap- 
 prehensions, and he far off* to thy thinking, then is he 
 nearest to raise and comfort thee: as sometimes it 
 grows darkest immediately before day. 
 
298 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 APHORISM XVII. L. AND ED. 
 
 Would any of you be cured of that common dis- 
 ease, the fear of Death? Yet this is not the right 
 name of the Disease, as a mere reference to our armies 
 and navies is sufficient to prove : nor can the fear of 
 death, either as loss of life or pain of dying, be justly 
 held a common disease. But would you be cured of 
 the fear and fearful questionings connected with the 
 approach of death ? Look this way, and you shall 
 find more than you seek. Christ, the Word that was 
 from the beginning, and was made flesh and dwelt 
 among men, died. And he, who dying conquered 
 death in his own person, conquered Sin, and Death 
 which is the Wages of Sin, for thee. And of this 
 thou may est be assured, if only thou believe in him, 
 and love him. I need not add, keep his command- 
 ments : since where Faith and Love are, Obedience in 
 its threefold character, as Effect, Reward, and Cri- 
 terion, follows by that moral necessity which is the 
 highest form of freedom. The Grave is thy bed of 
 rest, and no longer the cold bed : for thy Saviour has 
 warmed it, and made it fragrant. 
 
 If then it be health and comfort to the Faithful 
 that Christ descended into the grave, with especial 
 confidence may we meditate on his return from thence, 
 quickened by the Spirit : this being to those who are 
 in him the certain pledge, yea, the effectual cause of 
 that blessed resurrection, for which they themselves 
 hope. There is that union betwixt them and their 
 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 299 
 
 Redeemer, that they shall rise by the communication 
 and virtue of his rising : not simply by his power — for 
 so the wicked likewise to their grief shall be raised ; 
 but they by his life as their life. 
 
 COMMENT 
 
 On the three preceding Jphorisms. 
 
 To the Reader, who has consented to submit his 
 mind to my temporary guidance, and who permits me 
 to regard him as my Pupil or Junior Fellow-student, 
 I continue to address myself. Should he exist only 
 in my imagination, let the bread float on the waters! 
 If it be the Bread of Life, it will not have been utterly 
 cast away. 
 
 Let us pause a moment, and review the road we 
 have passed over since the Transit from Religious 
 Morality to Spiritual Religion. My first attempt was 
 to satisfy you, that there is a Spiritual principle in 
 Man (p. 130 — 140), and to expose the sophistry of the 
 arguments in support of the Contrary. Our next step 
 was to clear the road of all Counterfeits, by showing 
 what is not the Spirit, what is not Spiritual Religion 
 (p. 142 — 149). And this was followed by an attempt 
 to establish a difference in kind between religious truths 
 and the deductions of speculative science ; yet so as to 
 prove, that the former are not only equally rational 
 with the latter, but that they alone appeal to Reason in 
 the fulness and living reality of the Power. This and 
 the state of mind requisite for the formation of right 
 
300 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 convictions respecting spiritual Truths, employed our 
 attention from p. 158 to 188. Having then enumerated 
 the Articles of the Christian Faith peculiar to Chri- 
 stianity, I entered on the great object of the present 
 work : viz. the removal of all valid Objections to these 
 articles on grounds of right Reason or Conscience. 
 But to render this practicable it was necessary, first, 
 to present each Article in its true scriptural purity, 
 by exposure of the caricatures of misinterpreters ; and 
 this, again, could not be satisfactorily done till we were 
 agreed respecting the Faculty, entitled to sit in judg- 
 ment on such questions. I early foresaw, that my best 
 chance (I will not say, of giving an insight into the sur- 
 passing worth and transcendent reasonableness of the 
 Christian Scheme ; but) of rendering the very question 
 intelligible, depended on my success in determining 
 the true nature and limits of the human Under- 
 standing, and in evincing its diversity from Reason. 
 In pursuing this momentous subject, I was tempted in 
 two or three instances into disquisitions, that if not 
 beyond the comprehension, wereyetunsuited to the taste, 
 of the persons for whom the Work was principally in- 
 tended. These, however, I have separated from the 
 running text, and compressed into Notes. The Reader 
 will at worst, I hope, pass them by as a leaf or two of 
 waste paper, willingly given by him to those, for whom 
 it may not be paper wasted. Nevertheless, I cannot 
 \ conceal, that the subject itself supposes, on the part of 
 | the Reader, a steadiness in self-questioning, a pleasure 
 in referring to his own inward experience for the facts 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 301 
 
 asserted by the Author, that can only be expected from 
 a person who has fairly set his heart on arriving at 
 clear and fixed conclusions in matters of Faith. But 
 where this interest is felt, nothing more than a common 
 Capacity, with the ordinary advantages of education, 
 is required for the complete comprehension both of the 
 argument and the result. Let but one thoughtful 
 hour be devoted to the pages 200 — 280. In all that 
 follows, the Reader will find no difficulty in under- 
 standing the Author's meaning, whatever he may have 
 in adopting it. 
 
 The two great moments of the Christian Religion 
 are, Original Sin and Redemption ; that the Ground, 
 this the Superstructure of our faith. The former I 
 have exhibited, first, according to the scheme of the 
 Westminster Divines and the Synod of Dorp ; then, 
 according to the* scheme of a contemporary Arminian 
 Divine; and lastly, in contrast with both schemes, I 
 
 * To escape the consequences of this scheme, some Arminian 
 Divines have asserted that the penalty inflicted on Adam and 
 continued in his posterity was simply the loss of immortality, 
 Death as the utter extinction of personal Being : immortality 
 heing regarded by them (and not, I think, without good reason) 
 as a super-natural attribute, and its loss therefore involved in 
 the forfeiture of super-natural grace's. This theory has its 
 golden side : and as a private opinion, is said to have the coun- 
 tenance of more than one Dignitary of our Church, whose ge- 
 neral orthodoxy is beyond impeachment. For here the Penalty 
 resolves itself into the Consequence, and this the natural and 
 {naturally') inevitable Consequence of Adam's Crime. For 
 Adam, indeed, it was a positive punishment : a punishment of 
 
302 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 have placed what I firmly believe to be the Scriptural 
 Sense of this Article, and vindicated its entire con- 
 
 his guilt, the justice of which who could have dared arraign ? 
 While for the Offspring of Adam it was simply a not super- 
 adding to their nature the privilege by which the Original Man 
 was contra-distinguished from the brute creation— a mere ne- 
 gation, of which they had no more right to complain than any 
 other species of Animals. God in this view appears only in his 
 Attribute of Mercy, as averting by supernatural interposition 
 a consequence naturally inevitable. This is the golden side of 
 the Theory. But if we approach to it from the opposite di- 
 rection, it first excites a just scruple from the countenance it 
 seems to give to the doctrine of Materialism. The Supporters 
 of this Scheme do not, I presume, contend, that Adam's Offspring 
 would not have been born Men, but have formed a new species 
 of Beasts ? And if not, the notion of a rational and self-con- 
 scious Soul, perishing utterly with the dissolution of the or- 
 ganized Body, seems to require, nay, almost involves, the opinion 
 that the Soul is a quality or Accident of the Body — a mere 
 harmony resulting from Organization. 
 
 But let this pass unquestioned ! Whatever else the Descend- 
 ants of Adam might have been without the intercession of Christ, 
 yet (this intercession having been effectually made) they are 
 now endowed with Souls that are not extinguished together 
 with the material body. Now unless these Divines teach like- 
 wise the Romish figment of Purgatory, and to an extent in 
 which the Church of Rome herself would denounce the doctrine 
 as an impious heresy : unless they hold, that a punishment 
 temporary and remedial is the worst evil that the Impenitent 
 have to apprehend in a Future State ; and that the spiritual 
 Death declared and foretold by Christ, " the Death Eternal 
 where the Worm never dies," is neither Death nor eternal, but 
 a certain quantum of Suffering in a state of faith, hope, and 
 progressive amendment — unless they go these lengths (and the 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 303 
 
 formity with Reason and Experience. I now proceed 
 to the other momentous Article — from the necessitating 
 Occasion of the Christian Dispensation to Christianity 
 itself! For Christianity and Redemption are equi- 
 valent terms. And here my Comment will be com- 
 
 Divines here intended are orthodox Churchmen, men who 
 would not knowingly advance even a step on the road towards 
 them) — then I fear, that any advantage, their theory might 
 possess over the Calvinistic Scheme in the article of Original 
 Sin, would be dearly purchased by increased difficulties and an 
 ultra-Calvinistic narrowness in the article of Redemption. I at 
 least find it impossible, with my present human feelings, not to 
 imagine otherwise, than that even in heaven it would be a fear- 
 ful thing to know, that in order to my elevation to a lot infinitely 
 more desirable than by nature it would have been, the lot of 
 so vast a multitude had been rendered infinitely more calamitous; 
 and that my felicity had been purchased by the everlasting 
 misery of the majority of my fellow-men, who, if no redemption 
 had been provided, after inheriting the pains and pleasures of 
 earthly existence during the numbered hours, and the few and 
 evil — evil yet few — days of the years of their mortal life, would 
 have fallen asleep to wake no more, would have sunk into the 
 dreamless Sleep of the Grave, and have been as the murmur 
 and the plaint and the exulting swell and the sharp scream 
 which the unequal Gust of Yesterday snatched from the strings 
 of a Wind-Harp ! 
 
 In another place I have ventured to question the spirit and 
 tendency of J. Taylor's Work on Repentance. But I ought to 
 have added, that to discover and keep the true medium in ex- 
 pounding and applying the Efficacy of Christ's Cross and Passion, 
 is beyond compare the most difficult and delicate point of Prac- 
 tical Divinity — and that which especially needs " a guidance 
 from above." 
 
 • 
 
304 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 prised in a few sentences : for I confine my views to 
 the one object of clearing this awful mystery from 
 those too current misrepresentations of its nature and 
 import, that have laid it open to scruples and objections, 
 j not to such as shoot forth from an unbelieving heart 
 ! — (against these a sick-bed will be a more effectual 
 Antidote than all the Argument in the world!) but 
 to such scruples as have their birth-place in the Reason 
 and Moral Sense. Not that it is a Mystery — not that 
 " it passeth all Understanding ! If the doctrine be 
 more than an hyperbolical phrase., it must do so. But 
 that it is at variance with the Law revealed in the 
 Conscience, that it contradicts our moral instincts and 
 intuitions — this is the difficulty, which alone is worthy 
 of an answer ! And what better way is there of cor- 
 recting the misconceptions than by laying open the 
 source and occasion of them ? What surer way of re- 
 moving the scruples and prejudices, to which these mis- 
 conceptions have given rise, than by propounding the 
 Mystery itself — namely, the Redemptive Act, as 
 the transcendent Cause of Salvation — in the express 
 and definite words, in which it was enunciated by the 
 Redeemer himself? 
 
 But here, in addition to the three Aphorisms pre- 
 ceding, I interpose a view of redemption as appro- 
 priated by faith, coincident with Leighton's though 
 for the greater part expressed in my own words. This 
 I propose as the right view. Then follow a few 
 sentences transcribed from Field (an excellent Divine 
 of James the First's reign, of whose work, entitled the 
 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 305 
 
 Church, it would be difficult to speak too highly) con- 
 taining the question to be solved, and which is num- 
 bered, as an Aphorism, rather to preserve the uni- 
 formity of appearance, than as being strictly such. 
 Then follows the Comment : as part and commence- 
 ment of which the Reader will consider the two para- 
 graphs of p. 197 — 200, written for this purpose and 
 in the foresight of the present inquiry : and I entreat 
 him therefore to begin the Comment by reperusing 
 these. 
 
 APHORISM XVIII. 
 
 Stedfast by Faith. This is absolutely necessary for 
 resistance to the Evil Principle. There is no standing 
 out without some firm ground to stand on : and this 
 Faith alone supplies. By Faith in the Love of Christ 
 the power of God becomes ours. When the Soul 
 is beleaguered by enemies, Weakness on the Walls, 
 Treachery at the Gates, and Corruption in the Citadel, 
 then by faith she says — Lamb of God, slain from the 
 foundation of the World ! thou art my Strength ! I 
 look to thee for deliverance ! And thus she overcomes. 
 The pollution (miasma) of Sin is precipitated by his 
 Blood, the power of Sin is conquered by his Spirit. 
 The Apostle says not — stedfast by your own resolu- 
 tions and purposes ; but — stedfast by faith. Nor yet 
 stedfast in your Will, but stedfast in the faith. We 
 are not to be looking to, or brooding over ourselves, 
 either for accusation or for confidence, or (by a deep 
 yet too frequent self-delusion) to obtain the latter by 
 
 x 
 
306 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 making a merit to ourselves of the former. But we 
 are to look to Christ and " him crucified." The 
 Law " that is very nigh to thee, even in thy heart ;T 
 the Law that condemneth and hath no promise ; that 
 stoppeth the guilty Past in its swift flight, and maketh 
 it disown its name; the Law will accuse thee enough. 
 Linger not in the Justice-court, listening to thy in- 
 dightmeht ! Loiter not in waiting to hear the Sentence ! 
 No ! Anticipate the verdict ! Appeal to Ccesar ! Haste 
 to the King for a Pardon ! Struggle thitherward, 
 though in fetters : and cry aloud, and collect the whole 
 remaining strength of thy Will in the Outcry — I 
 believe ! Lord ! help my unbelief ! Disclaim all right 
 of property in thy fetters ! Say, that they belong to 
 the Old Man, and that thou dost but carry them to 
 the Grave, to be buried with their Owner ! Fix thy 
 thought on what Christ did, what Christ suffered, 
 what Christ is — as if thou wouldst fill the hollowness 
 of thy Soul with Christ! If he emptied himself of 
 Glory to become Sin for thy salvation, must not thou 
 be emptied of thy sinful Self to become Righteousness 
 in and through his agony and the effective merits of his 
 Cross ? By what other means, in what other form, is 
 it possible for thee to stand in the presence of the Holy 
 One? With what mind wouldst thou come before 
 God, if not with the Mind of Him, in whom alone God 
 loveth the World ? With good advice, perhaps, and 
 a little assistance, thou wouldst rather cleanse and 
 patch up a mind of thy own, and offer it as thy ad- 
 mission-right, thy qualification, to him who " charged 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 307 
 
 his angels with folly !" Oh, take counsel of thy Reason ! 
 It will show thee how impossible it is, that even a 
 World should merit the love of Eternal Wisdom and 
 all-sufficing Beatitude, otherwise than as it is contained 
 in that all-perfect Idea, in which the Supreme Mind 
 contemplateth itself and the plenitude of its infinity — 
 the only-begotten before all Ages ! the beloved Son, 
 in whom the Father is indeed well pleased ! 
 
 And as the Mind, so the Body with which it is to 
 be clothed ! as the Indweller, so the House in which is 
 to be the Abiding-place* ! There is but one Wedding- 
 
 * St. Paul blends both forms of expression, and asserts the 
 same doctrine when speaking of the " celestial body" provided 
 for " the New Man" in the spiritual Flesh and Blood, (i. e. the 
 informing power and vivific life of the incarnate Word : for the 
 Blood is the Life, and the Flesh the Power) — when speaking, I 
 say, of this ". celestial body," as an " house hot made with hands, 
 eternal in the heavens," yet brought down to us, made appro- 
 priable by faith, and ours — he adds : " For in this earthly house 
 (i. e. this mortal life, as the inward principle or energy of our 
 Tabernacle, or outward and sensible Body) we groan, earnestly 
 desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven : 
 not that we would be unclothed, but clothed -upon, that Mor- 
 tality might be swallowed up of life." 2 Cor. v. I — 4. 
 
 The four last words of the first verse (eternal in the heavens) 
 compared with the conclusion of v. 2 (which is from heaven), 
 present a coincidence with John iii. v. 13, " And no man hath 
 ascended up to heaven but he that came down from heaven, 
 even the Son of Man which is in heaven." [Qy. Whether the 
 coincidence would not be more apparent, if the words of John 
 had been rendered word for word, even to a disregard of the 
 English Idiom, and with what would be servile and superstitious 
 fidelity in the translation of a common Classic ? I can see no 
 
 x2 
 
308 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 garment, in which we can sit down at the marriage- 
 feast of Heaven : and that is the Bride-groom's own 
 
 reason why the ovfoi;, so frequent in St. John, should not be 
 rendered literally, no one; and there may be a reason why it 
 should. I have some doubt likewise respecting the omission of 
 the definite articles, tov, too, t^ — and a greater, as to the 6 £<■>, 
 both in this place and in John i. v. 18, being adequately rendered 
 by our " which is." P. S. What sense some of the Greek 
 Fathers attached to, or inferred from, St. Paul's " in the 
 Heavens," the Theological Student (and to Theologians is this 
 note principally addressed) may find in Waterland's Letters 
 to a Country Clergyman — a Divine, whose Judgment and strong 
 sound Sense are as unquestionable as his Learning and Ortho- 
 doxy. A Clergyman in full Orders, who has never read the 
 works of Bull and Waterland, has — a duty yet to perform.^) 
 
 Let it not be objected, that forgetful of my own professed 
 aversion to allegorical interpretations {see p. 24) I have in this 
 note fallen into " the fond humour of the Mystic Divines and 
 Allegorizers of Holy Writ." There is, believe me! a wide 
 difference between symbolical and allegorical. If I say, that 
 the Flesh and Blood (Corpus noumenon) of the Incarnate Word 
 is Power and Life, 1 say likewise that this mysterious Power 
 and Life are verily and actually the Flesh and Blood of Christ. 
 They are the Allegorizers, who turn the 6th c. of the Gospel ac- 
 cording to St. John — the hard saying — who can hear it? After 
 which time many of (Christ's) Disciples, who had been eye- 
 witnesses of his mighty Miracles, who had heard the sublime 
 Morality of his Sermon on the Mount, had glorified God for 
 the Wisdom which they had heard, and had been prepared 
 to acknowlege, " this is indeed the Christ" — went back and 
 walked no more with him ! — the hard sayings, which even the 
 Twelve were not yet competent to understand farther than that 
 they were to be spiritually understood ; and which the Chief of 
 the Apostles was content to receive with an implicit and antici- 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 309 
 
 Gift, when he gave himself for us that we might live 
 in him and he in us. There is but one robe of 
 Righteousness, even the Spiritual Body, formed by the 
 assimilative power of faith for whoever eateth the flesh 
 of the Son of Man and drinketh his blood. Did Christ 
 come from Heaven, did the Son of God leave the 
 Glory which he had with his Father before the WorJd 
 began, only to shozv us a way to life, to teach truths, 
 to tell us of a resurrection ? Or saith he not, I am 
 the way, I am the truth, I am the Resurrection and the 
 Life! 
 
 APHORISM XIX. field. 
 
 The Romanists teach that sins committed after 
 
 pative faith \—they, I repeat, are the Allegorizers who moralize 
 these hard sayings, these high words of Mystery, into an hyper- 
 bolical Metaphor per Catachresin, that only means a belief of the 
 Doctrines which Paul believed, an obedience to the Law, respect- 
 ing which Paul " was blameless," before the Voice called him 
 on the road to Damascus ! What every Parent, every humane 
 Preceptor, would do when a Child had misunderstood a Me- 
 taphor or Apologue in a literal sense, we all know. But the 
 meek and merciful Jesus suffered many of his Disciples to fall 
 off from eternal life, when to retain them he had only to say — 
 O ye Simple ones ! why are ye offended ? My words indeed 
 sound strange ; but I mean no more than what you have often 
 and often beard from me before with delight and entire ac- 
 quiescence! — Credat Judaeus! Non ego. It is sufficient for me 
 to know that I have used the language of Paul and John as it 
 was understood and interpreted by Justin Martyr, Tertullian, 
 Irenaeus, and (if he does not lie) by the whole Christian Church 
 then existing. 
 
310 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 baptism (i. e. for the immense majority of Christians 
 having Christian Parents, all their sins from the Cradle 
 to the Grave) are not so remitted for Christ's sake, 
 but that we must suffer that extremity of punishment 
 which they deserve: and therefore either we must 
 afflict ourselves in such sort and degree of extremity 
 as may answer the demerit of our Sins, or be punished 
 by God here or in the world to come, in such degree 
 and sort that his Justice may be satisfied. [N. B. As 
 the encysted venom, or poison-bag, beneath, the Adder s 
 fang, so does this doctrine lie beneath the tremendous 
 power of the Romish Hierarchy. The demoralizing 
 influence of this dogma, and that it curdled the very 
 life-blood in the veins of Christendom, it was given to 
 Luther beyond all men since Paul to see, feel, and pro- 
 mulgate. And yet in his large Treatise on Repent- 
 ance, how near to the spirit of this doctrine — even to the 
 very walls and gates qf Babylon — was Jeremy Taylor 
 driven, in recoiling from the fanatical extremes of the 
 opposite error /] But they, that are orthodox, teach 
 that it is injustice to require the payment of one debt 
 twice. *■* * It is no less absurd to say, as the Papists 
 do, that our satisfaction is required as a condition, 
 without which Christ's satisfaction is not applicable 
 unto us, than to say, Peter hath paid the debt of 
 John, and He, to whom it was due, accepteth of the 
 same payment on the condition that John pay it him- 
 self also. * * * The satisfaction of Christ is communi- 
 cated and applied unto us without suffering the punish- 
 ment that Sin deserveth, \and essentially involvcth, 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 311 
 
 Ed.] upon the condition of our Faith and Repentance. 
 [To which the Editor would add : Without faith there 
 is no power of repentance : without a commencing re- 
 pentance no power to faith ; and that it is in the power 
 of the will either to repent or to have faith, in the 
 Gospel Sense of the words, is itself a Consequence of 
 the Redemption of Mankind, a free gift of the Re- 
 deemer : the guilt of its rejection, the refusing to avail 
 ourselves of the power, being all that we can consider 
 as exclusively attributable to our own Act.] Field's 
 Church, p. 5$. 
 
 COMMENT. 
 
 (Containing an application of the principles laid down 
 in p. 197—200.) 
 
 Forgiveness of Sin, the Abolition of Guilt, through 
 the redemptive power of Christ's Love, and of his 
 perfect Obedience during his voluntary assumption of 
 Humanity, is expressed, on account of the resemblance 
 of the Consequences in both cases, by the payment of a 
 Debt for another, which Debt the Payer had not him- 
 self incurred. Now the impropriation of this Meta- 
 phor—^, e. the taking it literally) by transferring the 
 sameness from the Consequents to the Antecedents, or 
 inferring the identity of the causes from a resemblance 
 in the effects— this is the point on which I am at issue : 
 and the View or Scheme of Redemption grounded on 
 this confusion I believe to be altogether unscriptural . 
 
 Indeed, I know not in what other instance I could 
 better exemplify the species of sophistry noticed in 
 
312 . AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 p. 215, as the Aristotelean psra,p<i<ri$ sis ccXXo ysvog, or 
 clandestine passing over into a diverse kind. The 
 purpose of a Metaphor is to illustrate a something 
 less known by a partial identification of it with some 
 other thing better understood, or at least more familiar. 
 Now the article of Redemption may be considered in 
 a twofold relation — in relation to the Antecedent, i. e. 
 the Redeemer's Act, as the efficient cause and condition 
 of Redemption ; and in relation to the Consequent, i. e. 
 the effects in and for the Redeemed. Now it is the latter 
 relation, in which the Subject is treated of, set forth, 
 expanded, and enforced by St. Paul. The Mysterious 
 Act, the Operative Cause is transcendent — Factum 
 est: and beyond the information contained in the 
 enunciation of the Fact, it can be characterized only 
 by the Consequences. It is the Consequences of the 
 Act of Redemption, that the zealous Apostle would 
 bring; home to the minds and affections both of Jews 
 and Gentiles. Now the Apostle^ Opponents and Gain- 
 sayers were principally of the former class. They were 
 Jews: not only Jews unconverted, but such as had 
 partially received the Gospel, and who, sheltering their 
 national prejudices under the pretended authority of 
 Christ's Original Apostles and the Church in Jerusalem, 
 set themselves up against Paul as Followers of Cephas. 
 Add too, that Paul himself was " a Hebrew of the He- 
 brews ;"" intimately versed " in the Jew's religion above 
 many, his equals, in his own nation, and above measure 
 zealous of the traditions of his fathers. 11 It might, there- 
 fore, have been anticipated, that his reasoning would 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 313 
 
 receive its outward forms and language, that it would 
 take its predominant colours, from his own past, and 
 his Opponents 1 present, habits of thinking; and that 
 his figures, images, analogies, and references would be 
 taken preferably from objects, opinions, events, and 
 ritual observances ever uppermost in the imaginations 
 of his own countrymen. And such we find them: yet 
 so judiciously selected, that the prominent forms, the 
 figures of most frequent recurrence, are drawn from 
 points of belief and practice, from laws, rites and cus- 
 toms, that then prevailed through the whole Roman 
 World, and were common to Jew and Gentile. 
 
 Now it would be difficult if not impossible to select 
 points better suited to this purpose, as being equally 
 familiar to all and yet having a special interest for the 
 Jewish Converts, than those are from which the learned 
 Apostle has drawn the four principal Metaphors, by 
 which he illustrates the blessed Consequences of Christ's 
 Redemption of Mankind. These are : 1 . Sin-offerings, 
 sacrificial expiation. 2. Reconciliation, Atonement, 
 KaraAXayij *. 3. Ransom from slavery, Redemption, 
 
 * This word occurs but once in the New Testament, viz. Ro- 
 mans v. 11, the marginal rendering being, reconciliation. The 
 personal Noun, xaxaxxxxTr)?, is still in use with the modern 
 Greeks for a money-changer, or one who takes the debased Cur- 
 rency, so general in countries under despotic or other dishonest 
 governments, in exchange for sterling Coin or Bullion ; the pur- 
 chaser paying the catallage, i. e. the difference. In the elder 
 Greek writers the verb means to exchange for an opposite, 
 
 as xaT(xK\a.atTiTO ?nj!< tySpriv toi; aTatriwrat;. He exchanged within 
 
 himself enmity for friendship (that is, he reconciled himself) 
 
314 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 the buying back again, or being bought back, from re 
 and emo. 4. Satisfaction of a Creditor's claims by a 
 payment of the debt. To one or other of these four 
 heads all the numerous forms and exponents of Christ's 
 Mediation in St. Paul's writings may be referred. And 
 the very number and variety of the words or periphrases 
 used by him to express one and the same thing furnish 
 
 with his Party — or as we say, made it up with them, an idiom 
 which (with whatever loss of dignity) gives the exact force of the 
 word. He made up the difference. The Hebrew word of very 
 frequent occurrence in the Pentateuch, which we render by the 
 substantive, atonement, has its radical or visual image, in copher, 
 pitch. Gen. vi. 14, thou shalt pitch it within and without with 
 pitch. Hence, to unite, to fill up a breach, or leak, the word 
 expressing both the act, viz. the bringing together what had been 
 previously separated, and the means, or material, by which the 
 re-union is effected, as in our English verbs, to caulk, to solder, 
 to poy or pay (from poix, pitch)., and the French, suiver. Thence, 
 metaphorically, expiation, the piacula having the same root, and 
 being grounded on another property or use of Gums and Rosins, 
 the supposed cleansing powers of their fumigation. Numbers viii. 
 21 : " made atonement for the Levites to cleanse them." — Lastly 
 (or if we are to believe the Hebrew Lexicons, properly and most 
 frequently) Ransom. But if by proper the Interpreters mean pri- 
 mary and radical, the assertion does not need a confutation : all 
 radicals belonging to one or other of three classes, 1. Interjec- 
 tions, or sounds expressing sensations or passions. 2. Imitations 
 of sounds, as splash, roar, whiz, &c. 3. and principally, visual 
 images, objects of sight. But as to frequency, in all the nu- 
 merous (fifty, I believe) instances of the word in the Old Tes- 
 tament, I have not found one in winch it can, or at least need, 
 be rendered by Ransom : though beyond all doubt Ransom is 
 used in the Epistle to Timothy, as an equivalent term. 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 315 
 
 the strongest presumptive proof, that all alike were 
 used metaphorically. [In the following notation, let 
 the small letters represent the effects or consequences, 
 and the Capitals the efficient causes or antecedents. 
 Whether by Causes we mean Acts or Agents, is indif- 
 ferent. Now let X signify a Transcendent, i. e. a 
 Cause beyond our Comprehension and not within the 
 sphere of sensible experience : and on the other hand, 
 let A, B, C, and D represent, each some one known and 
 familiar cause in reference to some single and charac- 
 teristic effect : viz. A in reference to k, B to 1, C to m, 
 and D to n. Then I say X -j- k 1 m n is in different 
 places expressed by (or as ==) A -\- k ; B -f- 1 ; C + m ; 
 D -f- n. And these I should call metaphorical Ex- 
 ponents of X.] 
 
 Now John, the beloved Disciple, who leant on the 
 Lord's Bosom, the Evangelist x-ccra irvevpa, i. e. accord- 
 ing to the Spirit, the inner and substantial truth of the 
 Christian Creed — John, recording the Redeemer's own 
 words, enunciates the Fact itself, to the full extent in 
 which it is enunciable for the human mind, simply 
 and without any metaphor, by identifying it in kind 
 with a fact of hourly occurrence- — expressing it, I 
 say, by a familiar fact the same in hind with that 
 intended, though of a far lower dignity ; — by a fact 
 of every man's experience, known to all, yet not better 
 understood than the fact described by it. In the Re- 
 deemed it is a re-generation, a birth, a spiritual seed 
 impregnated and evolved, the germinal principle of 
 a higher and enduring Life, of a spiritual Life — that 
 
316 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 is, a Life, the actuality of which is not dependent on 
 the material body, or limited by the circumstances and 
 processes indispensable to its organization and subsist- 
 ence. Briefly, it is the Differential of Immortality, 
 of which the assimilative power of Faith and Love is 
 the Integrant, and the Life in Christ the Integration. 
 
 But even this would be an imperfect statement, if 
 we omitted the aweful truth, that besides that dissolu- 
 tion of our earthly tabernacle which we call death, 
 there is another death, not the mere negation of life, 
 but its positive Opposite. And as there is a mystery 
 of Life and an assimilation to the Principle of Life, 
 even to him who is the Life ; so is there a mystery of 
 Death and an assimilation to the Principle of Evil 
 apipiSatys Savaruj ! a fructifying of the corrupt seed, of 
 which Death is the germination. Thus the regenera- 
 tion to spiritual life is at the same time a redemption 
 from the spiritual death. 
 
 Respecting the redemptive act itself, and the Divine 
 Agent, we know from revelation that he " was made a 
 quickening (Zworfoiovv, life-malcing) Spirit r 11 and that 
 in order to this it was necessary, that God should be 
 manifested in the flesh, that the eternal Word, through 
 whom and by whom the World (xoa-pog, the Order, 
 Beauty, and sustaining Law of visible natures) was 
 and is, should be made flesh, assume our humanity 
 personally, fulfil all righteousness, and so suffer and 
 so die for us as in dying to conquer Death for as many 
 as should receive him. More than this, the mode, the 
 possibility, we are not competent to know. It is, as 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 317 
 
 hath been already observed concerning the primal Act 
 of Apostacy, a mystery by the necessity of the subject 
 — a mystery, which at all events it will be time enough 
 for us to seek and expect to understand, when we 
 understand the mystery of our Natural life, and Us 
 conjunction with mind and will and personal identity. 
 Even the truths, that are given to us to know, we can 
 know only through faith in the spirit. They are spi- 
 ritual things that must be spiritually discerned. Such, 
 however, being the means and the effects of our Re- 
 demption, well might the fervent Apostle associate it 
 with whatever was eminently dear and precious to 
 erring and afflicted Mortals, and (where no expression 
 could be commensurate, no single title be other than 
 imperfect) seek from similitude of effect to describe the 
 superlative boon by successively transferring to it, as 
 by a superior claim, the name of each several Act and 
 Ordinance, habitually connected in the minds of all 
 his Hearers with feelings of joy, confidence, and gra- 
 titude. 
 
 Do you rejoice when the Atonement made by 
 the Priest has removed the civil stain from your 
 name, restored you to your privileges as a Son of 
 Abraham, and replaced you in the respect of your 
 Brethren ? — Here is an atonement which takes away 
 a deeper, worser stain, an eating Canker-spot in the 
 very heart of your personal Being ! This, to as many 
 as receive it, gives the privilege to become Sons of God 
 (John i. 12), this will admit you to the society of An- 
 gels, and ensure you the rights of Brotherhood with 
 
318 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 Spirits made perfect! (Heb. xii. 22.) Here is a 
 Sacrifice, a Sin-offering for the whole world : and an 
 High Priest, who is indeed a Mediator, who not in 
 type or shadow but in very truth and in his own right 
 stands in the place of Man to God, and of God to Man ; 
 and who receives as a Judge what he offered as an 
 Advocate. 
 
 Would you be grateful to one who had ransomed 
 you from slavery under a bitter foe, or who brought 
 you out of Captivity ? Here is redemption from a 
 far direr slavery, the slavery of Sin unto Death ! and 
 he, who gave himself for the ransom, has taken Cap- 
 tivity Captive ! 
 
 Had you by your own fault alienated yourself from 
 your best, your only sure Friend? Had you, like 
 a Prodigal, cast yourself out of your Father's House ? 
 Would you not love the good Samaritan, who should 
 reconcile you to your Friend ? Would you not prize 
 above all price the intercession, that had brought you 
 back from Husks and the tending of Swine, and re- 
 stored you to your Father's Arms, and seated you at 
 your Father's Table ? 
 
 Had you involved yourself in a heavy debt for cer- 
 tain gew-gaws, for high-seasoned meats, and intoxicating 
 drinks, and glistering apparel, and in default of pay- 
 ment had made yourself over as a bondsman to a hard 
 Creditor, who, it was foreknown, would enforce the bond 
 of Judgement to the last tittle ! With what emotions 
 Avould you not receive the glad tidings, that a stranger, 
 or a friend whom in the days of your wantonness you 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 819 
 
 had neglected and reviled, had paid the debt for you, 
 had made satisfaction to your Creditor? But you 
 have incurred a debt ofDeathtotheEviL Nature ! you 
 have sold yourself over to Sin ! and relatively to you, 
 and to all your means and resources, the Seal on the 
 Bond is the Seal of Necessity ! Its stamp is the Nature 
 of Evil. But the Stranger has appeared, the forgiving 
 Friend has come, even the Son of God from heaven : 
 and to as many as have faith in his name, I say — 
 the Debt is payed for you! The Satisfaction has 
 been made. 
 
 Now to simplify the argument and at the same time 
 to bring the question to the test, we will confine our 
 attention to the figure last-mentioned, viz. the sa- 
 tisfaction of a Debt. Passing by our modern Alogi 
 who find nothing but metaphors in either Apostle, let 
 us suppose for a moment with certain Divines that 
 our Lord^s Words, recorded by John, and which in 
 all places repeat and assert the same Analogy, are 
 to be regarded as metaphorical ; and that it is the varied 
 expressions of St. Paul that are to be literally inter- 
 preted : ex. gr. that Sin is, or involves an infinite Debt, 
 (in the proper and law-court sense of the word, debt) — 
 a debt owing by us to the vindictive Justice of God the 
 Father, which can only be liquidated by the everlasting 
 misery of Adam arid all his posterity, or by a sum of 
 suffering equal to this. Likewise, that God the Father 
 by his absolute decree, or (as someDivines teach) through 
 the necessity of his unchangeable Justice, had deter- 
 mined to exact the full sum; which must, therefore, 
 
320 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 be paid either by ourselves or by some other in our 
 name and behalf. But besides the Debt which all 
 Mankind contracted in and through Adam, as a Homo 
 Publicus, even as a Nation is bound by the Acts of its 
 Head or its Plenipotentiary, every man (say these Di- 
 vines) is an insolvent Debtor on his own score. In this 
 fearful predicament the Son of God took compassion 
 on Mankind, and resolved to pay the debt for us, and 
 to satisfy the divine Justice by a perfect equivalent. 
 Accordingly, by a strange yet strict consequence, it 
 has been held by more than one of these Divines, that 
 the agonies suffered by Christ were equal in amount 
 to the sum total of the torments of all Mankind here 
 and hereafter, or to the infinite debt, which in an end- 
 less succession of installments we should have been pay- 
 ing to the divine Justice, had it not been paid in full 
 by the Son of God incarnate ! 
 
 It is easy to say — O but / do not hold this, or 
 we do not make this an article of our belief ! The 
 true question is: Do you take any part of it: and 
 can you reject the rest without being inconsequent? 
 Are Debt, Satisfaction, Payment in full, Creditors' 
 Mights, &c. nomina propria, by which the very nature 
 of Redemption and its occasion is expressed ? or are 
 they, with several others, figures of speech for the pur- 
 pose of illustrating the nature and extent of the con- 
 sequences and effects of the redemptive Act, and to 
 excite in the receivers a due sense of the magnitude 
 and manifold operation of the Boon, and of the Love 
 and gratitude due to the Redeemer? If still you reply, 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 321 
 
 the former: then, as your whole theory is grounded 
 on a notion of Justice, I ask you — Is this Justice a 
 moral Attribute ? But Morality commences with, and 
 begins in, the sacred distinction between Thing and 
 Person : on this distinction all Law human and divine 
 is grounded: consequently, the Law of Justice. If 
 you attach any idea to the term Justice, as applied to 
 God, it must be the same which you refer to when you 
 affirm or deny it of any other personal Agent — save 
 only, that in its attribution to God, you speak of it as 
 unmixed and perfect. For if not, what do you mean ? 
 And why do you call it by the same name ? I may, 
 therefore, with all right and reason, put the case as 
 between man and man. For should it be found irre- 
 concileable with the Justice, which the Light of Reason, 
 made Law in the Conscience, dictates to Man, how 
 much more must it be incongruous with the all-perfect 
 Justice of God ! — Whatever case I should imagine 
 would be felt by the Reader as below the dignity of 
 the subject, and in some measure jarring with his 
 feelings : and in other respects the more familiar the 
 case, the better suited to the present purpose. 
 
 A sum of c^lOOO is owing from James to Peter, for 
 which James had given a Bond in Judgement. He is 
 insolvent, and the Bond is on the point of being car- 
 ried into effect, to James's utter ruin. At this moment 
 Matthew steps in, pays Peter the thousand pound and 
 discharges the Bond. In this case, no man would 
 hesitate to admit, that a complete satisfaction had been 
 made to Peter. Matthew's £1000 is a perfect equi- 
 
 Y 
 
AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 valent of the sum James was bound to have payed, and 
 for the sum which Peter had lent. It is the same 
 thing': and this altogether a question of Things. Now 
 instead of James^ being indebted to Peter for a sum of 
 money, which (he having become insolvent) Matthew 
 pays for him, we will put the case, that James had 
 been guilty of the basest and most hard-hearted in- 
 gratitude to a most worthy and affectionate Mother, 
 who had not only performed all the duties and tender 
 offices of a mother, but whose whole heart was bound 
 up in this her only child — who had foregone all the 
 pleasures and amusements of life in watching over his 
 sickly childhood, had sacrificed her health and the 
 far greater part of her resources to rescue him from the 
 consequences of his follies and excesses during his 
 youth and early manhood ; and to procure for him the 
 means of his present Rank and Affluences — all which 
 he had repayed by neglect, desertion, and open pro- 
 fligacy. Here the Mother stands in the relation of 
 the creditor : and here too we will suppose the same 
 generous Friend to interfere, and to perform with the 
 greatest tenderness and constancy all those duties of a 
 grateful and affectionate Son, which James ought to 
 have performed. Will this satisfy the Mother's claims 
 on James, or entitle him to her Esteem, Approbation, 
 and Blessing? Or what if Matthew, the vicarious Son, 
 should at length address her in words to this purpose : 
 " Now, I trust, you are appeased, and will be hence- 
 forward reconciled to James. I have satisfied all your 
 claims on him. I have payed his Debt in full : and you 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 323 
 
 are too just to require the same debt to be payed twice 
 over. You will therefore regard him with the same 
 complacency, and receive him into your presence with 
 the same love, as if there had been no difference be- 
 tween him and you. For I have made it up."" What 
 other reply could the swelling heart of the Mother 
 dictate than this ? " O misery ! and is it possible that 
 you are in league with my unnatural child to insult 
 me ? Must not the very necessity of your abandonment 
 of your proper sphere form an additional evidence of 
 his guilt ? Must not the sense of your goodness teach 
 me more fully to comprehend, more vividly to feel, 
 the evil in him ? Must not the contrast of your merits 
 magnify his Demerit in his Mother's eye, and at once 
 recall and embitter the conviction of the canker-worm 
 in his soul? - " 
 
 If indeed by the force of Matthew's example, by 
 persuasion or by additional and more mysterious in- 
 fluences, or by any inward co-agency, compatible with 
 the idea of a personal will, James should be led to 
 repent ; if through admiration and love of this great 
 goodness gradually assimilating his mind to the mind 
 of his benefactor, he should in his own person become 
 a grateful and dutiful child — then doubtless the mother 
 would be wholly satisfied ! But then the case is no 
 longer a question of Thing's *, or a matter of Debt pay- 
 
 * On a subject, concerning which we have so deep an interest 
 in forming just and distinct conceptions, no serious Inquirer 
 after religious truth ; much less any man dedicated to its pur- 
 suit, and who ought to be able to declare with the Psalmist, it is 
 
 v 9 
 
324 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 able by another. Nevertheless, the Effect, — and the 
 reader will remember, that it is the effects and conse* 
 
 " more desirable to me than thousands of gold and silver : there- 
 fore do I hate every false way j" will blame my solicitude to 
 place a notion, which I regard not only as a misbelief, but as a 
 main source of unbelief— at all events, among the most frequent 
 and plausible pretexts of Infidelity — in all the various points of 
 view, from which this or that Reader may more readily see, and 
 see into, its falsity. I make therefore no apology for adding one 
 other illustration of the whimsical Logic by which it is sup- 
 ported, in an Incident of recent occurrence, which will at the 
 same time furnish an instance in proof of the contrariety of the 
 Notion itself to the first and most obvious principles of morality, 
 and how spontaneously Common Sense starts forward, as it were, 
 to repel it. 
 
 Let it be imagined, that the late Mr. Fauntleroy had, in com- 
 pliance with the numerous petitions in his behalf, received a 
 pardon — that soon after some other Individual had been tried 
 and convicted of forging a note for a Hundred Pound — that on 
 application made for the extension of mercy to the culprit it 
 should be declared that in a commercial country like this it 
 was contrary to all Justice to grant a pardon to a man convicted 
 of Forgery — and that in invalidation of this dictum, the Ap- 
 plicants having quoted, as they naturally would quote, the case 
 of Mr. Fauntleroy, the Home Secretary should reply, Yes ! but 
 Mr. Fauntleroy forged to the amount of Two Hundred Thou- 
 sand Pound! — Now it is plain, that the Logic of this reply 
 would remain the same, if instead of comparative Criminality I 
 had supposed a case of comparative Purity from Crime : and 
 when the Reader has settled with himself, what he would think 
 of such Logic, and by what name he would describe it, let him 
 peruse the following extract : 
 
 MANSION HOUSE. 
 Monsieur Edmund Angelini, Professor of the Languages, and 
 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 325 
 
 quences of Christ's mediation, on which St. Paul is di- 
 lating — the Effect to James is similar in both cases, i. e. 
 in the case of James, the Debtor, and of James, the un- 
 dutiful Son. In both cases, James is liberated from a 
 grievous burthen ; and in both cases, he has to attri- 
 
 la morale, whose fracas with the Austrian Ambassador was re- 
 ported on Wednesday, came before the Lord Mayor, and pre- 
 sented his Lordship with a Petition, of which the following is a 
 translation : — 
 
 " My Lord — He who has violated the law ought to perish by 
 the sword of justice. Monsieur Fauntleroy ought to perish by 
 the sword of justice. If another takes his place, I think that 
 justice ought to be satisfied. I devote myself for him. I take 
 upon myself his crime, and I wish to die to save him. 
 
 (Signed) Edmund Angelini, 
 
 18, Ossulston-street, Somers-town. of Venice." 
 
 The Lord Mayor expressed his surprise at the application ; 
 and Mr. Angelini was informed that it was contrary to all justice 
 that the life of an innocent person should be taken to save that 
 of one who was guilty, even if an innocent man chose to devote 
 himself. 
 
 Angelini exclaimed that our Saviour died as an atonement for 
 the sins of the guilty, and that he did not see why he should not 
 be allowed to do so. 
 
 But in answer to this, doubts were expressed whether Mon- 
 sieur Angelini was sufficiently pure to satisfy justice. 
 ***** 
 
 From Baldwins London Weekly Journal, 
 Saturday Dec. 4, 1824. 
 
 The Reader is now, I trust, convinced, that though the Case 
 put by me, introductory to this extract, was imaginary, the 
 Logic was not of my invention. It is contrary to all Justice, that 
 an innocent person should be sacrificed, §c S$c. ; but a person 
 altogether innocent — -Aye ! that is a different question ! 
 
326 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 bute his liberation to the Act and free grace of another. 
 The only difference is, that in the former case (viz. the 
 payment of the debt) the beneficial Act is, singly and 
 without requiring any re-action or co-agency on the 
 part of James, the efficient cause of his liberation ; 
 while in the latter case (viz. that of Redemption) the 
 beneficial Act is, first, the indispensable Condition, 
 and then, the Co-efficient. 
 
 The professional Student of Theology will, perhaps, 
 understand the different positions asserted in the pre- 
 ceding Argument more readily if they are presented 
 synoptically, i. e. brought at once within his view, in 
 the form of Answers to four Questions, comprising the 
 constituent parts of the Scriptural Doctrine of Re- 
 demption. And I trust that my Lay Readers of both 
 sexes will not allow themselves to be scared from the 
 perusal of the following short catechism by half a dozen 
 Latin words, or rather words with Latin endings, that 
 translate themselves into English, when I dare assure 
 them, that they will encounter no other obstacle to their 
 full and easy comprehension of the contents. 
 
 Synopsis of the Constituent Points in the Doctrine of 
 
 Redemption, in Four Questions, with Correspondent 
 
 Answers. 
 
 Questions. 
 
 r 1. Agens Causator ? 
 
 tuTU / inn, *\ • 4.u J ^* Actus Causativus ? 
 Who (or What) is the- 7 
 
 J 6. Lftectum Causatum ? 
 ^ 4. Consequentia ab Effecto f 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 327 
 
 Answers. 
 
 I. The Agent and Personal Cause of the Redemp- 
 tion of Mankind is — the co-eternal Word and only-be- 
 gotten Son of the Living God, incarnate, tempted, ago- 
 nizing (Agonistes dywvitopsvog), crucified, submitting to 
 Death, resurgent, communicant of his Spirit, ascendent, 
 and obtaining for his Church the Descent and Com- 
 munion of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter. 
 
 II. The Causative Act is — a spiritual and transcen- 
 dent Mystery, " that passeth all understanding." 
 
 III. The Effect caused is — the being born anew-: as 
 before in the Jlesh to the World, so now born in the 
 spirit to Christ. 
 
 IV. The Consequents from the Effect are — Sancti- 
 fication from Sin, and Liberation from the inherent 
 and penal consequences of Sin in the World to come, 
 with all the means and processes of Sanctification by 
 the Word and the Spirit : these Consequents being the 
 same for the Sinner relatively to God and his own Soul, 
 as the satisfaction of a debt for a Debtor relatively to 
 his Creditor ; as the sacrificial atonement made by the 
 Priest for the Transgressor of the Mosaic Law ; as the 
 reconciliation to an alienated Parent for a Son who had 
 estranged himself from his Father's house and presence ; 
 and as a redemptive Ransom for a Slave or Captive. 
 
 Now I complain, that this metaphorical Naming of 
 the transcendent Causative Act through the medium of 
 its proper effects from Actions and Causes of familiar 
 occurrence connected with the former by similarity of 
 
328 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 Result, has been mistaken for an intended designation 
 of the essential character of the Causative Act itself; 
 and that thus Divines have interpreted de omni what 
 was spoken de singulo, and magnified a. partial equation 
 into a total identity. 
 
 I will merely hint, to my more learned readers, and 
 to the professional Students of Theology, that the orL 
 gin of this error is to be sought for in the discussions 
 of the Greek Fathers, and (at a later period) of the 
 Schoolmen, on the obscure and abysmal subject of the 
 Divine A-seity, and the distinction between the S^A^aa 
 and the fiovhrj, i. e. the absolute Will, as the universal 
 Ground of all Being, and the Election and purpose of 
 God in the personal Idea, as the Father. And this 
 View would have allowed me to express (what I believe 
 to be) the true import and scriptural idea of Redemp- 
 tion in terms much more nearly resembling those used 
 ordinarily by the Calvinistic Divines, and with a con- 
 ciliative show of coincidence. But this motive was out- 
 weighed by the reflection, that I could not rationally 
 have expected to be understood by those, to whom I 
 most wish to be intelligible : et si non vis intelligi, cur 
 vis legi ? 
 
 N. B. Not to countervene the purpose of a Synopsis, 
 I have detached the confirmative or explanatory remarks 
 from the Answers to Questions II. and III. and place 
 them below as Scholia. A single glance of the eye will 
 enable the reader to re-connect each with the sentence 
 it is supposed to follow. 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 329 
 
 Scholium to Ans. II. 
 Nevertheless, the fact or actual truth having been 
 assured to us by Revelation, it is not impossible, by 
 stedfast meditation on the idea and super-natural cha- 
 racter of a personal Will, for a mind spiritually dis- 
 ciplined to satisfy itself, that the redemptive act sup- 
 poses (and that our redemption is even negatively con~ 
 ceivable only on the supposition of) an Agent who can 
 at once act on the Will as an exciting cause, quasi ab 
 extra; and in the Will, as the condition of its potential, 
 and the ground of its actual, Being. 
 
 Scholium toA ns. III. 
 
 Where two subjects, that stand to each other in the 
 relation of antithesis (or contradistinction) are connected 
 by a middle term common to both, the sense of this 
 middle term is indifferently determinable by either: the 
 preferability of the one or the other in any given case 
 being decided by the circumstance of our more frequent 
 experience of, or greater familiarity with, the Term in 
 this connexion. Thus, if I put Hydrogen and Oxygen 
 Gas, as opposite Poles, the term Gas is common to 
 both ; and it is a matter of indifference, by which of 
 the two bodies I ascertain the sense of the Term. But 
 if for the conjoint purposes of connexion and contrast, 
 I oppose transparent chrystallized Alumen to opalce 
 derb (unchrystallized) Alumen ; — it may easily happen 
 to be far more convenient for me to show the sense of 
 the middle term, i. e. Alumen, by a piece of Pipe-clay 
 
330 AIDS TO ItEFLECTION. 
 
 than by a Sapphire or Ruby : especially, if I should 
 be describing the beauty and preciousness of the latter 
 to a female Peasant, or in a District, where a Ruby was 
 a rarity which the Fewest only had an opportunity of 
 seeing. This is a plain rule of common Logic directed 
 in its application by Common Sense. 
 
 Now let us apply this to the case in hand. The 
 two opposites here are Flesh and Spirit, this in relation 
 to Christ, that in relation to the World: and these 
 two Opposites are connected by the middle term, Birth, 
 which is of course common to both. But for the same 
 reason, as in the instance last-mentioned, the inter- 
 pretation of the common term is to be ascertained 
 from its known sense, in the more familiar connexion — 
 Birth, namely, in relation to our natural life and to the 
 Organized Body, by which we belong to the present 
 World. Whatever the word signifies in this connexion, 
 the same essentially (in Jcind though not in dignity 
 and value) must be its signification in the other. How 
 else could it be (what yet in this text it undeniably is), 
 the punctum indifferens, or nota communis, of the 
 Thesis (Flesh : the World) and the Antithesis (Spirit : 
 Christ) ? We might therefore, supposing a writer to 
 have been speaking of River- water in distinction from 
 Rain-water, as rationally pretend that in the latter 
 phrase the term, Water, was to be understood meta- 
 phorically, as that the word, Birth, is a metaphor, and 
 " means only 1 ' so and so, in the Gospel according to 
 St. John. 
 
 There is, I am aware, a numerous and powerful 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 331 
 
 Party in our church, so numerous and powerful as not 
 seldom to be entitled the Church, who hold and pub- 
 licly teach, that " Regeneration is only Baptism." 
 Nay, the Writer of the Article on the Lives of Scott 
 and Newton in our ablest and most respectable Review 
 is but one among many who do not hesitate to brand 
 the contrary opinion as heterodoxy, and schismatical 
 superstition. I trust, that I think as seriously, as most 
 men, of the evil of Schism ; but with every disposition 
 to pay the utmost deference to an acknowleged ma- 
 jority including, it is said, a very large proportion of 
 the present Dignitaries of our Church, I cannot but 
 think it a sufficient reply, that if Regeneration means 
 baptism, Baptism must mean regeneration : and this 
 too, as Christ himself has declared, a regeneration in 
 the Spirit. Now I would ask these Divines this simple 
 question. Do they believingly suppose a spiritual rege- 
 nerative power and agency inhering in or accompany- 
 ing the sprinkling a few drops of water on an infant's 
 face ? They cannot evade the question by saying that 
 Baptism is a type or sign. For this would be to sup- 
 plant their own assertion, that Regeneration means 
 Baptism, by the contradictory admission, that Rege- 
 neration is the significatum, of which Baptism is the 
 significant. Unless, indeed, they would incur the ab- 
 surdity of saying, that regeneration is a type of rege- 
 neration, and Baptism a type of itself — or that Bap- 
 tism only means Baptism ! And this indeed is the 
 plain consequence, to which they might be driven, 
 should they answer the above question in the Negative. 
 
332 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 But if their answer be, Yes! we do suppose and 
 believe this efficiency in the baptismal act — I have not 
 another word to say. Only, perhaps, I might be per- 
 mitted to express a hope, that for consistency's sake 
 they would speak less slightingly of the insufflation, 
 and extreme unction, used in the Romish Church : 
 notwithstanding the not easily to be answered argu- 
 ments of our Christian Mercury, the all-eloquent 
 Jeremy Taylor, respecting the latter, — " which, since 
 it is used when the man is above half dead, when he 
 can exercise no act of understanding, it must needs be 
 nothing. For no rational man can think, that any 
 ceremony can make a spiritual change without a spi- 
 ritual act of him that is to be changed; nor that it 
 can work by way of nature, or by charm, but morally 
 and after the manner of reasonable creatures.'''' 
 
 Taylor's Epist. Dedic. to his Holy Dying, p. 6. 
 
 It is too obvious to require suggestion, that these 
 words here quoted apply with yet greater force and 
 propriety to the point in question : as the Babe is an 
 unconscious subject, which the dying man need not be 
 supposed to be. My avowed convictions respecting 
 Regeneration with the spiritual baptism, as its Con- 
 dition and Initiative, (Luke iii. 16 ; Mark i. 8 ; Matt, 
 iii. 11), and of which the sacramental Rite, the Baptism 
 of John, was appointed by Christ to remain as the 
 Sign and Figure ; and still more, perhaps, my belief 
 respecting the Mystery of the Eucharist, (concerning 
 which I hold the same opinions as Bucer (Strype's 
 Life of Archb. Cranmer, Appendix), Peter Martyr, 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 333 
 
 and presumably Cranmer himself — these convictions 
 and this belief will, I doubt not, be deemed by the 
 Orthodox de more Grotii, who improve the letter of 
 Arminius with the spirit of the Socini, sufficient data 
 to bring me in guilty of irrational and superstitious 
 Mysticism. But I abide by a maxim, which I learnt 
 at an early period of my theological studies, from Be- 
 nedict Spinoza. Where the Alternative lies between 
 the Absurd and the Incomprehensible, no wise man 
 can be at a loss which of the two to prefer. To be 
 called irrational, is a trifle : to be so, and in matters of 
 religion, is far otherwise : and whether the irrationality 
 consists in men's believing (i. e. in having persuaded 
 themselves that they believe) against reason, or with- 
 out reason, I have been early instructed to consider it 
 as a sad and serious evil, pregnant with mischiefs, po- 
 litical and moral. And by none of my numerous In- 
 structors so impressively, as by that great and shining 
 Light of our Church in the aera of her intellectual 
 splendour, Bishop Jeremy Taylor : from one of whose 
 works, and that of especial authority for the safety as 
 well as for the importance of the principle, inasmuch 
 as it was written expressly ad populum, I will now, 
 both for its own intrinsic worth, and to relieve the at- 
 tention, wearied, perhaps, by the length and argu- 
 mentative character of the preceding discussion, in- 
 terpose the following Aphorism. 
 
334 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 APHORISM XX. Jer. Taylor. 
 
 Whatever is against right reason, that no faith can 
 oblige us to believe. For though Reason is not the 
 positive and affirmative measure of our faith, and our 
 faith ought to be larger than our {speculative) Reason, 
 {see p. 179) and take something into her heart, that 
 Reason can never take into her eye; yet in all our 
 creed there can be nothing against reason. If Reason 
 justly contradicts an article, it is not of the household 
 of Faith. In this there is no difficulty, but that in 
 practice we take care that we do not call that Reason, 
 which is not so {see p. 161, 162 ; p. 216). For although 
 Reason is a right Judge*, yet it ought not to pass sen- 
 tence in an inquiry of faith, until all the information 
 be brought in ; all that is within, and all that is with- 
 out, all that is above, and all that is below ; all that 
 concerns it in experience and all that concerns it in 
 act ; whatsoever is of pertinent observation and what- 
 soever is revealed. For else Reason may argue very 
 well and yet conclude falsely. It may conclude well 
 
 * Which it could not he, in respect of spiritual truths and 
 objects super-sensuous, if it were the same with, and merely 
 another name for " the Faculty judging according to Sense" — 
 i. e. the Understanding, or (as Taylor most often calls it in di- 
 stinction from Reason) Discourse (Discursus seu Facullas dis- 
 cursiva vel discursoria). N. B. The Reason, so instructed -and 
 so actuated as Taylor requires in the sentences immediately fol- 
 lowing, is what I have called the Spirit. Vide p. 208, 209. 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 335 
 
 in Logic, and yet infer a false proposition in Theology 
 (p. 161, lines 16 — 28). But when our Judge is fully 
 and truly informed in all that, whence she is to make 
 her Judgement, we may safely follow her whither- 
 soever she invites us. 
 
 APHORISM XXI. Jer. Taylok. 
 
 He that speaks against his own Reason, speaks 
 
 against his own Conscience : and therefore it is certain, 
 
 no man serves God with a good conscience, who serves 
 
 him against his reason. 
 
 APHORISM XXII. THE SAME. 
 
 By the eye of Reason through the telescope of Faith, 
 i. e. Revelation, we may see what without this tele- 
 scope we could never have known to exist. But as 
 one that shuts the eye hard, and with violence curls 
 the eye-lid, forces a phantastic fire from the crystalline 
 humor, and espies a light that never shines, and sees 
 thousands of little fires that never burn ; so is he that 
 blinds the eye of Reason, and pretends to see by an 
 eye of Faith. He makes little images of Notions, and 
 some atoms dance before him; but he is not guided 
 by the light, nor instructed by the proposition, but 
 sees like a man in his sleep. In no case can true 
 Reason and a right Faith oppose each other. 
 
 NOTE PREFATORY 
 
 to 
 Aphorism xxiii. — Less on my own account, than 
 in the hope of fore-arming my youthful friends, I add 
 
336 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 one other Transcript from Bishop Taylor, as from a 
 Writer to whose name no taint or suspicion of Calvinis- 
 tic or schismatical tenets can attach, and for the pur- 
 pose of softening the offence which, I cannot but fore- 
 see, will be taken at the positions asserted in paragraph 
 the first of Aphorism VII. p. 189, and the docu- 
 mental proofs of the same in p. 193 — 195 : and this by 
 a formidable party composed of men ostensibly of the 
 most dissimilar Creeds, regular Church-Divines, voted 
 orthodox by a great majority of suffrages, and the so 
 called Free-thinking Christians, and Unitarian Divines. 
 It is the former class alone that I wish to conciliate : so 
 far at least as it may be done by removing the aggra- 
 vation of novelty from the offensive article. And 
 surely the simple re-assertion of one of " the two great 
 things,"" which Bishop Taylor could assert as a fact, 
 which, he took for granted, no Christian would think of 
 controverting, should at least be controverted without 
 bitterness by his successors in the Church. That 
 which was perfectly safe and orthodox in 1657, in the 
 judgement of a devoted Royalist and Episcopalian, 
 must be at most but a venial heterodoxy in 1825. 
 For the rest, I am prepared to hear in answer — what 
 has already been so often, and with such theatrical 
 effect dropt, as an extinguisher, on my arguments — 
 the famous concluding period of one of the chapters 
 in Paley's Moral and Political Philosophy, declared 
 by Dr. Parr the finest prose passage in English 
 Literature. Be it so ! I bow to so great an authority. 
 But if the learned Doctor would impose it on me as 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 337 
 
 the truest as well as the finest, or expect me to ad- 
 mire the Logic equally with the Rhetoric — elfiarrccfXiat' 
 I start off! As I have been unenglish enough to 
 find in Pope's tomb-epigram on Sir Isaac Newton 
 nothing better than a gross and wrongful falsehood 
 conveyed in an enormous and irreverent hyperbole ; 
 so with regard to this passage in question, free as it 
 is from all faults of taste, I have yet the hardihood 
 to confess, that in the sense in which the words dis- 
 cover and prove, are here used and intended, I am 
 not convinced of the truth of the principle, (that he 
 alone discovers who proves), and I question the cor- 
 rectness of the particular case, brought as instance and 
 confirmation. I doubt the validity of the assertion as 
 a general rule ; and I deny it, as applied to matters of 
 juith, to the verities of religion, in the belief of which 
 there must always be somewhat of moral election, " an 
 act of the Will in it as well as of the Understanding-, 
 as much love in it as discursive power. True Chris- 
 tian Faith must have in it something of in-evidence, 
 something that must be made up by duty and by obe- 
 dience." — Taylor's Worthy Communicant, p. 160. 
 But most readily do I admit, and most fervently do I 
 contend, that the Miracles worked by Christ, both as 
 miracles and as fulfilments of prophecy, both as signs 
 and as wonders, made plain discovery, and gave un- 
 questionable proof, of his divine character and autho- 
 rity ; that they were to the whole Jewish nation true 
 and appropriate evidences, that He was indeed come 
 who had promised and declared to their Forefathers, 
 
AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 Behold, your God will come with vengeance, (Matth. 
 x. 34, Liike xii. 49), even God a recompense ! He 
 will come and save you ! (Isaiah xxxv. 4, compared 
 with Matth. x. 34, and Luke xii. 49.) I receive them as 
 proofs, therefore, of the truth of every word, which he 
 taught who was himself The Word : and as sure 
 evidences of the final victory over death and of the 
 life to come, in that they were manifestations of Him, 
 who said : I am the Resurrection and the Life ! 
 
 The obvious inference from the passage in question, 
 if not its express import, is: Miracula experimento 
 cruris esse, quo solo probandum erat, Homines non, 
 pecudum instar, omnino perituros esse. Now this doc- 
 trine I hold to be altogether alien from the spirit, and 
 without authority in the letter, of Scripture. I can 
 recall nothing in the history of human Belief, that 
 should induce me, I find nothing in my own moral 
 Being that enables me, to understand it. I can, how- 
 ever, perfectly well understand, the readiness of those 
 Divines in hoc Paleii Dictum ore pleno jurare, qui 
 nihil aliud in toto Evangelio invenire posse profitentur. 
 The most unqualified admiration of this superlative 
 passage I find perfectly in character for those, who 
 while Socinianism and Ultra-Socinianism are spreading 
 like the roots of an Elm, on and just below the surface, 
 through the whole land, and here and there at least 
 have even dipt under the garden-fence of the Church, 
 and blunt the edge of the Labourer's spade in the 
 gayest parterres of our Baal-hamon, (Sol. Song", viii. 
 11) — who, while Heresies, to which the Framers and 
 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 339 
 
 Compilers of our Liturgy, Homilies and Articles would 
 have refused the very name of Christianity, meet their 
 eyes on the List of Religious Denominations for every 
 City and large Town throughout the kingdom — can 
 yet congratulate themselves with Dr. Paley (in his 
 Evidences) that the Rent has not reached the foundation 
 — i. e. that the Corruption of Man's Will ; that the 
 responsibility of man in any sense in which it is 
 not equally predicable of Dogs and Horses ; that the 
 Divinity of our Lord, and even his pre-existence ; that 
 Sin, and Redemption through the merits of Christ ; 
 and Grace ; and the especial aids of the Spirit ; and 
 the efficacy of Prayer ; and the subsistency of the Holy 
 Ghost; may all be extruded without breach or rent in 
 the Essentials of Christian Faith ! — that a Man may 
 deny and renounce them all, and remain a fundamental 
 Christian, notwithstanding ! But there are many that 
 cannot keep up with Latitudinarians of such a stride : 
 and I trust, that the majority of serious Believers are 
 in this predicament. Now for all these it would seem 
 more in character to be of Bishop Taylor's opinion, 
 that the Belief in question is presupposed in a convert 
 to the Truth in Christ— but at all events not to cir- 
 culate in the great whispering gallery of the Religious 
 Public suspicions and hard thoughts of those who, 
 like myself, are of this opinion! who do not dare 
 decry the religious instincts of Humanity as a baseless 
 dream ; who hold, that to excavate the ground under 
 the faith of all mankind, is a very questionable method 
 of building up our faith, as Christians ; who fear, that 
 
340 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 instead of adding to, they should detract from, the 
 honor of the Incarnate Word by disparaging the light 
 of the Word, that was in the beginning, and which 
 lighteth every man ; and who, under these convictions, 
 can tranquilly leave it to be disputed, in some new 
 " Dialogues in the Shades," between the fathers of the 
 Unitarian Church on one side, and Maimonides, Moses 
 Mendelsohn, and Lessing on the other, whether the 
 famous passage in Paley does or does not contain the 
 three dialectic flaws, Petitio principii, Argumentum in 
 circulo, and Argumentum contra rem a premisso rem 
 ipsam includente. 
 
 Yes! fervently do I contend, that to satisfy the 
 Understanding, that there is a Future State, was not 
 the specific Object of the Christian Dispensation ; and 
 that neither the Belief of a Future State, nor the Ra- 
 tionality of this belief, is the exclusive Attribute of 
 the Christian Religion. An essential, a. fundamental, 
 Article of all Religion it is, and therefore of the Chris- 
 tian ; but otherwise than as in connexion with the Sal- 
 vation of Mankind from the terrors of that State, 
 among the essential Articles peculiar to the Gospel 
 Creed (those, for instance, by which it is contra-di- 
 stinguished from the Creed of a religious Jew) I do 
 not place it. And before sentence is passed against 
 me, as heterodox, on this ground, let not my Judges 
 forget, who it was that assured us, that if a man did 
 not believe in a state of retribution after death, pre- 
 viously and on other grounds, " neither would he be- 
 lieve, though a man should be raised from the dead." 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 341 
 
 Again, I am questioned as to my proofs of a future 
 state, by men who are so far, and only so far, professed 
 believers, that they admit a God, and the existence of 
 a Law from God : I give them : and the Questioners 
 turn from me with a scoff or incredulous smile. Now 
 should others of a less scanty Creed infer the weakness 
 of the reasons assigned by me from their failure in 
 convincing these men ; may I not remind them, Who 
 it was, to whom a similar question was proposed by 
 men of the same class ? But at all events it will be 
 enough for my own support to remember it ; and to 
 know that He held such Questioners, who could not 
 find a sufficing proof of this great all-concerning verity 
 in the words, " The God of Abraham, the God of 
 Isaac, and the God of Jacob,"" unworthy of any other 
 answer! men not to be satisfied by amy proof! — by 
 any such proofs, at least, as are compatible with the 
 ends and purposes of all religious conviction ! by any 
 proofs, that would not destroy the faith they were in- 
 tended to confirm, and reverse the whole character and 
 quality of its effects and influences ! But if, notwith- 
 standing all here offered in defence of my opinion, I 
 must still be adjudged heterodox and in error, — what 
 can I say, but malo cum Platone errare, and take 
 refuge behind the ample shield of Bishop Jeremy 
 Taylor. 
 
 APHORISM XXIII. TAYLOR. 
 
 In order to his own glory, and for the manifestation 
 of his goodness, and that the accidents of this world 
 
342 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 might not overmuch trouble those good men who suf- 
 fered evil things, God was pleased to do two great 
 things. The one was : that he sent his Son into the 
 World to take upon him our Nature, that every man 
 might submit to a necessity, from which God's own 
 Son was not exempt, when it behoved even Christ to 
 suffer, and so to enter into glory. The other great thing 
 was : that God did not only by Revelation and the Ser- 
 mons of the Prophets to his Church ; but even to all 
 Mankind competently teach, and effectively persuade, 
 that the Soul of Man does not die ; that though things 
 were ill here, yet to the good who usually feel most of 
 the evils of this life, they should end in honor and 
 advantages. And therefore Cicero had reason on his 
 side to conclude, that there is a time and place after 
 this life, wherein the wicked shall be punished and the 
 virtuous rewarded ; when he considered, that Orpheus 
 and Socrates, and how many others, just men and be- 
 nefactors of mankind, were either slain or oppressed to 
 death by evil men. (Compare Heb. ch. xi. v. 36 — 39.) 
 " And all these received not the promise" But when 
 Virtue made men poor ; and free speaking of brave 
 truths made the wise to lose their liberty ; when an 
 excellent life hastened an opprobrious death, and the 
 obeying Reason and our Conscience lost us our Lives, 
 or at least all the means and conditions of enjoying 
 them : it was but time to look about for another state 
 of things, where Justice should rule and Virtue find 
 her own portion. And therefore Men cast out every 
 line, and turned every stone and tried every argument : 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 343 
 
 and sometimes proved it well, and when they did not, 
 yet they believed strongly ; and they were sure of 
 
 THE THING, EVEN WHEN THEY WERE NOT SURE OF 
 
 the argument. — (Sermon at the Funeral of Sir 
 George Dalston, 28th Sept. 1657, p. 2.) 
 
 comment. 
 
 A fact may be truly stated, and yet the Causes or 
 Reasons assigned for it mistaken ; or inadequate ; or 
 pars pro toto, one only or few of many that might or 
 should have been adduced. The preceding Aphorism 
 is an instance in point. The Phenomenon here 
 brought forward by the Bishop, as the ground and 
 occasion of men's belief of a future state — viz. the 
 frequent, not to say ordinary, disproportion between 
 moral worth and worldly prosperity — must, indeed, at 
 all times and in all countries of the Civilized World 
 have led the observant and reflecting Few, the men of 
 meditative habits and strong feelings of natural equity, 
 to a nicer consideration of the current Belief, whether 
 instinctive or traditional. By forcing the Soul in upon 
 herself, this Enigma of Saint and Sage from Job, 
 David and Solomon to Claudian and Boetius, this per- 
 plexing disparity of success and desert, has, I doubt 
 not, with such men been the occasion of a steadier and 
 more distinct consciousness of a Something in man dif- 
 ferent in Jcind, and which not merely distinguishes but 
 contra-distinguishes, him from animals — at the same 
 time that it has brought into closer view an enigma of 
 yet harder solution — the fact, I mean, of a Contra- 
 
344 ATDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 diction in the Human Being, of which no traces are 
 observable elsewhere, in animated or inanimate Na- 
 ture! * A struggle of jarring impulses; a mysterious 
 diversity between the injunctions of the mind and the 
 elections of the will ; and (last not least) the utter in- 
 commensurateness and the unsatisfying qualities of the 
 things around us, that yet are the only objects which 
 our senses discover or our appetites require us to pursue. 
 Hence for the finer and more contemplative spirits the 
 ever-strengthening suspicion, that the two Phenomena 
 must some way or other stand in close connexion with 
 each other, and that the Riddle of Fortune and Cir- 
 cumstance is but a form or effluence of the Riddle of 
 Man I And hence again, the persuasion, that the solu- 
 tion of both problems is to be sought for — hence the 
 pre-sentiment, that this solution will be found — in the 
 co«ira-distinctive Constituent of Humanity, in the 
 Something- of Human Nature which is exclusively 
 human ! And as the objects discoverable by the senses, 
 as all the Bodies and Substances that we can touch, 
 measure, and weigh, are either mere Totals, the unity 
 
 * I trust, that my Age will exempt me from the charge of 
 presumption, when I avow, that the forty lines here following 
 are retained as a specimen of accumulative reason, and as an 
 Exercise, on which my supposed Pupil may try and practice 
 the power of sustaining the attention up the whole ascent of a 
 " piled Argument." The most magnificent Example of a So- 
 rites in our — perhaps in any — Language, the Reader may find 
 in the Friend, vol. ii. p. 157, transcribed from J. Taylor's 
 Dissuasive from Popery. 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 345 
 
 of which results from the parts, often accidental, as 
 that of a pebble, and always only apparent ; or Sub- 
 stances, whose Unity of Action is owing to the nature 
 or arrangement of the partible bodies which they ac- 
 tuate or set in motion ; Steam, for instance, in a steam- 
 engine, or the (so called) imponderable fluids ; — as on 
 one hand the conditions and known or conceivable 
 properties of all the objects, that cease to be, and 
 whose whole of existence is then a detached and com- 
 pleted Past, that links on to no Present; as all the 
 properties, that we ourselves have in common with 
 these perishable things, differ in kind from the acts 
 and properties peculiar to our Humanity, so that the 
 former cannot even be conceived, cannot without a con- 
 tradiction in terms be predicated, of the proper and 
 immediate subject of the latter — for who would not 
 smile at an ounce of Truth, or a square foot of Honor ? 
 — and as whatever things in visible nature have the 
 character of Permanence, and endure amid continual 
 flux unchanged, like a Rainbow in a fast flying shower, 
 (ex. gr. Beauty, Order, Harmony, Finality, Law) are 
 all akin to the peculia of Humanity, are all congeners 
 of Mind and Will, without which indeed they would 
 not only exist in vain, as Pictures for Moles, but ac- 
 tually not exist at all : hence, finally, the conclusion, 
 that the Soul of Man, as the subject of Mind and 
 Will, must likewise possess a principle of permanence, 
 and be destined to endure ! And were these grounds 
 lighter than they are, yet as a small weight will make 
 a Scale descend, where there is nothing in the opposite 
 
346 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 Scale, or painted Weights, that have only an illusive 
 relief or prominence ; so in the Scale of Immortality 
 slight Reasons are in effect weighty, and sufficient to 
 determine the Judgement, there being no counter- 
 weight, no reasons against them, and no facts in proof 
 of the contrary, that would not prove equally well the 
 cessation of the eye on the removal or diffraction of the 
 Eye-glass, and the dissolution or incapacity of the Mu- 
 sician on the fracture of his instrument or its strings. 
 
 But though I agree with Taylor so far, as not to 
 doubt that the misallotment of worldly goods and for- 
 tunes was one principal occasion, exciting well-disposed 
 and spiritually awakened Natures by reflections and 
 reasonings, such as I have here supposed, to mature 
 the presentiment of immortality into full consciousness, 
 into a principle of action and a well-spring of strength 
 and consolation ; I cannot concede to this circumstance 
 any thing like the importance and extent of efficacy 
 which he in this passage attributes to it. I am per- 
 suaded, that as the belief of all mankind, of all * tribes, 
 
 * I say, all: for the accounts of one or two travelling French 
 Philosophes, professed Atheists and Partizans of Infidelity, re- 
 specting one or two African Hordes, Caffres and poor outlawed 
 Boschmen hunted out of their humanity, ought not to be re- 
 garded as exceptions. And as to Hearne's Assertion respecting 
 the non-existence and rejection of the Belief among the Copper- 
 Indians, it is not only hazarded on very weak and insufficient 
 grounds, but he himself, in another part of his work, uncon- 
 sciously supplies data, from whence the contrary may safely be 
 concluded. Hearne, perhaps, put down his friend Motannabbi's 
 .Fortf-philosophy for the opinion of his tribe ; and from his high 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 347 
 
 and nations, and languages, in all ages and in all 
 states of social union, it must be referred to far deeper 
 grounds, common to man as man : and that its fibres 
 are to be traced to the tap-root of Humanity. I have 
 long entertained, and do not hesitate to avow, the 
 conviction, that the argument from Universality of 
 Belief, urged by Barrow and others in proof of the 
 first Article of the Creed, is neither in point oifact — 
 for two very different objects may be intended, and 
 two (or more) diverse and even contradictory con- 
 ceptions may be expressed, by the same Name — nor 
 in legitimacy of conclusion as strong and unexception- 
 able, as the argument from the same ground for the con- 
 tinuance of our personal being after death. The Bull- 
 calf buts with smooth and unarmed Brow. Through- 
 out animated Nature, of each characteristic Organ and 
 Faculty there exists a pre-assurance, an instinctive and 
 practical Anticipation : and no Pre-assurance common 
 to a whole species does in any instance prove delusive. 
 All other prophecies of Nature have their exact ful- 
 filment — in every other " ingrafted word 1 ' of Promise 
 Nature is found true to her Word, and is it in her 
 noblest Creature, that she tells her first Lie? — (The 
 Reader will, of course, understand, that I am here 
 speaking in the assumed character of a mere Naturalist, 
 
 appreciation of the moral character of this murderous Gymno- 
 sophist it might, I fear, be inferred, that Hearne himself was 
 not the very person one would, of all others, have chosen for 
 the purpose of instituting the inquiry. 
 
348 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 to whom no light of revelation had been vouchsafed ; 
 
 one, who 
 
 with gentle heart 
 
 Had worshipp'd Nature in the Hill and Valley, 
 Not knowing what he loved, hut loved it all !) 
 
 Whether, however, the introductory part of the Bi- 
 shop's argument is to be received with more or less 
 qualification, the Fact itself, as stated in the concluding 
 sentence of the Aphorism, remains unaffected, and is 
 beyond exception true. 
 
 If other argument and yet higher authority were 
 required, I might refer to St. Paul's Epistle to the 
 Romans, and to the Epistle to the Hebrews, which 
 whether written by Paul or, as Luther conjectured, 
 by Apollos, is out of all doubt the work of an Apostolic 
 Man filled with the Holy Spirit, and composed while 
 the Temple and the Glories of the Temple Worship 
 were yet in existence. Several of the Jewish and still 
 Judaizing Converts had begun to vacillate in their 
 faith, and to " stumble at the stumbling-stone" of the 
 contrast between the pomp and splendor of the Old 
 Law and the simplicity and humility of the Christian 
 Church. To break this sensual charm, to unfascinate 
 these bedazzled brethren, the Writer to the Hebrews 
 institutes a comparison between the two religions, and 
 demonstrates the superior spiritual grandeur, thegreater 
 intrinsic worth and dignity of the Religion of Christ. 
 On the other hand, at Rome where the Jews formed 
 a numerous, powerful, and privileged class (many of 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 819 
 
 them, too, by their proselyting zeal and frequent dis- 
 putations with the Priests and Philosophers trained 
 and exercised Polemics) the recently -founded Christian 
 Church was, it appears, in greater danger from the 
 reasonings of the Jewish Doctors and even of its own 
 Judaizing Members, respecting the use of the new 
 revelation. Thus the object of the Epistle to the He- 
 brews was to prove the superiority of the Christian 
 Religion; the object of the Epistle to the Romans to 
 prove its necessity. Now there was one argument 
 extremely well calculated to stagger a faith newly 
 transplanted and still loose at its roots, and which, if 
 allowed, seemed to preclude the possibility of the 
 Christian Religion, as an especial and immediate re- 
 velation from God — on the high grounds, at least, on 
 which the Apostle of the Gentiles placed it, and with 
 the exclusive rights and superseding character, which 
 he claimed for it. You admit (said they) the divine 
 origin and authority of the Law given to Moses, pro- 
 claimed with thunders and lightnings and the Voice of 
 the Most High heard by all the people from Mount 
 Sinai, and introduced, enforced, and perpetuated by a 
 series of the most stupendous miracles ! Our Religion 
 then was given by God : and can God give a perish- 
 able, imperfect religion ? If not perishable, how can 
 it have a successor ? If perfect, how can it need to be 
 superseded? The entire argument is indeed com- 
 prised in the latter attribute of our Law. We know, 
 from an authority which you yourselves acknowlege 
 for divine, that our Religion is perfect. " He is the 
 
350 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 Rock, and his Work is perfect.' 1 (JDeuter. xxxii. 4.) 
 If then the Religion revealed by God himself to our 
 Forefathers is perfect, what need have we of an- 
 other ? — This objection, both from its importance and 
 from its (for the persons at least, to whom it was ad- 
 dressed) extreme plausibility, behoved to be answered 
 in both epistles. And accordingly, the answer is in- 
 cluded in the one (Hebrews) and it is the especial pur- 
 pose and main subject of the other. And how does 
 the Apostle answer it ? Suppose — and the case is not 
 impossible* — a man of sense, who had studied the 
 evidences of Priestley and Paley with Warburton's 
 Divine Legation, but who should be a perfect stranger 
 to the Writings of St. Paul : and that I put this ques- 
 
 * The case here supposed actually occurred in my own ex- 
 perience in the person of a Spanish Refugee, of English Parents, 
 but from his tenth year resident in Spain, and bred in a family 
 of wealthy but ignorant and bigotted Catholics. In mature 
 manhood he returned to England, disgusted with the conduct 
 of the Priests and Monks, which had indeed for some years 
 produced on his mind its so common effect among the better- 
 informed Natives of the South of Europe— a tendency to Deism. 
 The results, however, of the infidel system in France, with his 
 opportunities of observing the effects of irreligion on the French 
 officers in Spain, on the one hand ; and the undeniable moral 
 and intellectual superiority of Protestant Britain on the other ; 
 had not been lost on him : and here he began to think for him- 
 self and resolved to study the subject. He had gone through 
 Bishop Warburton's Divine Legation, and Paley's Evidences ; 
 but had never read the New Testament consecutively, and the 
 Epistles not at all. 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 351 
 
 tion to him : — What, do you think, will St. Paul's answer 
 be ? Nothing, he would reply, can be more obvious. 
 It is in vain, the Apostle will urge, that you bring 
 your notions of probability and inferences from the 
 arbitrary interpretation of a word in an absolute rather 
 than a relative sense, to invalidate a known fact. It is 
 a. fact, that your Religion is (in your sense of the word) 
 not perfect : for it is deficient in one of the two essen- 
 tial Constituents of all true Religion, the Belief of a 
 Future State on solid and sufficient grounds. Had 
 the doctrine indeed been revealed, the stupendous 
 Miracles, which you most truly affirm to have accom- 
 panied and attested the first promulgation of your 
 Religion, would have supplied the requisite proof. 
 But the doctrine was not revealed ; and your belief of 
 a future state rests on no solid grounds. You believe 
 it (as far as you believe it, and as many of you as 
 profess this belief) without revelation, and without 
 the only proper and sufficient evidence of its truth. 
 Your Religion, therefore, though of divine Origin is, 
 (if taken in disjunction from the new revelation, which 
 I am commissioned to proclaim) but a Religio dimi- 
 diate/,; and the main purpose, the proper character, 
 and the paramount object, of Chrisfs Mission and 
 Miracles, is to supply the missing Half by a clear 
 discovery of a future state ; and (since " he alone dis- 
 covers who proves") by proving the truth of the doc- 
 trine, now for the first time declared with the requisite 
 authority, by the requisite, appropriate, and alone 
 satisfactory evidences.'''' 
 
P.Z9. 
 
 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 But is this the Apostle's answer to the Jewish Op- 
 pugners, and the Judaizing false brethren, of the 
 Church of Christ ? It is not the Answer, it does not 
 resemble the Answer returned by the Apostle. It is 
 neither parallel nor corradial with the line of Argu- 
 ment in either of the two Epistles, or with any one 
 line; but it is a chord that traverses them all, and 
 only touches where it cuts across. In the Epist. to 
 the Hebrews the direct contrary position is repeatedly 
 asserted : and in the Epist. to the Romans it is every 
 where supposed. The death to which the Law sen- 
 tenced all Sinners (and which even the Gentiles with- 
 out the revealed Law had announced to them by their 
 consciences, " the judgement of God having been made 
 known even to them ,v ) must be the same death, from 
 which they were saved by the faith of the Son of God, 
 or the Apostle's reasoning would be senseless, his anti- 
 thesis a mere equivoque, a play on a word, quod idem 
 sonat, aliud vult. Christ " redeemed mankind from 
 the curse of the Law" (Galatians, iii. 11) : and we all 
 know, that it was not from temporal death, or the 
 penalties and afflictions of the present life, that Be- 
 lievers have been redeemed. The Law, of winch the 
 inspired Sage of Tarsus is speaking, from which no 
 man can plead excuse ; the Law miraculously delivered 
 in thunders from Mount Sinai, which was inscribed on 
 tables of stone for the Jews, and written in the hearts of 
 all men (Rom. xi. 15) — the Law " holy and spiritual!' 1 '' 
 what was the great point, of which this Law, in its own 
 name, offered no solution? the mystery, which it left be- 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 353 
 
 hind the veil, or in the cloudy tabernacle of types and 
 figurative sacrifices ? Whether there was a Judgement 
 to come, and Souls to suffer the dread sentence ? Or 
 was it not far rather — what are the Means of escape ? 
 Where may Grace be found, and redemption? St. 
 Paul says, the latter. The Law brings condemnation : 
 but the conscience-sentenced Transgressor's question, 
 What shall I do to be saved ? Who will intercede for 
 me ? she dismisses as beyond the jurisdiction of her 
 Court, and takes no cognizance thereof, save in pro- 
 phetic murmurs or mute out-shado wings of mystic or- 
 dinances and sacrificial types. Not, therefore, that 
 there is a Life to come, and a future state ; but what 
 each individual Soul may hope for itself therein ; and 
 on what grounds ; and that this state has been rendered 
 an object of aspiration and fervent desire, and a source 
 of thanksgiving and exceeding great joy ; and by 
 whom, and through whom, and for whom, and by 
 what means and under what conditions — these are the 
 peculiar and distinguishing fundamentals of the Chris- 
 tian Faith ! These are the revealed Lights and ob- 
 tained Privileges of the Christian Dispensation ! Not 
 alone the knowlege of the Boon, but the precious in- 
 estimable Boon itself, is the " Grace and Truth that 
 came by Jesus Christ! 1 ' I believe Moses, I believe 
 Paul ; but I believe in Christ. 
 
 A A 
 
354 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 APHORISM. LEIGHTON. 
 
 OX BAPTISM. 
 
 " In those days came John the Baptist preaching? 
 •~— It will suffice for our present purpose, if by these * 
 words we direct the attention to the Origin, or at least 
 first Scriptural Record, of Baptism, and to the com- 
 binement of Preaching therewith ; their aspect each 
 to the other, and their concurrence to one excellent 
 end; the Word unfolding the Sacrament, and the 
 Sacrament sealing the Word ; the Word as a Light, 
 informing and clearing the sense of the Seal, and this 
 again, as a Seal, confirming and ratifying the truth of 
 the word: as you see some significant Seals, or en- 
 graven Signets, have a word about them expressing 
 their Sense. 
 
 But truly the Word is a Light and the Sacraments 
 have in them of the same Light illuminating them. 
 This {sacrament) of Baptism, the Ancients do par- 
 ticularly express by Light. Yet are they both nothing 
 
 * By certain biblical Philologists of the Teutonic School (Men 
 distinguished by Learning, but still more characteristically by 
 hardihood in conjecture and who suppose the Gospels to have 
 undergone several successive revisions and enlargements by, 
 or under the authority of, the Sacred Historians) these words 
 are contended to have been, in the first delivery, the common 
 commencement of all the Gospels x«t« e-apxa. (i. e. according to 
 the Flesh,) in distinction from St. John's, or the Gospel x«t« 
 irviv/ua. (i. e. according to the Spirit). Editor. 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 355 
 
 but darkness to us, till the same light shine in our 
 Hearts ; for till then we are nothing but darkness our- 
 selves, and therefore the most luminous things are so 
 to us. Noonday is as midnight to a blind man. And 
 we see these ordinances, the word and the sacrament, 
 without profit or comfort for the most part, because we 
 have not of that Divine Light within us. And we have 
 it not, because we ask it not. 
 
 A born and bred Baptist, and paternally descended 
 from the old orthodox Non-conformists, and both in 
 his own and in his father's right a very dear Friend of 
 mine, had married a Member of the National Church. 
 In consequence of an anxious wish expressed by his 
 Lady for the baptism of their first child, he solicited 
 me to put him in possession of my Views respecting 
 this controversy : though principally as to the degree 
 of importance which I attached to it. For as to the 
 point itself, his natural pre-possession in favor of the 
 Persuasion, in which he was born, had been confirmed 
 by a conscientious examination of the Arguments on 
 both sides. As the Comment on the preceding Apho- 
 rism, or rather as an Expansion of its subject-matter, I 
 will give the substance of the conversation : and amply 
 shall I have been remunerated, should it be read with 
 the interest and satisfaction with which it was heard. 
 More particularly, should any of my Readers find 
 themselves under the same or similar Circumstances. 
 
 a a 2 
 
356 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 COMMENT. 
 
 Or Aid to Reflection in the forming of a sound Judge- 
 ment respecting the purport and purpose of the 
 Baptismal Rite, and a just appreciation of its value 
 and importance. 
 
 Our discussion is rendered shorter and more easy by 
 our perfect agreement in certain preliminary points. 
 We both disclaim alike every attempt to explain any 
 thing into Scripture, and every attempt to explain any 
 thing out of Scripture. Or if we regard either with 
 a livelier aversion, it is the latter as being the more 
 fashionable and prevalent. I mean the practice of 
 both high and low Grotian Divines to explain away 
 positive assertions of Scripture on the pretext, that the 
 literal sense is not agreeable to Reason, that is, their 
 particular Reason. And inasmuch as (in the only 
 right sense of the word) there is no such thing as a 
 particular Reason, they must, and in fact they do, 
 mean, that the literal sense is not accordant to their 
 Understanding, i. e. to the Notions which their Under- 
 standings have been taught and accustomed to form in 
 their school of philosophy. Thus a Platonist, who 
 should become a Christian, would at once, even in 
 texts susceptible of a different interpretation, recognize, 
 because he would expect to find, several doctrines 
 which the disciple of the Epicurean or Mechanic 
 School will not receive on the most positive declarations 
 of the Divine Word. And as we agree in the opinion, 
 that the Minimi-fldian Party (p. 207) err grievously 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 357 
 
 in the latter point, so I must concede to you, that too 
 many Psedo-baptists (Assertors of Infant Baptism) 
 have erred, though less grossly, in the former. I have, 
 I confess, no eye for these smoke-like Wreaths of In- 
 ference, this ever- widening spiral Ergo from the narrow 
 aperture of perhaps a single Text : or rather an inter- 
 pretation forced into it by construing an idiomatic 
 phrase in an artless Narrative with the same absolute- 
 ness, as if it had formed part of a mathematical pro- 
 blem ! I start back from these inverted Pyramids, 
 where the apex is the base ! If I should inform any 
 one that I had called at a friend's house, but had 
 found nobody at home, the Family having all gone to 
 the Play ; and if he, on the strength of this informa- 
 tion, should take occasion to asperse my friend's wife 
 for unmotherly conduct in taking an infant, six months 
 old, to a crowded theatre; would you allow him to 
 press on the words, nobody and all the family, in justi- 
 fication of the slander ? Would you not tell him, that 
 the words were to be interpreted by the nature of the 
 subject, the purpose of the speaker, and their ordinary 
 acceptation ? And that he must or might have known, 
 that Infants of that age would not be admitted into 
 the Theatre ? Exactly so, with regard to the words, 
 " he and all his Household." Had Baptism of In- 
 fants at that early period of the Gospel been a known 
 practice, or had this been previously demonstrated, — 
 then indeed the argument, that in all probability there 
 was one or more infants or young children in so large 
 a family, would be no otherwise objectionable than as 
 
358 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 being superfluous, and a sort of anticlimax in Logic. 
 But if tbe words are cited as the proof, it would be a 
 clear petitio principii, though there had been nothing 
 else against it. But when we turn back to the Scrip- 
 tures preceding the narrative, and find Repentance and 
 Belief demanded as the terms and indispensable Con- 
 ditions of Baptism — then the case above imagined ap- 
 plies in its full force. Equally vain is the pretended 
 analogy from circumcision, which was no sacrament at 
 all ; but the means and mark of national distinction. 
 In the first instance it was, doubtless, a privilege or 
 mark of superior rank conferred on the Descendants of 
 Abraham. In the patriarchal times this rite was con- 
 fined (the first Governments being Theocracies) to the 
 Priesthood, who were set apart to that office from their 
 Birth. At a later period this Token of the premier 
 class was extended to Kings. And thus, when it was 
 re-ordained by Moses for the whole Jewish Nation, it 
 was at the same time said — Ye are all Priests and 
 Kings — Ye are a consecrated People. In addition to 
 this, or rather in aid of this, Circumcision was intended 
 to distinguish the Jews by some indelible sign : and it 
 was no less necessary that Jewish children should be 
 recognizable as Jews, than Jewish Adults — not to men- 
 tion the greater safety of the rite in infancy. Nor was 
 it ever pretended that any Grace was conferred with 
 it, or that the Rite was significant of any inward or 
 spiritual Operation. In short, an unprejudiced and 
 competent Reader need only peruse the first 33 Para- 
 graphs of the 18th Section of Taylor's Liberty of 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 359 
 
 Prophesying; and then compare with these the re- 
 mainder of the Section added by him after the Re- 
 storation : those, namely, in which he attempts to over- 
 throw his own arguments. I had almost said, affects : 
 for such is the feebleness, and so palpable the sophistry, 
 of his Answers, that I find it difficult to imagine, that 
 Taylor himself could have been satisfied with them. 
 The only plausible arguments apply with equal force 
 to Baptist and Paedo-baptist ; and would prove, if 
 they proved any thing, that both were wrong and the 
 Quakers only in the right. 
 
 Now, in the first place, it is obvious, that nothing con- 
 clusive can be drawn from the silence of the New 
 Testament respecting a practice, which, supposing it 
 already in use, must yet from the character of the 
 first Converts, have been of comparatively rare occur- 
 rence; and which from the predominant, and more 
 concerning, Objects and Functions of the Apostolic 
 Writers (1 Corinth, i. 17) was not likely to have been 
 mentioned otherwise than incidentally, and very pro- 
 bably therefore might not have occurred to them to 
 mention at all. But, secondly, admitting that the prac- 
 tice was introduced at a later period than that in which 
 the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles were com- 
 posed : I should yet be fully satisfied, that the Church 
 exercised herein a sound * discretion. On either sup- 
 
 * That every the least permissible form and ordinance, which 
 at different times it might be expedient for the Church to enact, 
 are pre-enacted in the New Testament ; and that whatever is 
 not to be found there, ought to be allowed no where— this has 
 
360 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 position, therefore, it is never without regret that 
 I see a Divine of our Church attempting to erect 
 forts on a position so evidently commanded by the 
 strong-hold of his Antagonists. I dread the use 
 which the Socinians may make of their example, and 
 the Papists of their failure. Let me not, however, 
 deceive you. {The Reader understands, that I sup- 
 pose myself conversing" with a Baptist.) I am of 
 opinion, that the Divines on your side are chargeable 
 with a far more grievous mistake, that of giving a 
 carnal and Judaizing interpretation to the various 
 Gospel Texts in which the terms, baptism and baptize, 
 occur, contrary to the express and earnest admonitions 
 of the Apostle Paul. And this I say without in the 
 least retracting my former concession, that the Texts 
 appealed to, as commanding or authorizing Infant Bap- 
 tism, are all without exception made to bear a sense 
 
 been asserted. But that it has been proved; or even rendered 
 plausible ; or that the Tenet is not to be placed among the re- 
 vulsionary Results of the scripture-slighting Will-worship of 
 the Romish Church ; it will be more sincere to say, I disbelieve, 
 than that I doubt. It was chiefly if not exclusively in reference 
 to the extravagances built on this tenet, that the great Selden 
 ventured to de'clare, that the words, Scrutamini Scripturas, 
 had set the world in an uproar. 
 
 N. B. Extremes appear to generate each other ; but if we 
 look steadily, there will most often be found some common 
 error, that produces both as its Positive and Negative Poles. 
 Thus Superstitions go by Pairs, like the two Hungarian Sisters, 
 always quarreling and inveterately averse, but yet joined at the 
 Trunk. 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 361 
 
 neither contained nor deducible: and likewise that 
 (historically considered) there exists no sufficient posi- 
 tive evidence, that the Baptism of Infants was in- 
 stituted by the Apostles in the practice of the Apo- 
 stolic Age *. 
 
 Lastly, we both co-incide in the full conviction, that 
 it is neither the outward ceremony of Baptism, under 
 any form or circumstance, nor any other ceremony ; 
 but such a faith in Christ as tends to produce a con- 
 formity to his holy doctrines and example in heart and 
 life, and which faith is itself a declared mean and con- 
 dition of our partaking of his spiritual Body, and of 
 being " cloathed upon 11 with his righteousness; that 
 properly makes us Christians, and can alone be en- 
 joined as an Article of Faith necessary to Salvation, 
 
 * More than this we do not consider as necessary for our argu- 
 ment. And as to Robinson's assertions in his History of Baptism, 
 that Infant Baptism did not commence till the time of Cyprian, 
 who condemning it as a general practice, allowed it in par- 
 ticular cases by a dispensation of Charity ; and that it did not 
 actually become the ordinary rule of the Church, till Augustin 
 in the fever of his anti-pelagian Dispute had introduced the Cal- 
 vinistic interpretation of Original Sin, and the dire state of In- 
 fants dying unbaptized — I am so far from acceding to them, 
 that I reject the whole statement as rash, and not only unwar- 
 ranted by the Authorities he cites, but unanswerably confuted 
 by Baxter, Wall, and many other learned Psedo-baptists before 
 and since the publication of his Work. I confine myself to the 
 assertion — not that Infant Baptism was not; but — that there 
 exist no sufficient proofs that it ivas, the practice of the Apostolic 
 Age. 
 
3&Z AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 so that the denial thereof may be denounced as " a 
 damnable heresy. 1 ' In the strictest sense of essential, 
 this alone is the essential in Christianity, that the same 
 spirit should be growing in us which was in the fullness 
 of all perfection in Christ Jesus. Whatever else is 
 named essential is such because, and only as far as, it is 
 instrumental to this or evidently implied herein. If 
 the Baptists hold the visible Rite indispensable to Sal- 
 vation, with what terror must they not regard every 
 disease that befel their children between Youth and 
 Infancy ! But if they are saved by the faith of the 
 Parent, then the outward rite is not essential to Sal- 
 vation, otherwise than as the omission should arise 
 from a spirit of disobedience : and in this case it is the 
 cause, not the effect, the wilful and unbaptized Heart, 
 not the unbaptizing Hand, that perils it. And surely 
 it looks very like an inconsistency to admit the vica- 
 rious faith of the Parents and the therein implied pro- 
 mise, that the child shall be christianly bred up, and 
 as much as in them lies prepared for the communion 
 of saints — to admit this, as safe and sufficient in their 
 own instance, and yet to denounce the same belief and 
 practice as hazardous and unavailing in the Esta- 
 blished Church — the same, I say, essentially, and only 
 differing from their own by the presence of two or three 
 Christian Friends as additional Securities, and by the 
 promise being expressed ! 
 
 But you, my filial Friend ! have studied Christ un- 
 der a better Teacher — the Spirit of Adoption, even 
 the spirit that was in Paul, and which still speaks to 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 363 
 
 us out of his writings. You remember and admire 
 the saying of an old Divine, that a ceremony duly in- 
 stituted was a Chain of Gold around the Neck of 
 Faith ; but if in the wish to make it co-essential and 
 consubstantial, you draw it closer and closer, it may 
 strangle the Faith, it was meant to deck and designate. 
 You are not so unretentive a Scholar as to have for- 
 gotten the " pateris et auro 1 ' of your Virgil : or if you 
 were, you are not so inconsistent a reasoner, as to trans- 
 late the Hebraism, Spirit and Fire, in one place by 
 spiritual fire, and yet refuse to translate Water and 
 Spirit by Spiritual Water in another place : or if, as I 
 myself think, the different position marks a different 
 sense, yet that the former must be ejusdem generis 
 with the latter — the Water of Repentance, reformation 
 in conduct; and the Spirit that which purifies the in- 
 most principle of action, as Fire purges the metal sub- 
 stantially and not cleansing the surface only ! (See 
 Aph. xxiii. p. 15—17.) 
 
 But in this instance, it will be said, the ceremony, 
 the outward and visible sign, is a Scripture Ordinance. 
 I will not reply, that the Romish Priest says the same 
 of the anointing the sick with oil and the imposition of 
 hands. No ! my answer is : that this is a very suffi- 
 cient reason for the continued observance of a ceremo- 
 nial Rite so derived and sanctioned, even though its 
 own beauty, simplicity, and natural significancy had 
 pleaded less strongly in its behalf! But it is no rea- 
 son why the Church should forget, that the perpetua- 
 tion of a thing does not alter the nature of the thing, and 
 
364 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 that a ceremony to be perpetuated is to be perpetuated 
 as a Ceremony. It is no reason why, knowing and 
 experiencing even in the majority of her own Mem- 
 bers the proneness of the human mind to* Supersti- 
 tion, the Church might not rightfully and piously adopt 
 the measures best calculated to check this tendency, 
 and to correct the abuse, to which it had led in any 
 particular Rite. But of superstitious notions respect- 
 ing the baptismal ceremony, and of abuse resulting, 
 the instances were flagrant and notorious. Such, for 
 instance, was the frequent deferring of the baptismal 
 rite to a late period of Life, and even to the death-bed, 
 in the belief that the mystic water would cleanse the 
 baptized person from all sin and (if he died imme- 
 diately after the performance of the ceremony) send 
 him pure and spotless into the other World. 
 
 Nor is this all. The preventive remedy applied by 
 the church is legitimated as well as additionally recom- 
 mended by the following consideration. Where a ce- 
 remony answered and was intended to answer several 
 purposes, which purposes at its first institution were 
 blended in respect of the time, but which afterwards 
 by change of circumstances (as when, for instance, a 
 large and ever-increasing proportion of the members of 
 the Church, or those who at least bore the Christian 
 name, were of Christian Parents) were necessarily dis- 
 
 * Let me be permitted to repeat and apply the Note in page 
 194. Superstition may be defined as (SwpeT-stantium (cujusmodi 
 sunt Caerimoniae et Signa externa quae, nisi in significando, ni- 
 hili sunt et paene nihil) 5W&stantiatio. 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 865 
 
 united — then either the Church has no power or au- 
 thority delegated to her (which is shifting the ground 
 of controversy) — or she must be authorized to choose 
 and determine, to which of the several purposes the 
 ceremony should be attached. Now one of the pur- 
 poses of Baptism was — the making it 'publicly manifest, 
 first, what Individuals were to be regarded by the 
 World {Phil. ii. 15) as belonging to the visible Com- 
 munity of Christians : inasmuch as by their demeanour 
 and apparent condition the general estimation of " the 
 City set on a hill and not to be hid 1 ' {Matth. v. 14) 
 could not but be affected — the City that even " in the 
 midst of a crooked and perverse nation'" was bound 
 not only to give no cause, but by all innocent means to 
 prevent every occasion, of " Rebuke." Secondly, to 
 mark out those that were entitled to that especial 
 Dearness, that watchful and disciplinary Love and 
 Loving-kindness, which over and above the affections 
 and duties of Philanthropy and Universal Charity, 
 Christ himself had enjoined, and with an emphasis and 
 in a form significant of its great and especial importance. 
 A New Commandment I give unto you, that ye love 
 one another. By the former the Body of Christians 
 was to be placed in contrast with the notorious misan- 
 thropy and bigotry of the Jewish Church and People : 
 and thus without draw-back, and precluding the ob- 
 jection so commonly made to Sectarian Benevolence, 
 to be distinguished and known to all men by their 
 fervid fulfilment of the latter. How kind these Chris- 
 
366 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 tians are to the poor and afflicted, without distinction 
 of religion or country ! But how they love each other ! 
 Now combine with this the consideration before 
 urged — the duty, I mean, and necessity of checking 
 the superstitious abuse of the baptismal rite: and I 
 then ask, with confidence, in what way could the 
 Church have exercised a sound discretion more wisely, 
 piously, or effectively, than by affixing, from among 
 the several ends and purposes of Baptism, the outward 
 ceremony to the purposes here mentioned ? How could 
 the great Body of Christians be more plainly instructed 
 as to the true nature of all outward ordinances ? What 
 can be conceived better calculated to prevent the cere- 
 mony from being regarded as other and more than a 
 ceremony, if not the administration of the same on an 
 object, (yea, a dear and precious object) of spiritual 
 duties, but a subject of spiritual operations and graces 
 only by anticipation and in hope ; — a subject, uncon- 
 scious as a Flower of the dew falling on it or the early 
 rain, and thus emblematic of the myriads who (as in our 
 Indian Empire, and henceforward, we trust, in Africa) 
 are temporally and even morally benefited by the out- 
 ward existence of Christianity, though as yet ignorant 
 of its saving truth ! And yet, on the other hand, 
 what more reverential than the application of this, the 
 common initiatory rite of the East sanctioned and ap- 
 propriated by Christ — its application, I say, to the very 
 subjects, whom he himself commanded to be brought 
 to him — the children in arms, respecting whom " Jesus 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 3G7 
 
 was much displeased with his disciples, who had re- 
 buked those that brought them !" What more express- 
 ive of the true character of that originant and generic 
 Stain, from which the Son of God, by his mysterious 
 incarnation and agony and death and resurrection, and 
 by the baptism of the Spirit, came to cleanse the Chil- 
 dren of Adam, than the exhibition of the outward ele- 
 ment to Infants free from and incapable of crime, in 
 whom the evil principle was present only as potential 
 being, and whose outward semblance represented the 
 Kingdom of Heaven? And can it — to a man, who 
 would hold himself deserving of Anathema Maranatha 
 (1 Cor. xvi. 22,) if he did not " love the Lord Jesus" 
 — can it be nothing to such a man, that the intro- 
 duction and commendation of a new Inmate, a new 
 spiritual Ward, to the assembled Brethren in Christ 
 ( — and this, as I have shown above, was one purpose 
 of the baptismal Ceremony) does in the baptism of 
 an Infant recall our Lord's own presentation in the 
 temple on the eighth day after his birth ? Add to all 
 these considerations the known fact of the frequent ex- 
 posure and the general light regard of Infants, at the 
 time when Infant Baptism is by the Baptists supposed 
 to have been first ruled by the Catholic Church, not 
 overlooking the humane and charitable motives, that 
 influenced Cyprian's decision in its favor ! And then 
 make present to your imagination, and meditatively 
 contemplate the still continuing tendency, the profit- 
 able, the beautiful effects, of this ordinance now and 
 for so many centuries back, on the great Mass of the 
 
368 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 Population throughout Christendom — the softening, 
 elevating exercise of Faith and the Conquest over the 
 senses, while in the form of a helpless crying Babe the 
 Presence, and the unutterable Worth and Value, of 
 an Immortal Being made capable of everlasting bliss 
 are solemnly proclaimed and carried home to the mind 
 and heart of the Hearers and Beholders ! Nor will 
 you forget the probable influence on the future Edu- 
 cation of the Child, the opportunity of instructing and 
 impressing the friends,- relatives, and parents in their 
 best and most docile mood I These are, indeed, the 
 mollia temporajundi. 
 
 It is true, that by an unforeseen accident, and through 
 the propensity of all Zealots to caricature partial truth 
 into total falsehood — it is too true, that a Tree the very 
 contrary in quality of that shown to Moses (Exod. xv. 
 25) was afterwards " cast into the sweet waters from 
 this fountain,"" and made them like " the waters of 
 Marah," too bitter to be drunk. I allude to the Pe- 
 lagian Controversy, the perversion of the Article of 
 Original Sin by Augustine, and the frightful conclu- 
 sions which this durus pater infantum drew from the 
 Article thus perverted. It is not, however, to the pre- 
 decessors of this African, whoever they were that au- 
 thorized Paedo-baptism, and at whatever period it first 
 became general — it is not to the Church at the time 
 being, that these consequences are justly imputable. 
 She had done her best to preclude every superstition, 
 by allowing in urgent cases any and every Adult, 
 Man, and Woman, to administer the ceremonial part, 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 369 
 
 the outward rite, of baptism ; but reserving to the 
 highest Functionary of the Church (even to the ex- 
 clusion of the Co-presbyters) the most proper and spi- 
 ritual purpose, viz. the declaration of Repentance and 
 Belief, the free Choice of Christ, as his Lord, and the 
 open profession of the Christian Title by an individual 
 in his own name and by his own deliberate act. The 
 admission, and public reception of the Believer into 
 the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost 
 — this office of Religion, the essentially moral and spi- 
 ritual nature of which could not be mistaken, this most 
 solemn office the Bishop alone was to perform. Thus 
 — as soon as the purposes of the ceremonial Rite were 
 by change of circumstances divided, that is, took place 
 at different periods of the Believer's Life — to the out- 
 ward purposes, where the effect was to be produced 
 on the minds of others, the Church continued to affix 
 the outward rite; while to the substantial and spi- 
 ritual purpose, where the effect was to be produced on 
 the Individual's own mind, she gave its beseeming dig- 
 nity by an ordinance not figurative, but standing in 
 the direct cause and relation of means to the end. 
 
 In fine, there are two great Purposes to be answered, 
 each having its own subordinate purposes, and desira- 
 ble consequences. The Church answers both, the Bap- 
 tists one only. If, nevertheless, you would still prefer 
 the union of the baptismal rite with the Confirmation, 
 and that the Presentation of Infants to the assembled 
 Church had formed a separate institution, avowedly 
 prospective — I answer : first, that such for a long time 
 
 B B 
 
370 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 and to a late period was my own Judgement. But 
 even then it seemed to me a point, as to which an in- 
 difference would be less inconsistent in a lover of Truth, 
 than a zeal to separation in a professed lover of Peace. 
 And secondly, I would revert to the History of the 
 Reformation, and the calamitous accident of the Pea- 
 sants' War : when the poor ignorant multitude, driven 
 frantic by the intolerable oppressions of their feudal 
 Lords, rehearsed all the outrages that were acted in 
 our own times by the Parisian Populace headed by 
 Danton, Marat, and Robespierre ; and on the same 
 outrageous Principles, and in assertion of the same 
 Rights of Brutes to the subversion of all the Duties 
 of Men. In our times, most fortunately for the in- 
 terests of Religion and Morality, or of their prudential 
 Substitutes at least, the Name of Jacobin was every 
 where associated with that of Atheist and Infidel. Or 
 rather, Jacobinism and Infidelity were the two Heads 
 of the Revolutionary Geryon — connatural misgrowths 
 of the same Monster-trunk. In the German Convul- 
 sion, on the contrary, by a mere but most unfortunate 
 accident, the same Code of Caliban Jurisprudence, the 
 same sensual and murderous Excesses, were connected 
 with the name of Anabaptist. The Abolition of Magi- 
 stracy, Community of Goods, the Right of Plunder, 
 Polygamy, and whatever else was fanatical, were com- 
 prised in the word, Anabaptism ! It is not to be ima- 
 gined, that the Fathers of the Reformation could, with- 
 out a miraculous influence, have taken up the question 
 of Infant Baptism with the requisite calmness and 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 871 
 
 freedom of Spirit. It is not to be wished, that they 
 should have entered on the discussion. Nay, I will 
 go farther. Unless the Abolition of Infant Baptism 
 can be shown to be involved in some fundamental 
 article of Faith, unless the Practice could be proved 
 fatal or imminently perilous to Salvation, the Reformers 
 would not have been justified in exposing the yet tender 
 and struggling cause of Protestantism to such certain 
 and violent prejudices as this Innovation would have 
 excited. Nothing less than the whole substance and 
 efficacy of the Gospel Faith was the prize, which they 
 had wrestled for and won ; but won from enemies still 
 in the field, and on the watch to re-take, at all costs, 
 the sacred Treasure, and consign it once again to dark- 
 ness and oblivion. If there be a time for all things, 
 this was not the time for an innovation, that would 
 and must have been followed by the triumph of the 
 enemies of scriptural Christianity, and the alienation of 
 the Governments, that had espoused and protected it. 
 Remember, I say this on the supposition of the ques- 
 tion's not being what you do not pretend it to be, an 
 Essential of the Faith, by which we are saved. But 
 should it likewise be conceded, that it is a disputable 
 point — and that in point of fact it is and has been dis- 
 puted by Divines, whom no pious Protestant of any 
 denomination will deny to have been faithful and emi- 
 nent servants of Christ — should it, I say, be likewise 
 conceded that the question of Infant Baptism is a point, 
 on which two Christians, who perhaps differ on this 
 point only, may differ without giving just ground for 
 
 b b 2 
 
372 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 impeaching the piety or competence of either — in this 
 case I am obliged to infer, that the Person who at any 
 time can regard this difference as singly warranting a 
 separation from a religious Community, must think of 
 Schism under another point of View, than I have been 
 taught to contemplate it by St. Paul in his epistles to 
 the Corinthians. 
 
 Let me add a few words on a diversity of doctrine 
 closely connected with this: the opinions of Doctors 
 Mant and D'Oyley as opposed to those of the (so 
 called) Evangelical Clergy. " The Church of Eng- 
 land (says Wall*) does not require assent and con- 
 
 * Conference between Two Men that had Doubts about In- 
 fant Baptism. By W. Wall, Author of the Hist, of Inf. Bapt. 
 and Vicar of Shoreham in Kent. A very sensible little Tract, 
 and written in an excellent spirit : though it failed, I confess, 
 in satisfying my mind as to the existence of any decisive proofs 
 or documents of Infant Baptism having been an Apostolic Usage, 
 or specially intended in any part of the New Testament : though 
 deducible generally from many passages, and in perfect accord- 
 ing with the spirit of the whole. 
 
 P. S. A mighty Wrestler in the cause of Spiritual Religion and 
 Gospel Morality, in whom more than in any other Contempo- 
 rary I seem to see the Spirit of Luther revived, expressed to me 
 his doubts whether we have a right to deny that an infant is ca- 
 pable of a spiritual influence. To such a man I could not feel 
 justified in returning an answer ex tempore, or without having 
 first submitted my convictions to a fresh revisal. I owe him, 
 however, a deliberate answer ; and take this opportunity of dis- 
 charging the debt. 
 
 The Objection supposes and assumes the very point which is 
 denied, or at least disputed — viz. that Infant-baptism is specially 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 373 
 
 sent" to either opinion " in order to lay communion." 
 But I will suppose the person a Minister; but Minister 
 of a Church which has expressly disclaimed all pretence 
 to infallibility, a Church which in the construction of 
 
 injoined in the Scriptures. If an express passage to this pur- 
 port had existed in the New Testament, the other passages, which 
 evidently imply a spiritual operation under the condition of a pre- 
 ceding spiritual act on the part of the person baptized, remaining 
 as now — then indeed, as the only way of removing the apparent 
 contradiction, it might be allowable to call on the Anti-paedo- 
 baptist to prove the negative — namely, that an Infant a week old 
 is not a Subject capable or susceptible of spiritual agency. — And 
 vice versa, should it be made known to us, that Infants are not 
 without reflection and self-consciousness — then, doubtless, we 
 should be entitled to infer that they were capable of a spiritual 
 operation, and consequently of that which is signified in the bap- 
 tismal rite administered to Adults. But what does this prove for 
 those, who (as DD . Mant and D'Oyley ) not only cannot show, but 
 who do not themselves profess to believe, the self-consciousness 
 of a New-born Babe ; but who rest the defence of Infant-bap- 
 tism on the assertion, that God was pleased to affix the perform- 
 ance of this rite to his offer of Salvation, as the indispensable, 
 though arbitrary, condition of the Infant's salvability? — As 
 Kings in former ages, when they conferred Lands in perpetuity, 
 would sometimes, as the condition of the Tenure, exact from 
 the Beneficiary a hawk, or some trifling ceremony, as the putting 
 on or off of their Sandals, or whatever else royal caprice or the 
 whim of the moment might suggest. But you, honored Irving, 
 are as little disposed, as myself, to favor such doctrine ! 
 
 Friend pure of heart and fervent ! we have learnt 
 A different lore ! We may not thus profane 
 The Idea and Name of Him whose absolute Will 
 Is Reason — Truth Supreme ! — Essential Order ! 
 
374 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 its liturgy and articles is known to have worded certain 
 passages for the purpose of rendering them subscrib- 
 able by both A and Z — i. e. the opposite parties as to 
 the points in controversy. I suppose this person's con- 
 victions those of Z, and that out of five passages there 
 are three, the more natural and obvious sense of which 
 is in his favor ; and two, of which though not abso- 
 lutely precluding- a different sense, yet the more pro- 
 bable interpretation is in favor of A i. e. of those who 
 do not consider the Baptism of an Infant as prospective, 
 but hold it to be an Opus Operans et in prcesenti. 
 Then I say, that if such a person regards these two 
 sentences or single passages as obliging or warranting 
 him to abandon the Flock entrusted to his charge, and 
 either to join such, as are the avowed Enemies of the 
 Church on the double ground of its particular Con- 
 stitution and of its being an Establishment, or to set 
 up a separate Church for himself — I cannot avoid the 
 conclusion, that either his Conscience is morbidly sensi- 
 tive in one speck to the exhaustion of the sensibility 
 in a far larger portion ; or that he must have discovered 
 some mode, beyond the reach of my conjectural powers, 
 of interpreting the scriptures enumerated in the follow- 
 ing Excerpt from the popular Tract before cited, in 
 which the writer expresses an opinion, to which I assent 
 with my whole heart : viz. 
 
 " That all Christians in the world that hold the 
 same fundamentals ought to make one church, though 
 differing in lesser opinions ; and that the sin, the mis- 
 chief, and danger to the souls of men, that divide into 
 
APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 375 
 
 those many sects and parties among us, does (for the 
 most of them) consist not so much in the opinions 
 themselves, as in their dividing and separating for 
 them. And in support of this tenet, I will refer 
 you to some plain places of Scripture, which if 
 you please now to peruse, I will be silent the while. 
 See what our Saviour himself says, John x. 16. John 
 xvi. 11. And what the primitive Christians prac- 
 tised, Acts ii. 46, and iv. 82. And what St. Paul says, 
 1 Cor. i. 10, 11, 12, and 2, 3, 4, also the whole 12th 
 chapter: Eph. ii. 18, &c. to the end. Where the Jew- 
 ish and Gentile Christians are showed to be one body, 
 one household, one temple fitly framed together : and 
 yet these were of different opinions in several matters. 
 Likewise chap. iii. 6, iv. 1. to 13, Phil. ii. 1, 2. where 
 he uses the most solemn adjurations to this purpose. 
 But I would more especially recommend to you the 
 reading of Gal. v. 20, 21, Phil. iii. 15, 16. The 14th 
 chapter to the Romans, and part of the 15th, to ver. 7, 
 and also Rom. xv. 17. 
 
 Are not these passages plain, full, and earnest ? Do 
 you find any of the controverted points to be deter- 
 mined by scripture in words nigh so plain or pathetic ? 
 
 Marginal Note written {in 1816) by the Editor in his own Copy 
 of Wall's work. 
 
 This and the two following pages are excellent. If I ad- 
 dressed the ministers recently seceded, I would first prove from 
 Scripture and Reason the justness of their doctrines concerning 
 Baptism and Conversion. 2. I would show, that even in respect 
 
376 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 of the Prayer-book, Homilies, &c. of the Church of England, 
 taken as a whole, their opponents were comparatively as ill off as 
 themselves, if not worse. 3. That the few mistakes or incon- 
 venient phrases of the Baptismal Service did not impose on the 
 conscience the necessity of resigning the pastoral office. 4. That 
 even if they did, this would by no means justify schism from 
 Lay-membership : or else there could be no schism except from 
 an immaculate and infallible Church. Now, as our Articles have 
 declared that no Church is or ever was such, it would follow 
 that there is no such sin as that of Schism — i. e. that St. Paul 
 wrote falsely or idly. 5. That the Escape through the Channel 
 of Dissent is from the Frying Pan to the Fire — or to use a less 
 worn and vulgar simile, the Escape of a Leech from a glass-jar 
 of Water into the naked and open Air. But never, never, would 
 I in one breath allow my Church to be fallible, and in the next 
 contend for her absolute freedom from all error — never confine 
 inspiration and perfect truth to the Scriptures, and then scold 
 for the perfect Truth of each and every word in the Prayer- 
 book. Enough for me, if in my Heart of Hearts, free from all 
 fear of man and all lust of preferment, I believe (as I do) the 
 Church of England to be the most Apostolic Church ; that its 
 doctrines and ceremonies contain nothing dangerous to Righte- 
 ousness or Salvation ; and that the imperfections in its Liturgy 
 are spots indeed, but spots on the sun, which impede neither its 
 Light nor its Heat, so as to prevent the good seed from growing 
 in a good soil and producing fruits of Redemption. 
 
 *** The author had written and intended to insert a similar 
 exposition on the Eucharist. But as the leading view has been 
 given in the Comment on Redemption, its length induces him to 
 defer it, together with the articles on Faith and the philosophy 
 of Prayer, to a small supplementary Volume. 
 
CONCLUSION. 377 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 I am not so ignorant of the temper and tendency of 
 the age in which I live, as either to be unprepared for 
 the sort of remarks which the literal interpretation of 
 the Evangelist will call forth, or to attempt an answer 
 to them. Visionary Ravings, Obsolete Whimsies, 
 Transcendental Trash, &c. &c. I leave to pass at the 
 price current, among those who are willing to receive 
 abusive phrases as substitutes for argument. Should 
 any Suborner of anonymous Criticism have engaged 
 some literary Bravo or Buffoon beforehand, to vilify 
 this work, as in former instances, I would give a friendly 
 hint to the operative Critic that he may compile an 
 excellent article for the occasion, and with very little 
 trouble, out of Warburton's Brochure on Grace and 
 the Spirit, and the Preface to the same. — There is, 
 however, one — objection, shall I say ? or accusation ? 
 which will so often be heard from men, whose talents 
 and reputed moderation must give a weight to their 
 words, that I owe it both to my own character and to 
 the interests of my readers, not to leave it unnoticed. 
 The charge will probably be worded in this way : — 
 There is nothing new in all this ! (as if novelty were 
 any merit in questions of Revealed Religion!) It is 
 Mysticism, all taken out of William Law, after he 
 had lost his senses, poor Man ! in brooding over the 
 Visions of a delirious German Cobbler, Jacob Behmen. 
 
 Of poor Jacob Behmen I have delivered my senti- 
 
378 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 ments at large in another work. Those who have con- 
 descended to look into his writings must know, that 
 his characteristic errors are: first, the mistaking the 
 accidents and peculiarities of his own over-wrought 
 mind for realities and modes of thinking common to 
 all minds : and secondly, the confusion of Nature, i. e. 
 the active powers communicated to matter, with God, 
 the Creator. And if the same persons have done more 
 than merely looked into the present volume, they must 
 have seen, that to eradicate, and, if possible, to pre- 
 clude, both the one and the other stands prominent 
 among its avowed objects. (See p. 139 — 149: 170 
 —176). 
 
 Of William Law's Works I am acquainted with the 
 Serious Call; and besides this I remember to have 
 re.ad a small tract, on Prayer, if I mistake not, as I 
 easily may, it being at least six-and-twenty years since 
 I saw it. He may in this or in other tracts have quoted 
 the same passages from the fourth Gospel as I have 
 done. But surely this affords no presumption that my 
 conclusions are the same with his ; still less, that they 
 are drawn from the same premises ; and least of all, 
 that they were adopted from his Writings. Whether 
 Law has used the phrase, assimilation by faith, I know 
 not; but I know that I should expose myself to a just 
 charge of an idle parade of my Reading if I recapi- 
 tulated the tenth part of the Authors Ancient and 
 Modern, Romish and Reformed, from Law to Clemens 
 Alexandrinus and Irenaeus, in whose works the same 
 phrase occurs in the same sense. And after all, on 
 
CONCLUSION. 379 
 
 such a subject how worse than childish is the whole 
 dispute ! 
 
 Is the fourth Gospel authentic ? And is the inter- 
 pretation, I have given, true or false ? These are the 
 only questions which a wise man would put, or a 
 Christian be anxious to answer. I not only believe it 
 to be the true sense of the texts ; but I assert that it is 
 the only true, rational, and even tolerable sense. And 
 this position alone I conceive myself interested in de- 
 fending. I have studied with an open and fearless 
 spirit the attempts of sundry learned Critics of the 
 Continent, to invalidate the authenticity of this Gospel, 
 before and since Eichhorn's Vindication. The result 
 has been a clearer assurance, and (as far as this was 
 possible) a yet deeper conviction of the genuineness of 
 all the writings, which the Church has attributed to 
 this Apostle. That those, who have formed an oppo- 
 site conclusion, should object to the use of expressions 
 which they had ranked among the most obvious marks 
 of spuriousness, follows as a matter of course. But 
 that men, who with a clear and cloudless assent re- 
 ceive the sixth chapter of this Gospel as a faithful, 
 nay, inspired Record of an actual discourse, should 
 take offence at the repetition of words which the Re- 
 deemer himself, in the perfect foreknowlege that they 
 would confirm the disbelieving, alienate the un steadfast, 
 and transcend the present capacity even of his own 
 Elect, had chosen as the most appropriate ; and which 
 after the most decisive proofs, that they were misin- 
 terpreted by the greater number of his Hearers, and 
 
380 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 not understood by any, he nevertheless repeated with 
 stronger emphasis and without comment, as the only 
 appropriate symbols of the great truth he was de- 
 claring, and to realize which eyevsro va^;* — that in 
 their own discourses these men should hang: back from 
 all express reference to these words, as if they were 
 afraid or ashamed of them, though the earliest recorded 
 ceremonies and liturgical forms of the primitive Church 
 are absolutely inexplicable,- except in connexion with 
 this discourse, and with the mysterious and spiritual, 
 not allegorical and merely ethical, import of the same ; 
 and though this import is solemnly and in the most 
 unequivocal terms asserted and taught by their own 
 Church, even in her Catechism, or compendium of 
 doctrines necessary for all her Members ; this I may, 
 perhaps, understand ; but this I am not able to vin- 
 dicate or excuse ! 
 
 There is, however, one opprobrious phrase which 
 
 * Of which our he was made Jlesh, is perhaps the best, that 
 our language admits, but is still an inadequate translation. See 
 the Note to p. 16 of this Volume. The Church of England in 
 this as in other doctrinal points, has preserved the golden mean 
 between the superstitious reverence of the Romanists, and the 
 avowed contempt of the Sectarians, for the Writings of the 
 Fathers, and the authority and unimpeached traditions of the 
 Church during the first three or four Centuries. And how, 
 consistently with this honorable characteristic of our Church, a 
 Minister of the same could, on the sacramentary scheme now in 
 fashion, return even a plausible answer to Arnauld's great Work 
 on Transubstantiation, (not. without reason the Boast of Catho- 
 licism) exceeds my powers of conjecture ! 
 
CONCLUSION. 381 
 
 it may be profitable for my younger Readers that I 
 should explain, viz. Mysticism. And for this purpose 
 I will quote a sentence or two from a Dialogue which, 
 had my prescribed limits permitted, I should have at- 
 tached to the present Work ; but which with an Essay 
 on the Church, as instituted by Christ, and as an 
 Establishment of the State, and a series of Letters on 
 the right and the superstitious use and estimation of 
 the Bible, will appear in a small volume by themselves, 
 should the reception given to the present volume en- 
 courage or permit the publication. 
 
 MYSTICS AND MYSTICISM. 
 
 " Antinous. — What do you call Mysticism ? And 
 do you use the word in a good or in a bad sense ?" 
 
 " Nous. — In the latter only : as far, at least, as we 
 are now concerned with it. When a Man refers to 
 inward feelings and experiences, of which Mankind at 
 large are not conscious, as evidences of the truth of 
 any opinion — such a Man I call a Mystic : and the 
 grounding of any theory or belief on accidents and 
 anomalies of individual sensations or fancies, and the 
 use of peculiar terms invented or perverted from their 
 ordinary significations, for the purpose of expressing 
 these idiosyncracies, and pretended facts of interior 
 consciousness, I name Mysticism. Where the error 
 consists simply in the Mystic's attaching to these ano- 
 malies of his individual temperament the character of 
 Reality, and in receiving them as permanent Truths, 
 having a subsistence in the Divine Mind, though re- 
 
382 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 vealed to himself alone ; but entertains this persuasion 
 without demanding or expecting the same faith in his 
 neighbours — I should regard it as a species of en- 
 thusiasm, always indeed to be deprecated but yet 
 capable of co-existing with many excellent qualities 
 both of Head and Heart. But when the Mystic 
 by ambition or still meaner passions, or (as some- 
 times is the case) by an uneasy and self-doubting 
 state of mind that seeks confirmation in outward sym- 
 pathy, is led to impose his faith, as a duty, on man- 
 kind generally : and when with such views he asserts, 
 that the same experiences would be vouchsafed, the 
 same truths revealed, to every man but for his secret 
 wickedness and unholy will — such a Mystic is a Fa- 
 natic, and in certain states of the public mind a dan- 
 gerous Member of Society. And most so in those ages 
 and countries in which Fanatics of elder standing are 
 allowed to persecute the fresh competitor. For under 
 these predicaments, Mysticism, though originating in 
 the singularities of an individual Nature, and therefore 
 essentially anomalous, is nevertheless highly contagious. 
 It is apt to collect a swarm and cluster circumjana, 
 around the new Fane : and therefore merits the name 
 of Fanaticism, or as the Germans say, Schwarmerey, 
 i. e. Swarm-making.'''' 
 
 We will return to the harmless species — the enthu- 
 siastic Mystics: a species that may again be subdi- 
 vided into two ranks. And it will not be other than 
 germane to the subject, if I endeavour to describe them 
 
CONCLUSION. 383 
 
 in a sort of allegory, or parable. Let us imagine a 
 poor Pilgrim benighted in a wilderness or desart, and 
 pursuing his way in the starless dark with a lanthorn 
 in his hand. Chance or his happy genius leads him 
 to an Oasis or natural Garden, such as in the creations 
 of my youthful fancy I supposed Enos * the Child of 
 Cain to have found. And here, hungry and thirsty, 
 the way-wearied Man rests at a fountain; and the 
 
 * Will the Reader forgive me if I attempt at once to illustrate 
 and relieve the subject by annexing the first stanza of the Poem, 
 composed in the same year in which I wrote the Ancient Ma- 
 riner and the first Book of Christabel ? 
 
 " Encinctur'd with a twine of Leaves, 
 That leafy twine his only Dress ! 
 A lovely Boy was plucking fruits 
 In a moonlight wilderness. 
 The Moon was bright, the air was free, 
 And Fruits and Flowers together grew 
 On many a Shrub and many a Tree : 
 And all put on a gentle hue, 
 Hanging in the shadowy air 
 Like a Picture rich and rare. 
 It was a Climate where, they say, 
 The Night is more beloved than Day. 
 But who that beauteous Boy beguil'd, 
 That beauteous Boy ! to linger here ? 
 Alone, by night, a little child, 
 In place so silent and so wild — 
 Has he no friend, no loving mother near ?" 
 
 Wanderings of Cain, a MS. Poem. 
 
381« AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 Taper of his Lanthorn throws its Light on an over- 
 shadowing Tree, a Boss of snow-white Blossoms, 
 through which the green and growing Fruits peeped, 
 and the ripe golden Fruitage glowed. Deep, vivid, 
 and faithful are the impressions, which the lovely 
 Imagery comprised within the scanty Circle of Light, 
 makes and leaves on his Memory ! But scarcely has he 
 eaten of the fruits and drank of the fountain, ere scared 
 by the roar and howl from the desart he hurries for- 
 ward : and as he passes with hasty steps through grove 
 and glade, shadows and imperfect beholdings and vivid 
 fragments of things distinctly seen blend with the past 
 and present shapings of his Brain. Fancy modifies 
 Sight. His Dreams transfer their forms to real Ob- 
 jects; and these lend a substance and an outness to 
 his Dreams. Apparitions greet him ; and when at a 
 distance from this enchanted land, and on a different 
 track, the Dawn of Day discloses to him a Caravan, a 
 troop of his fellow-men, his memory, which is itself 
 half fancy, is interpolated afresh by every attempt to 
 recall, connect, and piece out his recollections. His nar- 
 ration is received as a Madman's Tale. He shrinks 
 from the rude Laugh and contemptuous Sneer, and 
 retires into himself. Yet the craving for Sympathy, 
 strong in proportion to the intensity of his Convictions, 
 impels him to unbosom himself to abstract Auditors ; 
 and the poor Quietist becomes a Penman, and, all too 
 poorly stocked for the Writer's trade, he borrows his 
 phrases and figures from the only Writings to which 
 
CONCLUSION. 385 
 
 he has had access, the sacred Books of his Religion. 
 And thus I shadow out the enthusiast Mystic of the 
 first sort ; at the head of which stands the illuminated 
 Teutonic Thelosopher and Shoemaker, honest Jacob 
 Behmen, born near Gorlitz, in Upper Lusatia, in the 
 17th of our Elizabeth's Reign, and who died in the 
 22d of her Successor's. 
 
 To delineate a Mystic of the second and higher 
 order, we need only endow our Pilgrim with equal 
 gifts of Nature, but these developed and displayed by 
 all the aids and arts of Education and favorable For- 
 tune. He is on his way to the Mecca of his ancestral 
 and national Faith, with a well-guarded and numerous 
 Procession of Merchants and Fellow-pilgrims, on the 
 established Track. At the close of Day the Caravan 
 has halted : the full moon rises on the Desart : and he 
 strays forth alone, out of sight, but to no unsafe 
 distance ; and Chance leads Mm too to the same Oasis 
 or Islet of Verdure on the Sea of Sand. He wanders 
 at leisure in its maze of Beauty and Sweetness, and 
 thrids his way through the odorous and flowering 
 Thickets into open " Spots of Greenery, 1 " and dis- 
 covers statues and memorial characters, grottos, and 
 refreshing Caves. But the Moonshine, the imagina- 
 tive Poesy of Nature, spreads its soft shadowy charm 
 over all, conceals distances, and magnifies heights, and 
 modifies relations ; and fills up vacuities with its own 
 whiteness, counterfeiting substance; and where the 
 dense shadows lie, makes solidity imitate Hollowness ; 
 and gives to all objects a tender visionary hue and 
 
 c c 
 
386 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 softening. Interpret the Moonlight and the Shadows 
 as the peculiar genius and sensibility of the Individual's 
 own Spirit : and here you have the other sort : a Mystic, 
 an Enthusiast of a nobler Breed — a Fenelon. But 
 the residentiary, or the frequent visitor of the favored 
 spot, who has scanned its beauties by steady Day-light, 
 and mastered its true proportions and lineaments, he 
 will discover that both Pilgrims have indeed been 
 there! He will know, that the delightful Dream, 
 which the latter tells, is a Dream of Truth ; and that 
 even in the bewildered Tale of the former there is 
 Truth mingled with the Dream. 
 
 But the Source, the Spring-head, of the Charges 
 which I anticipate, lies deep. Materialism, conscious 
 and avowed Materialism, is in ill-repute : and a con- 
 fessed Materialist therefore a rare character. But if 
 the faith be ascertained by the fruits; if the predo- 
 minant, though most often unsuspected, persuasion is 
 to be learnt from the influences, under which the 
 thoughts and affections of the Man move and take 
 their direction; I must reverse the position. Only 
 not all are Materialists. Except a few indi- 
 viduals, and those for the most part of a single Sect : 
 and every one, who calls himself a Christian, holds 
 himself to have a Soul as well as a Body. He distin- 
 guishes Mind from Matter, the Subject of his con- 
 sciousness from the Objects of the same. The former 
 is his Mind : and he says, it is immaterial. But though 
 Subject and Substance are words of kindred roots, nay, 
 little less than equivalent terms, yet nevertheless it is 
 
CONCLUSION. 387 
 
 exclusively to sensible Objects, to Bodies, to modi- 
 fications of Matter, that he habitually attaches the at- 
 tributes of reality, of substance. Real and Tangible, 
 Substantial and Material, are Synonimes for him. He 
 never indeed asks himself, what he means by Mind ? 
 But if he did, and tasked himself to return an honest 
 answer — as to what, at least, he had hitherto meant by 
 it — he would find, that he had described it by nega- 
 tives, as the opposite of Bodies, ex. gr. as a somewhat 
 opposed to solidity, to visibility, &c. as if you could 
 abstract the capacity of a vessel, and conceive of it as a 
 somewhat by itself, and then give to the emptiness the 
 properties of containing, holding, being entered, and 
 so forth. In short, though the proposition would per- 
 haps be angrily denied in words, yet in fact he thinks 
 of his Mind, as a property, or accident of a something 
 else, that he calls a Soul or Spirit: though the very 
 same difficulties must recur, the moment he should at- 
 tempt to establish the difference. For either this Soul 
 or Spirit is nothing but a thinner Body, a finer Mass 
 of Matter : or the attribute of Self-subsistency vanishes 
 from the Soul on the same grounds, on which it is re- 
 fused to the Mind. 
 
 I am persuaded, however, that the dogmatism of 
 the Corpuscular School, though it still exerts an influ- 
 ence on men's notions and phrases, has received a 
 mortal blow from the increasingly dynamic spirit of 
 the physical Sciences now highest in public estimation. 
 And it may safely be predicted, that the results will 
 extend beyond the intention of those, who are gradu- 
 
 cc 2 
 
388 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 ally effecting this revolution. It is not Chemistry alone 
 that will be indebted to the Genius of Davy, Oersted, 
 and their compeers : and not as the Founder of Phy- 
 siology and philosophic Anatomy alone, will Mankind 
 love and revere the name of John Hunter. These 
 men have not only taught, they have compelled us 
 to admit, that the immediate objects of our senses, 
 or rather the grounds of the visibility and tangi- 
 bility of all Objects of Sense, bear the same relation 
 and similar proportion to the intelligible object — 
 i. e. to the Object, which we actually mean when we 
 say, " It is such or such a thing,"" or " I have seen this 
 or that,""— as the paper, ink, and differently combined 
 straight and curved lines of an Edition of Homer bear 
 to what we understand by the words, Iliad and Odyssey. 
 Nay, nothing would be more easy than so to construct 
 the paper, ink, painted Capitals, &c. of a printed dis- 
 quisition on the Eye, or the Muscles and Cellular 
 Texture (i. e. the Flesh) of the human Body, as to 
 bring together every one of the sensible and ponderable 
 Stuffs or Elements, that are sensuously perceived in the 
 Eye itself, or in the Flesh itself. Carbon and Nitro- 
 gen, Oxygen and Hydrogen, Sulphur, Phosphorus, 
 and one or two Metals and Metallic Bases, constitute 
 the whole. It cannot be these, therefore, that we mean 
 by an Eye, by our Body. But perhaps it may be a 
 particular Combination of these? But here comes a 
 question : In this term do you or do you not include 
 the Principle, the Operating Cause, of the Combina- 
 tion ? If not, then detach this Eye from the Body ! 
 
CONCLUSION. 389 
 
 Look steadily at it — as it might lie on the Marble Slab 
 of a dissecting Room. Say it were the Eye of a Mur- 
 derer, a Bellingham : or the eye of a murdered Patriot, 
 a Sidney ! — Behold it, handle it, with its various ac- 
 companiments or constituent parts, of Tendon, Liga- 
 ment, Membrane, Blood-vessel, Gland, Humors; its 
 Nerves of Sense, of Sensation, and of Motion. Alas ! 
 all these names, like that of the Organ itself, are so 
 many Anachronisms, figures of Speech, to express that 
 which has been : as when the Guide points with his 
 finger to a heap of Stones, and tells the Traveller, 
 " That is Babylon, or Persepolis." — Is this cold Jelly 
 " the Light of the Body ?" Is this the Micranthropos 
 in the marvellous Microcosm ? Is this what you mean 
 when you well define the Eye as the Telescope and the 
 Mirror of the Soul, the Seat and Agent of an almost 
 magical power ? 
 
 Pursue the same inquisition with every other part 
 of the Body, whether integral or simply ingredient; 
 and let a Berzelius or a Hatchett be your interpreter, 
 and demonstrate to you what it is that in each actually 
 meets your Senses. And when you have heard the 
 scanty catalogue, ask yourself if these are indeed the 
 living Flesh, the Blood of Life ? Or not far rather — 
 I speak of what, as a Man of Common Sense, you 
 really do, not what, as a philosopher, you ought to 
 believe — is it not, I say, far rather the distinct and 
 individualized Agency that by the given combinations 
 utters and bespeaks its Presence ? Justly and with 
 strictest propriety of language may I say, Speaks. 
 
390 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 It is to the coarseness of our Senses, or rather to the 
 defect and limitation of our percipient faculty, that 
 the visible Object appears the same even for a moment. 
 The characters, which I am now shaping on this paper, 
 abide. Not only the forms remain the same, but the 
 particles of the coloring stuff are fixed, and, for an 
 indefinite period at least, remain the same. But the 
 particles that constitute the size, the visibility of an 
 organic structure (see p. 68) are in perpetual flux. 
 They are to the combining and constitutive Power as 
 the pulses of air to the Voice of a Discourser ; or of 
 one who sings a roundelay. The same words may be 
 repeated; but in each second of time the articulated air 
 hath passed away, and each act of articulation appro- 
 priates and gives momentary form to a new and other 
 portion. As the column of blue smoke from a cottage 
 chimney in the breathless Summer Noon, or the sted- 
 fast^seeming Cloud on the edge-point of a Hill in the 
 driving air-current, which momently condensed and 
 reeomposed is the common phantom of a thousand 
 successors ; — such is the flesh, which our bodily eyes 
 transmit to us ; which our Palates taste ; which our 
 Hands touch. 
 
 But perhaps the material particles possess this com- 
 bining power by inherent reciprocal attractions, repul- 
 sions, and elective affinities; and are themselves the 
 joint Artists of their own combinations ? I will not 
 reply, though well I might, that this would be to solve 
 one problem by another, and merely to shift the mys- 
 tery. It will be sufficient to remind the thoughtful 
 
CONCLUSION. 391 
 
 Querist, that even herein consists the essential differ- 
 ence, the contra-distinction, of an Organ from a Ma- 
 chine ; that not only the characteristic Shape is evolved 
 from the invisible central power, but the material Mass 
 itself is acquired by assimilation. The germinal power 
 of the Plant transmutes the fixed air and the elementary 
 Base of Water into Grass or Leaves; and on these the 
 Organific Principle in the Ox or the Elephant exer- 
 cises an Alchemy still more stupendous. As the unseen 
 Agency weaves its magic eddies, the foliage becomes 
 indifferently the Bone and its Marrow, the pulpy 
 Brain, or the solid Ivory. That what you see is blood, 
 is flesh, is itself the work, or shall I say, the translu- 
 cence, of the invisible Energy, which soon surrenders 
 or abandons them to inferior Powers, (for there is no 
 pause nor chasm in the activities of Nature) which 
 repeat a similar metamorphosis according to their kind. 
 These are not fancies, conjectures, or even hypotheses, 
 hut facts ; to deny which is impossible, not to reflect 
 on which is ignominious. And we need only reflect 
 on them with a calm and silent spirit to learn the 
 utter emptiness and unmeaningness of the vaunted 
 Mechanico-corpuscular Philosophy, with both its twins, 
 Materialism on the one hand, and Idealism, rightlier 
 named Subjective Idolism, on the other : the one ob- 
 truding on us a World of Spectres and Apparitions ; 
 the other a mazy Dream ! 
 
 Let the Mechanic or corpuscular Scheme, which in 
 its absoluteness and strict consistency was first intro- 
 
392 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 duced by Des Cartes, be judged by the results. By 
 its fruits shall it be known. 
 
 In order to submit the various phaenomena of moving- 
 bodies to geometrical construction, we are under the 
 necessity of abstracting from corporeal substance all 
 its positive properties, and obliged to consider Bodies 
 as differing from equal portions of Space* only by 
 
 * Such is the conception of Body in Des Cartes' own system. 
 Body is everywhere confounded with Matter, and might in the 
 Cartesian sense he defined, Space or Extension with the attri- 
 bute of Visibility. As Des Cartes at the same time zealously 
 asserted the existence of intelligential Beings, the reality and 
 independent Self-subsistence of the Soul, Berkleianism or Spi- 
 nosism was the immediate and necessary Consequence. Assume 
 a plurality of self-subsisting Souls, and we have Berkleianism ; 
 assume one only, (unam et unicam Substantiam), and you have 
 Spinosism, i. e. the Assertion of one infinite Self-subsistent, with 
 the two Attributes of Thinking and Appearing. "Cogitatio 
 infinita sine ceutro, et omniformis Apparitio.'' How far the 
 Newtonian Vis inertiae (interpreted any otherwise than as an 
 arbitrary term=x y z, to represent the unknown but necessary 
 supplement or integration of the Cartesian Notion of Body) has 
 patched up the Flaw, I leave for more competent Judges to 
 decide. But should any one of my Readers feel an interest in 
 the speculative principles of Natural Philosophy, and should be 
 master of the German Language, I warmly recommend for his 
 perusal the earliest known publication of the Great Founder of 
 the Critical Philosophy, (written in the twenty-second Year of 
 his Age !) on the then eager controversy between the Leibnitzian 
 and the French and English Mathematicians, respecting the 
 Living Forces — " Gedanken von der wahren Schatzung der le- 
 bendigen Krafte: 1747" — in which Kant demonstrates the right 
 
CONCLUSION. 393 
 
 figure and mobility. And as a Fiction of Science, 
 it would be difficult to overvalue this invention. It 
 possesses the same merits in relation to Geometry that 
 the atomic theory has in relation to Algebraic Calculus. 
 But in contempt of Common Sense, and in direct 
 opposition to the express declarations of the inspired 
 Historian (Genesis I.), and to the tone and spirit of 
 the Scriptures throughout, Des Cartes propounded it 
 as truth of fact : and instead of a World created and 
 filled with productive forces by the Almighty Fiat, left 
 a lifeless Machine whirled about by the dust of its own 
 Grinding : as if Death could come from the living Foun- 
 tain of Life ; Nothingness and Phantom from the Pleni- 
 tude of Reality ! the Absoluteness of Creative Will ! 
 
 Holy ! Holy ! Holy ! let me be deemed mad by all 
 men, if such be thy ordinance : but, O ! from such 
 Madness save and preserve me, my God ! 
 
 When, however, after a short interval, the Genius 
 
 reasoning to be with the latter; but the Truth of Fact, the evi- 
 dence of experience, with the former ; and gives the explanation, 
 namely : Body, or Corporeal Nature, is something else and more 
 than geometrical extension, even with the addition of a Vis 
 inertiae. And Leibnitz, with the Bernouillis, erred in the attempt 
 to demonstrate geometrically a problem not susceptible of geo- 
 metrical construction. — This Tract, with the succeeding Him- 
 mels-system, may with propriety be placed, after the Principia 
 of Newton, among the striking instances of early Genius; and 
 as the first product of the Dynamic Philosophy in the Physical 
 Sciences, from the time, at least, of Giordano Bruno, whom the 
 Idolaters burnt for an Atheist, at Rome, in the year 1600. — 
 See the Fiuend, Vol. I. p. 193 — 197. 
 
394 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 of Kepler, expanded and organized in the soul of 
 Newton, and there (if I may hazard so bold an ex- 
 pression) refining itself into an almost celestial Clear- 
 ness, had expelled the Cartesian Vortices * ; then the 
 necessity of an active power, of positive forces present 
 in the Material Universe, forced itself on the convic- 
 tion. For as a Law without a Law-giver is a mere 
 abstraction ; so a Law without an Agent to realize it, 
 a Constitution without an abiding Executive, is, in fact, 
 not a Law but an Idea ! In the profound Emblem of 
 the Great Tragic Poet, it is the powerless Prometheus 
 fixed on a barren Rock. And what was the result ? 
 How was this necessity provided for ? God himself 
 — my hand trembles as I write ! Rather, then, let me 
 employ the word, which the religious Feeling, in its 
 perplexity, suggested as the substitute — the Deity 
 itself was declared to be the real Agent, the actual 
 
 * For Newton's own doubtfully suggested Ether, or most sub- 
 tle Fluid, as the ground and immediate Agent in the pheno- 
 mena of universal Gravitation, was either not adopted or soon 
 abandoned by his Disciples ; not only as introducing, against 
 his own Canons of Right Reasoning, an Ens imaginarium into 
 physical Science, a SuSfiction in the place of a legitimate Sup- 
 position ; but because the Substance (assuming it to exist) must 
 itself form part of the Problem, it was meant to solve. Mean- 
 time Leibnitz's Pre-established Harmony, which originated in 
 Spinosa, found no acceptance ; and, lastly, the Notion of a cor- 
 puscular Substance, with Properties put into it, like a Pin- 
 cushion hidden by the Pins, could pass with the unthinking only 
 for any thing more than a Confession of ignorance, or technical 
 terms expressing an hiatus of scientific insight. 
 
CONCLUSION. 395 
 
 Gravitating Power ! The Law and the Law-giver 
 were identified. God (says Dr. Priestley) not only 
 does, but is every thing. Jupiter est quodcunque vides. 
 And thus a system, which commenced by excluding 
 all life and immanent activity from the visible Universe 
 and evacuating the natural World of all Nature, ended 
 by substituting the Deity, and reducing the Creator 
 to a mere Anima Mundi : a scheme that has no 
 advantage over Spinosism but its inconsistency, which 
 does indeed make it suit a certain Order of Intel- 
 lects, who, like the Pleuronectae (or Flat Fish) in Ich- 
 thyology that have both eyes on the same side, never 
 see but half of a subject at one time, and forgetting 
 the one before they get to the other are sure not to 
 detect any inconsistency between them. 
 
 And what has been the consequence ? An increasing 
 unwillingness to contemplate the Supreme Being in his 
 personal Attributes : and thence a Distaste to all the 
 peculiar Doctrines of the Christian Faith, the Trinity, 
 the Incarnation of the Son of God, and Redemption. 
 The young and ardent, ever too apt to mistake the 
 inward triumph in the detection of error for a positive 
 love of truth, are among the first and most frequent vic- 
 tims to this eipidemicfastidium. Alas ! even the sincerest 
 seekers after light are not safe from the contagion. 
 Some have I known, constitutionally religious — I speak 
 feelingly ; for I speak of that which for a brief period 
 was my own state — who under this unhealthful influ- 
 ence have been so estranged from the Heavenly Father, 
 the Living God, as even to shrink from the personal 
 
396 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 pronouns as applied to the Deity. But many do I 
 know, and yearly meet with, in whom a false and 
 sickly Taste co-operates with the prevailing fashion: 
 many, who find the God of Abraham, Isaac, and 
 Jacob, far too real, too substantial ; who feel it more 
 in harmony with their indefinite sensations 
 
 " To worship Nature in the hill and valley, 
 Not knowing what they love: — " 
 
 and (to use the language, but not the sense or purpose, 
 of the great Poet of our Age) would fain substitute 
 for the Jehovah of their Bible 
 
 "A sense sublime 
 Of something far more deeply interfused, 
 Whose dwelling is the Light of setting suns, 
 And the round Ocean and the living Air ; 
 A Motion and a Spirit, that impels 
 All thinking things, all objects of all thought, 
 And rolls through all things ! " 
 
 WoKDSWOKTH. 
 
 And this from having been educated to understand the 
 Divine Omnipresence in any sense rather than the 
 alone safe and legitimate one, the presence of all things 
 to God! 
 
 Be it, however, that the number of such men is 
 comparatively small ! And be it (as in fact it often is) 
 but a brief stage, a transitional state, in the process of 
 intellectual Growth ! Yet among a numerous and 
 increasing class of the higher and middle Ranks, there 
 
CONCLUSION. 397 
 
 is an inward withdrawing from the Life and Personal 
 Being of God, a turning of the Thoughts exclusively 
 to the so called physical Attributes, to the Omnipresence 
 in the counterfeit form of Ubiquity, to the Immensity, 
 the Infinity, the Immutability! — the attributes of Space 
 with a notion of Power as their Substratum ! — a Fate, 
 in short, not a Moral Creator and Governor ! Let 
 intelligence be imagined, and wherein does the concep- 
 tion of God differ essentially from that of Gravitation 
 (conceived as the Cause of Gravity) in the understand- 
 ing of those, who represent the Deity not only as a 
 necessary but as a necessitated Being? those, for whom 
 Justice is but a scheme of General Laws ; and Holi- 
 ness, and the divine Hatred of Sin, yea and Sin itself, 
 are words without meaning or accommodations to a 
 rude and barbarous race ! Hence, I more than fear, 
 the prevailing taste for Books of Natural Theology, 
 Physico-theology, Demonstrations of God from Nature, 
 Evidences of Christianity, &c. &c. Evidences of Chris- 
 tianity ! I am weary of the Word. Make a man feel 
 the want of it ; rouse him, if you can, to the self-know- 
 ledge of his need of it ; and you may safely trust it to 
 its own Evidence, — remembering only the express de- 
 claration of Christ himself: No man cometh to me, 
 unless the Father leadeth him ! Whatever more is 
 desirable — I speak now with reference to Christians 
 generally, and not to profest Students of Theology 
 — may, in my judgment, be far more safely and profit- 
 ably taught, without controversy or the supposition 
 
AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 of infidel antagonists, in the form of Ecclesiastical 
 History. 
 
 The last fruit of the Mechanico-corpuscular Philo- 
 sophy, say rather of the mode and direction of feel- 
 ing and thinking produced by it on the educated class 
 of society ; or that result, which as more immediately 
 connected with my present theme I have reserved for 
 the last — is the habit of attaching all our conceptions 
 and feelings, and of applying all the words and phrases 
 expressing reality, to the objects of the Senses; more 
 accurately speaking, to the images and sensations by 
 which their presence is made known to us. Now I do 
 not hesitate to assert, that it was one of the great pur- 
 poses of Christianity, and included in the process 
 of our Redemption, to rouse and emancipate the Soul 
 from this debasing Slavery to the outward Senses, 
 to awaken the mind to the true Criteria of Reality, 
 viz. Permanence, Power, Will manifested in Act, and 
 Truth operating as Life. " My words,' 1 said Christ, 
 " are Spirit ; and they (i. e. the spiritual powers ex- 
 pressed by them) are Truth ; " — i. e. very Being. 
 For this end our Lord, who came from Heaven to 
 " take Captivity captive," chose the words and names, 
 that designate the familiar yet most important Objects 
 of Sense, the nearest and most concerning Things 
 and Incidents of corporeal nature: — Water, Flesh, 
 Blood, Birth, Bread ! But he used them in senses, 
 that could not without absurdity be supposed to 
 respect the mere phenomena, Water, Flesh, &c, 
 
CONCLUSION. 399 
 
 in senses that by no possibility could apply to the 
 color, figure, specific mode of Touch or Taste pro- 
 duced on ourselves, and by which we are made aware 
 of the presence of the Things, and understand them 
 — Res, quae sub apparitionibus istis statuenda sunt. 
 And this awful Recalling of the drowsed soul from 
 the dreams and phantom- world of sensuality to actual 
 Reality, — how has it been evaded ! These words, that 
 were Spirit ! these Mysteries, which even the Apostles 
 must wait for the Paraclete, (i. e. the Helper, the 
 Strengthener) in order to comprehend! these spiritual 
 things which can only be spiritually discerned, — were 
 mere Metaphors, Figures of Speech, Oriental Hyper- 
 boles. "All this means only Morality!" Ah! how 
 far nearer to the truth would these men have been, 
 had they said that Morality means all this ! 
 
 The effect, however, has been most injurious to the 
 best interests of our Universities, to our incomparably 
 constituted Church, and even to our National Character. 
 The few who have read my two Lay-Sermons are no 
 strangers to my opinions on this head ; and in my 
 Treatise on the Church and Churches, I shall, if 
 Providence vouchsafe, submit them to the Public, 
 with their grounds and historic evidences in a more 
 systematic form. 
 
 I have, I am aware, in this present work furnished 
 occasion for a charge of having expressed myself with 
 slight and irreverence of celebrated Names, especially 
 of the late Dr. Paley. O, if I were fond and ambitious 
 of literary Honor, of public Applause, how well content 
 
400 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 should I be to excite but one third of the admiration 
 which, in my inmost Being, I feel for the head and 
 heart of Paley ! And how gladly would I sur- 
 render all hope of contemporary praise, could I even 
 approach to the incomparable grace, propriety, and 
 persuasive facility of his writings ! But on this very 
 account I believed myself bound in conscience to throw 
 the whole force of my intellect in the way of this 
 triumphal Car, on which the tutelary Genius of 
 modern Idolatry is borne, even at the risk of being 
 crushed under the wheels ! I have at this moment 
 before my eyes the 343d — 344th pages of his Post- 
 humous Discourses: the amount of which is briefly 
 this, — that all the words and passages in the New 
 Testament which express and contain the peculiar 
 doctrines of Christianity, the paramount objects of 
 the Christian Revelation, "all those which speak so 
 strongly of the value, benefit, and efficacy, of the 
 Death of Christ," assuredly mean something; but what 
 they mean, nobody, it seems, can tell ! But doubtless 
 we shall discover it, and be convinced that there is a 
 substantial sense belonging to these words — in a future 
 state ! Is there an enigma, or an absurdity, in the 
 Koran or the Vedas which might not be defended on 
 the same pretence ? A similar impression, I confess, 
 was left on my mind by Dr. Magee's statement or 
 exposition (ad normam Grotianam) of the doctrine 
 of Redemption ; and deeply did it disappoint the high 
 expectations, sadly did it chill the fervid sympathy, 
 which his introductory chapter, his manly and masterly 
 
CONCLUSION. 401 
 
 disquisition on the sacrificial rites of Paganism, had 
 raised in my mind. 
 
 And yet I cannot read the pages of Paley, here 
 referred to, aloud, without the liveliest sense : how 
 plausible and popular they will sound to the great 
 majority of Readers ! Thousands of sober, and in their 
 way pious, Christians, will echo the words, together 
 with Magee's kindred interpretation of the Death of 
 Christ, and adopt the doctrine for their Make-faith ! 
 And why ? It is feeble. And whatever is feeble is 
 always plausible : for it favours mental indolence. It is 
 feeble : and feebleness in the disguise of confessing and 
 condescending Strength is always popular. It flatters 
 the Reader, by removing the apprehended distance 
 between him and the superior Author; and it flat- 
 ters him still more by enabling him to transfer to him- 
 self, and to appropriate, this superiority: and thus to 
 make his very weakness the mark and evidence of his 
 strength. Ay, quoth the rational Christian — or with 
 a sighing, self-soothing sound between an Ay and an 
 Ah! — /am content to think, with the Great Dr. Paley, 
 and the learned Archbishop of Dublin 
 
 Man of Sense ! Dr. Paley was a great Man, and 
 Dr. Magee is a learned and exemplary Prelate ; but 
 You do not think at all ! 
 
 With regard to the convictions avowed and enforced 
 in my own work, I will continue my address to the 
 Man of Sense in the words of an old Philosopher : — 
 "Tu vero crassis auribus et obstinato corde respuis 
 quae forsitan vere perhibeantur. Minus hercule calles, 
 
 D D 
 
402 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 pravissimis opkrionibus ea putari mendacia, quce vel 
 auditu nova, vel visu rudia, vel eerie supra captum 
 cogitationis extemporanecE tuce ardua videantur : quae 
 si paulo accuratius exploraris, non modo compertu 
 evidentia, sed etiam factu facilia, senties." Apul : 1. 1. 
 
 S. T. COLERIDGE. 
 
403 
 
 In compliance with the suggestion of a judicious 
 friend, the celebrated conclusion of the fourth Book 
 of Paley's Moral and Political Philosophy, cited in 
 p. 336 of this Volume, is here transprinted for the 
 convenience of the Reader : — 
 
 " Had Jesus Christ delivered no other declaration 
 than the following — 'The hour is coming, in the 
 which all that are in the grave shall hear his voice, 
 and shall come forth : they that have done good, unto 
 the resurrection of life ; and they that have done evil, 
 unto the resurrection of damnation ; ? — he had pro- 
 nounced a message of inestimable importance, and 
 well worthy of that splendid apparatus of prophecy 
 and miracles with which his mission was introduced, 
 and attested : a message in which the wisest of man- 
 kind would rejoice to find an answer to their doubts, 
 and rest to their inquiries. It is idle to say, that a 
 future state had been discovered already : — it had been 
 discovered as the Copernican System was ; — it was one 
 guess among many. He alone discovers, who proves; 
 and no man can prove this point, but the teacher 
 who testifies by miracles that his doctrine comes from 
 God." 
 
 Paedianus says of Virgil, — " Usque aded expers in- 
 vidiam, ut siquid erudite dictum inspiceret alterius, non 
 minus gauderet ac si suum esset. 1 ' My own heart 
 assures me, that this is less than the truth : that Virgil 
 
404 
 
 would have read a beautiful passage in the work of 
 another with a higher and purer delight than in a 
 work of his own, because free from the apprehension 
 of his judgment being warped by self-love, and without 
 that repressive modesty akin to shame, which in a deli- 
 cate mind holds in check a man's own secret thoughts 
 and feelings, when they respect himself. The cordial 
 admiration with which I peruse the preceding passage 
 as a master-piece of' Composition would, could I con- 
 vey it, serve as a measure of the vital importance I 
 attach to the convictions which impelled me to animad- 
 vert on the same passage as doctrine. 
 
 S. T. C. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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