i'S.iEl'^ AIDS TO REFLECTION, FORMATION OF A MANLY CHARACTER, ON THE SEVERAL GROUNDS OF PRUDENCE, MORALITY, AND RELIGION: ILLUSTRATED BY SELECT PASSAGES FROM OUR ELPER DIVINES, ESPECIALLY FROM ARCHBISHOP LEIGHTON. BY SfT. COLERIDGE. FIRST AMERICAN, FROM THE FIRST LONDON EDITION ; WITH AN APPENDIX, AND ILLUSTRATIONS FROM OTHER WORKS OF THE SAME AUTHOR ; TOGETHER WITH A PRELIMINARY ESSAY, AND ADDITIONAL NOTES, BY JAMES ^ARSH, < PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVBilSITT OF VERMONT. BURLINGTON: CHAUNCEY GOODRICH. MDCCCXXIX. >^^ ^•f^^ "^^^^> DISTRICT OF VERMONT, TO WIT: "M^^^^ BE it remembered, that on the twenty-seventh day of Oc- ^]^a^ W ^®^^^^» "^ ^^® fifty-fourth year of the Independence of the ffi^^^J^ United States of America, Chauncey Goodrich, of the *^*^"^^^said District, hath deposited in this office, the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as proprietor, in the words following, to wit : " Jlids to Refteciiorif in the formation oj a manly character^ on the several grounds of prudence, morality, and Religion ; illustrated by select passages from the elder Divines, especially from Archbishop Leighton. By S. T. Cole- ridge. First American, from the first London edition ; loith an Appendix and Illustrations from other Works of the same Author ; together with a Prelimina- ry Essay, and Additional Notes. By James Marsh, President of the Uni- versity of Vermont.^ In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States, entitled " An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books,, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned." JESSE GOVE, Clerk of the District of Verinont. A true Copy of Record. Examined and sealed by me. J.GOVE, aerk. Chauncey Goodrich, Printer, Burlington, Vt. CONTENTS PAGE. Advertisement by the American Editor v Preliminary Essay vii Advertisement by the Author Iv Preface Ivii Introductory Aphorisms 1 Prudential Aphorisms . 17 Reflections respecting Morality 31 Moral and Religious Aphorisms ...... 37 Elements of Religious Philosophy, preliminary to the Apho- risms on Spiritual Religion 85 Aphorisms on Spiritual Religion . ^ .... 95 Aphorisms on that which is indeed Spiritual Religion . . 103 Notes 251 Appendix . . ' 343 TuvTu h NOMOGETH^ Nor:^ dia6iniio&eTii raig \p}>xaig. h Si v:rodii- a^iEiog avra Jori2 MO^ , di>cagtjg ayponvog lavrov yirirui, TTrj 7i«o»,?>;r ; n S'tQt^ix ; xai tr rcx^ti T»;r urvjir,v ava?Mii iSavojv ap«T»;c irsxa uraivQon' [avxor avy- g Toig nQoy.tiutvoig oooig dniftiqevaavTa, rt\g -^tiag tv(fQoat/i-t]g roig xapnoig avudet. nuoa utXog ds rt Trnucavra (fwQuaag vMnio riai (fuouaxoig raig tx rr,g fitravotag vov6trr]asan' tnigvcptt. Hierocles, as quoted by Renatus FaUinns in notes on Boethius. Neque esse mens divina sine ratione potest, nee ratio divina non hanc viin in rectis pravisque sanciendis habere. ^^ Erat enim ratio profecta a rerum natura, et ad recte faciendum impellens, et a delicto avocans ; quae non turn denique incipit lex esse, cum scripta est, sed turn cum orta est. Orta autem simul est cum mente divina. Cicero de LegihuSy Lib. ii. c. 4. Hardly do we guess aright at things that are upon earth, and with la- bour do we find the things that are at hand ; but the things that are in heaven who hath searched out ? And thy counsel who hath known, except thou give wisdom, and send thy holy spirit fi'ora above ? For so the ways of them which hved on the earth were reformed, and men were taught the things that are pleasing unto thee, and were saved through wisdom. Wisdom of Solomon, ix. 16, 17. 18, ADVERTISEMENT. In republishing the « Aids to Reflection," I have aimed to adapt it, as far as possible, to the circumstances, in which it will be placed, and to the wishes of those readers who will bo most likely to seek instruction from the work. As the philosophical views of the author, and what are con- sidered his pecuharities of thought and language, are less known, and his other writings less accessible here, than in the community for which he wi'ote, I supposed it might increase the usefulness of an edition for the American public to connect with it such extracts from his other works, as would serve to explain his language, and render more intelhgible the es- sential principles of his system. Passages selected for this purpose will be found attached to many of the author's notes, as well as to other notes which have been added. These constitute the principal addition to this part of the volume, though a few - extracts are inserted in note 59 from Henry More's Philosophical Works. I have thrown in occasional re- marks of my own, and in a few instances have hazarded my thoughts more at large. Notes merely explanatory could not be multiplied without compromising my respect for the understanding either of the author or of the reader. I am persuaded, moreover, that if parts of the work are found difficult to understand, a little reflection will show the difficulty to be in- herent in the subject, and such as could not be removed by multiplying il- lustrations. No language and no illustration can help the reader to under- stand himself without the labour of serious and persevering reflection. I have endeavoured to furnish, however, that sort of help, which I thought would be most effectual with regard to the views of the author, by giving references, in the notes on important topics, to all the parts of the work, where the same topic is treated of. The notes for obvious reasons are thrown together after the text of the work, and the additions which have been made in this edition are so designated, as to distinguish them from the original notes of the author. An Appendix is added consisting of matter which it was thought would serve the same purpose of illustration with the notes, and otherwise increase the usefulness of the volume. The Preliminary Essay, which I have prefixed, must be allowed for the most part to speak for itself. The views which it exhibits will be found, I believe, as far as they go, nearly coincident with the system of the author, as my chief purpose in writing it has been to draw attention to the au- VI AIDS TO REFLECTION. tlior's work. I have aimed especially, botli in this and in the notes, to awaken the mhids of thinking men to certain great^nd all-important dis- tinctions of a philosophical nature, which the author has exhibited, as it seems to me with convincing clearness, both in this and in his other works, I might perhaps have left others to make tlie application of the doctrines taught in the work to the opinions and discussions now prevailing among ourselves, had I not believed the apphcation would be more likely than any thing else to arouse attention to the doctrines themselves. If in ma-, king it I shall be thought to have spoken too freely, I hope at least to have the credit of honest intentions, and of being uninfluenced by aiiy con- siderations of a personal nature. For the manner in which the text of the work was made up the rea- der must of course be referred to the author's advertisement. I have mentioned it for the purpose of adding, that however disconnected and miscellaneous it may at first appear, it will be found on perusal to con- tain a connected train of discussions, and to be strictly methodical in its an-angement. I cannot but add a request, that the author's pre- face may receive a far more attentive perusal, than prefaces are generally favoured with. The whole work will be found partly philosophical and partly rehgious, or rather both combined in one, and that upon a princi- ple and in a maimer, I trust, which botli reason aud rehgion will approve. "Naturam hominis banc Deus ipse voluit,' ut duarum reinim cupidus et appetens esset — religionis et sapientise. Sed homines ideo falluntur, quod aut rehgionem suscipiunt omissa sapientia ; aut sapientise soli stu- dent omissa religione, cum alterum sine altero esse non possit verum." Lactantius de Falsa Sapientia, Lib. III. B. 11. The whole is committed to tlie candour of the Christian public with the hope and prayer, that it may promote among us the interests, which cannot be long separated from each other, of sound philosophy and of true rehgion. JAMES MARSH. University of Fcrmontf JVov. IGth, 1829. PRELIMINARY ESSAY Whether the present state of religious feeling, and the prevailing topics of theological enquiry among us, are particu- larly favourable to the success of the work herewith offered to the public, can be determined only by the result. The ques- tion, however, has not been left unconsidered ; and however that may be, it is not a work, whose value depends essentially upon its relation to the passing controversies of the day. Un- less I distrust my own feelings and convictions altogether, I must suppose, that for some, I hope for many, minds, it will have a deep and enduring interest. Of those classes, for whose use it is more especially designated in the author's preface, I trust there are many also in this country, who will justly appreciate the objects at which it aims, and avail them- selves of its instruction and assistance. I could wish it might be received, by all who concern themselves in religious inqui- ries and instruction especially, in the spirit, which seems to me to have animated its great and admirable author ; and I hesitate not to say, that to all of every class, who shall so re- ceive it, and peruse it with the attention and thoughtfulness, which it demands and deserves, it will be found by experi- ence to furnish what its title imports, " Aids to Reflection" on subjects, upon which every man is bound to reflect deeply and in earnest. What the specific objects of the work are, and for whom it is written, may be learned in few words from the preface of the author. From this too, it will be seen to be professedly didactic. It is designed to aid those, who v/ish for instruction, or assistance in the instruction of others. The plan and com- Vlll AIDS TC REFLECTION. position of the work will to most readers probably appear somewhat anomalous; but reflection upon the nature of the objects aimed at, and some little experience of its results, may convince them, that the method adopted is not without its ad- vantages. It is important to observe, that it is designed, as its general characteristic, to aid reflection, and for the most part upon subjects, which can be learned and understood only bj the exercise of reflection in the strict and proper sense of that term. It was not so much to teach a speculative system of doctrines built upon established premises, for which a dif- ferent method would have been obviously preferable, as to turn the mind continually back upon the premises themselves — upon the inherent grounds of truth and error in its own being. The only way, in which it is possible for any one to learn the science of words, which is one of the objects to be sought in the present work, and the true import of those words espe- cially, which most concern us as rational and accountable be- ings, is by reflecting upon, and bringing forth into distinct con- sciousness, those mental acts, which the words are intended to designate. We must discover and distinctly apprehend different meanings, before we can appropriate to each a several word, or understand the words so appropriated by others. Now it is not too much to say, that most men, and even a large proportion of educated men, do not reflect sufficiently upon their own inward being, upon the constituent laws of their own understanding, upon the mysterious powers and agencies of reason,' and conscience, and will, to apprehend with much distinctness the objects to be named, or of course to refer the names with correctness to their several objects. Hence the necessity of associating the study of words with the study of morals and religion ; and that is the most effectual method of instruction, which enables the teachei most especially to fix the attention upon a definite meaning, that is, in these studies, upon a particular act, or process, or law of the mind — to call it into distinct consciousness, and assign to it its proper name, so that the name shall thenceforth have for the learner a distinct, definite, and intelligible sense. To impress upon the reader PRELIMINARY ESSAY. *^ the importance of this, and to exemplify it in the particular subjects taken up in the work, is a leading aim of the author throughout; and it is obviously the only possible way by which we can arrive at any satisfactory and conclusive results on sub- jects of philosophy, morals, and rehgion. The first principles, the ultimate grounds of these, so far as they are possible objects of knowledge for us, must be sought and found in the laws of our being, or they are not found at all. The knowledge of these terminates in the knowledge of ourselves, of our ration- al and personal being, of our proper and distinctive humanity, and of that Divine Being, in whose image we are created. "We must retire inwaid,'^ says St. Bernard, "if we would as- cend upward.'' It is by self-inspection, by reflecting upon the mysterious grounds of our own being, alone, that we can ar- rive at any rational knowledge of the central and absolute ground of all being. It is by this only, that we can discover that principle of unity and consistency, which reason instinct- ively seeks after, which shall reduce to a harmonious system all our views of truth and of being, and destitute of which all the knowledge, that comes to us from without, is fragmentary, and in its relation to our highest interests as rational beings, but the patch- work of vanity. Now, of necessity, the only method, by which another can aid our efforts in the work of reflection, is by first reflecting himself, and so pointing out the process and marking the re- sult by words, that we can repeat it, and try the conclusions by our own consciousness. If he have reflected aright, if he have excluded all causes of self-deception, and directed his thoughts by those principles of truth and reason, and by those laws of the understanding, which belong in common to all men, his conclusions must be true for all. We have only to repeat the process, impartially to reflect ourselves, unbiassed by received opinions, and undeceived by the idols of our own understandings, and we shall find the same tiuths in the depths of our own self-consciousness. I am persuaded that such for the most part, will be found to be the case with regard to the principles developed in the present work, and that those, who. X AIDS TO REFLECTION. with serious reflection and an unbiassed love of truth, will re- fer them to the laws of thought in their own minds, to the re- quirements of their own reason, will find there a witness to their truth. Viewing the work in this manner, therefore, as an instruc- tive and safe guide to the knowledge of what it concerns all men to know, I cannot but consider it in itself, as a work of great and permanent value to any christian community. What- ever indeed tends to awaken and cherish the power, and to form the habit, of reflection upon the great constituent piin- ciples of our own permanent being and proper humanity, and upon the abiding laws of truth and duty, as revealed in our reason and conscience, cannot but promote our highest inter- ests as moral and rational beings. Even if the particular con- clusions, to which the author has arrived, should prove erro- neous, the evil is comparatively of little importance, if he have at the same time communicated to our minds such pow- ers of thought, as will enable us to detect his errors, and attain by our own efforts to a more perfect knowledge of the truth. fThat some of his views may not be erroneous, or that they are to be received on his authority, the author, I presume, would be the last to affirm ; and although in the nature of the case it was impossible for him to aid reflection without antici- pating and in some measure influencing the results, yet the primary tendency and design of the work is, not to establish this or that system, but to cultivate in every mind the power and the will to seek earnestly and steadfastly for the truth in the only direction, in which it can ever be found. The work is no farther controversial, than every work must be, " that is writ with freedom and reason" upon subjects of the same kind ; and if it be found at variance with existing opinions and modes of philosophizing, it is not necessarily to be considered the fault of the writer. In republishing the work in this country, I could wish that it might be received by all, for whose instruction it was de- signed, simply as a didactic work, on its own merits, and with- out controversy. I must not, however, be supposed ignorant PRELIMINART ESSAY. ^* of its bearing upon those questions, which have so often been, and still are, the prevailing topics of theological controversy among us. It was indeed incumbent on me, before inviting the attention of the religious community to the work, to con- sider its relation to existing opinions, and its probable influence on the progress of truth. This I have done with as severe thought as I am capable of bestowing upon any subject, and I trust too with no want of deference and conscientious regard to the feelings and opinions of others. I have not attempted to disguise from myself, nor do I wish to disguise from the readers of the work, the inconsistency of some of its leading principles with much that is taught and received in our theo- logical circles. Should it gain much of the public attention in any way, it will become, as it ought to do, an object of special and deep interest to all, who would contend for the truth, and labour to establish it upon a permanent basis. I venture to assure such, even those of them who are most capable of comprehending the philosophical grounds of truth in our spec- ulative systems of theology, that in its relation to this whole subject they will find it to be a work of great depth and pow- er, and whether right or wrong, eminently deserving of their attention. It is not to be supposed, that all who read, or even all who comprehend it, will be convinced of the sound- ness of its views, or be prepared to abandon those, which they have long considered essential to the truth. To those, whose understandings by long habit have become hmited in their powers of apprehension, and as it were identified with certain schemes of doctrine, certain modes of contemplating all that pertains to religious truth, it may appear novel, strange, and unintelligible, or even dangerous in its tendency, and be to them an occasion of off'ence. But I have no fear, that any earnest and single-hearted lover of the truth as it is in Jesus, who will free his mind from the idols of preconceived opinion, and give himself time and opportunity to understand the work by such reflection as the nature of the subject renders una- voidable, will find in it any cause of off'ence, or any source of alarm. If the work become the occasion of controversy at all, Xll AIDS TO REFLECTION. I should expect it from those, who, instead of reflecting deep- ly upon the first principles of truth in their own reason and conscience and in the word of God, are more accustomed to speculate — that is, from premises given or assumed, but consid- ered unquestionable, as the constituted point of observation, to look abroad upon the whole field of their intellectual vis- ions, and thence to decide upon the true form and dimensions of all which meets their view. To such I would say with de- ference, that the merits of this work cannot be determined by the merely relative aspect of its doctrines, as seen from the high ground of any prevailing metaphysical or theological sys- tem. Those on the contrary who will seek to comprehend it by reflection, to learn the true meaning of the whole and of all its parts, by retiring into their own minds and finding there the true point of observation for each, will not be in haste to question the truth or the tendency of its principles. I make these remarks, because I am anxious, as far as may be, to an- ticipate the causeless fears of all, who earnestly pray and la- bour for the promotion of the truth, and to preclude that un- profitable controversy, that might arise from hasty or prejudi- ced views of a work like this. At the same time I should be far from deprecating any discussion, which might tend to un- fold more fully the principles, which it teaches, or to exhibit more distinctly its true bearing upon the interests of theolo- gical science and of spiritual religion. It is to promote this object, indeed, that I am induced in the remarks which follow to offer some of my own thoughts on these subjects, imperfect I am well aware, and such as, for that reason, as well as others, worldly prudence might require me to suppress. If, how^ever, I may induce reflecting men, and those who are engaged in theological enquiries especially, to indulge a suspicion, that all truth, which it is important for them to know", is not contained in the systems of doctrine usually taught, and that this work may he worthy of their serious and reflecting perusal, my chief object will be accomplished. I shall of course not need to an- ticipate in detail the contents of the work itself, but shall aim simply to point out what I consider its distinguishing and es- PRELIMINARY ESSAY. XIU sential character and tendency, and then direct the attention of ray readers to some of those general feelings and views on the subject of religious truth, and of those particulars in the prevailing philosophy of the age, which seem to me to be ex- erting an injurious influence on the cause of theological sci- ence and of spiritual religion, and not only to furnish a fit oc- casion, but to create an imperious demand, for a work like that which is here offered to the public. In regard then to the distinguishing character and tendency of the work itself, it has already been stated to be didactic, and designed to aid reflection on the principles and grounds of truth in our own being; but, in another point of view, and with reference to my present object, it might rather be denom- inated A PHILOSOPHICAL STATEMENT AND VINDICATION OF THE DISTINCTIVELY SPIRITUAL AND PECULIAR DOCTRINES OF THE CHRISTIAN SYSTEM. In Order to understand more clearly the import of this statement and the relation of the author's views to those exhibited in other systems, the reader is requested to examine in the first place, what he considers the peculiar doctrines of Christianity^ and what he means by the terms spirit and spiritual. A synoptical view of what he considers peculiar to Christianity as a revelation is given on pp. 127 — 128, and, if I mistake not, will be found essentially to co- incide, though not perhaps in the language employed, with what among us are termed the evangelical doctrines of reli- gion. Those who are anxious to examine farther into the orthodoxy of the work in connexion with this statement, may consult the articles on original sin and redemption beginning at pp. 159 and 187, though I must forewarn them, that it will require much study in connexion with the other parts of the work, before one unaccustomed to the author's language and unacquainted with his views, can fully appreciate the merit of what may be peculiar in his mode of treating those subjects. With regard to the term spiritual^ it may be sufficient to re- mark here, that he regards it as having a specific import, and maintains that in the sense of the N. T. spiritual and natural are contradistinguished, so that what is spiritual is different XIV AIDS TO REFLECTIOlf. in kind from that which is natural, and is in fact super 'Xiaimai. So, too, while morality is something more than prudence, re- ligion, the spiritual life, is something more than morality. For his views at large, the reader may recur to note 29, and the references there made. In vindicating the peculiar doctrines of the christian system so stated, and a faith in the reality of agencies and modes of being essentially spiritual or supernatural, he aims to show their consistency with reason and with the true principles of philosophy, and that indeed, so far from being irrational, chris- tian FAITH IS THE PERFECTION OF HUMAN REASON. By re- flection upon the subjective grounds of knowledge and faith in the human mind itself, and by an analysis of its faculties, he developes the distinguishing characteristics and necessary relations of the natural and the spiritual in our modes of being and knowing, and the all-important fact, that although the for- mer does not comprehend the latter, yet neither does it pre- clude its existence. He proves, that " the scheme of Chris- tianity, though not discoverable by reason, is yet in accordance with it — that link follows link by necessary consequence — that religion passes out of the ken of reason only where the eye of reason has reached its own horizon — and that faith is then but its continuation." Instead of adopting, like the popular metaphysicians of the day, a system of philosophy at war with religion, and which tends inevitably to undermine our belief in the reality of any thing spiritual in the only proper sense of that word, and then coldly and ambiguously referring us for the support of our faith to the authority of revelation, he boldly asserts the reality of something distinctively spiritual in man, and the futility of all those modes of philosophizing, in which this is not recognized, or which are incompatible with it. He considers it the highest and most rational purpose of any system of philosophy, at least of one professing to be christian, to investigate those higher and peculiar attributes, which distinguish us from the brutes that perish — which are the image of God in us, and constitute our proper humanity. It is in his view the proper business and the duty of the Chris- PRELIMINARY ESSAY. XV tian philosopher to remove all appearance of contradiction be- tween the several manifestations of the one Divine Word, to reconcile reason with revelation, and thus to justify the ways of God to man. The methods by which he accomplishes this, either in regard to the terms in which he enunciates the great doctrines of the gospel, or the peculiar views of philosophy, by which he reconciles them with the subjective grounds of faith in the universal reason of man, need not be stated here. I will merely observe, that the key to his system will be found in the distinctions, which he makes and illustrates between nature and free-will, and between the understanding and rea- son. For the first of these distinctions the reader may con- sult note 29, and for the other, pp. 135—154, and note 59. It may meet the prejudices of some to remark farther, that in philosophizing on the grounds of our faith he does not profess or aim to solve all mysteries, and to bring all truth within the comprehension of the understanding. A truth may be mysterious, and the primary ground of all truth and reality must be so. But though we may believe what " passeth all understanding,^^ we cannot believe what is absurd, or contra- dictory to reason. Whether the work be well executed, according to the idea of it, as now given, or whether the author have accomplished his purpose, must be determined by those who aie capable of judging, when they shall have examined and reflected upon the whole as it deserves. The inquiry which I have now to propose to my readers is, whether the idea itself be a rational one, and whether the purpose of the author be one, which a wise man and a christian ought to aim at, or which in the pre- sent state of our religious interests, and of our theological sci- ence specially needs to be accomplished. No one, who has had occasion to observe the general feel- ings and views of our religious community for a few years past, can be ignorant, that a strong prejudice exists against the introduction of philosophy, in any form, in the discussion of theological subjects. The terms philosophy and metaphysics, even reaswi and rational seem, in the minds of those most de- XVI AIDS TO REFLECTION. voted to the support of religious truth, to have forfeited their original, and to have acquired a new, import, especially in their relation to matters of faith. By a philosophical view of reli- gious truth would generally be understood, a view, not only varying from the religion of the bible in the form and manner of presenting it, but at war with it ; and a rational religion is supposed to be of course something diverse from revealed re- ligion. A philosophical and rational system of religious truth would by most readers among us, if I mistake not, be suppo- sed a system deriving its doctrines not from revelation, but from the speculative reason of men, or at least relying on that only for their credibility. That these terms have been used to designate such systems, and that the prejudice against rea- son and philosophy so employed, is not, therefore, without cause, I need not deny ; nor would any friend of revealed truth be less disposed to give credence to such systems, than the author of the work before us. But, on the other hand, a moment's reflection only can be necessary to convince any man, attentive to the use of lan^ guage, that we do at the same time employ these terms in re- lation to truth generally in a better and much higher sense. Rational, as contradistinguished from irrational and absurd, certainly denotes a quality, which every man would be dispo- sed to claim, not only for himself, but for his religious opin- ions. Now, the adjective reasonable, having acquired a dif- ferent use and signification, the word rational is the adjective corresponding in sense to the substantive 7'eason, and signifies what is conformed to reason. In one sense, then, all men would appeal to reason, in behalf of their religious faith : they would deny that it was irrational or absurd. If we do not in this sense adhere to reason, we forfeit our prerogative as ra-> tional beings, and our faith is n© better than the bewildered dream of a man who has lost his reason. Nay, I maintain that when we use the term in this higher sense, it is impossible for us to believe on any authority what is directly contradic- tory to reason and seen to be so. No evidence from another source, and no authority eould convince us, that a proposition PRELIMINARY ESSAY. XVU in Geometry, for example, is false, which our reason intuitive- ly discovers to be true. Now supposing, (and we may at least suppose this,) that reason has the same power of intui- tive insight in relation to certain moral and spiritual truths, as in relation to the truths of Geometry, then it will be equally impossible to divest us of our belief of those truths. Furthermore, we are not only unable to believe the same proposition to be false, which our reason sees to be true, but we cannot believe another propositioriy which by the exercise of the same rational faculty we see to be incompatible with the former, or to contradict it. We may, and probably often do, receive with a certain kind and degree of credence opin- ions, which reflection would show to be incompatible. But when we have reflected, and discovered the inconsistency, we cannot retain both. We cannot believe two contradictory propositions knowing them to be such. It would be irration- al to do so. Again, we cannot conceive it possible, that what by the same power of intuition we see to be universally and neces- sarily true should appear otherwise to any other rational being. We cannot, for example, but consider the propo- sitions of Geometry, as necessarily true, for all rational be- ings. So, too, a little reflection, I think, will convince any one, that we attribute the same necessity of reason to the principles of moral rectitude. What in the clear day-light of our reason, and after mature reflection, w^e see to be right, we cannot believe to be wrong in the view of other rational be- ings in the distinct exercise of their Reason. Nay, in regard to those truths, which are clearly submitted to the view of our reason, and which we behold with distinct and steadfast intuitions, we necessarily attribute to the Supreme Reason, to the Divine Mind, views the same, or coincident, with those of our own reason. We cannot, (I say it with reverence and I trust with some apprehension of the importance of the asser- tion ) we cannot believe that to be right in the view of the su- preme reason which is clearly and decidedly wrong in the view of our own. It would be contradictory to reason, it would be ir- XV^Ul AIDS TO REFLECTION. rational to believe it, and therefore we cannot do so, till we lose our reason, or cease to exercise it. I would ask now, whether this be not an authorized use of the words reason and rational, and whether so used they do not mean something. If it be so — and I appeal to the mind cf every man capable of reflection, and of understanding the use of language, if it be not^then there is meaning in the terms universal reason^ and unity of reason, as used in this work. There is, and can be, in this highest sense of the word, but one reason, and whatever contradicts that reason, being seen to do so, cannot be received as matter either of knowledge or faith. To reconcile religion with reason used in this sense, therefore, and to justify the ways of God to man, or in the view of reason, is so far from being irrational, that reason im- peratively demands it of us. We cannot, as rational beings, believe a proposition on the grounds of reason, and deny it on the authority of revelation. We cannot believe a proposi- tion in philosophy, and deny the same proposition in theology ; nor can we believe two incompatible propositions on the dif- ferent grounds of reason and revelation. So fast, and so far, as we compare our thoughts, the objects of our knowledge and faith, and by reflection refer them to their common measure in the universal laws of reason, so far the instinct of reason im- pels us to reject whatever is contradictory and absurd, and to bring unity and consistency into all our views of truth. Thus, in the language of the author of this work, (p. 6,) though " the word rational has been strangely abused of late times, this must not disincline us to the weighty consideration, that thoughtfulness, and a desire to rest all our convictions on grounds of right reason, are inseparable from the character of a Christian." But I beg the reader to observe, that in relation to the doc- trines of spiritual religion — to all that he considers the peculiar doctrines of the Christian revelation, the author assigns to rea- son only a negative validity. It does not teach us, what those doctrines are, or what they are not, except that they are not, and cannot be, such as contradict the clear convictions of right PRELIZilTNARY ESSAY. X!X reason. But his views on this point aie fully stated in the work, and may be found by the references in note 43. The general office of reason in relation to all, that is proposed for our belief, is given with philosophical precision in the Appen- dix, pp. 390—391. If then it be our prerogative, as rational beings, and our duty as Christians, to think, as well as to act, rationally to see that our convictions of truth rest on grounds of right rea- son ; and if it be one of the clearest dictates of reason, that we should endeavor to shun, and on discovery should reject, whatever is contradictory to the universal laws of thought, or to doctrines already established, I know not by what means we are to avoid the application of philosophy, at least to some ex- tent, in the study of theology. For to determine what are the grounds of right reason, what are those ultimate truths, and those universal laws of thought, which we cannot ration- ally contradict, and by reflection to compare with these what- ever is proposed for our belief, is in fact to philosophize ; and whoever does this to a greater or less extent, is so far a philo- sopher in the best and highest sense of the word. To this extent we are bound to philosophize in Theology, as well as in every other science. For what is not rational in theology, is, of course, irrational, and cannot be of the household of faith ; and to determine whether it be rational in the sense al- ready explained or not, is the province of philosophy. It is in this sense, that the work before us is to be considered a philosophical work, viz. that it proves the doctrines of the Christian faith to be rational, and exhibits philosophical grounds for the possibility of a truly spiritual religion. The reality o( those experiences, or states of being, which constitute exper- imental or spiritual religion, rests on other grounds. It is in- cumbent on the philosopher to free them from the contradic- tions of reason, and nothing more ; and who will deny, that to do this is a purpose worthy of the ablest philosopher and the most devoted christian ! Is it not desirable to convince all men, that the doctrines, which we affirm to be revealed in the gospel, are not contradictory to the requirements of reason XX AIDS TO REFLECTION. and conscience. Is it not, on the other hand, vastly important to the cause of religious truth, and even to the practical in- fluence of religion on our own minds, and the minds of com- munity at large, that we should attain and exhibit views of philosophy and doctrines in metaphysics, which are at least compatible with, if they do not specially favour those views of religion, which, on other grounds, we find it our duty to be- lieve and maintain. For, I beg it may be observed, as a point of great moment, that it is not the method of the genuine phi- losopher to separate his philosophy and religion, and adopting his principles independently in each, leave them to be reconci- led or not, as the case may be. He has and can have rationally but one system, in which his philosophy becomes religious, and his religion philosophical. Nor am I disposed in compli- ance with popular opinion to limit the application of this re- mark, as is usually done, to the mere external evidences of revelation. The philosophy which we adopt will and must influence not only our decision of the question, whether a book be of divine authority, but our views also of its mean- ing. But this is a subject, on which, if possible, I would avoid being misunderstood, and must, therefore, exhibit it more fully, even at the risk of repeating what was said before, or is else- where found in the work. It has been already, I believe, dis- tinctly enough stated, that reason and philosophy ought to prevent our reception of doctrines claiming the authority of revelation only so far as the very necessities of our rational being require. However mysterious the thing aflirmed may be, though " it passeth all wider standing ^^'' if it cannot be shown to contradict the unchangeable principles of right reason, its being incomprehensible to our understandings is not an obsta- cle to our faith. If it contradict reason, we cannot believe it, but must conclude, either that the writing is not of divine au- thority, or that the language has been misinterpreted. So far it seems to me, that our philosophy ought to modify our views of theological doctrines, and our mode of interpreting the language of an inspired writer. But then we must be cautious, PRELIMINARY ESSAY. XXI that we philosophize rightly, and "do not call that reason, which is not so." ( See p. 205. ) Otherwise we may be led by the supposed requirements of reason to interpret meta- phorically, what ought to be received literally, and evacuate the Scriptures of their most important doctrines. But what I mean to say here is, that we cannot avoid the application of our philosophy in the interpretation of the language of Scrip- ture, and in the explanation of the doctrines of religion gen- erally. We cannot avoid incurring the danger just alluded to of philosophizing erroneously, even to the extent of rejecting as irrational that, which tends to the perfection of reason itself. And hence I maintain, that instead of pretending to exclude philosophy from our religious enquiries, it is vastly important, that we philosophize in earnest — that we endeavor by profound reflection to learn the real requirements of reason, and attain a true knowledge of ourselves. If any dispute the necessity of thus combining the study of philosophy with that of religion, I would beg them to point out the age since that of the Apostles, in which the prevailing metaphysical opinions have not distinctly manifested them- selves in the prevailing views of religion ; and if, as I fully believe will be the case, they fail to discover a single system of theology, a single volume on the subject of the christian religion, in which the author's view^s are not modified by the metaphysic- al opinions of the age or of the individual, it would be desirable to ascertain, whether this influence be accidental or necessary. The metaphysician analyzes the faculties and operations of the human mind, and teaches us to arrange, to classify, and to name them, according to his views of their various distinctions. The language of the Scriptures, at least to a great extent, speaks of subjects, that can be understood only by a reference to those same powers and processes of thought and feeling, which we have learned to think of, and to name, according to our particular system of metaphysics. How is it possible then to avoid interpreting the one by the other? Let us suppose, for example, that a man has studied and adopted the philoso- phy of Brown, is it possible for him to interpret the 8th chap- XXll AIDS TO REFLECTION. ter of Romans, without having his views of its meaning in- fluenced by his philosophy ? Would he not unavoidably inter- pret the language and explain the doctrines, which it contains, differently from one, who should have adopted such views of the human mind, as are taught in this work ? I know it is cus- tomary to disclaim the influence of philosophy in the business of interpretation, and every writer now-a-days on such sub- jects will assure us, that he has nothing to do with metaphys- ics, but is guided only by common sense and the laws of in- terpretation. But I would like to know how a man comes by any common sense in relation to the movements and laws of his intellectual and moral being without metaphysics. What is the common sense of a Hottentot oh subjects of this sort ? I have no hesitation in saying, that from the very nature of the case, it is nearly, if not quite, impossible for any man entirely to separate his philosophical views of the human mind from his reflections on religious subjects. Probably no man has endeavored more faithfully to do this, perhaps no one has suc- ceeded better in giving the truth of Scripture free from the glosses of metaphysics, than Professor Stuart. Yet, I should risk little in saying, that a reader deeply versed in the lan- guage of metaphysics, extensively acquainted with the philos- ophy of different ages, and the peculiar phraseology of differ- ent schools, might ascertain his metaphysical system from many a passage of his commentary on the Epistle to the He- brews. What then, let me ask, is the possible use to the cause of truth and of religion, from thus perpetually decrying phi- losophy in theological enquiries, when we cannot avoid it if we would ? Every man, who has reflected at all, has his met- aphysics ; and if he reads on religious subjects, he interprets and understands the language, which he employs, by the help of his metaphysics. He cannot do otherwise. — And the prop- er enquiry is, not whether we admit our philosophy into our theological and religious investigations, but whether our phi- losophy be right and true. For myself, I am fully convinced, that we can have no right views of theology, till we have right views of the human mind : and that these are to be acquired PRELIMINARY ESSAY. XXill only by laborious and persevering reflection. My belief is, that the distinctions unfolded in this work will place us in the way to truth, and relieve us from numerous perplexities, in which we are involved by the philosophy, which we have so long taken for our guide. For we are greatly deceived, if we suppose for a moment, that the systems of theology, which have been received among us, or even the theoretical views, which are now most popular, are free from the entanglements of wordly wisdom. The readers of this work will be able to see, I think, more clearly the import of this remark, and the true bearing of the received views of philosophy on our theological enquiries. Those, who study the work without prejudice and adopt its principles to any considerable extent, will understand too how deeply an age may be ensnared in the metaphysical webs of its own weaving, or entangled in the net, which the speculations of a former generation have thrown over it, and yet suppose itself blessed with a perfect immuni- ty from the dreaded evils of metaphysics. But before I proceed to remark on those particulars, in which our prevailing philosophy seems to me dangerous in its tendency, and unfriendly to the cause of spiritual religion, I must beg leave to guard myself and the work from misappre- hension on another point, of great importance in its relation to the whole subject. While it is maintained that reason and philosophy, in their true character, ought to have a certain degree and extent of influence in the formation of our reli- gious system, and that our metaphysical opinions, whatever they may be, will^ almost unavoidably, modify more or less our theoretical views of religious truth generally^ it is yet a special object of the author of the work to show, that the spiritual life, or what among us is termed experimental reli- gion, is, in itself, and in its own proper giowth and develope- ment, essentially distinct from the forms and processes of the understanding; and that, although a true faith cannot contra- dict any universal principle of speculative reason, it is yet in a certain sense independent of the discursions of philosophy, and in its proper nature beyond the reach " of positive science XXIV AIDS TO REFLECTION. and theoretical insight.^^ " Christianity is not a Theory^ or a Speculation; but a Life. Not a Philosophy of Life, but a Life and a living process." It is not, therefore, so properly a species of knowledge, as a form of being. And although the theoretical views of the understanding, and the motives of prudence which it presents, may be, to a certain extent, con- nected with the developement of the spiritual principle of re- ligious life in the Christian, yet a true and living faith is not incompatible with at least some degree of speculative error. As the acquisition of merely speculative knowledge cannot of itself communicate the principle of spiritual life, so neither does that principle, and the living process of its growth, de- pend wholly, at least, upon the degree of speculative knowl- edge with which it co-exists. That religion, of which our blessed Saviour is himself the essential Form and the living Word, and to which he imparts the actuating Spirit, has a prin- ciple of unity and consistency in itself, distinct from the unity and consistency of our theoretical views. This we have evi- dence of in every day's observation of Christian chaiacter ; for how often do we see and acknowledge the power of reli- gion, and the growth of a spiritual life, in minds but little gift- ed with speculative knowledge, and little versed in the forms of logic or philosophy. How obviously, too, does the living principle of religion manifest the same specific character, the same essential form, amidst all the diversities of condition, of talents, of education, and natural disposition, with which it is associated ; everywhere rising above nature, and the powers of the natural man, and unlimited in its goings on by the forms in which the understanding seeks to comprehend and confine its spiritual energies. "There are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit ;" and it is no less true now, than in the age of the Apos- tles, that in all lands, and in every variety of circumstances, the manifestations of spiritual life are essentially the same ; and all who truly believe in heart, however diverse in natu- ral condition, in the character of their understandings, and even in their theoretical views of truth, are one in Christ Je- sus. The essential faith is not to be found in the understand- PRELIMINARY ESSAY. XXV ing or the speculative theory, but " the Life^ the Substance^ the Hope, the Love — in one vs^ord, the Faith — these are De- rivatives from the practical, moral, and Spiritual Nature and Being of Man." Speculative systems of theology indeed have often had little connexion with the essential spirit of religion, and are usually little more than schemes resulting from the strivings of the finite understanding to comprehend and exhibit under its own forms and conditions a mode of be- ing and spiritual truths essentially diverse from their proper objects, and with which they are incommensurate. This I am aware is an imperfect, and I fear may be an un- intelligible view, of a subject exceedingly difficult of appre- hension at the best. If so, I must beg the reader's indulgence, and request him to suspend his judgment, as to the absolute intelligibility of it, till he becomes acquainted with the lan- guage and sentiments of the work itself. It will, however, I hope, be so far understood, at least, as to answer the purpose for which it was introduced — of precluding the supposition, that, in the remarks which preceded, or in those which follow, any suspicion is intended to be expressed, with regard to the religious principles or the essential faith of those who hold the opinions in question. According to this view of the inhe- rent and essential nature of Spiritual Religion, as existing in the practical 7xason of man, we may not only admit, but can better understand, the possibility of what every charita- ble christian will acknowledge to be a fact, so far as human observation can determine facts of this sort — that a man may be truly religious, and essentially a believer at heart, while his understanding is sadly bewildered with the attempt to com- prehend and express philosophically, what yet he feels and knows spiritually. It is indeed impossible for us to tell, how far the understanding may impose upon itself by partial views and false disguises, without perverting the will, or estranging it from the laws and the authority of reason and the Divine Word. We cannot say, to what extent a false system of phi- losophy and metaphysical opinions, which in their natural and uncounteracted tendency would go to destroy all religion, may XXVI AIDS TO REFLECTION. be received in a christian community, and yet the power of spiritual religion retain its hold and its efficacy in the hearts of the people. We may perhaps believe that, in opposition to all the might of false philosophy, so long as the great body of the people have the Bible in their hands, and are taught to reverence and receive its heavenly instructions, though the church may suffer injury from unwise and unfruitful specu- lations, it will yet be preserved ; and that the spiritual seed of the Divine Word, though mingled with many tares of worldly wisdom, and philosophy falsely so called, will yet spring up, and bear fruit unto everlasting life. But though we may hope and believe this, we cannot avoid believing, at the same time, that injury must result from an un- suspecting confidence in metaphysical opinions, which are es- sentially at variance with the doctrines of revelation. Espe- cially must the effect be injurious, where those opinions lead gradually to alter our views of religion itself, and of all that is peculiar in the Christian system. The great mass of commu- nity, who know little of metaphysics and whose faith in reve- lation is not so readily influenced by speculations not immedi- ately connected with it, may, indeed, for a time, escape the evil, and continue to " receive with meekness the ingrafted word." But in the minds of the better educated, especially those who think, and follow out their conclusions with resolute independence of thought, the result must be either a loss of confidence in the opinions themselves, or a rejection of all those parts of the christian system which are at variance with them. Under particular circumstances, indeed, where both the metaphysical errors, and the great doctrines of the chris- tian faith, have a strong hold upon the minds of a community, a protracted struggle may take place, and earnest and long continued efforts may be made to reconcile opinions, which we are resolved to maintain, with a faith which our conscien- ces will not permit us to abandon. But so long as the effort continues, and such opinions retain their hold upon our confi- dence, it must be with some diminution of the fulness and simplicity of our faith. To a greater or less degree, accord- PRELIMINARY ESSAY. XXVll ing to the education and habits of thought in different individ- uals, the Word of God is received with doubt, or with such glozing modifications as enervate its power. Thus the light from heaven is intercepted, and we are left to a shadow-fight of metaphysical schemes and metaphorical interpretations. While one party, with conscientious and earnest endeavors, and at great expense of talent and ingenuity, contends for the faith, and among the possible shapings of the received meta- physical system, seeks that which will best comport with the simplicity of the gospel, another more boldly interprets the language of the gospel itself, in conformity with those views of religion to which their philosophy seems obviously to con- duct them. The substantial being, and the living energy, of that Word, which is not only the light but the life of men, is either misapprehended or denied by all parties ; and even those who contend for what they conceive the literal import of the gospel, do it— as they must to avoid too glaring absurdity — with such explanations of its import, as make it to become, in no small degree, the "words of 'man's wisdom," rather than a simple " demonstration of the spirit, and of power." Hence, although such as have experienced the spiritual and life-giving power of the Divine Word, may be able, through the promis- ed aids of the spirit, to overcome the natural tendency of speculative error, and, by "the law of the spirit of life" which is in them, may at length be made " free from the law of sin and death," yet who can tell how much they may lose of the blessings of the gospel, and be retarded in their spiritual growth when they are but too often fed with the lifeless and starve- ling products of the human understanding, instead of that " living bread which came down from heaven." Who can tell, moreover, how many, through the prevalence of such philo- sophical errors as lead to misconceptions of the truth, or cre- ate a prejudice against it, and thus tend to intercept the hght from heaven, may continue in their ignorance, " alienated from the life of God," and groping in the darkness of their own un- derstandings. But however that may be, enlightened christians, and espe- XXVIU AIDS TO REFLECTION. cially christian instructers, know it to be their duty, as far as possible, to prepare the way for the full and unobstructed in- fluence of the Gospel, to do all in their power to remove those natural prejudices, and those errors of the understanding, which are obstacles to the truth, that the word of God may find access to the heart, and conscience, and reason of every man, that it may have " free course, and run, and be glorified." My own belief, that such obstacles to the influence of truth exist in the speculative and metaphysical opinions generally adopted in this country, and that the present work is in some measure at least calculated to remove them, is pretty clearly indicated by the remarks which I have already made. But, to be perfectly explicit on the subject, I do not hesitate to express my conviction, that the natural tendency of some of the lead- ing principles of our prevailing system of metaphysics, and those which must unavoidably have more or less influence on our theoretical views of religion, are of an injurious and dan- gerous tendency, and that so long as we retain them, however we may profess to exclude their influence from our theological enquiries, and from the interpretation of Scripture, we can maintain no consistent system of Scriptural theology, nor clear- ly and distinctly apprehend the spiritual import of Scripture language. The grounds of this conviction I shall proceed to exhibit, though only in a very partial manner, as 1 could not do more without anticipating the contents of the work itself, instead of merely preparing the reader to peruse them with attention. I am aware, too, that some of the language, which I have already employed, and shall be obliged to employ, will not convey its full import to the reader, till he becomes ac- quainted with some of the leading principles and distinctions unfolded in the work. But this, also, is an evil, which I saw no means of avoiding without incurring a greater, and writing a book instead of a brief essay. Let it be understood, then, without farther preface, that by the prevailing system of metaphysics, I mean the system, of which in modern times Locke is the reputed author, and the leading principles of which, with various modifications, more PRELIMINARY ESSAY. XXIX or less important, but not altering its essential character, have been almost universally received in this country. It should be observed, too, that the causes enumerated in the Appendix of this work, pp. 393 — 395, as having elevated it to its "pride of place" in Europe, have been aided by other favouring circum- stances here. In the minds of our religious community espe- cially some of its most important doctrines have become asso- ciated with names justly loved and revered among ourselves, and so connected with all our theoretical views of religion, that one can hardly hope to question their validity vdthout hazarding his reputation, not only for orthodoxy, but even for common sense. To controvert, for example, the prevailing doc- trines with regard to the freedom of the will, the sources of our knowledge, the nature of the understanding as containing the controlling principles of our whole being, and the univer- sality of the law of cause and effect, even in connexion with the arguments and the authority of the most powerful intellect of the age, may even now be worse than in vain. Yet I have reasons for believing there are some among us, and that their number is fast increasing, who are willing to revise their opin- ions on these subjects, and who will contemplate the views presented in this work with a liberal, and something of a pre- pared feeling, of curiosity. The difficulties, in which men find themselves involved by the received doctrines on these sub- jects, in their most anxious efforts to explain and defend the peculiar doctrines of spiritual religion, have led many to sus- pect, that there must be some lurking error in the premises. It is not, that these principles lead us to mysteries^ which we cannot comprehend — they are found, or believed at least by many, to involve us in absurdities^ which we can comprehend. It is necessary, indeed, only to form some notion of the distinc- tive and appropriate import of the term spiritual, as opposed to natural in the N. T., and then to look at the writings, or hear the discussions, in which the doctrines of the spirit and of spiritual influences are taught and defended, to see the insur- mountable nature of the obstacles, which these metaphysical dogmas throw in the way of the most powerful minds. To XXX AIDS TO REFLECTION. those who shall read this work with any degree of reflection, it must, I think, be obvious, that something more is implied in the continual opposition of these terms in the N. T., than can be explained consistently with the prevailing opinions on the subjects above enumerated ; and that, through their influence our highest notions of that distinction have been rendered con- fused, contradictory, and inadequate. I have already directed the attention of the reader to those parts of the work, where this distinction is unfolded ; and had I no other grounds than the arguments and views there exhibited, I should be convin- ced, that so long as we hold the doctrines of Locke and the Scotch metaphysicians respecting power, cause and effect, mo- tives, and the freedom of the will, we not only can make and defend no essential distinction between that which is natural^ and that which is spiritual^ but we cannot even find rational grounds for the feeling of moral obligation^ and the distinction between regret and remorse. According to the system of these authors, as nearly and distinctly as my limits will permit me to state it, the same law of cause and effect is the law of the universe. It extends to the moral and spiritual — if in courtesy these terms may still be used — no less than to the properly natural powers and agen- cies of our being. The acts of the free-will are pre-deter- mined by a cause out of the will^ according to the same law of cause and eff'ect, which controls the changes in the physical world. We have no notion of power but uniformity of ante- cedent and consequent. The notion of a power in the will to s.ci freely^ is therefore nothing more than an inherent capa- city of being acted upon^ agreeably to its nature, and accord- ing to a fixed law, by the motives which are present in the understanding. I feel authorized to take this statement partly from Brown's philosophy, because that work has been deci- dedly approved by our highest theological authorities ; and in- deed it would not be essentially varied, if expressed in the precise terms used by any of the writers most usually quoted in reference to these subjects. I am aware that variations may be fouftd in the mode of PRELIMINARY ESSAY. XXXI stating these doctrines, but I think every candid reader, who is acquainted with the metaphysics and theology of this coun- try, will admit the above to be a fair representation of the form in which they are generally received. I am aware, too, that much has been said and written to make out consistently with these general principles, a distinction between natural and moral causes, natural and moral ability, and inability, &c. But I beg all lovers of sound and rational philosophy to look care- fully at the general principles, and see whether there be, in fact, ground left for any such distinctions of this kind as are worth contending for. My first step in arguing with a defend- er of these principles, and of the distinctions in question, as connected with them, would be to ask for his definition of na- ture and natural. And when he had arrived at a distinctive general notion of the import of these, it would appear, if I mistake not, that he had first subjected our whole being to the law of nature, and then contended for the existence of some- thing which is not nature. For in their relation to the law of moral rectitude, and to the feeling of moral responsibility, what difference is there, and what difference can there be, be- tween what are called natural and those which are called mo- ral powers and aftections, if they are all under the control of the same universal law of cause and effect. If it still be a mere nature, and the determinations of our will be controlled by causes out of the will, according to our nature, then I main- tain that a moral nature has no more to do with the feeling of responsibility than any other nature. Perhaps the difficulty may be made more obvious in this way. It will be admitted that brutes are possessed of various natures^ some innocent or useful, others noxious, but all alike irresponsible in a moral point of view. But why ? Simply be- cause they act in accordance with their natures. They pos- sess, each according to its proper nature, certain appetites and susceptibilities, which are stimulated and acted upon by their appropriate objects in the world of the senses, and the rela- tion — the law of action and reaction — subsisting between these specific susceptibilities and their carresponding outward ob- XXXU AIDS TO RDf'LECTION. jects, constitutes their nature. They have a power of select- ing and choosing in the world of sense the objects appropriate to the wants of their nature ; but that nature is the sole law of their being. Their power of choice is but a part of it, in- strumental in accomplishing its ends, but not capable of ris- sing above it, of controlling its impulses, and of determining itself with reference to a purely ideal law, distinct from their nature. They act in accordance with the law of cause and effect, which constitutes their several natures, and cannot do otherwise. They are, therefore, not responsible — not capable of guilt, or of remorse. Now let us suppose another being, possessing, in addition to the susceptibilities of the brute, certain other specific suscep- tibilities with their correlative objects, either in the sensible world, or in a future world, but that these are subjected, like the other to the same binding and inalienable law of cause and effect. What, I ask, is the amount of the difference thus sup- posed between this being and the brute ? The supposed addi- tion, it is to be understood, is merely an addition to its nature; and the only power of will belonging to it is, as in the case of the brute, only a capacity of choosing and acting uniformly in accordance with its nature. These additional susceptibilities still act but as they are acted upon ; and the will is determined accordingly. What advantage is gained in this case by calling these supposed additions moral affections, and their correlative stimulants moral causes? Do we thereby find any ration- al ground for the feeling of moral responsibility, for conscience, for remorse ? The being acts according to its nature, and why is it blameworthy more than the brute ? If the moral cause existing out of the will be a power or cause which, in its relation to the specific susceptibility of the moral being, produces under the same circumstances uniformly the same re- sult, according to the law of cause and effect ; if the acts of the will be subject to the same law, as mere links in the chain of antecedents and consequents, and thus a part of our nature^ what is gained, I ask again, by the distinction of a moral and a physical nature. It is still only a nature under the law of PRELIMINARY ESSAY. XXXUl cause and effect, and the liberty of the moral being is under the same condition with the liberty of the brute. Both are free to follow and fulfil the law of their nature, and both are alike hound by that law^ as by an adamantine chain. The very conditions of the law preclude the possibility of a power to act otherwise than according to their nature. They pre- clude the very idea of a free-will, and render the feeling of moral responsibility not an enigma merely, not a mystery, but a self-contradiction and an absurdity. Turn the mattei as we will — call these correlatives, viz. the inherent susceptibilities and the causes acting on them from without, natural, or moral, or spiritual — so long as their action and reaction, or the law of reciprocity, (see note 67), which constitutes their specific natures, is considered as the controll- ing law of our whole beings so long as we refuse to admit the existence in the will of a power capable of rising above this law, and controlling its operation by an act of absolute self- determination, so long we shall be involved in perplexities both in morals and religion. At all events, the only method of avoiding them will be to adopt the creed of the necessita- rians entire, to give man over to an irresponsible nature as a better sort of animal, and resolve the will of the Supreme Reason into a blind and irrational fate. I am well aware of the objections that will be made to this statement, and especially the demonstrated incompiehensible- ness of a self-determining power. To this I may be permitted to answer, that, admitting the power to originate an act or state of mind to be beyond the capacity of our understandings to comprehend, it is still not contradictory to reason ; and that I find it more easy to believe the existence of that, which is simply incomprehensible to my understanding, than of that, which involves an absurdity for my reason. I venture to af- firm, moreover, that however we may bring our understand- ings into bondage to the more comprehensible doctrine, sim- ply because it is comprehensible under the forms of the under- standing, every man does, in fact, believe himself possessed of freedom in the higher sense of self-determination. Every XXXIV AIDS TO REFLECTION. man's conscience commands him to believe it, whenever for a moment he indulges the feeling either of moral self-appro- bation, or of remorse. Nor can we on any other grounds justify the ways of God to man upon the supposition, that he inflicts or will inflict any other punishment, than that which is simply remedial or disciplinary. But this subject will be found more fully explained in the course of the work. My present object is merely to show the necessity of some system in re- lation to these subjects different from the received one. It may perhaps be thought, that the language used above is too strong and too positive. But I venture to ask every can- did man, at least every one, who has not committed himself by writing and publishing on the subject, whether, in consider- ing the great questions connected with moral accountability and the doctrine of rewards and punishments, he has not felt himself pressed with such difficulties as those above stated ; and whether he has ever been able fully to satisfy his reason, that there was not a lurking contradiction in the idea of a be- ing created and placed under the law of its nature, and pos- sessing at the same time a feeling of moral obligation to fulfil a law above its nature. That many have been in this state of mind I know. I know, too, that some, whose moral and reli- gious feelings had led them to a full belief in the doctrines of spiritual religion, but who at the same time had been taught to receive the prevailing opinions in metaphysics, have found these opinions carrying them unavoidably, if they would be consequent in their reasonings, and not do violence to their reason, to adopt a system of religion which does not profess to be spiritual, and have thus been compelled to choose between their philosophy and their religion. In most cases indeed, >vhere men reflect at all, I am satisfied that it requires all the force of authority, and all the influence of education, to carry the mind over these difficulties; and that then it is only by a vague belief, that, though we cannot see how, yet there must be some method of reconciling what seems to be so contradictory. If examples were wanting to prove that serious and trying difficulties are felt to exist here, enough may be found, as it PRELIMINARY ESSAY. XXXV has appeared to me, in the controversy respecting the nature and origin of sin, which is at this moment interesting the pub- lic mind. Let any impartial observer trace the progress of that discussion, and after examining the distinctions, which are made or attempted to be made, decide whether the subject, as there presented, be not involved in difficulties, which cannot be solved on the principles, to which, hitherto, both parties have adhered ; whether, holding as ihey do the same premi- ses in regard to the freedom of the will, they can avoid coming to the same conclusion in regard to the nature and origin of sin ; whether, in fact, the distinctions aimed at must not prove merely verbal distinctions, and the controversy a fruit- less one. But in the September number of the Christian Spectator, the reader will find remarks on this subject, to which I beg leave to refer him, and which J could wish him attentively to consider in connexion with the remarks which I have made. I allude to the correspondence with the editors near the end of the number. The letter there inserted is said to be, and obviously is, from the pen of a very learned and able writer ; and I confess it has been no small gratification and en- couragement to me, while labouring to bring this work and this subject before the public, to find such a state of feeling express- ed, concerning'the great question at issue, by such a writer. It will be seen by reference to p. 545 of the C. S., that he pla- ces the " nucleus of the dispute" just where it is placed in this w^ork and in the above remarks. It will be seen, too, that by throwing authorities aside, and studying his own mind, he has " come seriously to doubt," whether the received opinions with regard to motives^ the law of cause and effect, and the freedom of the icill, may not be erroneous. They appear to him " to be bordering on fatalism, if not actually embracing it." He doubts, whether the mind may not have within itself the adequate cause of its own acts ; whether indeed it have not a self-determining power, " for the power in question involves the idea of originating volition. Less than this it cannot be conceived to involve, and y&t be free agency." Now this is just the view offered in the present work; and, as it seems to XXXVl AIDS TO REFLECTION. me, these are just the doubts and conclusions, which every- one will entertain, who lays aside authority, and reflects upon the goings-on of his own mind, and the dictates of his own reason and conscience. But let us look for a moment at the remarks of the editors in reply to the letter above quoted. They maintain, in relation to original sin and the perversion of the will, that from either the original or the acquired strength of certain natural appe- tites, principles of self-love, &c., "left to themselves," the corruption of the heart will certainly follow. " In every in- stance the will does, in fact, yield to the demands of these. But whenever it thus yielded, theix was power to the contrary ; otherwise there could be no freedom of moral action." Now I beg leave to place my finger on the phrase in italics, and ask the editors what they mean by it. If they hold the common doctrines with regard to the relation of cause and effect, and with regard to poiver as connected with that relation, and apply these to the acts of the will, I can see no more possi- bility of conceiving a power to the contrary in this case, than of conceiving such a power in the current of a river. But if they mean to assert the existence in the will of an actual pow- er to rise above the demands of appetite, &c., above the law of nature, and to decide arbitrarily ^ whether to yield or not to yield, then they admit, that the will is not determined abso- lutely by the extraneous cause^ but is in fact se?/*-determined. They agree with the letter-writer ; and the question for them is at rest. Thus, whatever distinctions may be attempted here, there can be no real distinction, but between an irres- ponsible nature and a will that is self-determined. The read- er will find a few additional remarks on this topic in note 45, and for the general views of the work is again referred to note 29, and the references there made. To the subject of that note and to the great distinction between nature and the will, be- tween the natural and the spiritual, as unfolded in the work, I must beg leave, also, again to request the special and candid attention[of the reader. I must beg, too, the unprejudiced atten- tion of every reader, friendly to the cause of practical and PRELIMINARY ESSAY. XXXVlI spiritual religion, to the tendency of this part of the author's system, and of the remarks hazarded above. I cannot but be aware, that the views of the will here ex- hibited will meet with strong prejudices in a large portion, at least, of our religious community. I could wish that all such would carefully distinguish between the author's views of the doctrines of religion, and the philosophical grounds, on which he supposes those doctrines are to be defended. If no one disputes, and I trust no one will dispute, the substantial ortho- doxy of the w^ork, without first carefully examining what has been the orthodoxy of the church in general, and of the great body of the reformers, then I could hope it may be wisely considered, whether, as a question of philosophy, the meta- physical principles of this work are not in themselves more in accordance with the doctrines of a spiritual religion, and bet- ter suited to their explanation and defence, than those above treated of. If on examination it cannot be disputed that they are, then, if not before, I trust the two systems may be com- pared without undue partiality, and the simple question of the truth of each may be determined by that calm and persevering reflection, which alone can determine questions of this sort. If the system here taught be true, then it will follow, not, be it observed, that our religion is necessarily wTong, or our essential faith erroneous, but that the philosophical grounds^ on which we are accustomed to defend our faith, are unsafe, and that their natural tendency is to error. If the spirit of the gospel still exert its influence ; if a truly spiritual religion be maintained, it is in opposition to our philosophy, and not at all by its aid. I know it will be said, that the practical re- sults of our peculiar forms of doctrine are at variance with these remarks. But this I am not prepared to admit. True, religion and religious institutions have flourished ; the gospel, in many parts of our country, has been affectionately and faith- fully preached by great and good men ; the word and the spi- rit of God have been communicated to us in rich abundance ; and I rejoice, with heartfelt joy and thanksgiving, in the belief, that thereby multitudes have been regenerated to a new and XXXVlU AIDS TO REFLECTIOxV. spiritual life. But so were equal or greater effects produced under the preaching of Baxter, and Howe, and otiier good and faithful men of the same age, with none of the peculiari- ties of our theological systems. Neither reason nor experi- ence indeed furnish any ground for believing, that the living and life-giving power of the Divine Word has ever derived any portion of its efficacy, in the conversion of the heart to God, from the forms of metaphysical theology, with which the human understanding has invested it. It requires, moreover, but little knowledge of the history of philosophy, and of the writings of the 16th and 17th centuries to know, that the opinions of the reformers and of all the great divines of that period, on subjects of this sort, were far different from those of Mr. Locke and his followers, and were in fact essentially the same with those taught in this work., This last remark ap- plies not only to the views entertained by the eminent phi- losophers and divines of that period on the particular subject above discussed, but to the distinctions made, and the language employed, by them with reference to other points of no less importance in the constitution of our being. It must have been observed by the reader of the foregoing pages, that I have used several words, especially understand- ing and reason^ in a sense somewhat diverse from their pre- sent acceptation ; and the occasion of this I suppose would be partly understood from my having already directed the attention of the reader to the distinction exhibited between these words in the work, and from the remarks made on the ambiguity of the word reason in its common use. I now proceed to remark, that the ambiguity spoken of, and the consequent perplexity in regard to the use and authority of reason, have arisen from the habit of using, since the time of Locke, the terms under- standing and reason indiscriminately, and thus confounding a distinction clearly marked in the philosophy and in the lan- guage of the older writers. Alas ! had the terms only been confounded, or had we suffered only an inconvenient ambigui- ty of language, there would 'be comparatively little cause for eainestness ojpon the subject ; or had our views of the things PRELIMINARY ESSAY. XXXIX signified by these terms been only partially confused, and had we still retained correct notions of our prerogative, as ration- al and spiritual beings, the consequences might have been less deplorable. But the misfortune is, that the powers of under- standing and reason have not merely been blended and con- founded in the view of our philosophy, the higher and far more characteristic, as an essential constituent of our proper human- ity, has been as it were obscured and hidden from our obser- vation in the inferior power, which belongs to us in common with the brutes that perish. According to the old, the more spiritual, and genuine philosophy, the distinguishing attributes of our humanity — that " image of God" in which man alone was created of all the dwellers upon earth, and in virtue of which he was placed at the head of this lower world, was said to be found in the reason and free-will. But understanding these in their strict and proper sense and according to the true ideas of them, as contemplated by the older metaphysicians, we have literally, if the system of Locke and the popular phi- losophy of the day be true, neith-er the one nor the other of these — neither reason nor free-will. What they esteemed the image of God in the soul, and considered as distinguishing us specifically, and so vastly too, above each and all of the irra- tional animals, is found, according to this system, to have in fact no real existence. The reality neither of the free-will, nor of any of those laws or ideas, which spring from, or ra- ther constitute, reason, can be authenticated by the sort of proof which is demanded, and we must therefore relinquish our prerogative, and take our place with becoming humility among our more unpretending companions. In the ascending series of powers, enumerated by Milton, with so much philo- sophical truth, as well as beauty of language, in the fifth book of Paradise Lost,,he mentions Fancy and understanding, whence the soul Reason receives. And reason is her being, Discursive or intuitive. But the highest power here, that which is the Being of the soul, considered as any thing diftering in kind from the under- Xl AIDS TO REFLECTION. standing, has no place in our popular metaphysics. Thus we have only the undei^standing^ " the-iJaculty judging according to sense," a faculty of abstracting and generalizing, of contri- vance and forecast, as the highest of our intellectual powers ; and this we are expressly taught belongs to us in common with brutes. Nay, these views of our essential being, consequen- ces and all, are adopted by men, whom one would suppose religion, if not philosophy, should have taught their utter in- adequateness to the true and essential constituents of our hu- manity. Dr. Paley tells us in his Nat. Theology, that only " CONTRIVANCE," a power obviously and confessedly belong- ing to brutes, is necessary to constitute personality. His whole system both of theology and morals neither teaches, nor implies, the existence of any specific difference either be- tween the understanding and reason, or between nature and the will. It does not imply the existence of any power in man, which does not obviously belong in a greater. or less de- gree to irrational animals. Dr. Fleming, another reverend prelate in the English church, in his "Philosophy of Zoology," maintains in express terms, that we have no faculties differing in kind from those which belong to brutes. How many other learned, and reverend, and wise men adopt the same opinions, I know not : though these are are obviously not the peculiar views of the individuals, but conclusions resulting from the essential principles of their system. If, then, there is no better si/s/em, if this be the genuine philosophy, and founded in the nature of things, there is no help for us, and we must believe it — if we can. But most certainly it will follow, that we ought, as fast as the prejudices of education will permit, to rid ourseh^es of certain notions of prerogative, and certain feelings of our own superiority, which somehow have been strangely preva- lent among our race. For though we have indeed, according to this system, a little more understanding than other animals — can abstract and generalize and fore-cast events, and the con- sequences of our actions, and compare motives more skilfully than they ; though we have thus more knowledge and can cir- cumvent them ; though we iiave more power and can subdue PHELIMINARY ESSAY. XU them; yet, as to any distinctive and peculiar characteristic — as to any inherent and essential ivortk^ we are after all but lit- tle better — though we may be better off — than our dogs and horses. There is no essential difference, and we may ration- ally doubt — at least we might do so, if by the supposition we were rational beings — whether our fellow animals of the ken- nel and the stall are not unjustly deprived of certain per'sonal rights^ and whether a dog charged with trespass may not ra- tionally claim to be tried by a jury of his pee7's. Now how- ever trifling and ridiculous this may appear, I would ask in truth and soberness, if it be not a fair and legitimate inference from the premises, and whether the absurdity of the one does not demonstrate the utter falsity of the other. And where, I would beg to know, shall we look, according to the popular system of philosophy, for that "image of God" in which we are created ? Is it a thing of degrees 9 and is it simply be- cause we have something more of the same faculties which belong to brutes, that we become the objects of God's special and fatherly care, the distinguished objects of his Providence, and the sole objects of his Grace ? — " Doth God take care for oxen ?" But why not ? I assure my readers, that I have no desire to treat with dis- respect and contumely the opinions of great or good men ; but the distinction in question, and the assertion and exhibition of the higher prerogatives of reason, as an essential constituent of our being, are so vitally important, in my apprehension, to the formation and support of any rational system of philoso- phy, and — no less than the distinction before treated of — so pregnant of consequences to the interests of truth, in morals, and religion, and indeed of all truth, that mere opinion and the authority of names may well be disregarded. The discus- sion, moreover, relates to facts, and to such facts, too, as are not to be learned from the instruction, or received on the au- thority, of any man. They must be ascertained by every man for himself, by reflection upon the processes and laws of his own inward being, or they are not learned at all to any valua- ble purpose. We do indeed find in ourselves then, as no one F Xlii AIDS TO REFLECTION. will deny, certain powers of intelligence, \vhich we have abundant reason to believe the brutes possess in common with us in a greater or less degree. The functions of the under- standing, as treated of in the popular systems of metaphysics, its faculties of attention, of abstraction, of generalization, the power of forethought and contrivance, of adapting means to ends, and the law of association, may be, so far as we can judge, severally represented more or less adequately in the instinctive inteUigence of the higher orders of brutes. But, not to anticipate too far a topic treated of in the work, do these, or any and all the faculties which we discover in irra- tional animals, satisfactorily account to a reflecting mind for all the phsenomena, which are presented to our observation in our own consciousness ? Would any supposable addition to the degree merely of those powers which we ascribe to brutes render them rational beings, and remove the sacred distinction, which law and reason have sanctioned, between things and persons ? Will any such addition account for our having— what the brute is not supposed to have — the pure ideas of the geometrician, the power of ideal construction, the intuition of geometrical or other necessary and universal truths ? Would it give rise, in irrational animals, to a law of moral rectitude and to conscience — to the feelings of moral responsibility and remorse 7 Would it awaken them to a reflective self-conscioua- ness, and lead them to form and contemplate the ideas^oi the soul^ oi free-will^ of immortality, and of God. It seems to me, that we have only to reflect for a serious hour upon what we mean by these, and then to compare them with our no- tion of what belongs to a brute, its inherent powers and their correlative objects, to feel that they are utterly incompatible — that in the possession of these we enjoy a prerogative, which we cannot disclaim without a violation of reason, and a volun- tary abasement of ourselves — and that we must therefore be possessed of some peculiar powers — of some source of ideas distinct from the understanding, differing in kind from any and all of those which belong to us in common with inferior and irrational animals. PRELIMINARY ESSAY. xliii But what these powers are, or what is the precise nature of the distinction between the understanding and reason, it is not my province, nor have I undertaken, to show. My object is merely to illustrate its necessity, and the palpable obscurity, vagueness, and deficiency, in this respect, of the mode of phi- losophizing, which is held in so high honour among us. The distinction itself will be found illustrated with some of its im- portant bearings in the work, and in the notes and Appendix at- tached to it ; and cannot be too carefully studied — in connex- ion with that between nature and the will — by the student who would acquire distinct and intelligible notions of what consti- tutes the truly spiritual in our being, or find rational grounds for the possibility of a truly spiritual religion. Indeed, could I suc- ceed in fixing the attention of the reader upon this distinction, in such a way as to secure his candid and reflecting perusal of the work, I should consider any personal effort or sacrifice abundantly recompensed. Nor am I alone in this view of its importance. A literary friend, whose opinion on this subject would be valued by all who know the soundness of his schol- arship, says, in a letter just now received, "if you can once get the attention of thinking men fixed on his distinction be- tween the reason and the understanding, you will have done enough to reward the labour of a life. As prominent a place as it holds in the writings of Coleridge, he seems to me far enough from making too much of it." No person of serious and philosophical mind, I am confident, can reflect upon the subject, enough to understand it in its various aspects, without arriving at the same views of the importance of the distinction, whatever may be his conviction with regard to its truth. But indeed the only ground, which I find, to apprehend that the reality of the distinction and the importance of the conse- quences resulting from it will be much longer denied and re- jected among us, is in the overweening assurance, which pre- vails with regard to the adequateness and perfection of the system of philosophy which is already received. It is taken for granted, as a fact undisputed and indisputable, that this is the most enlightened age of the world, not only in regard to Xliv AIDS TO REFLECTION. the more general diffusion of certain points of practical knowl- edge, in which, probably, it may be so, but in all respects ; that our whole system of the philosophy of mind as derived from Ld. Bacon, especially, is the only one, which has any claims to common sense ; and that all distinctions not recognized in that are consequently unworthy of our regard. What those reformers, to whose transcendent powers of mind, and to whose characters as truly spiritual divines, we are accustomed to look with feelings of so much general- regard, might find to say in favour of their philosophy, few take the pains to inquire. Neither they nor the great philosophers, with whom they held communion on subjects of this sort, can appear among us to speak in their own defence ; and even the huge Folios and Quartos, in which, though dead, they yet speak — and ought to be heard — have seldom strayed to this side of the Atlantic. All our information respecting their philosophical opinions, and the grounds on which they defended them, has been received from writers, who were confessedly advocating a system of recent growth, at open ^var wdth every thing more ancient, and who, in the great abundance of their self-complacency, have represented their own discoveries as containing the sum and substance of all philosophy, and the accumulated treasures of ancient wisdom as unworthy the attention of " this enlight- ened age." Be it so. — Yet the "foohshness" of antiquity, if it be " of God," may prove " wiser than men." It may be found, that the philosophy of the reformers and their religion are essentially connected, and must stand or fall together. It may at length be discovered, that a system of religion essen- tially spiritual, and a system of philosophy that excludes the very idea of all spiritual power and agency, in their only dis- tinctive and proper character, cannot be consistently associated together. It is our peculiar misfortune in this country, that while the philosophy of Locke and the Scottish writers has been receiv- ed in full faith, as the only rational system, and its leading principles especially passed off as unquestionable, the strong attachment to religion, and the fondness for speculation, by PRELIMINARY ESSAY. xlv both of which we are strongly characterized, liave led us to combine and associate these principles, such as they are, with our religious interests and opinions, so variously and so inti- mately, that by most persons they are considered as necessa- ry parts of the same system ; and from being so long contem- plated together, the rejection of one seems impossible without doing violence to the other. Yet how much evidence might not an impartial observer find in examining the theological dis- cussions that have prevailed, the speculative systems, that have been formed and arrayed against each other, for the last seventy years, to convince him, that there must be some discord- ance in the elements, some principle of secret but irreconcila- ble hostility between a philosophy and a religion, which, under every ingenious variety of form and shaping, still stand aloof from each other, and refuse to cohere. For is it not a fact, that in regard to every speculative system, w^hich has been formed on these philosophical principles, — to every new sha- ping of theory, which has been devised and gained its adhe- rents among us, — is it not a fact, I ask, that, to all, except those adherents, the system — the philosophical theory — has seemed dangerous in its tendency, and at war with orthodox views of religion — perhaps even with the attributes of God. Nay, to bring the matter still nearer and more plainly to view, I ask, whether at this moment the organs and particular friends of our leading theological seminaries in New England, both de- votedly attached to an orthodox and spiritual system of reli- gion, and expressing mutual confidence as to the essentials of their mutual faith, do not each consider the other as holding a philosophical theory subversive of orthodoxy ? If I am not misinformed, this is the simple fact. Now, if these things be so, I would ask again with all earnest- ness, and out of regard to the interests of truth alone, whether serious and reflecting men may not be permitted, without the charge of heresy in Religion, to stand in doubt of this Phi- losophy altogether ; whether these facts, which will not be disputed, do not furnish just ground for suspicion, that the principles of our philosophy may be erroneous, or at least in- Xlvi AIDS TO REFLECTION. duce us to look with candour and impartiality at the claims of another and a different system. What are the claims of the system, to which the attention of the public is invited in this work, can be understood fully, only by a careful and reflecting examination of its principles in connexion with the conscious wants of our own inward be- ing — the requirements of our own reason and consciences. Its purpose and tendency, I have endeavoured in some meas- ure to exhibit ; and if the influence of authority, which the prevailing system furnishes against it can, and must be coun- teracted by any thing of a like kind — ( and whatever profes- sions we may make, the influence of authority produces at least a predisposing eflect upon our minds) — the remark which I have made, will show, that the principles here taught are not wholly unauthorized by men, whom we have been taught to reverence among the great and good. I cannot but add, as a matter of simple justice to the question, that however our prevailing system of philosophizing may have appealed to the authority of Lord Bacon, it needs but a candid examination of his writings, especially the first part of his Novum Organum, to be convinced, that such an appeal is without grounds ; and /that in fact the fundamental principles of his philosophy are Ithe same with those taught in this work. The great distinction, especially, between the understanding and the reason is clear- ly and fully recognized ; and as a philosopher he would^ be far more properly associated with Plato or even Aristotle, than with the modern philosophers, who have miscalled their sys- tems by his name. For farther remarks on this point, the reader is requested to refer to notes 50 and 59. In our ow^n times, moreover, there is abundant evidence, whatever may be thought of the principles of this work here, that the same general views of philosophy are regaining their ascendancy elsewhere. In Great Britain there are not a few, who begin to believe, that the deep toned and sublime eloquence of Cole- ridge on these great subjects may have something to claim their attention besides a few peculiarities of language. At Paris, the doctrines of a rational and spiritual system of phi- PRELIMINARY ESSAY. xlvii losophy are taught to listening and admiring thousands by one of the most learned and eloquent philosophers of the age : and in Germany, if I mistake not, the same general views are adopted by the serious friends of religious truth among her great and learned men. Such — as I have no doubt — must be the case, wherever thinking men can be brought distinctly and impartially to ex- amine their claims ; and indeed, to those who shall study and comprehend the general history of philosophy, it must always be matter of special wonder, that in a christian community, anx- iously striving to explain and defend the doctrines of Christian- ity in their spiritual sense, there should have been a long con- tinued and tenacious adherence to philosophical principles, so subversive of their faith in every thing distinctively spiritual ; while those of an opposite tendency, and claiming a near rela- tionship and correspondence with the truly spiritual in the christian system, and the mysteries of its sublime faith, were looked upon with suspicion and jealousy, as unintelligible or dangerous metaphysics. And here I must be allowed to add a few remarks with re- gard to the popular objections against the system of philoso- phy, whose claims I am urging, especially against the writings of the author, under whose name it appears in the present work. These are various and often contradictory, but usually have reference either to his peculiarities of language, or to the depth — whether apparent or real, — and the unintelligibleness, of his thoughts. To the fii-st of these it seems to me a sufficient answer, for a mind that would deal honestly and frankly by itself, to sug- gest that in the very nature of things it is impossible for a wri- ter to express by a single word any truth, or to mark any dis- tinction, not recognized in the language of his day, unless he adopts a word entirely new, or gives to one already in use a new and more peculiar sense. Now in communicating truths, which the writer deems of great and fundamental importance, shall he thus appropriate a single word old or new, or trust to the vagueness of perpetual circumlocution ? Admitting; for Xlviii AIDS TO REFLECTION. example, the existence of the important distinction, for which this writer contends, between the understanding and reason, and that this distinction, when recognized at all, is confounded in the common use of language by employing the words in- discriminately, shall he still use these words indiscriminately, and eitl^er invent a new word, or mark the distinction by de- scriptive circumlocutions, or shall he assign a more distinctive and precise meaning to the words already used ? It seems to me obviously more in accordance with the laws and genius of language to take the course, which he has adopted. But in this case and in many others, where his language seems pecul- iar, it cannot be denied that the words had already been em- ployed in the same sense, and the same distinctions recogni- zed, by the older and many of the most distinguished writers in the language. But the reader will find the author's own views of the subject in the Appendix, pp. 347 — 348, and pp. 355—357, and p. 397. See also note 22. With regard to the more important objection, that the thoughts of Coleridge are unintelligible, if it be intended to imply, that his language is not in itself expressive of an intel- ligible meaning, or that he affects the appearance of depth and mystery, while his thoughts are common-place, it is an objec- tion, which no one who has read his works attentively, and acquired a feeling of interest for them, will treat their author with so much disrespect as to answer at all. Every such rea- der knows, that he uses words uniformly with astoni^shing^pre- pjsioD , and that language becomes, in his use of it — in a de- gree, of which few writers can give us a conception — a living power, " consubstantial" with the power of thought, that gave birth to it, and awakening and calling into action a correspon- ding energy in our own minds. There is little encourage- ment, moreover, to answer the objections of any man, who will permit himself to be incurably prejudiced against an au- thor by a few peculiarities of language, or an apparent difficul- ty of being understood, and without enquiring into the cause of that difficulty, where at the same time he cannot but see and acknowledge the presence of great intellectual and moral pow- er. PRELIMINARY ESSAY. xlix But if it be intended by the objection to say simply, that the thoughts of the author are often difficult to be apprehended — that he makes Ijarge demands not only upon the attention, but upon the reflecting and thinking powers, of his readeis, the fact is not, and need not be, denied ; and it will only remain to be decided, whether the instruction offered, as the reward, will repay us for the expenditure of thought required, or can be obtained for less. I know it is customary in this country, as well as in Great Britain — and that too among men from whom different language might be expected — to affect either contempt or modesty, in regard to all that is more than com- mon-place in philosophy, and especially " Coleridge's Meta- physics," as " too deep for them." Now it may not be eve- ry man's duty, or in every man's power, to devote to such studies the time and thought necessary to understand the deep things of philosophy. But for one, who professes to be a scholar, and to cherish a manly love of truth for the truth's sake, to object to a system of metaphysics because it is " too deep for him," must be either a- disingenuous insinuation, that its depths are not worth exploring — which is more than the objector knows — or a confession, that — with all his professed love of truth and knowledge — he prefers to " sleep after din- ner." The misfortune is, that men have been cheated into a belief, that all philosophy and metaphysics worth knowing are contained in a few volumes, which can be understood with lit- tle expense of thought ; and that they may very well spare themselves the vexation of trying to comprehend the depths of " Coleridge's Metaphysics." According to the popular no- tions of the day, it is a very easy matter to understand the philosophy of mind. A new work on philosophy is as easy to read as the last new novel ; and superficial, would-be scholars, who have a very sensible horror at the thought of studying Algebra, or the doctrine of fluxions, can yet go through a course of moral sciences, and know all about the philosophy of the mind. Now why will not men of sense, and men who have any just pretensions to scholarship, see that there must of neces- G 1 AIDS TO REFLECTION. sity be gross sophistry somewhere in any system of metaphys- ics, which pretends to give us an adequate and scientific self- knowledge — to render comprehensible to us the mysterious laws of our own inward being, with less manly and persever- ing effort of thought on our part, than is confessedly required to comprehend the simplest of those sciences, all o^which are but some of the phaenomena, from which the laws in ques- tion are to be inferred ? Why will they not see and acknowl- edge — what one would suppose a moment's reflection would teach them — that to attain true self-knowledge by reflection upon the objects of our inward consciousness — not merely to understand the motives of our conduct as conscientious chris- tians, but to know ourselves scientifically as philosophers — must, of necessity, be the most deep and difficult of all our attainments in know^ledge ? I trust that what I have already said will be suf&cient to expose the absurdity of objections against metaphysics in general, and do something towards showing, that we are in actual and urgent need of a system somewhat deeper than those, the contradictions of which have not without reason made the name of philosophy a terror to the friends of truth and of religion. " False metaphysics can be effectually counteracted by true metaphysics alone ; and if the reasoning be clear, solid, and pertinent, the truth dedu- eed caa never be the less valuable on account of tha depth from which it may have been drawn." It is a fact, too, of great importance to be kept in mind, in relation to this sub- ject, that in the study of ourselves — in attaining a knowledge of our own being, there are truths of vast conceinment, and living at a great depth, which yet no man can draw for ano- ther. However the depth may have been fathomed, and the same truth brought up by others, for a light and a joy to their own minds, it must still remain, and be sought for by us, each for himself, at the bottom of the well. The system of philosophy here taught does not profess to make men philosophers, or — which ought to mean the same hing — to guide them to the knowledge of themselves, without the labour both of attention and of severe thinking. If it rkEJ.lIMINAKy ESSAY. U did so, it would have, like the more popular works of philoso- phy, far less affinity, than it now has, with the mysteries oi religion, aud those profound truths concerning our spiritual be- ing and destiny, which are revealed in the " things hard to be understood" of St. Paul and of the " beloved disciple." For I cannot but remind my readers again, that the author does not undertake to teach us the philosophy of the human mind, with the exclusion of the truths and influences of religion. He would not undertake to philosophize respecting the being and character of man, and at the same time exclude from his view the very principle which constitutes his proper humani- ty : he would not, in teaching the doctrine of the solar sys- tem, omit to mention the sun, and the law of gravitation. He professes to investigate and unfold the being of man as man^ in his higher, his peculiar, and distinguishing attributes. These it is, which are "hard to be understood," and to apprehend which requires the exercise of deep reflection and exhausting thought. Nor in aiming at this object would he consider it very philo- sophical to reject the aid and instruction of eminent writers on the subject of religion, or even of the volume of revelation itself. He would consider St. Augustine as none the less a philosopher, because he became a christian. The Apostles John and Paul were, in the view of this system of philosophy, ^•the most rational of all writers, and the New Testament the most philosophical of all books. They are so, because they unfold more fully, than any other, the true and essential prin- ciples of our being ; because they give us a clearer and deeper insight into those constituent laws of our humanity, which as men, and therefore as philosophers, we are most concerned to know. Not only to those, who seek the practical self-knowl- edge of the humble, spiritually minded, christian, but to those also, who are impelled by the " heaven descended yvw^j rfsaurov" to study themselves as philosophers, and to make self-knowl- edge a science, the truths of Scripture are a light and a reve- lation. The more earnestly we reflect upon these and refer them, whether as christians or as philosophers, to the move- ments of our inward being— to the laws which reveal them- lii AIDS TO REFLECTION. selves in our own consciousness, the more fully shall we un- derstand, not only the language of Scripture, but all that most demands and excites the curiosity of the genuine philosopher in the mysterious character of man. It is by this guiding light, that we can but search into and apprehend the constitution of that " marvellous microcosm," which, the more it has been known, has awakened more deeply the wonder and admiration of the true philosopher in every age. Nor would the author of this work, or those who have im- bibed the spirit of his system, join with the philosophers of the day in throwing aside and treating with a contempt, as ignorant as it is arrogant, the treasures of ancient wisdom. "He," says the son of Sirach, "that giveth his mind to the law of the Most High, and is occupied in the meditation thereof, will seek out the wisdom of all the ancient." In the estima- tion of the true philosopher, the case should not be greatly altered in the present day ; and now that two thousand years have added such rich and manifold abundance to those ancient " sayings of the wise," he will still approach them with reve- rence, and receive their instruction with gladness of heart. In seeking to explore and unfold those deeper and more sol- emn mysteries of our being, which inspire us with awe, while they baffle our comprehension, he will especially beware of trusting to his own understanding, or of contradicting, in com- pliance with the self-flattering inventions of a single age, the universal faith and consciousness of the human race. On such subjects, though he would call no man master, yet neither would he Avillingly forego the aids to be derived, in the seaich after truth, from those great oracles of human wisdom — those giants in intellectual power, who from generation to genera- tion were admired and venerated by the great and good. Much less could he think it becoming, or consistent with his duty, to hazard the publication of his own thoughts on subjects of the deepest concernment, and on which minds of greatest depth and power had been occupied in former ages, while confessed- ly ignorant alike of their doctrines, and of the arguments by which they are sustained. PRELIIkllNARY ESSAY. Uii It is in this spirit, that the author of the work here offered to the puhlic has prepared himself to deserve the candid and even confiding attention of his readers, with reference to the great subjects of which he treats. And although the claims of the work upon our attention, as of every other work, must depend more upon its inherent and essential character, than upon the worth and authority of its author, it may yet be of service to the reader to know, that he is no hasty or unfurnished adventurer in the department of authorship, to which the work belongs. The discriminating reader of this work cannot fail to discover his profound knowl- edge of the philosophy of language, the principles of its con- struction, and the laws of its interpretation. In others of his works, perhaps more fully than in this, there is evidence of an unrivalled mastery over all that pertains both to logic and philology. It has been already intimated, that he is no con- temner of the great writers of antiquity and of their wise sen- tences; and probably few English scholars, even in those days when there were giants of learning in Great Britain, had minds more richly furnished with the treasures of ancient lore. But especially will the reader of his works observe with admira- tion the profoundness of his philosophical attainments, and his thorough and intimate knowledge, not only of the works and systems of Plato and Aristotle, and of the celebrated philoso- phers of modern times, but of those too much neglected wri- tings of the Greek and Roman Fathers, and of the great lea- ders of the reformation, which more particularly qualify him for discussing the subjects of the present work. If these qualifications, and — with all these, and above all — a disposi- tion professed and made evident seriously to value them, chief- ly as they enable him more fully and clearly to apprehend and illustrate the truths of the christian system, — if these, I say, can give an author a claim to a serious and thoughtful atten- tion, then may the work here offered urge its claims upon the reader. My own regard for the cause of truth, for the inter- ests of philosophy, of reason, and of religion, lead me to hope that they may not be urged in vain. liV AIDS TO REFLECTIOX. Of his general claims to our regard, whether from exalted personal and moral worth, or from the magnificence of his intel- lectual powers, and the vast extent and variety of his accumula- ted stores of knowledge, I shall not venture to speak. If it be true indeed, that a really great mind can be worthily com- mended, only by those, who adequately both appreciate and comprehend its greatness, there are few, who should under- take to estimate, and set forth in appropriate terms, the intel- lectual power and moral worth of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Neither he, nor the public, would be benefited by such com- mendations as I could bestow. The few among us who have read his works with the attention which they deserve, are at no loss what rank to assign him among the writers of the present age ; to those, who have not, any language, which I might use, would appear hyperbolical and extravagant. The character and influence of his principles as a philosopher, a moralist, and a christian, and of the writings by which he is enforcing them, do not ultimately depend upon the estimation in which they may now be held ; and to posterity he may safe- ly entrust those "productive ideas" and "living words" — those " To perish never," the possession of which will be for their benefit, and connect- ed with which, in the language of the son of Sirach, — "His own memorial shall not depart away, and his name shall live from generation to generation." J. M. ADVERTISEMENT 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 hke this (for the purjiose of an illustration, at least) applies to the Work here offered to the Public. In the introductoiy 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 un- dergone 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 Archbishop Leighton, un- der the usual title of The Beauties of Archbishop Leighton, with a few notes and a biographical preface by the Selector. Hence the term, EditoVy subscribed to the notes, and prefixed alone or conjointly to the Aphorisms, accordingly as the Passage was written entirely by myself, or only modi- fied and [avotoedly) intei-polated. I continued 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 Reflections, 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 disproportion of the Commentaiy to the Text, and the too marked difference in the frame, character, and color of the two styles ; soon induced me to recognize and adopt a revolution in, my plan and object, which had in fact actually talcen place without my intention, and almost unawares. It would indeed be more con-ect to say, that the present Volume owed its accidental origin to the intention of compiling one of a different description, 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 Ivi ADVERTISEMENT. excellence and from the characteristic beauty of the passages, suffice to answer two prominent purjDoses of the original plan ; that of placing in a clear light the principle, which pervades all Leighton's Writings— his sub- lime View, I mean, of ReUgion and Morality as the means of reforming the human Soul in the Divine Image (Idea) ; and that of exciting an in- terest in the Works, and an affectionate reverence for the name and me- mory, of this severely tried and truly primitive Churchman. S. T. C. PREFACE. 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 preh'minary Interrogative respecting the end which the Writer himself has in view, whether the Number of Pur- chasers, or the Benefit of the Readers. But this may be safely passed by ; since where the book itself or the known principles 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 possible the intentions of the present volume in reference to the three first- mentioned, viz. What? For Whom? and For what? f. What? The answer is contained in the Title-page. It belongs to the class of didactic Works. Consequently, those who neither wish instruction for themselves, nor assistance in instructing others, have no interest in its contents. Sis Sus, sis Divus : Sum Caltha, et non tihi spiro ! II. For Whom? Generally, for as many in all classes as wish for aid in disciplining their minds to habits of reflec- tion — for all who, desirous of building up a manly character in the Ught of distinct consciousness, are content 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 Iviii AIDS TO REFLECTION. article of belief and doctrine professed by the first Reformers in common) is the Perfection of Human Intelligence: an int€ rest sufficiently strong to ensure a patient attention to the arguments brought in its support. But if I am to mention any particular class or description of Readers, that were prominent in my thoughts during the com- position of the volume, my Reply must be : that it was espe- cially 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 members 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 proposed 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 Sci- ence of Words, their use and abuse (see Note 4) and the in- calculable advantages attached to the habit of using them ap- propriately, and with a distinct knowledge of their primary, derivative, and metaphorical senses. And in furtherance of this Object I have neglected no occasion of enforcing the max- im, 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 PREFACE. liX work, Eirsa ifrs^osvra, Winged Words : or Language, not only the Vehicle of Thought but the Wheels. With my convic- tions and views, for s-nsa. I should substitute X0701, i. e. Words se- lect amd determinate, ^ud for -Trrs^oevTa, ^wovrsg, i.e. living Words. 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 al- so:' 2. To establish the distinct characters of Prudence, Moral- ity, and Religion : and to impress the conviction, that though the second requires the first, and the third contains and sup- poses both the former ; yet still Moral Goodness is other and more than prudence, or the Principle of Expediency ; and higher than Morality. For this distinction the better Schools even of Pagan Philosophy contended. [See pp. 14 — 15.) 3. To substantiate and set forth at large the momentous dis- tinction between Reason and Understanding. Whatever is atchievable by the Understanding for the purposes of world- ly interest, private or public, has in the present age been pur- sued with an activity and a success beyond all former experi- ence, and to an extent which equally demands my admiration and excites my wonder. But likewise it is, and long has been, my conviction, that in no age since the first dawning of Sci- ence and Philosophy in this Island have the Truths, Interests, and studies that especially belong to the Reason, contempla- tive or practical, sunk into such utter neglect, not to say con- tempt, as during the last century. It is therefore one main Object of this Volume to establish the position, that whoever transfers 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 Ix AIDS TO REFLECTION. Dispensation, and more largely of all the jyecuUar doctrines of the Christian Faith; and to answer all the Objections to the same, that do not originate in a corrupt Will rather than er- ring Judgement ; 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 en- deavour 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 Reflection." Concerning the general character of the work, let me be per- mitted to add the few following sentences. St. Augustine, in one of his Sermons, discoursing on a high point of Theology, tell his auditors^ — Sic accipite, ut mercamini intelligere. Fides enim debet prsecedere intellectum, ut sit intellectus fidei praem- ium*. Now without a certain portion of gratuitous and (as it were ) experimentative faith in the Writer, a Reader will scarce- ly give that degree of continued attention, without which no didactic Work worth reading can be read to any wise or pro- fitable purpose. In this sense, therefore, and to this extent every Author, who is competent to the office he has underta- ken, may without arrogance repeat St. Augustine'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 enter- tainment likewise ; but that whoever seeks entertainment only will find neither. ^Translation. »So receive this, that you may desefve to uiiderstaiul it. For tlie faith ought to precede the Underelaiidhig, so that the Understand iiig may be the rcwani of the faith. PREFACE. Ixi Reader ! — ^You have been bred in a land abounding with men, able in arts, learning, and knowledges manifold, this man in one, this in another, few in many, none in all. But there is one art, of which every man should be master, the art of REFLECTION. If you are not ajhinking man, to what purpose are you a man at all ? In like manner, there is one knowl- edge, 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 -con- sciousness 9 Truly said the Pagan moralist, E coelo descen- di, rvwSi SsauTov. But you are likewise born in a christian land : and Reve- lation 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 — ac- custom 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 humani- zed. Finally, by reflection you may draw from the fleeting facts of your worldly trade, art, or profession, a science perma- nent as your immortal soul ; and make even these subsidiary and preparative to the reception of spiritual truth, "doing as the dyers do, who having first dipt their silks in colours of less value, then give them the last tincture of crimson in grain." S. T. COLERIDGE. AIDS TO REFLECTION. INTRODUCTORY APHORI8M8. MARINUS. Omnis divinoe atqiie humanse eriiditionis elementa tria, Nosse, Velle, Posse: quorum principium unum Mens, sive Spiritus; cujus Ocvlus est Ratio ; euilumen piaebet Deus. Vita di G. B. Vico, p. 50. AIDS TO REFLECTION. TNTRODUCTOKY APHORT^iMS. APHORISM I. F.mTOR. It is the prerogative of Genius to produce novel impressions from familiar objects : and seldom can philosophic genius be more usefully employed than in thus rescuing admitted truths from the neglect caused by the very circumstance of their universal admission. Extremes meet. Truths, of all others the most aw^ful and interesting, are too often considered as so true, that they lose all the power of truth, and lie bed-ridden in the dormitory of the soul, side by side with the most des- pised and exploded errors. APHORISM II. EDITOR. There is one sure way of giving freshness and importance 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. APHORISM III. EDITOR. To restore a common-place truth to its first uncommon lus- tre, you need only translate it into action. But to do this, you must have reflected on its truth. APHORISM IV. LEIGHTO.N. ' It is the advice of the wise man, ' Dwell at home,' or, with ^yourself; and though there are very few that do this, yet it 'is surprising that the greatest part of mankind cannot be 1 2 AIDS TO REFLECTION. * prevailed upon, at least to visit themselves sometimes ; but, * according to the saying of the wise Solomon, The eyes of ' the fool are 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 intel- lectus cogitabundus.^) It is at once the disgrace and the mis- ery of men, that they live without fore-thought. Suppose yourself fronting a glass mirror. Now what the Objects be- hind you are to their images at the same apparent distance be- fore you, such is Reflection to Fore-thought. As a man with- out 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. ed. 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 re- flect. And as the blossoms, the green, and the ripe fruit, of an orange-rtree 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 importation into another country and different clime ; so is it with the manifold objects of reflection, when they are considered principally in reference to the re- flective power, and as part and parcel of the same. No ob- ject, of whatever value our passions may represent it, but be- comes foreign to us, as soon as it is altogether unconnected 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. LEIGKTON. 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 commit them to the mercy of the incon- stant winds. INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. 3 APHORISM VIL EDITOR. In order to learn, we must attend : in order to profit by what we have learnt, we must think-^u e. reflect. He only thinks who reflects* APHORISM VIII. L, AND ED. It is a matter of great difficulty, and requires no ordinary skill and address, to fix the attention of men ( especially of young men[l] ) 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 [2] and the in- clination to exercise it. For alas ! the largest part of mankind are nowhere greater strangers than at home. APHORISM IX. EDiTott. Life is the one universal soul, which by virtue of the en- livening Breath, and the informing Word, all organized bod- ies have in common, each after its kind[S]. 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 living ( that is, self-subsisting ) soul, a soul having its life in itself. " And man became a living soul." 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 provi- ded for him, even in his present state, a house not built with hands. Aye, and spite of the philosophy ( falsely so called ) whith mistakes the causes, the conditions, and the occasions of our becoming conscious of certain truths and realities for the truths and realities themselves— a house gloriously fur- nished. Nothing is wanted but the eye, which is the light of this house, the light which is the eye of this soul. This see- ing light, this enlightening eye, is Reflection* It is more, in- deed, than is ordinarily meant by that word ; but 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 4 AIDS TO REFLECTION. thought is but unthinking that does not flow out of this, or tend towards it. APHORISM X. EDITOR. Self-superintendence ! that any thing should overlook itself! Is not this a paradox, and hard to understand ? 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 ! 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 reflec- tion, 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, contrary to the common notion ) and nevertheless true : nay, because they are true. How should it be otherwise, 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 [4], the outward senses cannot recognize. Tertullian had good reason for his assertion, that the simplest Christian ( if indeed a Chris- tian ) knows more than the most accomplished irreligious phi- losopher. 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, according to the opportunities vouchsafed to him, is bound to cultivate the one and to ac- quire the other. Indeed, he is scarcely a Christian who wil- fully neglects so to do. What says the apostle ? Add to your faith knowledge, and to knowledge manly energy, ( apsrriv ) for INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. O this is the proper rendering, and not virtue, at least in the present and ordinary acceptation of the word [5]. 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 simpUfied those of the de- sires and passions[6]. COMMENT. If acquiesence 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 forgotten ; if a mere sensation of positiveness substituted — I will not say for the sense of cer- tainty, but — for that calm assurance, the very means and conditions of which it supersedes ; if a belief that seeks the darkness, 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 sincerest 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 imposssible 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 exercise of th6 reasoning and reflecting powers, increasing insight, and enlarging views, are requisite tb ke'ep alive the substantial faith in the heart. APHORISM XV. EDITOR. In the state of perfection, perhaps, all other faculties may AIDS TO REFLECTION^ be swallowed up in love, or superseded by immediate vision ; but it is on the wings of the cherubim, i. e. ( according to the interpretation of the ancient Hebrew doctors,) the intellectual powei's 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 ex- ceeding broad^-thact iSj comprehensive, pregnant, containing far more than the apparent import of the words on a first pe- rusal. It is my meditation all the day* Comment. It is worthy of especid observation, that the Scriptures are distinguished from all other writings pretending to inspiration, by the strong and frequent recommendations of knowledge, and a spirit of inquiry. Without reflection, it is evident that neither the one can be acquired nor the other exercised. APHORISM XVI. EDITOR. The word rational has been strangely abused of late times. This must not, however, disincline us to the weighty conside- ration, that thoughtfulness, and a desire to rest all our con- victions On grounds of right reason, 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 recollection for thought, are dispo^ sed to admit ; but how much less than it would be, had we not been borri and bred in a Christian and Protestant land, the fewest of Us are sufficiently aware. Truly may we, and thankfully ought we to exclaim with the Psalmist : The entrance of thy Avords giveth light ; it giveth understanding even to the simple. APHORISM XVIIL editor. Examine the journals of zealous missionaries, I mil not say among the Hottentots or Etjqiiimaux, but in the high^ INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. ^ Iv civilized, though fearfully uncultivated, inhabitants of an- cient India. How often, and how feelingly, do they de- scribe the difficulty of rendering the simplest chain ot thought intelligible to the ordinary natives, the rapid exhaustion of their whole power of attention, and with what distressful ef- fort it is exerted while it lasts ! Yet it is among these that the hideous practices of self-torture chiefly prevail. O if tol- ly were no easier than wisdom, it being often so very much more grievous, how certainly might these unhappy slaves of superstition be converted to Christianity! But, alas! to swing by hooks passed through the back, or to walk m shoes with nails of iron pointed upwards through the soles— all this is so much less difficult, demands so much less exertion ot the will than to reflect, and by reflection to gain knowledge and tranquility 1 COMMENT. It is not true, that ignorant persons have no notion of the advantages of truth and knowledge. They confess, they see and bear witness to these advantages in the conduct, the immunities, and the superior powers of the possessors. Were they attainable by pilgrimages the most toilsome, pr penances the most painful, we should assuredly have as many pilgrims and self-tormentors in the service of true religion, as now ex- ist under the tyranny pf 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 impedi- ment to men's turning the mind inward upon themselves is that tliey are afraid of what they shall find there. There is an aching hollowness in the bospm, a dark cold speck at the heart, an obscure and boding sense of a somewhat, that must be kept out of sight of the conscience ; some secret bdger, whom they can neither resolve to eject of retain[7] , COMMENT. Few are so obdurate, few have sufficient strength of char- acter, to be able to draw forth an evil tendency or immoral 8 AIDS TO REFLECTION. practice into distinct consmousiuss^ 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 Chris- tian walks in twilight among snares and pitfalls ! He entreats the heavenly Father not to lead him into temptation, and yet places himself on the very edge of it, because he will not kin- dle the torch which his Father had given into his hands, as a means of prevention, and lest he should pray too late. APHORISM XX KDiToR. Among the various undertakings of men, can there be men- tioiied one more important, can there be conceived 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 — Teligious prudence, I mean ; a prudence in the service of Religion. What this is, will be best explain- ed by its effects and operations. It consists then in the pre- vention or abatement of hinderances and distractions ; and consequently in avoiding, or removing, all such circumstancjes as, by diverting the attention of the w^orkman, retard the pro- gress and hazard the safety of the w^ork. It is likewise (we deny not) a part of this unworldly prudence, to place our- selves as much and as often as it is in our power so to do, in circumstances 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 Chris- tians, forget whose and under what dominion the things are, quae nos drcwnstant^ 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 ever- more at variance with the Divine Form (or idea) they are INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS, V 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 en- mity with our design. We aie to avoid its snares, to repel its attacks, to suspect its aids and succours, and even when com- pelled to receive them as allies within our trenches, yet to commit the outworks alone to their charge, and to keep tliem 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 conquer- ors 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 Chris- tian 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 lelations of the present life, which the sensual un- derstanding ( TO (ppcvrjfjLa T7)g 2a^og, Romans viii, 6,) is of itself able to discover, and the performance of which, under favour- able worldly circumstances, the merest worldly self-interest, without love or faith, is sufficient to enforce ; but which Christian prudence enlivens by a higher principle, and renders symbolic and sacramental, (Ephesiansv, 32.) COMMENT, This then comprising the prudentials of religion, comes first under consideration. Next follow the moral Requisites. If in the first we have the shrine smd frame-work for that Di- vine Image, into w^hich the Wordly -human is to be transform- ed ; in the second, we are to bring out the Portrait itself — the distinct features of its countenance, as a sojourn6r among men ; its benign aspect turned towards its fellow-pilgrims, the extended arm, and the hand that blesseth and healeth, APHORISM XXIII. EDITOR, The outward service (0poo'x£»a[8] ) of ancient religion, the 2 10 AIDS TO EEFLECTION. rites, ceremonies and ceremonial vestments of the 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 cere- monial (cultus exterior, ^^rjtfxsia ) of the Christian religion. The scheme of grace and truth that became [9) through Jesus Christ, the faith that looks\\0} down into the perfect law of liberty, has " light for its garment ;" its very " robe is right- COMMENT. Herein the Apostle places the pre-eminency, the peculiar and distinguishing excellence, of the Christian religion. The ritual is of the same kind, (ofAostf/ov) though not of the same order, with the religion itself — not arbitrary or conventional, as types and hieroglyphics are in relation to the things express- ed by them; but inseparable, consubstantiated (as it were,) and partaking therefore of the same life, permanence, and in- trinsic worth with its spirit and principle. 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 vary- ing circumstances 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 un- mixed with sin, thraldom and infirmity. In the natural and intellectual lealms, we distinguish what we cannot separate ; and in the moral world, we must distinguish in order to sepa- rate. Yea, in the clear distinction of good from evil the pro- cess of separation commences. INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. 11 COMMENT. It was customary with religious men in former times, to make a rule of taking every morning some text or aphorism [11] for their occasional meditation 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- imposed rules are to degenerate into superstition or hoUow- ness : 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 distinguishes in order to divide. In the former, we may contemplate the source of superstition and [12] idolatry ; in the latter, of schism, heresy [13], and a seditious and sectarian spirit [14]. APHORISM XXVII. EDITOR. Exclusive of the abstract scie,nces, the largest and worthiest portion of our knowledge consists of aphorisms: and the greatest and best of men is but an aphorism, APHORISM XXVIII. EDITOR. 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 dis- pute respecting conversion, whether, and in what sense, neces- sary in all Christians. It is sufficient for our purpose, that a very large number of men, even in Christian countries weet/, to be converted, and that not a few, we trust, have been. The tenet becomes fanatical and dangerous, only when rare and ex- traordinary exceptions are made to be the general rule ; — when what was vouchsafed to the apostle of the Gentiles by espe- cial grace, and for an especial purpose, viz. a conversion [15] begun and completed in the same moment, is demanded or ex- pected of all men, as a necessary sign and pledge of their election. Late observations have shown, that under many 13 AIDS TO REFLECTION. circumstances the magnetic 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 [16] 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 vofiog TsXeiog o Tr,g s'KsvGs^ias) is below the horizon. Certain necessary conse- quences of his past life and his present undertaking will be seen by the refraction of its light : more will be apprehended and conjectured. The phantasms, that had predominated du- ring the hours of darkness, are still busy. No longer present as Forms, they will yet exist as moulding and formative Mo- tions in the Pilgrim's soul. The Dream of the past night will transfer its shapes to the objects in the distance, while the ob- jects give outwardness and reality to the shapings of the Dream. The fears inspired by long habits of selfishness and self-seeking cunning, though now purifying into that fear which is the beginning 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 contemplated in their bearings on the individual's inherent[17] desire of happiness and dread of pain become motives : and ( unless all distinction in the words be done away with, and either prudence or virtue be reduced to a superflu- ous synonyme, a redundancy in all the languages of the civili- zed world,) these motives, and the acts and forbearances di- rectly 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 mo- ral life, and tends to preclude it, and to prevent the soul from INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. 13 ever arriving at the hatred of sin for its own exceeding sinful- ness (Rom. vii. 13J : and this is an evil prudence. Or it inajr 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." It is therefore an innocent, and (being such) a proper and com- MENDABI.E PRUDENCE. Or it may lead and be subservient to a higher principle than itself. The mind and conscience of the individual may be re- conciled to it, in the foreknowledge of the higher principle, and with a yearning towards it that implies a foretaste of fu- ture freedom. The enfeebled convalescent is reconciled to his crutches, and thankfully makes use of them, not only because they are necessary for his immediate support, but likewise, be- cause they are the means and conditions of exercise ; and by exercise of establishing, gradatim 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 indeed, its birth-place in the world, and the wisdom of this world for its Father; but naturalized in a better land, and having the Wis- dom from above for its Sponsor and Spiritual Parent. To steal a dropt feather from the spicy nest of the Phoinix, (the fond humour, I mean, of the mystic divines and allegorizers of Ho- ly Writ) it is the son of Terah from Ur of the Chaldees, who gives a tithe of all to the King of Righteousness, without fa- ther, without mother, without descent, (No,aos aurovo/xo^,) and receives a blessing on the remainder. Lastly, there is a prudence that co-exists with morality, as morality co-exists with the spiritual life : a prudence that is the organ of both, as the understanding 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 ( oixovojuiog "ri^og xai (ppov«|xoj, Luke xii. 42), the 'eldest servant' in the family of faith, born in the house^ and ' made the ruler over his lord's household.' 14 AIDS TO REFLECTION. Let not then, I entreat you, my purpose be misunderstood ; as if, in distinguishing virtue from prudence, I wished to di- vide the one from the other. True morality is hostile to that prudence only, which is preclusive of true morality. The teacher who subordinates prudence to virtue, cannot be sup- posed to dispense with it ; and he who teaches the proper con- nexion of the one with the other, does not depreciate the low- er 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 Un- derstanding. If the same idiom existed in our language, only with the substitution of the practical for the intellectual, I would say: the word[18] ft. e. Practical Rectitude,) has Virtue (or Morality) for its Consonants and Prudence for the Vowels. Though the former can scarcely be pronounced with- out 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 consonants. 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. APHORISM XXX. EDITOR. What the duties of morality are, the apostle instructs the believer in full, reducing them under two heads : negative, to keep himself pure from the w^orld ; and positive, beneficence with sympathy and loving-kindness, i. e. love of his fellow-men ( his kind ) as himself. APHORISM XXXI. EDITOR. Last and highest, come the spiritual, comprising all the truths, acts and duties that have an especial reference 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 tlie whole ascent from uprightness INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. 15 ( morality, virtue, inward rectitude^ to godlikeness^ with aW the acts, exercises, and disciplines of mind, will and affection, that are requisite or conducive to the great design of our re- demption from the form of the evil one, and of our second creation or birth in the divine Image [19]. APHORISM XXXII. EDITOR. It may be an additional aid to reflection, to distinguish 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 corres- ponds to the sense and the understanding ; the moral to the heart and the conscience ; the spiritual to the will and tho 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 abso- lute. I have now, I trust, effected the two purposes of this intro- ductory chapter, viz : 1. That of explaining the true nature and evincing the ne- cessity of reflection in the constitution of a Christian charac- ter. 2. That of assigning my reasons why, having proposed 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 ex- tracts with mementos of my own. PRUDENTIAL APHORISMS. APHORISM I. L. AND ED. You will not be offended, nor think I intend to insult 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 caies of this world ; they stagger about with a tottering and unstable 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 favourable ; neither can he who has not yet determined at what mark he is to shoot, direct his arrow aright. 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, ) I assert that there is such a thing as human happiness. This is indeed implied 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 3 18 AIDS TO REFLECTION. never have been relieved, had they been formed not only ca- pable of a good, quite unattainable 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 ad- mitted, there must necessarily be some full, permanent, and, satisfying good, that may be attained by man, and in the pos- session of which he must be truly happy. APHORISM III. LEIGHTON. What this is, the Bible alone shows clearly and certainly, and points out the way that leads to the attainment of it. This is that which prevailed with St. Augustine to study the Scrip- tures, and engaged his affection to them. 'In Cicero, and ' Plato, and other such writers,' says he, ' I meet with many * things acutely said, and things that excite a certain warmth ' 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 resf[20]. APHORISM IV. LEIGHTON. It is the wisdom of mankind to know God, and their indis- pensable duty to worship Him. Without this, men of the brightest parts and greatest learning seem to be born with ex- cellent talents only to make themselves miserable ; and accor- ding to the expression of the wisest of kings. He that increa- seth knowledge increaseth sorrow, Eccl. i. 18. We must, therefore, first of all, consider this as a sure and settled point, that rehgion is the sole foundation of human peace and felici- ty. 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 invented by some wise men, to en- courage 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 meantime, how unhappy is the case of integrity and vir- PRUDENTIAL APHORISMS. 19 tue, if what they want to support them is merely fictitious, and they cannot keep their ground but by means of a mon- strous forgery ! But far be it from us to entertain such an ab- surdity ! For the first rule of righteousness cannot be other- wise than right, nor is there any thing more nearly aUied or more friendly to virtue, than truth. APHORISM V. LEIGHTON. And it is, indeed, very plain, that if it were possible en- tirely 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 mankind. 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 watch- ful providence, than that it should be otherwise. 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 possi- ble, 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 quicksands. On the other hand, can any thing give grea- ter consolation, or more substantial joy[21], than to be firmly persuaded, not only that there is an infinitely good and wise Being, but also that this Being preserves and continually gov- erns the universe which Himself has framed, and holds the reins of all things in His powerful hand ; that He is our fa- ther, 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 20 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 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 fortu- nateness, or happiness ; and I can see no advantage in the im- proper 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 different 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 premise, and in anoth- er 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 not permit the same strictness in speaking. The mathe- matician finds this so necessary to the truths which he is seek- ing, that his science begins with, and is founded on, the defini- tion of his terms. The botanist, 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 business of moral and religious reflection, in the acquisition of clear and distinct conceptions of our duties, and of the relations in which we stand to God, our neighbour and ourselves, no such difficul- ties occur. At the utmost we have only to rescue words, al- ready existing and familiar, from the false or vague meanings imposed on them by carelessness, or by the clipping and de- basing 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 elements of bodies to the chemist, or even than the mechanism ( fearful and wonderful though it be ! ) of the perishable Tabernacle of the Soul can be to the PRUDENTIAL APHORISMS. 21 anatomist. Among the aids to reflection, place the following maxim prominent : let distinctness in expression advance side by side with distinction in thought. For one useless subtlety in our elder divines and moralists, I will produce ten sophisms of eqivocation in the writings of our modern preceptors : and for one error resulting from excess in distinguishing the indif- ferent, I would show ten mischievous delusions from the habit of confounding the diverse. APHORISM VII. EDITOR. Whether you are reflecting for yourself, or reasoning 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 enable yourself to disarm and expose four-fifths of the main arguments of our most renowned irreligious philosophers, 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 pernicious 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 unexceptionably true : Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. Doth religion require any thing of us more than that we live soberly y righteously, and godly in this present world ? Now what, I pray, can be more pleasant or peaceable than these ? Temperance is always at leisure, 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 Epicurus' 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 22 AIDS TO REFLECTION. breast which they inhabit, with a heavenly peace and abund- ant joy, and thereby render it like that of an angel. The slaves of pleasure and carnal aifections, have within them, even now, an earnest of future torments ; so that, in this pre- sent 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,' 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 con- sists 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 expe- dient to say, that in all the outward relations of this life, in all our outward conduct and actions, both in what we should 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 reflec- ting and consistent selfishness ; 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 individu- al ; for what is true of all, must be true of each. Hence, you cannot become better, (i e. more virtuous), but you will be- come happier : and you cannot become worse, (i. e, more vi- cious), without an increase of misery (or at the best a propor- tional loss of enjoyment) as the consequence. If the thing were not inconsistent with our well-being, and known to be so, it would not have been classed as a vice. Thus what in an enfeebled and disorded mind is called prudence, is the voice PRUDENTIAL APHORISMS. 23 of nature in a healthful state ; as is proved by the known fact, that the prudential duties, (i. e. those actions which are com- manded 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 tem- perate life and habits of active industry, whether this pleasure were or were not the chief or only determining motive there- to. Virtue may, possibly, add to the pleasure a good of ano- ther kind, a higher good, perhaps, than the worldly mind is ca- pable 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 multi- formity 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 seeking 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 ne- cessary conditions, and with the other almost certain con- sequences of 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 favourable to the germination and up-spring of a nobler seed. They may pre- pare and predispose you to the sense and acknowledgement of a principle, differing not merely in degree but in kind from the faculties and instincts of the higher and more intelligent spe- cies of animals, (the ant, the beaver, the elephant), and which principle is therefore your proper humanity. And on this ac- count and with this view alone may certain modes of pleasure- able or agreeable sensation, without confusion of terms, be hon- oured with the title of refined, intellectual, ennobling pleasures. For Pleasure ( and happiness in its proper sense is but the continuity and sum-total of the pleasure which is allotted or 24 AIDS TO REFLECTION. happens to a man, and hence by the Greeks called £UTux»a, i- e. good-hap, or more religiously £u5a»fxovia, i. e. favourable provi- dence ) — Pleasure I say, consists in the harmony between the specific excitability of a living creature, and the exciting cau- ses correspondent thereto. Considered, therefore, exclusively in and for itself, the only question is, quantum ? not, quale ? How much on the whole 9 the contrary, i, e. the painful and disagreeable, having been subtracted. The quality is a mat- ter 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 sen- tences quoted above ( that virtue alone is happiness ; that hap- piness 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 misera- ble." 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 eflScacious, a leview of the different epochs memorable for the turning of many from their evil ways, and a review of the means by which this reforma- tion of life has been principally effected, renders me scrupu- lous in deciding. At all events, I should rely far more confidently on the con- verse, 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 ircB^ 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 fear- PRUDENTIAL APHORISMS. 25 ful corollary, that if even in the body, which as long as life is in it can never be w?Ao% bereaved of pleasurable sensations, vice is found to be misery, what must it not be in the world to come ? There, where even the criine is no longer possible, much less the gratifications that once attended it — where no- thing of vice remains but its guilt and its misery — vice must be misery itself, all and utter misery. — So best, if I err not, may the motives of prudence 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 concerns us to keep distinct, inasmuch as this distinction and the faith therein are essential to our moral nature [23] , 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 the prevenient and assisting grace of the Media- tor, will not strive in vain. APHORISM IX. EDITOR. The advantages of a life passed in conformity with the pre- cepts of virtue and religion, and in how many and various re- spects they recommend virtue and religion, even on grounds of prudence, fonn 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 jet 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, tlie consequences of w^hich 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 informed that wealth and extensive patronage will be the con- sequence of his obtaining the love and esteem of Constantia. But if the foreknowledge of this consequence 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 4 26 AIDS TO REFLECTION. that merited, or was capable of feeling, either one or the other, would not Sophron find ( and deservedly too ) aversion and con- tempt in their stead? Wherein, if not in this, differs the friendship of worldlings from true friendship ? Without kind offices and useful services, wherever the power and opportu- nity 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 passa- ges, 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 misinterpretation of my senti- ments by the two following aphorisms : APHORISM X. EDITOR. Though prudence in itself is neither virtue nor spiritual ho- liness, yet without prudence, or in opposition to it, neither vir- tue nor holiness can exist* APHORISM XL EDITOR. Art thou under the tyranny of sin ? a slave to vicious habits ? at enmity with God, and a skulking fugitive from thy own con- science ? 0, how idle the dispute, whether the listening to the dictates of prudence from prudential and self-interested motives be virtue or merit, when the not listening is guilt, misery, mad- ness, and despair ! The best, the most Christianlike 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 PRUDENTIAL APHORISMS. 27 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 fu- riously bent upon calumny, a scorpion? Is not the person who is eagerly set on resentment and revenge, a most venom- ous viper ? 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 advantage have you by your reason, which enables you to overcome lions, if, after all, you, yourself, are overcome by anger ? To what pur- pose 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 pride, sometimes brought down and caught by pleasure ? 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 mean- ly subjected to the beck of a contemptible harlot, or even of an imperious wife ; will it not be, in like manner, disgraceful for you who exercise dominion over the beasts that are with- out you, to be subject to a great many, and those of the worst sort, that roar and domineer in your distempered mind ? APHORISM XIIL LEIGHTON. There is a settled friendship, nay, a near relation and simili- tude between God and good men ; he is even their father ; but, in their education, he inures them to hardships. When, there- fore, says Seneca, 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. 28 AIDS TO REFLECTION. Be persuaded that God takes the same method. He does not pamper the good man with delicious fare, but tries him ; he accustoms him to hardships, and, (which is a wonderful express- ion 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 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 happiness re- served 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 conducts, 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 Kfe that can be made choice of, or, indeed, imagined. Nay, that we may not, by low express- ions, derogate from a matter so grand and so conspicuous, that holiness and true rehgion which leads directly to the highest felicity, is itself the only happiness, as far as it can be enjoyed on this earth. Whatever 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 a part of it, and dif- fers from it, in its complctest state, not so much in kind, as in degree. APHORISM XV. LEIGHTON. 'We are always resolving to live, and yet never set about 'life in good earnest[24].' Archimsdes was not 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 them- selves,' as it were, to the mines, seem to make it their chief PRUDENTIAL APHORISMS. 89 study to prevent their ever regaining their liberty. Hence, new employments are assumed in the place of old ones ; and, as the Roman philosopher truly expresses it, ' one hope suc- ' ceeds another, one instance of ambition makes way for ano- 'ther; and we never desire an end of our misery, but on- 'ly that it may change its outward form [25]-' 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 our- selves ; and he who is grown old in the management of other men's affairs for money, is at last employed 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 hfe shall entirely disengage me from public offices and business. Fool ! 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 ! REFLECTIONS RESPECTING MORALITY. If Prudence, though practically inseparable from Morality, is not to be confounded with the Moral Principle ; 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 preferences, 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-mean- ing and too commonly misapplied expression. 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 sacrifice of Self, though only to the same Self projected^ as it were, to a distance. But the very term sensibility, marks its passive nature ; and in its mere self, apart from Choice and Reflec- tion, it proves little more than the coincidence or contagion of pleasureable or painful Sensations in different persons. Alas ! how many are there in this over-stimulated age, in which the occurrence of excessive and unhealthy sensitive- ness is so frequent, as even to have reversed the current meaning of the word, nervous — how many are [26] there whose sensibility prompts them to remove those evils alone, which by hideous spectacle or clamorous outcry are present to their senses and disturb their selfish enjoyments. Provi- ded the dunghill is not before their parlour window^, they are well contented to know that it exists, and perhaps as the hot- 32 AIDS TO REFLECTION. bed on which their own luxuries are reared. Sensibility is not necessarily Benevolence. Nay, by rendering us trem- blingly alive to trifling misfortunes, it frequently prevents 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 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 Viitue is. Sensibility is the ornament and be- coming Attire of Virtue- On certain occasions it may almost be said to 6ecome[27] Virtue. But Sensibility and all the amiable Qualities may likewise become, and too often have become, the panders of Vice and the instruments of Seduc- tion. 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 sympathetic, and the more social part of his nature happened to be uppermost. The same man shall afterwards 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 Phi- REFLECTIONS RESPECTING MORALITY. 38 losophy of Sterne, and his numerous Imitators. The vilest appetites and the most remorseless inconstancy towards their objects., acquired the titles of the Heart, the irresistible Feel- ings, 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 Novelists : 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 correspondence 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 peaceful 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 pro- ceed from a Habit of Soul, which would exclude all these and ( to borrow a metaphor from Paganism ) prefer the den of Tro- phonius 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 shapeless feelings, sentiments, impul- ses, which as far as they differ from the vital woikings in the brute animals owe the difference to their former connexion with the proper Virtues of Humanity ; as Dendrites derive the outlines, 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 5 34 AIDS TO REFLECTION. Love itself in its highest earthly Bearing, as the ground of the marriage union [28], becomes Love by an inward fiat of the Will, by a completing and sealing 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, abstracted from the changes it may have un- dergone in its combination with the others. On this account I have deferred in order to give effectually the more interesting and far more cheering contemplation of the same Subjects in the reverse order ; Prudence, namely, as it flows out of Mo- rality, and Morality as the natural Overflowing of Religion ; for religious principle is 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, 1 should in like manner have followed the course of Morality from its Twin Sources, the Affections 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. But without a too glaring Breach of the promise, that the Banquet 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 introduc- tory pages, no longer necessary. Still, however, it appears to me of the highest use and of vital importance to let it be seen, that Rehgion or the Spirit- ual Life is a something in itself, for Avhich mere Morality, were it even far niore perfect in its kind than experience au- thorises us to expect in unaided human Nature, is no Substi- tute^ 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 sepa- REFLECTIONS RESPECTING MORALITY. 85 rate the Moral from the Religious, the morality and moral views of Leighton being every where taken from the point of 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 a^xsw, to exercise^) whether they respect the obstacles to the attainment of the Eternal, irremoveable by the unre- newed and unaided Will of Man ; or the removal of these Obstacles, with its Concurrents and Consequents ; or lastly, the Truths, necessary to a rational belief in the Future, and which alone can interpret the Past, or solve the Riddle of the Present ; are especially meant in the term Spiritual. Amply shall I deem myself remunerated if either by 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 re- flecting 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. APHORISM I. LEIGHTON. What the Apostles were in an extraordinary way befittino- the first annunciation of a Religion for all Mankind, this all Teachers of Moral Truth, who aim to prepare for its recep- tion 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 eve- ry Minister alike, yet it must be acknowledged that there is something (we know not what to call it) of a more accepta- ble reception of those who at first were the means of bring- ing men to God, than of others ; like the opinion some have of physicians, whom they love. APHORISM III. L. AND ED. The worth and value of Knowledge is in proportion to the worth and value of its object. What, then, is the best knowl- edge ? The exactest knowledge of things, is, to know them in their causes ; it is then an excellent thing, and worthy of their en- deavours 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. 38 AIDS TO REFLECTION. APHORISM IV. LEIOMTON. 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 reason- able way. It is not as the dull resting of a stone, or any oth- er 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 far more from ignorance, of the true meaning of 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 following extract therefore, deserves attention, as clearing the doctrine of Sal- vation, 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 character 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 ef- fectual CALLING. The theological interpretation and the philosophic validity of this Apostolic Triad, Election, Salva- tion, and Effectual Calling, (the latter being the intermediate) will be found among the Editor's Comments on the Aphorisms of Spiritual Import. For our present purpose it will be suffi- cient if only w^e prove, that the Doctrines are in themselves innocuous^ and may be both held and taught without any prac- tical ill consequences, and without detriment to the moral frame. APHORlSlM V. LEIGHTOK. Two Links of the Chain (viz. Election and Salvation) are MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 39 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 oth- er two : for no 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 be- lieving wrttes 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 inseparably linked together, then, by any one of them a man may lay hold upon all the rest, and may know that this hold is sure ; and this is the way wherein we may attain, and ought to seek, the comfortable assurance 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 imme- diately into the decree, but to read it in the performance. Though the mariner sees not the pole-star, yet the neeedle 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 believing, interprets the fear by the love in the fear, and tells the soul that its course is heavenward, towards the haven of eternal rest. He that loves, may be sure he was loved first ; and he that chooses God for his delight and por- tion, may conclude confidently, that God hath chosen him to be one of those that shall enjoy him, and be happy in him for ev- er ; for that our love and electing of him is but the return and repercussion of the beams of his love shining upon us. Although from present unsanctification, a man cannot infer that he is not elected ; for the decree may, for part of a man's 40 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 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 reprobation. 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 para- graphs 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 follow- ing ; this being an Hebraism instead of the adjective which the Writer would have used if he had thought, as well as written, in Greek. It is "the Spirit of Meekness" (a meek Spirit), or "the Spirit of Chastity," and the like. The mo- ral 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, infer- red from its practical effects, but of which an immediate knowl- edge 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 Scriptures, they have a spirit indeed, but it is a fanatical spirit, a spirit of delusion and gid- diness : 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 vrhereof it is author, and that word which was inspired MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 41 by it, and sanctifies them to obedience. He that saith I know him^ and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. ( 1 John ii. 4. ) Now this Spirit which sanctifieth, and sanctifieth to obedi- ence, is within us the evidence of our election, and the ear- nest 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 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 insight, but are w^ell and judiciously employed in preparing 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 themselves — 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 : ren- der the words, sanctification of the Spirit, or the sanctifying influences of the Spirit, by. Purity in Life and Action from a pure Principle. We need only reflect on our own experience to be convin- ced, 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 in our Being. But will any reflecting man admit, that his own Will is the only and sufiicient determinant of all he is, and all he does ? Is nothing to be attributed to the harmony of the sys- 6 42 AIDS TO REFLECTION. tern to which he belongs, and to the pre-established Fitness of the Objects and Agents, known and unknown, that sur- round him, as acting on the will, though doubtless, with it likewise ? a process, which the co-instantaneous yet recipro- cal 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 cls 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 cus- tomary 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 antecedent Power or Principle in the Seed, which existed before a single particle of the matters that constitute the size and visibility of the Cro- cus, had been attracted from the surrounding soil. Air, and Moisture. Shall we turn to the seed ? Here too the same necessity meets us. An antecedent Unity (I speak not of the parent plant, but of an agency antecedent in the order of op- perance, yet remaining present as the conservative and repro- ductive Power) must here too be supposed. Analyse the Seed with the finest tools, and let the Solar Microscope come in aid of your senses, what do you find ? Means and instru- ments, 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 Inhabitant invisible f 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 pro- cess of thought, and the coherence ofoiU of which to a Sys- tem, 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 individual Law or MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 4S Principle of Union in each. Now will Reason, will Common Sense, endure the assumption, that in the material and visible system 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, that it is reasonable, I say, to believe this respect- ing the Aggregate of Objects, which without a Subject (i. e. a sentient and intelligent Existence) would be purposeless and yet unreasonable and even superstitious or enthusiastic to entertain a similar belief in relation to the System of intelli- gent and self-conscious Beings, to the moral and personal World ? But if in this too, in the great Community of Per- sonSy it is rational to infer a One universal Presence, a One present to all and in all, is it not most irrational to suppose that a finite will can exclude it ? Whenever, therefore, the man is determined (i. e. impelled and directed) to act in har- mony of intercommunion, must not something be attributed to this all-present power as acting in the Will ? and by what fit- ter names can we call this than the law, as empowering ; the WORD, as informing ; and the spirit, as actuating ? 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 suppo- sing, and as long as Religion is contemplated 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 spiritu- al 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 Morality conceivable; suf- ficient 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 asser- tion of the learned and philosophic Apostle, that " the spirit 44 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 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 we are responsible Agents ; Persons, and not merely living Things[29]. 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 assur- ance, 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 suspen- ding or destroying its freedom, ( the possibility of which is proved to us in the influences of Education, of providential Occurrences, and above all, of Example ) but that in regene- rate souls it may act in the will ; that uniting and becoming one [30] with our will or spirit it may "make intercession for us ; " nay, in this intimate union taking upon itself the form of our infirmities, may intercede for us " with groanings that can- not 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 J 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, com- municate 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 ob- ject ofmy own direct and immediate Consciousness ; but must be inferred. 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. MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 45 If any reflecting mind be surprised that the aids of the Di- vine Spirit should be deeper than our Consciousness can reach, it must arise from the not having attended sufficiently to the nature and necessary limits of human Consciousness. For the same impossibility 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 Aristotelians, 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 comprehended in Time and Space, is included in the Mechanism of Cause and Effect, And conversely, whatever, 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 con- sidered 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 Mo- ral State : for 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 w^e may safely presume, that no man not meaning to speak figuratively, w^ould call the shifting Current of a stream thewiLL[31] of the River), will suppose 46 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 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 suf- ficient, 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 un- dergo, 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 meaning 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 geneisiiion) metaphysical : though how is it pos- sible that a work not physical^ that is, employed on Objects known or believed on the evidence of Sense, should be oth- er 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, in- deed, 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, Attach- ments, and Infirmities), 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 Commenter on a Scotch Bishop's platonico- * calvinistic commentary on St. Peter, belongs to the Sect of ' the JEolists^ whose fruitful imaginations lead them into cer- * tain notions, which although in appearance very unaccounta- ' bhy are not loithout their mysteries and their meanings ; fur- ' nishing plenty of Matter for such, whose converting Imagi- MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 47 ^ nations dispose them to reduce all things into types; who * can make shadows, no thanks to the Sun : and then mould * them into substances, no thanks to Philosophy : tvhose pe- ^culiar Talent lies infixing tropes and allegories to the ' LETTER, and refining what is literal into figure and mys- 'tery.' — 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 theolo- gical studies, or, at least, that most important part of them re- specting the aids which Religion promises in our attempts to realize the ideas of Morality, by bringing together all the pas- sages 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 Obser- vation, 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 caricature in the Portraits sketched by these bold Masters, and without at- tempting to determine in how many of the Enthusiasts, brought forward by them in proof of the influence of false Doctrines, a constitutional Insanity, that would probably have shown it- self in some other form, would be the truer Solution, I would direct my PupiPs 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 pos- sessing, an immediate Consciousness, a sensible Experience, of the Spirit in and during its operation on the soul. It is not 48 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 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 Scripture Pro- mises^ 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 perception 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, inlloried by Butler, sent to Bedlam by Swift, and (on their re-appearance in public) gib- betted by Warburton, and anatomized by Bishop Lavington, one and all have this for their essential character, that the Spirit is made the immediate Object of Sense or Sensation. Whether the Spiritual Presence and agency are supposed cog- nizable by an indescribable Feeling or in unimaginable Vision by some specific visual energy ; whether seen, or heard, or touched, smelt, and tasted — for in those vast Storehouses of fanatical assertion, the volumes of Ecclesiastical History and reUgious Auto-biography, Instances are not wanting even of the three latter extravagancies — 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 be- ing 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, L 6. 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 incon- sistency. And for aught that hitherto appears, we may see with complacency the Arrows of Satire feathered with Wit, weighted with Sense, and discharged by a strong Arm, fly MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 49 home to their mark. Our Conceptions of a possible Spiritual Communion, though they are but negative, and only prepara- tory to a faith, in its actual existence, stand neither in the Le- vel nor 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 charita- ble to think otherwise. But we are in the silent school of Re- flection, in the secret confessional of Thought. Should we ' lie for God,' 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 Job's Comforters, we will leave both attempts. But (it may be said), a possible Conception is not necessa- rily a true one ; nor even a probable one, where the Facts can be otherwise explained. In the name of the supposed Pupil I would reply — That is the- very question I am preparing myself to examine ; and am now seeking the Vantage-ground w^here 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 my- self 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. Suppose ( 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 tlie understanding is to exert itself, would be want- ing. 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 progress — the state of a Moral Man, who has already welcomed certain truths of Re- 7 50 AIDS TO REFLECTION. ligion, and is enquiring after other and more special Doctrines : still however as a Moralist, desirous indeed to receive them into combination with Morahty, 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 fa- miliarity with the mad perversions of the doctrine by Fanat- ics in all ages, have connected with the very words, Spirit, Grace, Gifts, Operations, &c. re-examine the arguments ad- vanced in the first pages of this Introductory Comment, and the simple and sober View of the Doctrine, contemplated in the first instance as a mere Idea of the Reason, flowing natu- rally 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 re- jecting it. That no false judgments, no extravagant conceits, no practical ill-consequences need arise out of the Belief of the Spirit, and its possible communion with the Spiritual Prin- ciple in Man, or can arise out of the right Belief, or are com- patible with the Doctrine truly and scrip turally explained, Leighton, 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 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 be- lief 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 circumstances, and the necessary move- ments of the vast machine, 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 MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 51 his solitary De.i, or the howl of a Dog with his eyes on the Moon ? At the best, you can regard it only as a transient be- wilderment of the Social Instinct, 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 tempo- rary make-believe on the part of the Self-magnetizer ! At all events, do not prejudge a Doctrine, the utter rejec- tion of which must oppose a formidable obstacle to your ac- eeptance 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 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 sufficient guide to their actual sense or to the Writer's own Meaning ! And this too, where the literal and received Sense involves nothing impossi- ble, or immoral, or contrary 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 liv- ing communion with the Universal Spirit impoverishes Deism itself, and renders it as cheerless as Atheism, from which in- deed it would differ only by an obscure impersonation of what the Atheist receives unpersonified under the name of Fate or Nature. APHORISM VII. L. AND ED. The proper and natural Effect, and in the absence of all dis- turbing or intercepting forces, the certain and sensible accom- paniment 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 consider- 52 AIDS TO REFLECTION. ed as a Sense of its presence. In this case, I say, and for a soul watchful, 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. 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 beholds, is verily there to be beheld. Much less may we conclude negatively, and from the inadequacy or suspension or affections of the Sight infer the non-existence, or departure, or changes of the Thing itself. The Chameleon darkens in the shade of him that bends over it to ascertain its colours. In hke 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 Or- gan in and by which our peace with God, and the lively work- ing 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 interrupted, the soul that is truly at peace with God may for a time be disqui- eted 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 I 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 to- wards them depend not on their sense, nor upon any thing in them, but is still in itself, incapable of the smallest alteration. MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 53 A holy heart that gladly entertains grace, shall find that it and peace cannot dwell asunder ; while an ungodly man may sleep to death in the lethargy of carnal presumption and im- penitency ; but a true, lively, solid peace he cannot have. There is no peace to the wicked^ saith my God^ Isa. Ivii. 21. APHORISM VIII. LEiGHToir. WORLDLY HOPES. Worldly hopes are not living, but lying hopes ; they die oft- en 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 ex- pectation 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 ^nore for its device, than Dum spiro spero ; but the chil- dren of God can add, by virtue of this living hope, Dum ex- ^piro spero. APHORISM IX. LEIGHTON. THE worldling's FEAR. It is a fearful thing when a man and all his hopes die to- gether. 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[S2]^ all of them ;) but the righteous hath hope in his death ^ Prov. xiv. 32. APHORISM X. L. AND ED. WORLDLY MIRTH. As he 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 in- §4 AIDS TO REFLECTION. effectual 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 sanc- tify all other enjoyments, with this which so far surpasses them ; and in distress, it is the only Nepenthe^ the cordial of fainting 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 touching in the first of these similes : and the second, though less pleasing to the imagination, has the charm of propriety, and expresses the transition with equal force and liveliness. A grief of recent birth is a sick infant that must have its medicine administered in its Milk, and sad Thoughts are the sorrowful Heart's natu- ral food. This is a Complaint that is not to be cured by op- posites, which for the most part only reverse 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 grad- ually, and the garment to be put in its stead so gradually slipt on and feel so like the former, that the Sufferer shall be sensi- ble of the change only by the refreshment. The true Spirit of Consolation is well content to detain the tear in the eye, and finds a surer pledge of its success in the smile of Resig- nation that dawns through that, than in the liveliest shows of a forced and alien exhilaration. APHORISM XI. EDITOR. Plotinus thanked God, that his Soul was not tied to an im- mortal body. APHORISM XII. L. AND ED. What a full Confession do we make of our dissatisfaction with the Objects of our bodily senses, that in our attempts to MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 55 express what we conceive the Best of Beings, and the great- est of Felicities to be, we describe by the exact Contraries of all, that we experience here — the one as /^finite, /ncompre- hensible, Immutable, Seethe other asmcorruptible, wndefiled, 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. Ano- ther, and more fruitful, perhaps more solid, inference 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 Infinite, in all measures of Time an Eter- nal ; that the latter are the basis, the substance, the true and abiding ideality of the former ; and that as we truly are, only as far as God is with us, so neither can we iruXy 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 Evil Be- ing, 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 irr 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 effi^rt ; and therefore there is no assurance that the victory is any nK)re 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 ^a6w/rt, patient and courageous in picture, or tkicy ; and notwithstanding all their arms, and dexterity in 56 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 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 preg- nant Thought was suggested to Leighton 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 lan- guage of the Affections which they excite in us ; on sensible objects, neither metaphysically, as they are known by supe- rior intelligences: nor theoretically, as they would be seen by us were we placed in the Sun ; but as they are represented 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" of Mystery in my way to Truth, but in the hope of removing a difficulty that presses heavily on the minds of many who in Heart and Desire are believers, and Avhich 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, viii. 27., the Word of God at- tributes 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 geometrical reason- ing the Mind knows its constructive faculty in the act of con- structing, and contemplates the act in the product {i. e. the mental figure or diagram ) which is inseparable from the act and co-instantaneous. Let the Reader join these two positions : first, that the Di- vine Spirit acting in the Human Will is described 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 per- haps adopt my suggestion, that the Verse, in which God speak- MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 57 ing of himself, says to Abraham, Noio I knoiv that thou fear- est God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy Son, thy only Son from me — may be more than merely figur'ative. An accom- modation 1 grant ; but in the thing expressed, and not alto- gether 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 preg- nant interpretation. Of the Figures of Speech in the sacred Volume, that are only Figures of Speech, the one of most frequent 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, Repentance, &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 aa but of the Church ; and which' our fashionable Divines have carried to such an extent, as, in the doctrinal part of their Creed, to leave little else but Metaphors. But the Reader who wishes to find this latter subject, and that of the Apho- rism, 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 Edi- tor's second Lay-Sermon [33]. APHORISM XV. L. AND 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. Religion doth not des- troy the life of nature, but adds to it a life more excellent ; yea, it doth not only permit, but requires some feeling of af- flictions. Instead of patience, there is in some men an affect- ed pride of spirit suitable only to the doctrine of the Stoics as it is usually taken. They strive not to feel at all the afflic- tions that are on them ; but where there is no feeling at all, there can be no patience. 58 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 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 him- self above the contlict by their extinction ; while Christianity instructs us to place small reliance on a Virtue that does not begin by bringing the Feelings to a conformity with the Com- mands 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 Agent's feelings might be, Christianity would command : and under certain circumstances would both com- mand and commend it, — commend it, as a healthful symp- tom in a sick Patient ; and command it, as one of the ways and means of changing the Feelings, or displacing, ,|fcem by calling up the opposite. APHORISM XVI. I.EIGHTON. 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 spirit should pass[34], bemiring them, and making them move heavily, as a coach in a deep way ; thus doth all immoderate use of the world and its delight WTong the soul in its spiritual condition, makes it sickly and feeble, full of spiritual distempers and in- activity, benumbs the graces of the Spirit, and fills the soul with sleepy vapours, makes it grow secure and heavy in spirit- ual exercises, and obstructs the way and motion of the Spirit of God, in the Soul. Therefore, 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. APHORISM XVII L. AND 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 Christian, and ano- MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 59 tlier 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 Statesmen, had been finely expressed by a sage Poet of the preceding Generation, in lines which no Generation will find inapplicable or super- annuated. 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, " 1 dare not" waits upon " I wou'd." APHORISM XVII. CONTINUED. LEIOHTOK. THE ORDINARY MOTIVE TO INCONSISTENCY. What though the polite man count thy fashion a little odd and too precise, it is because he knows nothing above that mo- del of goodness which he hath set himself, and therefore ap- proves of nothing beyond it : he knows not God, and there- fore doth not discern and esteem what is most like Him. When courtiers come down into the country, the common home-bred people 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. LEIGHTOW. SUPERFICIAL RECONCILIATIONS, AND THE SELF DECEIT IN FORGIVING. When, after variances, men are brought to an agreement. 60 AIDS TO REFLECTION. they are much subject to this, rather to cover their remaining malices with superficial verbal forgiveness, 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 him- self to the inner, he called after him, ' That is not the way 'out ; the more you go that way, you will be the further in !' So when hatreds are upon admonition not thrown out, but re- tire inward to hide themselves, they grow deeper and strong- er than before ; and those constrained semblances of recon- cilement are but a false healing, do but skin the wound over, and therefore it usually breaks forth worse again. APHORISM XIX. LEiGinoN. 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 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 ingra/ted word which is able to save our souls^ James i. 21. Thus ought they who preach to speak the word ; to endeav- our 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. MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 61 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 believing unto happiness, alters the whole frame of the soul, and makes a new creation, as it begets it again to the in- heritance of glory. Consider it thus, which is its true notion ; and then, what can be so precious ? APHORISM XX. LEIGHTOIf. The difference is great in our natural Hfe, in some persons especially ; that they who in infancy were so feeble, and wrap- ped 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 begin- nings of grace, and our after perfection, that fulness of knowl- edge 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, characters and presages of their after greatness have appeared ( as a sin- gular beauty in Moses's face, as they write of him, and as Cy- rus was made king among the shepherd's 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 meek- ness, 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. ON AN INTERMEDIATE STATE OR STATE OF TRANSITION FROM MORALITY TO SPIRITUAL RELIGION. This Aphorism would, it may seem, have been placed more fitly in the Chapter following. In placing it here, 1 have been 6i AIDS TO REFLECTION. determined by the following Convictions: 1. Every State, and consequently that which we have described as the State of Religious Morality, which is not progressive, is dead or re- trogade. 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 moral- ity as naturally as the Sap in the full-formed stem of a Rose flows towards the Bud, within which the flower is maturing. 3. 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 extraordina- ry influences, that in each instance and in all ages of the Chris- tian sera bear the same characters, and both in the accompa- niments and the results evidently refer to a common origin. And what can this be ? is the Question that must needs force itself on the mind in the first moment of reflection on a phe- nomenon so interesting and apparently so anomalous. The answer is as necessarily contained in one or the other of two assumptions- These influences are either the Product of De- lusion (Insania Amabilis, and the Re-action of disordered Nerves), or they argue the existence of a Relation to some real Agency, distinct from what is experienced or acknowl- edged by the world at large, for which as not merely natural on the one hand, yet not assumed to be miraculous[^b^ 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 [36] 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 uccomp:mied by correspondent dispositionj^ and stirrings of the MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 6S 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, nevertheless, betoken the com- mencement of a Transition from a not irreligious Morality to a Spiritual Religion, with a view to their interests 1 placed this Aphorism under the present Head. APHORISM XXI. L£IOHTON. 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 purified 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. AND F.D. KNOWLEDGE NOT THE ULTIMATE END OF RELIGIOUS PUR- SUITS. The Hearing and Reading of the Word, under which I comprize theological studies generally, are alike defective when pursued without increase of Knowledge, and when pur^ sued chiefly /or increase of Knowledge. 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 to, thou art unto them as a ve7y 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, al- though this is necessary and commendable, 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 knowledge in speech and frequent discourse of the word and the divine truths that are in it ; which, where 64 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 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 w^ord. If any one's head or tongue should grow apace, and all the rest stand at a stay, it would certainly make him a mon- ster ; and they are no other, who are knowing and discour- sing Christians, and grow daily in that respect, but not at all in holiness of heart and life, which is the proper growth of the children of God. Apposite to their case is Epictetus's com- parison of the sheep ; they return not w4iat they eat in grass, but in wool. APHORISM XXni. 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 trouble, 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. APHORISM XXIV. L. AKD 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 cer- tainly that there is fire there ; and therefore dubious question- ing is a much better evidence, than that senseless deadness which most take for beheving. Men that know nothing in sciences, have no doubts. He never truly believed, w^ho was not made first sensible and convinced of unbelief. Never be afraid to doubt, if only you have the disposition 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 Chiistianity better than Truth, MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 65 will proceed by loving his own Sect or Church better than Christianity, and end in loving himself better than all. APHORISM XXVI. L. AND ED. THE ABSENCE OF DISPUTES, AND A GENERAL AVERSION TO RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES, NO PROOF OF TRUE UNANIM- ITY. The boasted Peaceableness about questions of Faith too often proceeds from a superficial Temper, and not seldom from a supercilious Disdain of whatever has no marketable use or value, and from indifference to Religion 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 re- gard 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 con- gregates 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, proceeds from no other than the aforementioned causes, want of knowledge, and want of affection to religion. You that boast you live conformably to the appointments 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 applicable to the pre- sent times than to the age in which it was written. We all know, that Lovers are apt to take offence and wrangle on oc- casions that perhaps are but trifles, and which assuredly would 9 66 AIDS TO REFLECTION. appear such to those who regard Love itself as Folly. These Quarrels may, indeed, be no proof of Wisdom : but still, in the imperfect 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 pro- ceed from the abundance of our charity and good sense, when I see proofs that we are equally cool and forbearing as Liti- gants and Political Partizans. APHORISM XXVIL leishton. 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 be- low 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 spirit- ual priesthood. Oh ! this is a large task, an infinite task. The several creatures bear their part in this; the sun says some- what, 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 apart, the smallest part of that glory, which they can reach. APHORISM XXVIIL leighton. DESPISE none: despair of none. The Jews would not willingly tread upon the smallest piece of paper in their w^ay, but took it up ; for possibly, said they, the name of God may be on it. Though there was a little MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 67 superstition in this, yet truly there is nothing but good reli- gion 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 tread- est on ; it may be a soul that Christ thought so much of, as to give His precious Wood for it ; therefore despise it not. APHORISM XXIX. LEIGHTON. MEN or LEAST MERIT MOST APT TO BE CONTEMPTUOUS, BE- CAUSE MOST IGNORANT AND MOST OVERWEENING OF THEM- SELVES. Too many take the ready course to deceive themselves ; for they look with both eyes on the failings and defects of others, and scarcely give their good qualities half an eye, while, on the contrary in themselves, they study to the full their own advantages, and their weaknesses 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 themselves ! APHORISM XXX. LEIGHTON. VANITY MAY STRUT IN RAGS, AND HUMILITY BE ARRAYED 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 unaffected mind : using it upon some of the aforementioned engagements, or such like, and yet, the heart not at all upon it. Magnus qui fictilihus utitur tanquam argento^ nee ill minor qui argento tanquam fictilihus^ 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. AND ED. OF DETRACTION AMONG RELIGIOUS PROFESSORS. They who have attained to a self-pleasing pitch of civihty or formal religion, have usually that point of presumption with 68 AIDS TO REFLECTION. it, that they make their own size the model and rule to exam- ine all hy. What is below it, they condemn indeed as pro- fane ; but what is beyond 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 perseoution 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 expressi- ble 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 Lab- oratories 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." APHORISMfXXXII. LEIGHTOK. THE REMEDY. All true remedy must begin at the heart ; otherwijse 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 contrary to his inward conviction and knowledge, yet speaks conformably to what is within him in the temper and frame of his heart, which is double, a heart mid a hearty as the Psalmist hath it, Psal. xii. 2. APHORISM XXXIII. L. AND 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 virtues ; and to speak and hear of those willingly, and not endure either to speak or hear MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 69 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 humor of evil speaking. It is strange how most per- sons dispense with themselves in this point, and that in scarce- ly 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 oter his heart, not suffering in it any thought that is uncharitable, or vain self-esteem, up- on the sight of others' 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 imoard parts, powerfully redresses it ; therefore it is ex- pressed, 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 unfeigned heart. sweet truth ! excellent but rare sincerity ! he that loves that truth within, and who is 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 Sobriety, that in the Latin to favour the tongue ( favere linguae ) means, to he silent. We say. Hold your tongue ! as if it were an in- juuction, that could not be carried into eff*ect but by manual force, or the pincers of the Forefinger and Thumb ! And ve- rily — 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 FOB NEW AND STRIKING THOUGHTS. In conversation seek not so much either to vent thy knowl- edge, or to increase it, as to know more spiritually and effec- tually 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 70 AIDS TO KEFLECTION. 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 knoivledge too. APHORISM XXXV. l. and ed. THE RADICAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE GOOD MAN AND THE VICIOUS MAN. The godly man hates the evil he possibly by temptation hath been drawn to do, and loves the good he is 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 en- lightened 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 predominant sincerity and de- sire of holy walking, according to which he is called a right- eous person^ the Lord is pleased to give him that name, and account him so, being upright in heart, though often failing. Leighton adds, "There is a Righteousness of a higher " strain." I do not ask the Reader's full assent to this posi- tion : 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 divides, 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 asserted and so bitterly de- cried under the name of " imputed righteousness." Our learned Archbishop, you see, adopts it ; and it is on this ac- count principally, that by many of our leading Churchmen his Orthodoxy has been more than questioned, and his name put in the List of proscribed Divines, as a Calvinist. That Leigh- MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 71 ton attached a definite sense to the words above quoted, it would be uncandid to doubt ; and the general Spirit of his Writings leads me to presume that it was compatible with the eternal distinction between Things and Pei'sons, and there- fore opposed to modem 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 opportu- nity of showing in another place. My present Object is to open out the Road by the removal of prejudices, so far at least as to throw some disturbing Doubts on the secure Ta- king-f or- 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 Man- kind. And with this view, (and not in the arrogant expecta- tion or wish, that a mere ipse dixit should be received for ar- gument) I here avow my conviction, that the doctrine of im- puted Righteousness, rightly and scripturally 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 substantive existence to the idea presented by the Reason. 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 i^ It must be a higher good to make you happy. COMMENT. Every rank of Creatures, as it ascends in the scale of Cre- ation, leaves Death behind it, or under it. The Metal at its height of Being seems a mute Prophecy of the coming Vege- tation, into a mimic semblance of which it crystallizes. The Blossom and Flower, the Acme of Vegetable Life, divides in- to correspondent Organs with reciprocal functions, and by in- stinctive motions and approximations seems impatient of that 72 AIDS TO REFLECTION. fixture, by which it is differenced in kind from the flower-sha- ped Psyche, that flutters with free wing above it. And won- derfully in the insect realm doth the Irritability, the proper seat of Instinct, while yet the nascent Sensibility is subordi- nated thereto — most wonderfully, I say, doth the muscular Life in the Insect, and the musculo-arterial in the Bird, imi- tate and typically rehearse the adaptive Understanding, yea and the moral aflections and charities, of Man. Let us carry ourselves back, in spirit, to the mysterious Week, the teem- ing 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 Eaith and the Heavens." And who that hath watch- ed their ways with an understanding heart, could contemplate the filial and loyal Bee ; the home-building, wedded, and di- vorceless Swallow ; and above all the manifoldly intelligent [37] Ant tribes, with their Commonwealths and Confedera- cies, 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 pur- suits and desires, the reflections of his inward 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 neighbourhood with the slim water-weeds and oozy bottom-grass that are yet better than itself and more no- ble, in as far as Substances that appear as Shadows are pre- ferable to Shadows mistaken for Substance I 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 !. MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. iO 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 of minds, to be imitators of that which is good, wheresoever 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 resem- blance, bearing his stamp and superscription, and belonging pe- culiarly 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 ; w^hile humility and meekness es- cape many a burden, and many a blow, always keeping pace within, and often without 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 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 faithfulness of friends ; they seek by any means to be strongly underset this vs^ay, to have many and powerful, and trust-worthy friends. But wiser men, perceiv- ing the unsafety and vanity of these and all external things, have cast about for some higher course. They see a necessi- ty of withdrawing a man from externals, which do nothing but mock and deceive those most who trust most to them ; but 10 74 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 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 noth- ing truly strong enough within him, to hold out against the many sorrows and fears which still from without do assault him. So then, tTiough 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 fear, 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, 01 Credit in the World, is ( an Apostle has assured us) Idolatry. Now among the words or synonimes 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 XLL l.and ed. ON THE RIGHT TREATMENT OF INFIDELS. A regardless contempt of Infidel writings is usually the fit- test answer ; Bpreta vilescerent. But where the holy profes- sion 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 regulating of this. Some are not capable of receiving rational answers, MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 75 especially in Divine things ; they were not only lost upon them, but religion dishonored by the contest. Of this sort are the vulgar Railers at Religion, the foul- mouthed Beliers of the Christian Faith and History. Impu- dently false and slanderous Assertions can be met only by Assertions of their ii^jpudent and slanderous falsehood ; and Christians will not, must not condescend to this. How can mere Railing be answered by them who are forbidden to re- turn a railing answer ? Whether or on what provocations such offenders may be punished or coerced on the score of Incivili- ty, and 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 im- portance, 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. Experience hitherto seems to favour the plan of trea- ting these Betes puantes and Enfans de Diable, as their four- footed Brethren, the Shink and Squash, are treated [38] 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 favourite 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 properly belong to the Beadle, and the perpetrators of which would have equally de- served 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 in- quires a reason^ or an account ; which supposes something re- ceptive 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 76 AIDS TO REFLECTION. ingenuously inquires for satisfaction, and possibly inclines to receive the truth, but has been prejudiced by false misrepresen- tations of it. APHORISM XLII. LEiGHTOiT, PASSION NO FRIEND TO TRUTH. Truth needs not the service of passion ; yea, nothing so disserves it, as passion vi^hen set to serve it. The Spirit of truth is withal the Sjnrit 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, and the truest knowledge of God, is most afraid to miscarry in speaking of Him, most tender and wary how" to acquit itself when engJiged to speak of and for God[39]. APHORISM XLIII. LEIGHTON. ON THE CONSCIENCE. It is a fruitless verbal Debate, whether Conscience be a Faculty or a Habit. When all is examined. Conscience 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 ac- tions. COMMENT. What Conscience is, and that it is the ground and antece- dent of human ( or self- ) consciousness, and not any modifica- tion 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 Extract as ap Exercise for Reflection ; MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 77 and because I think 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 no- thing ; for if I asked. How do you define the human mind 9 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 mod- ified by the particular Object. On the contrary, a Conscious- ness properly human, (i. e. iSe//'-consciousness), with the sense of moral responsibility, presupposes the Conscience, as its an- tecedent Condition and Ground. Lastly, the sentence, 'i It is a fruitless verbal Debate," is an assertion of the same com- plexion with the contemptuous Sneers at Verbal Criticism by the Contemporaries of Bentley. In Questions of Philosophy or Divinity, that have occupied the Learned and been the subjects of many successive Controversies, for one instance of mere Logomachy I could bring ten instances of Logodcedaly or verbal Legerdemain, which have perilously confirmed Prej- udices, and withstood the advancement of Truth, in conse- quence 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 im- portant. It is worth noticing, likewise, that Leighton himself in a following page (vol. ii. p. 97), tells us, that A good Con- science is the Root of a good Conversation : and then quotes from St. Paul a text, Titus i. 15, in which the mind and the Conscience are expressly distinguished. APHORISM XLIV. leighton THE LIGHT OF KNOWLEDGE A NECESSARY ACCOMPANIMENT 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. I '78 AIDS TO REFLECTION. APHORISM XLV. leightow. YET THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE RULE, THOUGH ACCOMPANIED BY AN ENDEAVOR 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 in- tention, 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 refined in its temper and affections, will make things go right without, in all the duties and acts of our callings. APHORISM XLVI. editor. THE DEPTH OF THE CONSCIENCE. How deeply seated the Conscience is in the human Soul, is seen in the effect which sudden Calamities produce on guil- ty men, even when unaided by any determinate 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 recollecting, 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 calamities in- to judgments, Executions of a Sentence passed by an invisi- ble Judge ; as if the vast Pyre of the Last Judgment were al- ready kindled in an unknown Distance, 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 fortune, 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 XLVII. l. and ed. God hath suited every creature He hath made with a con- venient good to which it tends, and in the obtainment of which it rests and is satisfied. Natural bodies have all their own natural place, whither, if not hindered, they move incessantly MORAL^ AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 79 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 un- satisfied without it ; the soul, being 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 continually fur- ther away from him, and moves not towards Him till it be re- newed, jet, even in that wandering, it retains that natural re- lation 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 accomplishment of some de- sign he hath ; but still the heart misgives. Many times he at- tains not the thing he seeks ; but if he do, yet he never at- tains 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 over- takes it ; and if he did, yet it is but a shadow. And so, in running from God, besides the sad end, he carries an interwo- ven punishment with his sin, the natural disquiet and vexa- tion of his spirit, fluttering to and fro, and finding no rest for the sole of his foot ; the waters of inconstancy and vanity cov- ering the whole face of the earth. These things are too gross and heavy. The soul, the im- mortal soul, descended from heaven, must either be more hap- py, 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 80 AIDS TO REFLECTION. with the soul, but when it is near unto God, yea, in its union with Him, manied 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. 13: and the Psalmist ; They that are far off from thee shall perish, Psal. Ixxiii. 27. And this is indeed our natural miserable condition, and it is often expressed this way, by estrangedness and dis- tance 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 fulfil- ling the obscure promises of this great Instinct for all men, which the Philosophy of boldest Pretensions confined to the sacred Few. APHORISM XLVIII. leightox. 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. 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 un- der water. Some care thou must have, that thou mayest 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 CTURCH-GOING, AS A PART OF RELIGIOUS MORALITY, WHEN NOT IN REFERENCE TO A SPIRITUAL RELIGION. It is a strange folly in multitudes of us, to set ourselves 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 MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 81 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 fruitless- ly—hear only to hear, and look no further ? This is indeed a great vanity, and a great misery, to lose that labour, and gam nothing by it, which duly used, would be of all others most advantageous and gainful : and yd all meetings are full of this ! APHORISM L. LEIGHTON. ON THE HOPES AND SELF-SATISFACTION OF A RELIGIOUS MORA- LIST, 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 la- boriously engaged in them have been very idly, though very eagerly, employed about nothing, since the more sober of the schoolmen themselves acknowledge there can be no such thino- 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 re- ward any otherwise than of the sovereign pleasure and gra- cious kindness of God ; and the more ancient writers, when they use the word merit, mean nothing by it but a certain cor- relate to that reward which God both promises and bestows of mere grace and benignity. Otherwise, in order to constitute what IS properly called merit, many things must concur, which no man m 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 en- tire 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 consequence of it. If all tliese things do not concur, the act cannot possibly amount to merit, Whereas I think no one will venture to assert, that any .-one of these 11 82 AIDS TO REFLECTION. can take place in any human action whatever. But why should I enlarge here, when one single circumstance over- throws all those titles : the most righteous of mankind 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 concerning 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 lebellion but endowed w ith 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 as, wh at shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel of God ? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear ?" 1 Pe- ter iv. 17, 18. The Apostle's interrogation expresses the most vehement negation, and signifies that no mortal, in whatever degree he is placed, if he be called to the strict examination 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 merit,' says Bernard, * on which my hope relies, consists in these three ' things ; the love of adoption, the truth of the promise, and * the power of its performance.' This is the threefold cord which cannot be broken. COMMENT. Often have I heard it said by advocates for the Socinian Scheme — True ! we are all sinners ; but even in the Old Tes- tament God has promised Forgiveness on Repentance. One of the Fathers ( I forget which ) supplies the Retort- — True 1 God has promised Pardon 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 Repen- tance, perhaps, the Repentance required in Scripture, the Pas- sing into a new mind, into a new and contrary Principle of Action, this Metanoia[40], is in the Sinner's own powder ? MORAI, AND RELIGIOUS .APHORISMS. 83 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 Transiibstantiation is scarcely at great- er variance with the common Sense and Experience of Man- kind, or borders more closely on a contradiction in terms, than this volunteer Transmentation, this Self-change, as the easy [41] means of Self-salvation! But the Reflections of our evangeUcal Author on this subject will appropriately com- mence the Aphorisms relating to Spiritual Religion. ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY. PRELIMINARY TO THE APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION, Philip eaith unto him : Lord show us the Fatlier, and it sufficcth us. Jesus saith unto him, He that hath seen ine hath seen the Fatlier : and how sayest thou then, Shoiv us the Father ? Believest thou not, tliat I am in the Father and the Father m me ? And I will pray the Father and he shall give you another Comforter, even the Spirit of Tnith : whom the world camwt receive, hecause 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. Jolm xiv. 8, 0, 10, 1(5, 17, 20. PRELIMINARY. If there be aught Spiritual in Man, the Will must be such. - If there be a Will, there must be Spirituality in Man. I suppose both positions granted. The Reader admits 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 con- ceivability o( the latter ; and that, vice versa, in asserting the fact of the latter he presumes and instances the truth of the former — just as in our common and received Systems of Nat- ural Philosophy, the Being of imponderable Matter is assu- med to render the Lode-stone intelligible, and the Fact of the Lode-stone adduced to prove the reality of imponderable Matter. In short, I suppose the Reader, whom I now invite to the third and last Division of the work, already disposed to reject for himself and his human Brethren the insidious title of " Nature's noblest J^iima/,," or to retort it as the unconscious Irony of the Epicurean Poet on the animalizing tendency of his own philosophy. I suppose him convinced, that there is more in man than can be rationally referred to the life of Na- ture and the Mechanism of Organization ; that he has a will not included in this mechanism ; and that the Will is in an es- pecial and pre-eminent sense the spiritual part of our Human- 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 Spiritual Rehgion is scarce- ly possible ; and our reflections on the particular truths and evidences of a spiritual State will remain obscure, perplexed. 88 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 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 difieience being, that the Postulates of Ge- ometry no man can deny, those of Moral Science are such as no good man will deny. For it is not in our powder to dis- claim our Nature, as sentient Beings ; but it is in our power to disclaim our Prerogative as Moral Beings. It is possible ( barely possible, I admit) that a man may have remained ignorant or unconscious of the Moral Law within him : and a man need only pei-sist in disobeying the Law of Conscience to make ii possible for himself to deny its existence, or to reject and re- pel it as a phantom of Superstition. Were it otherwise the Creed would stand in the same relation to Morality as the Mul- tiplication 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 another, yet every man may find 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 Hypochon- driast finds Glass Legs. If, on the other hand, he ivill not find it, he excommunicates himself. He forfeits his personal Rights, and becomes a Things i. e. one who may rightfully be employed or used^ as a [42] means to an end, against his will, and without regard to his interest. All the significant objections of the Materialist and Neces- sitarian are contained in the term. Morality, all the Objections of the Infidel in the term. Religion ? The very terms, I say imply a something granted^ which the Objection supposes not granted. The term p?'esumes w^hat the Objection denies, and in denying ^^r^sumes the contrary. For it is most important to observe, that the Reasoners on hoth sides commence by ta- PRELIMINARY. 89 king something for granted, our Assent to which they ask or demand : i. e. both set off with an Assumption in the form of a Postulate. But the Epicurean assumes what according to himself he neither is nor can be under any obligation to as- sume, and demands what he can have no right to demand : for he denies the reality of all moral Obhgation, the existence of any Right. If he use the words^ Right and Obhgation, he does it deceptively, and means only Compulsion and Power. To overthrow the Faith in aught higher or other than Nature and physical Necessity, is the very purpose of hi^ argument. He desires you only to take for granted, that all reality is in- cluded in Nature, and he may then safely defy you to ward off his conclusion — that nothing is concluded ! 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 contrary ; 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 with- out sliding into words and phrases, that imply the contrary. It has been said, that the Arabic has a thousand names for a Li- on ; but this would be a trifle compared with the number of superfluous words and useless Synonimes that would be found in an index Expurgatorius of any European Dictionary con- structed on the principles of a consistent and strictly conse- quential MateriaHsm ! The Christian likewi^;e grounds his philosophy on asser- tions ; 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 strong- est of inducements, that of understanding thereby whatever else it most concerns him to understand aright. And yet his Assertions have nothing in them of Theory or Hypothesis ; but are in immediate reference to three ultimate Facts; name- ly, the Reality of the law of conscience ; the existence of a RESPONSIBLE WILL, as the subject of that law; and lastlv the 90 AIDS TO REFLECTION. existence of Evil — of Evil essentially such, not by accident of outward circumstances, not derived from its physical con- sequences, or from any cause, out of itself. The first is a Fact of Consciousness ; the second a Fact of Reason neces- sarily concluded from the first ; and the third a Fact of Histo- ry interpreted 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 ^deed a contradiction in terms : for how can that, which is td 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 Creed in direct ^opposition to that of the Necessitarians, who assume ( for observe both parties begin in an Assumption, 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, substitu- ting 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 ^erswoc^e themselves, (for the thing itself is not possible ) that they reject all Faith. I declare my dissent from these too, because they imposed upon themselves an Idea for a Reality : a most sublime Idea indeed, and so necessary to Human Nature, that without it no Virtue is conceivable ; but stilt an Idea ! In contradiction 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 age« 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 Hob- bes, and that of Shaftesbury), I have placed a directing Post, PRELIMINARY. 91 informing my Fellow-travellers, that on neither of these Roads can they see the Truths to which I wx)uld direct their attention. But the place of starting was at the meeting oi four Roads, and one only was the right road. I proceed therefore to pre- clude the opinion of those likewise, who indeed agree with me as to the moral Responsibility of Man in opposition to Hob- bes and the Anti-moralists, and that He was a fallen Creature, essentially diseased, in opposition to Shaftesbury and the Mis- interpreters of Plato ; but who differ from me in exaggerating the diseased iveakness of the Will into an absolute privation of all Freedom, thereby making moral 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 swallow- ing up all the Attributes of the Supreme Being in the one Attribute 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 Attri- bute of Justice is explained away into a mere right of abso- lute Property ; the sacred 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." This, in the language of these gloomy Doctors, must be translated into — "the horror, which a Being capable of eternal Pleas- ure or Pain is compelled to feel at the idea of an infinite Pow- er, about to inflict the latter on an immense majority of hu- man souls, without any power on their part either to prevent it or the actions which are (not indeed its causes but) its as- signed signals^ and preceding links of the same iron chain ! Against these Tenets I maintain, that a Will conceived se- parate from Intelligence is a Non-entity, and a mere Phantasm of Abstraction ; and that a Will, the state of which does in no 92 AIDS TO REFLECTION. sense originate in its own act, is an absolute contradiction. It might be an instinct, an Impulse, a plastic Power, and if ac- companied 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 different de- grees 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 Li- cence proves the difference in the things : for all metaphors are grounded on an apparent likeness of things essentially dif- ferent. 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 imperfect human understanding can be effectually exerted only in sub- ordination 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 contem- porary of Archbishop Leighton's, and like him, held in suspi- cion by the Calvinists of that time as a Latitudinarian and Platonizing Divine, and probably, like him, would have been arraigned as a Calvinist by the Latitudinarians ( I cannot say, Platonists) of this Day, had the suspicion been equally ground- less. One or two the Editor has ventured to add from his own Rp^ections. The purpose, however, is the same in all — PRELIMINARY. 93 that of declaring, in the first place, what Religion is not, what is not a Religious Spirit, and what are not to be deemed in- fluences of the Spirit. If after these Disclaimers the Editor shall without proof be charged by any with favouring the er- rors of the Familists, Vanists, Seekers, Behmenists or by whatever other names Church History records the poor be- wildered Enthusiasts, who in the swarming time of our Repub- lic turned the facts of the Gospel into allegories, and superse- ded the written Ordinances of Christ by a pretended Teach- ing and sensible 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 histo- rical Meaning thereof, and in the literal sense of the Creed, is solid and true : and that Familism in its Fairest form and un- der whatever disguise 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 (NOT2:) and ideas^ the Philosophic Apostle names the Spirit and Truths spiritually discerned : while to those who in tlie pride of Leaniuig or in the over- weening meanness of mod- em Metaphysics decry the doctiine of the Spirit in Man and its possible communion with the Holy Spirit, as vulgar enthusiasm ! I submit tlie fol- lowing Sentences from a Pagan Philosopher, a Nobleman and a Minister of State — "Ita dico, Lucili ! sacer intra nos Spiritus sedet, malonnn bonorumque nostrorum observator et custos. Hie prout a nobis tractatus est, ita nos ipse tractat. Bonus vir sine Deo nemo est." Seneca. APHORISMS OJV 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 en- quirer 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 syl- lable or the least title 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 heait. 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 illumina- tion of such a Spirit as they can give no account of, such as does not enlighten their reason 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 REASON : and secondly, it takes away that advantage which raises Christianity above all other Religions, that she dare ap- peal to so solid a faculty. APHORISM IIL EDITOR. It is the glory of the Gospel Charter and the Christian Con- stitution, that its Author and Head is the Spirit of Truth, Es- 13 98 AIDS TO REFLECTION. sential 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 Bench in the Reason, his Court of Equity in the Conscience ; that the representative of his Majesty and universal Justice, this the nearest to the King's heart, and the Dispenser of his particu- lar 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 dic- tated 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 [43]. APHORISM IV. ON AN UNLEARNED MINISTRY, UNDER PRETENCE OF A CALL OF THE SPIRIT, AND INWARD GRACES SUPERSEDING 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 Providence of God, or the age, the purpose, the fulfilment of Prophecies, or distinguish such as have been fulfilled from those to the fulfilment of which we are to look forward ? How can you judge concerning the authenticity and uncorrupted- ness 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, engendering contempt of Superi- ors, pride and a Spirit of Division, and inducing you to reject APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 99 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 dis- like or suspicion of Christ's Ministers who have 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 condition 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 them- selves it will be faithful to them in return. Nor would this be a groundless Presumption,, 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 resulting therefrom, for in- spiration 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 compassion ; 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. Om- nes 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. 100 AIDS TO REFLECTION. But if to seek our private advantage in harmony with, and by the furtherance of, the public prosperity, and to derive a por- tion 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 num- ber of " public souls" and the general readiness to contribute to the public good, in science and in religion, in patriotism and in philanthropy, stand prominent [44] among the charac- teristics of this and the preceding 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 De- siderata, and the theme of his Complaints. " We want think- ing Souls, we want them^ This and the three preceding extracts will suffice as precau- tionary Aphorisms. And here again, the Reader may exem- plify the great advantages to be obtained from the habit of tra- cing the proper meaning and history of Words. We need only recollect the common and idiomatic phrases in which the word "Spirit" occurs in a physical or n\aterial 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 Clo- thing to them, all in one — when he reflects that its properties are to inflame, intoxicate, madden, with exhaustion, lethargy, 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 ? APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 101 However, where the Ministry is not invaded, and the plain sense of the Scriptures is left undisturbed, and the Believer looks for the suggestion of the Spirit only or chiefly in apply- ing particular passages to his own individual case and exigen- cies ; though in this there may be much weakness, some de- lusion 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 ON THAT WHICH IS INDEED SPIRITUAL RELIGION. In the selection of the Extracts that form the remainder of this Volume and of the Comments affixed, the Editor had the following Objects principally in view. First, to exhibit the true and scriptural meaning and intent of several Articles of Faith, that are rightly classed among the Mysteries and pecu- liar Doctrines of Christianity.- Secondly, to show the perfect rationality of these Doctrines, and their freedom from all just Objection when examined by their proper Organ, the Reason and Conscience of Man. Lastly, to exhibit from the Works of Leighton, who perhaps of all our learned protestant The- ologians best deserves the title of a Spiritual Divine, an in- structive and affecting picture of the contemplations, reflec- tions, conflicts, consolations and monitory experiences of a philosophic and richly-gifted mind, amply stored with all the knowledge that Books and long intercourse with men of the most discordant characters can give, under the convictions, impressions, and habits of a Spiritual Religion. 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 speaking) subjects of Reflection, in the proper 104 AIDS TO REFLECTION. sense of this word : and both of them demand a power and persistency 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," or would be likely to seek them in the present Work. 2. In my intercourse with men of various ranks and ages, 1 have found the far larger number of serious and inqui- ring 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 moral feelings ; where a doctrine in the sense, in which they have been taught to receive it, appears to contradict 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 appease the Wrath of God. Now it is more especially for such Persons, unwil- ling Sceptics, who believing earnestly ask help for their un- belief, that this Volume was compiled, and the Comments written : and therefore, to the Scripture doctrines, intended by the above mentioned, my principal attention has been di- rected. But lastly, the whole Scheme of the Christian Faith, inclu- ding all the Articles of Belief common to the Greek and Lat- in, 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 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 permanent and uni- versal validity. APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 105 APHORISM I. LKIGHTON. Where, if not in Christ, is the Power that can persuade a Sinner to return, that can bnng home a heart to God 9 Common mercies of God, though they have a leading fac- ulty to repentance, (Rom. ii. 4.) yet, the rebellious heart will not be led by them. The judgments of God, public or per- sonal, 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 towards Him who smites, much less do they return ; or 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 supernatural Aids vouchsafed and conditionally promised in the Christian Dis- pensation : 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 Mathemat- ical Science. But Aids, observe ! Therefore, not by the Will of Man alone ; but neither without the Will. The doc- trine of modern Calvinism, as laid down by Jonathan Ed- wards and the late Dr. Williams, which represents a Will ab- solutely passive, clay in the hands of a Potter, destroys all Will, takes away its essence and definition, as effectually as in say- ing—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 14 106 AIDS TO REFLECTION. relation of Cause and Effect the Law of the Universe, sub- jecting to its Mechanism the moral World no less than the ma- terial or physical. It follows, that all is Nature [45]. Thus, though few writers use the tenn Spirit more frequently, they in effect deny its existence, and evacuate the term of all its proper meaning. 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 recon- cile the Sense of Responsibility, nor the fact of the difference in kind between regret and remorse. The same compul- sion of Consequence drove the Fathers of Modern (or Pseu- do-)Calvinism to the origination of Holiness in Power, of Jus- tice in Right of Property, and whatever outrages on the com- mon sense and moral feelings of Mankind they have sought to cover, under the fair name of Sovet^eign Grace. I will not take on me to defend sundry harsh and inconven- ient Expressions in the Works of Calvin. Phrases equally strong and Assertions not less rash and startling are no rari- ties in the Writings of Luther : for Catachresis was the fa- vourite Figure of Speech in that age. But let not the opin- ions of either on this most fundamental Subject be confound- ed 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 perfect Freedom being the end and consummation of the redemptive Process, and the same with the entrance of the Soul into Glory, i. e. its union with Christ : "glory" (John xvii. 5.) being one of the names of the Spiritual Messiah. Prospectively to this we are to under- stand 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 freedont of a fmite will being possible under this condition only, that it has become one with the will of God. Now as the difference of a captive and enslaved Will, and no Will at all, such is tlie APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 107 difference between the Luthcranism of Calvin and the Cal- vinism 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 bj a Saviour, and by a cru- cified Saviour. It is comparatively easy to persuade men of the necessity of an amendment of conduct ; it is more diffi- cult to make them see the necessity of Repentance in the Gospel sense, the necessity of a change in the principle of ac- tion ; 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 ad- mit 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 supposed Foresight of their Faith, and Obedience. But it is most vain to imagine a faith in such and such men, which be- ing foreseen by God, determined him to elect them for salva- tion ; were it only that nothing at all is future, or can have this imagined futurition, but as it is decreed, and because it is decreed by God so to be. COMMENT. No impartial person, competently acquainted with the His- tory of the Reformation, and the works of the earlier protest- ant Divines at home and abroad, even to the close of Eliza- beth's reign, will deny that the Doctrines of Calvin on Re- demption and the natural state of fallen man, are in all essen- tial 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 re- turn of the second Charles, been as generally [46] exchanged for what is commonly entitled Arminianism, but which, taken as a complete and explicit Scheme of Belief, it would be both 108 AIDS TO REFLECTION. historically and theologically more accurate to call Grotianisin, or Christianity according to Grotius. The change was not, we may readily believe, effected without a struggle. In the Ro- mish Church this latitudinarian System, patronized by the Je- suits, was manfully resisted by Jansenius, Arnauld, and Pas- cal ; in our own Church by the Bishops Davenant, Sanderson, Hall, and the Archbishops Usher and Leighton : and in the latter half of the preceding Aphorism the Reader has a spe- cimen of the reasonings by which Leighton strove to invalidate or counterpoise the reasonings of the Innovators. Passages of this sort are, however, of rare occurrence in Leighton's works. Happily for thousands, he was more use- fully 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 bettt^i still would it have been, had he left them altogeth- er 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[47] they become clouded micro- scopes, to exaggerate and distort all the other parts and propor- tions. No offence 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, relatively to God, and confines himself to the Doctrine in its i elation to Man : and in that sense too, in which every Christian may judge who strives to be sincere with his own heart. The following may, I think, be taken as a safe and useful Rule in religious inqui- ries. Ideas, that derive their origin and substance from the Moral Being, and to the reception of which as true ohjectivi- ly {i. e. as corresponding to a reality out of the human mind) we are dete^i jnyied by a practical interest exclusively, may APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 109 not, like theoretical or speculative Positions, be pressed on- ward into all their possible logical consequences. The Law of Conscience, and not the Canons of discursive Reasoning, must decide in such cases. At least, the latter has no validi- ty, which the single Veto of the former is not sufficient to nul- lify. The most pious conclusion is here the most legitimate. It is too seldom considered, though most worthy of consid- eration, how far even those Ideas or Theories of pure Spec- ulation, that bear the same name with the Objects of Religious Faith, are indeed the same. Out of the principles necessari- ly 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 refer- red to the Reason, the human Mind (wherever its powers are sufficiently developed, and its attention strongly directed to speculative or theoretical inquiries), forms certain Essences, to which for its own purposes it gives a sort of notional Sub- sistence. Hence they are called Entia rationalia : the con- version 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 surrepti- tious Premises and extravagant Conclusions. For as these substantiated 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 ex- planation of real experiences ; and lastly, from the gratifica- tions, 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 in- dispensable of these notional Beings were but the necessary forms of Thinking, taken abstractedly : and that hke the breadthless 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 110 AIDS TO REFLECTION. it by Revelation, or the Law of Conscience, or the necessary interests of Morality. Take an instance : It is the office, and as it were, the instinct of Reason to bring a unity into all our conceptions and several 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 suc- cession and through all changes is the subject neither of Time or Change. The one must be contemplated as Eternal and Immutable. Well ! the Idea, which is the basis of Religion, commanded 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 ad- ditional Attributes, and these too not formed by mere Abstrac- tion 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 Uni- verse ( 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 Eter- nity of the Supreme Being a Reasoner should] deduce the impossibility 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 logically necessary such conclusions may appear, it is scarcely worth our while to examine, whether they are so or not. The Positions themselves must be false. APHORIS^tS ON SPIBITUAL RELIGION. Ill For were they true, the idea would lose the sole ground of its reality. It would be no longer the Idea intended by the Be- liever in his premise — in the Premise, with which alone Re- ligion 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-con- sciousness, or Life, or even Being dare be attributed : or last- ly, the World itself, the indivisible one and only substance (substantia una et unica) of Spinoza, of which all Phenome- na, all particular and individual Things, Lives, Minds, Thoughts and Actions are but modifications. 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 irre- concilable with the interests of Morality. For to baffle the Objector we have only to demand of him, by what right and under wjiat 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 understand- ing ; 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 ordi- nary conceptions of the Christian Faith, to which the Infidel points in scorn, and which far better men pass by in silent per- plexity. Yet surely, from mistaken conceptions of the Doc- trine. 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 conditions ; and that these conditions consist in his compliance with the directions given and rules prescribed in the Christian Scrip- tures. These rules he likewise admits to be Such, that, by the very law and constitution of the human mind, a full and faithful compliance with them cannot but have consequences 112 AIDS TO REFLECTION. of some sort or other. But these consequences are moreover distinctly 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 possi- ble 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 History 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 coun- tries Many, a fearful Many ! have not their faces turned to- ward it. This then is mere matter of fact. Now comes the ques- tion. 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 primari- ly 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 depends ? If he stop here, who shall blame him ? By what argument shall his rea- soning 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, who shall drive him from his position ? For thus far he is practically concerned — this the Conscience requires, this the highest interests of Morality de- mand. It is a question of Facts, of the Will and the Deed, to argue against which on the abstract notions and possibihties APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. lio 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 Natural 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 Speculative Theolo- gy ; if instead of seeking after the marks of Election in him- self he undertakes to determine 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 cu- riosity, 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 ( see- ing 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 why he left any occasion for Election ? — in this case, \ 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 Or- gan of Knowledge, he hoped to secure an insight into a Na- ture 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 non- sense 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 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 15 114 AIDS TO REFLECTION. become a lively^ an assured Hope, but which cannot in this life pass into knowledge^ much less certainty of Fore-knowl- edge. The contrary belief does indeed make the article of Election both tool and parcel of a mad and mischievous fanati- cism. But with what force and clearness does not the Apos- tle confute, disclaim, and prohibit the pretence, treating it as a downwright contradiction in terms ! See Rom. viii. 24. But though I hold the doctrine handled as Leighton han- dles it ( that is 'practically, morally, Awman/i/^ rational, safe, and of essential importance, I see many [48] reasons resulting from the peculiar circumstances, under which St. Paul prea- ched 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 saying 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 general Rule of interpretation and vin- dication 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 mo- ral and spiritual Interests. In order to have a reason /or for- ming 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 independent existence is assigned, and which yet are not contained in, or to be imagined under, any form of Space or Time, it is strictly demonstrable, that the human Reason, con- sidered abstractly as the source of positive Science and theo- retical Insight, is not such a Reason. At the utmost, it has only a negative voice. In other words, nothing can be allow- ed as true for the human Mind, which directly contradicts this Reason. But even here, before we admit the existence of APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. H^ any such 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 difference between the notional One of the Ontologists, and the idea of the Liv- ing God. But if not the abstractor speculative Reason, and yet area- son there must be in order to a rational Belief— 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 liv- ing 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 uni- versally or not true at all. If there be any redemptive pow- er 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 Mankind. But if with Tertullian and Augus- tin we make the 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 doc- trine is true to all intents and purposes. It is true, in every respect, in which any practical, moral, or spiritual 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 Chris- tian community and for every individual Believer, wherever the opportunity is afforded of spreading the Light of the Gos- 116 AIDS TO REFLECTION. pel and making known the name of the only Saviour and Re- deemer. For even though the uninformed Heathens should not perish, the guilt of their Perishing 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 persuade me, that this Text was intended to give us an histor- ical knowledge of God's future Actions and Dealings — and for the gratification of our curiosity to inform 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 Tor- ments — I 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 misconception of my meaning. I am clearly convinced, that the scriptural and only true [49] Idea of God will, in its developement, be found to involve the Idea of the Triunity. 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 specula- tive philosopher, a Theorem in Metaphysics vahd 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 singleminded, " an Israelite indeed," trust- ing in " the Lord God of his Fathers, even the God of Abra- ham, of Isaac, and of Jacob." If 1 speak of God to /lim, what APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 117 will he understand me to be speaking of? What does he nean, and suppose me to mean, by the word ? An Accident pr Product of the reasoning faculty, or an Abstraction which the human Mind makes by reflecting on its own thoughts and forms of thinking ? No. By God he understands me to mean an existing and self-subsisting reality [50], a real and personal Being — even the Person, the i am, who sent Moses to his Forefathers in Egypt. Of the actual existence of this divine Person he has the same historical assurance as of theirs ; con- firmed indeed by the Book of Nature, as soon and as far as that stronger and better Light has taught him to read and con- strue it — confirmed by 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 al- ien from his habits of thinking, because it may be logicallyde- duced 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 warran- ted 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 evi- dent, that if I have the same Right, it must be on the same grounds. Revelation must have assured it, my conscience re- quired 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 Redemp- tion of Mankind by Christ, the Saviour and Mediator : and by the utter incompatibility of these ofiices with a mere Crea- ture. On the doctrine of Redemption depends the Faith, the Duty, of believing in the Divinity of our Lord. And this again is the strongest Ground for the reality of that Idea, in which alone this Divinity can be received without breach of 118 AIDS TO REFLECTION. the faith in the unity of the Godhead. But such is the Idea of the Trinity. Strong as the motives are that 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 extensive services entitle them to the ut- most deference, that I should so far deviate from my first in- tention 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 w^hich Men could be called on to believe by mere force of Reasoning, independently of any positive Revelation. In short, it had been reported in cer- tain circles, that I considered this doctrine as a demonstrable part of the Religion of Nature. Now though it might be suf- ficient to say, that I regard the very phrase " Revealed Reli- gion" as a pleonasm, inasmuch as a religion not revealed is, in my judgment, no religion at all ; I have no objection to an- nounce 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 inserted, 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) Demonstra- tions 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 con- clusion in the Premises, passing off the mere analysis or expli- cation of an Assertion for the Proof of it — a species of logical legerdemain not unlike that of the Jugglers at a Fair, who putting into their mouths what seems to be a walnut, draw out a score yards of Ribbon. On this sophism rest the pretended " Demonstrations of a God" grounded on the Postulate of a First Cause. And lastly in all these Demonstrations the au- thors presuppose the Idea or Conception of a God without be- ing able to authenticate it, i. e. to give an account whence they obtained it. For it is clear, that the proof first mention- ed and the most natural and convincing of all ( the Cosmolo- APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 119 gical I mean or that from the Order in Nature) presupposes the Ontological — ^i. e. the proof of a God from the necessity and necessary Objectivity of the Idea. If the latter can as- sure us of a God as an existing Reality, the former will go far to prove his Power, Wisdom and Benevolence. All this I hold. But I also hold, that this Truth, the hardest to demon- strate, is the one which of all others least needs to be demon- strated ; that though there may be no conclusive demonstra- tions of a good, wise, living and personal God, there are so many convincing reasons for it, within and without — a grain of sand sufficing, and a whole universe at hand to echo the deci- gion ! — that for every mind not devoid of all reason, and despe- rately conscience-proof, the Truth which it is the least possi- ble 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 Command- ment[61]. 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 rejected the doctrine, not be- cause it could not be demonstrated, nor yet on the score of any incomprehensibiUties 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 me some cogent reason why I should. But the case is quite different with a Christian, who accepts the Scriptures as the Word of God, yet refuses his assent to the plainest declarations of these Scriptures, and explains away the most express texts into metaphor and hyperbole, because the literal and obvious interpretation is ( according to his notions) absurd and contrary to reason. He is bound to 120 AIDS TO REFLECTION. show, that it is so in any sense, not equally applicahle 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 reasons for the divinity of the Redeemer far more concerning and coercive subjectively, i. e. in the economy of his own Soul, than are all the inducements that can influence the Deist objectively, i, e. in tl>e interpretation of Nature. Do I then utterly exclude the speculative Reason from The- ology ? No [ It is its office and rightful privilege to deter- mine on the negative truth of whatever we are required to be- lieve. The Doctrine must not contradict any universal prin- ciple : 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 that if we determine to contemplate, or think of, the subject at all, so and in no other form can this be effected. So far are both Logic and Philosophy to be 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 sen- sible 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 facul- ties of Man, in oider to the right governing of our actions, to the securing the peace and progress, external and internal, of Individuals and of Communities, and lastly, to the renderings us capable of a more perfect 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 altogeth- APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 121 er (the improvement namely of our nature and faculties), it is plain, that every part of Religion is to be judged by its re- lation 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. Extracted with slight alterations from BurneVs Preface to Vol. ii. of the Hist, of the Refor- mation, COMMENT. This Aphorism should be borne in mind, whenever a theo- logical Resolve is proposed to us as an article of Faith. Take, for instance, the Determinations passed at the Synod of Dort, concerning the Absolute Decrees 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 re- maining — as in the conversion of Water to Wine at Cana : the other, in which the Matter and Substance are changed, the Accidents remaining unaltered, as in the Eucharist — this latter being Transubstantiation 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 be- lieving both in order to Salvation ! For each or either of these extra-scriptural Articles of Faith the preceding Apho- rism supplies a safe criterion. Will the belief tend to the im- provement 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 16 IZZ AIDS TO REFLECTION. any object out of our own mind or even in it : unless indeed the mere craving and striving to think on, after all the mate- rials 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 lo 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 likew^ise by what faculties they might have come to the knowledge of the Fact. But if any one of the number not satisfied with my acquies- cence in the Fact, should insist on my believing, that the Mat- ter remained the same, the Substance and the Accidents hav- ing been removed in order to make way for a different Sub- stance 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 distinguishable from Accidents, and a Substance that is different from both. It is true, I have a faculty of articulation ; but I do not see that it can be improved by my using it for the formation of words without meaning, 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 Contem- plation, and of a truly spiritual 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. APHORISM IV. THE CHARACTERISTIC DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE DISCIPLINE OF THE ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS AND THE DISPENSATION OF THE GOSPEL. By undeceiving, enlarging, and informing the Intellect, Phi- losophy sought to purify, and to elevate the Moral Character. Of course, those alone could receive the latter and incompara- bly greater Benefit, who by natural capacity and favourable APHORl-SMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 123 contingencies of Fortune were fit Recipients of the former. Plow small the number, we scarcely need the evidence of His- tory to assure us. Across the Night of Paganism, Philosophy 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 convictions, the grounds and materials of which all men might find in them- selves her first step was to cleanse the Heart. But the bene- fit did not stop here. In preventing the rank vapours that steam up from the corrupt Heart Christianity restores the In- tellect likewise to its natural clearness. By relieving the mind from the distractions and importunities of the unruly pas- sions, she improves the quality of the Understanding : while at the same time she presents for its contemplations Ob- jects so great and so bright as cannot but enlarge the Organ, by which they are contemplated. The Fears, the Hopes, the Remembrances, the Anticipations, the inward and outward Ex- perience, 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," could not have attained or collected. The result is contained in the fact of a wide and still widening Christendom. Yet I dare not say, that the effects have been proportionate to the divine wisdom of the Scheme. Too soon did the Doc- tors of the Church forget that the Hearty 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 Systems, 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 ma- jority 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 oft* into Notions ; and for the Unlearned 124 AIDS TO REFLECTION. the surfaces of Things became [52] Substance. The Chris- tian world was for centuries divided into the Many, that did not think at all, and the Few who did nothing but 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 Docility 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 obscur- ed 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 Inter- ests — 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' wings to overfly my own Human Nature. I exclude none of these. It is enough if the " lene clinameUj^^ the gen- tle Bias, be given by no interest that concerns myself other than as I am a Man, and included in the great family of Man- kind ; but which does therefore especially concern me, be- cause being a common Interest of all men it must needs con- cern the very essentials of my Being, and because these ea- sentials, as existing in me, are especially intrusted to my par- ticular charge. Widely different from this social and truth attracted Bias, different both in its nature and its effects, is the Interest con- nected with the desire of distinguishing yourself from other APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 125 men, in order to be distinguished by them. Hoc revera est inter te et veritatem. This Interest does indeed stand be- tween 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 Judg- es 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 w^ays 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 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 ap- preciated, is it credible, is it possible, that you should in ear- nest 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 abstainings 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 be- lieve and to understand are not diverse things, but the same thing in different periods of its gro^^lh. Belief is the seed, 125 AIDS TO REFLECTION. received into the will, of which the Understanding or Knowl- edge is the Flower, and the thing believed is the fruit. Un- less ye believe (saith the Prophet) ye cannot understand : and unless ye be humble as children, ye not only will not, but ye cannot believe. Of such therefore is the Kingdom of Hea- ven. 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 ca- lamity would be wanted to cure us of. our pride in having be- come so humble. Lastly, there are among us, though fewer and less in fash- ion than among our ancestors. Persons who, like Shaftesbury, do not belong to " the herd of Epicurus," yet prefer a philo- sophic 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 Mmliness, used it exclu- sively to express the quality of Fortitude ; Strength of Char- acter 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 Strength than on Strength of Body, or even Strength of In- tellect. But we will rather value it for ourselves : and bear- ing in mind the old adage, Quis custodiet ipsum Custodem ? we will value it the more, yea, then only will we allow it true spiritual Worthy when we possess it as a gift of Grace, a boon of Mercy undeserved, a fulfilment of a free Promise ( 1 Cor- inth. 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 ? APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 127 Yea, we have so often deeply wounded ourselves with Medi- cine, that God hath been fain to make 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 pow- er it was which upheld him standing. I am not afraid to af- firm it boldly with St. Augustine, that Men puffed up through a proud Opinion of their own Sanctity and Holiness receive a benefit at the hands of God, and are assisted with his Grace when with his Grace they are not assisted, but permitted ( and that grievously) to transgress. Whereby, as they were through over-great Liking of themselves supplanted (tripped up)^ so the disUke 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. The Being and Providence of One Living God, Holy, Gra- cious, Merciful, the Creator and Preserver of all Things, and a Father of the Righteous ; the Moral Law in i its utmost height, breadth and purity ; a State of Retribution after death ; the 2 Resurrection of the Dead ; and a Day of Judgment — all these were known and received by the Jewish People, as establishiid articles of the National Faith, at or before the Pro- claiming 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, enlivened, realized and brought home to the ivhole 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 128 AIDS TO REFLECTION. and provided for the Human Race by the incarnation 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 manifestations, 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 insur- mountable. II. The belief in the possible appropriation of this benefit by Repentance and Faith, including the Aids that render an effective Faith and Repentance themselves possible. III. The belief in the reception (by as many as "shall be Heirs of Salvation" ) of a living and spiritual Principle, 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 [53] in them that truly believe, and in the communion of the Spirit, thus awakened, with the Holy Spirit. y. 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 un- der limitation of the power, the means, and the opportu- nities 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 together with the doctrine of the Fa- thers reproclaimed in the everlasting Gospel, we receive in the full assurance, that God beholds and will finally judge us with a merciful consideration of our infirmities, a gracious ac- ceptance of our sincere though imperfect strivings, a forgive- ness 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. APHOIilSMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 129 COMMENT. I earnestlj entreat the Reader to pause awhile, and to join with me in reflecting on the preceding Aphorism. 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 Under- standing and the natural Wants and Desires of the Individual, are two distinct things ; 2. That Morality with prudence as its instrument has, considered abstractedly, not only a value but a worth in itself. Now the question is ( and it is a ques- tion which every man must answer for himself) " From what you know of yourself; of your own heart and Strength ; and from what History 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 ! It is at your own risk. I judge you not. Before Him, who can- not 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 ar6 disposed to exclaim with Paul — the Law indeed is holy, just, good, spiritual ; but I am car- nal, 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 prom- ise was given by him, are that you believe in him, and believe his words. And he has further assured you, that if you do so, you will obey. You are, in short, to embrace the Chris- tian Faith as your Religion — those truths which St. Paul be- lieved after his conversion, and not those only which he be- lieved no less undoubtingly while he was persecuting Christ, and an enemy of the Christian Religion. With what consis- tency could I off*er you this volume as Aids to Reflection if I did not call on you to ascertain in 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, indispensable truths, and truths comprehended or rather pre- 17 130 AIDS TO REFLECTION. supposed in the Christian Scheme, are yet not these Truths. John i. 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 , I 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 Prophets ( 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 Passage [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 re- mind the reader that the apparent difference between the prom- inent 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, 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. The text, " I give you a new command- ment," has no connexion with the present subject. 2There is a current mistake on tliis 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 mistal?je consists in supposing the Pharisees to have been a distinct Sect, and in strangely over-rating the num- ber of the Sadducees. 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, APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 131 in short (if I may dare use a phrase which I dislike as profane and denounee as uncharitable), the Evangelicals and strict Professors of the Day. The latter, the Sadducees, whose opinions much more nearly resembled those of the Stoics than the Epicureans (a remark that will appear paradoxical to those only who have abstracted their notions of the Stoic Philoso- phy from Epictetus, Mark Antonine, and certain brilliant in- consistencies of Seneca), were a handful of rich men, roman- ized Jews, not more numerous than Infidels among us, and held by the^ People at large in at least equal Abhorrence. Their great argument was : that the Belief of a future State of re- wards and punishments 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 vul- gar Multitude. I will now suppose the Reader to have thoughtfully re-pe- rused the Paragraph containing the Tenets peculiar to Chris- tianity, and^if he have his religious principles yet to form, 1 should expect to overheai' a troubled Murmur : How can I comprehend this ? How is this to be proved ? To the first question I should answer : 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 Indi- vidual 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 aiSirmed, [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 132 AIDS TO REFLECTION. and in the discipline of ray inward acts and affections, I have performed the duties which it enjoins, and I have used the means, which it prescribes. Yet my Assurance of its truth has received no increase. Its promises have not been fulfil- led : and I repent me of my delusion !] If neither your own experience nor the History of almost two thousand years has presented a single testimony to this purport ; and if you have read and heard of many who have lived and died bearing wit- ness to the contrary : and if you have yourself met with some onCy 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 :" is it bigotry, if I fear that the Unbelief, which prejudges and prevents the experiment, has its source elsewhere than in the uncorrupted judgment; that not the strong free Mind, but the enslaved Will, is the true original Infidel 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 ene- my, the right though unreceived Owner of the House, who had long warned it out^ and waited only for its ejection to en- ter and take possession of the same. I have elsewhere in the present Work, though more at large in the "Elements of Discourse" which, God permitting, will follow it, explained the difference between the Understanding and the Reason, by Reason meaning exclusively the specula- tive or scientific Power so called, the Nous or Mens of the Ancients. And wider still is the distinction between the Un- derstanding and the Spiritual Mind. But no Gift of God does or can contradict any other Gift, except by misuse or misdirec- tion. Most readily therefore do I admit, that theie can be no contrariety between Revelation and the Understanding; un- less 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 colors, it impresses on the clouds, a con- trariety between the Skin and the Eye ; or infer that the cu- taneous and the optic nerves contradict each other. APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 133 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 ef- fects. 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 immediately concerns the Believer, that of the birth into a new and spiritual life, the common sense and experience of mankind come in aid of their faith. The analogous facts which we know to be true, not only facilitate the apprehension of the facts promised to us, and expressed by the same words in conjunction with a distinctive epithet ; but being confessedly not less incompre- hensible, 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 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 preliminary enquiries to be decided ; the first respecting the purport J the second respecting the language of thq Gospel. First then of the jmrport, 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 Theoretical propositions and conclusions for the enlargement of speculative knowledge, eth- ical 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 tho- roughly understanding the distinction between analogous and metaphorical language. Analogies are used in aid of Convic- tion : Metaphors, as means of Illustration. The language is 134 AIDS TO REFLECTION. analogous, wherever a thing, power, or principle in a higher dignity is expressed hy the same thing, power, or principle in a lower but moie known form. Such, for instance, is the lan- guage of John iii. 6. That which 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 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, born 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 Sym- bols and symbolical expressions ; the nature of which as al- ways ^awtegorical (i. e. expressing the same subject but with a difference) in contra-distinction from metaphois and simili- tudes, that are always aZ/egoiical (i. e. expressing a different subject but with a resemblance) will be found explained at large in the Statesman's Manual, p. 35 — 38, [54]. Oi metaphorical language, on the other hand, let the follow- ing be taken as instance and illustration. 1 am speaking, we will suppose, of an Act, which in its own nature, and as a pro- ducing and efiicient cause, is transcendent ; but which produ- ces sundry effects, each of which is the same in kind with an effect produced by a Cause well known and of ordinary occur- rence. Now when I characterize or designate this transcen- dent 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 from it, and thus to excite the due admiration, gratitude, and love in the Receivers; — in this case I should be rightly described as speaking metaphori- cally. And in this case to confound the similarity in respect of the effects relatively to the Recipients with an identity in APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 135 respect of the causes or modes of causation i-elatively to the transcendent Act or the divine Agent, is a confusion of meta- phor with analogy, and of figurative with literal ; and has been and continues to be a fruitful source of superstition or enthu- siasm in Believers, and of objections and prejudices to Infidels and Sceptics. But each of these points is worthy of a sepa- rate consideration: and apt occasions will be found of revert- ing to them severally in the following Aphorisms or the^^com- ments thereto attached, APHORISM VIIL LEIGHTON. Faith elevates the soul not only above Sense and sensible things, but above Reason itself. As Reason corrects the er- rors which Sense might occasion, so supernatural Faith cor- rects the errors of natural reason judging according to sense. COMMENT. The Editor's remarks on this aphorism from Archbishop Leighton cannot be better introduced, or their purport more distinctly announced, than by the following sentence from Harrington, with no other change than w^as necessary to make the words express without aid of the context, what from the context it is evident was the Writer's meaning. " The defini- tion and proper character of Man — that, namely, which should contra-distinguish him from the Animals — is to be taken from his Reason rather than from his Understanding : 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, p. [55.] Sir Thomas Brown, in his ReUgio Medici, complains, that there are not impossibilities enough in Religion for his active faith ; and adopts by choice and in free preference such inter- pretations of certain texts and declarations of Holy Writ, as place them in irreconcilable contradiction to the demonstrations of science and 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 136 AIDS TO REFLECTION. of the Trinity and Incarnation — " and because he delights (as thinking " it no vulgar part of faith) to believe a thing not on- ly 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 reso- lution he had learnt of TertuUian : Certum est quia impos- sibile est. It is certainly true because it is quite imposible !" Now this I call Ultra-fidianism[56]. Again, there is a scheme constructed on the principle of re- taining the social sympathies, that attend on the name of Be- liever, at the least possible expenditure of Belief — a scheme of picking and choosing Scripture texts for the support of doc- trines that had been learned beforehand from the higher oracle of Common Sense; which, as applied to the truths of Religion, means the popular part of the philosophy in fashion. Of course, the scheme differs at different times and in different Individuals in the number of articles excluded ; but, it may always be recog- nized by this permanent character, that its object is to draw re- ligion down to the Believer's intellect, instead of raising his in- tellect up to religion. And this extreme I call Minimifidian- ISM. Now if there be one Preventive of both these ex4;remes more efficacious than another, and preliminary to all the rest, it is the being made fully aware of the diversity of Reason and Un- derstanding/ And this is the more expedient, because though there is no want of authorities ancient and modern for the dis- tinction of the faculties and the distinct appropriation of the terras, yet our best writers too often confound the one with the other. Even Lord Bacon himself, who in his Novum Organum has so incomparably set forth the nature of the difierence, and the un- fitness of the latter faculty for the objects of the former, does (nevertheless in sundry places use the term Reason where he i means the Understanding, and sometimes, though less frequent- \ly, Understanding for Reason. In consequence of thus con- founding 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 Al^HORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGIO?^. 137 Was thus under the necessity of adopting fantastic and mystical phrases, ex. gr. the dry light (lumen siccum), the lucific vis- ion, &c., meaning thereby nothing more than Reason in con- tra-distinction from the Understanding. Thus too in the prece- ding Aphorism, by Reason Leighton means the human Un- derstanding, the explanation annexed to it being (by a notice- able coincidence ) word for word the very definition which the Founder of the Critical Philosophy gives of the Understand- ing—namely, " the Faculty judging according to Sense." On the contrary, Reason is the Power of universal and neces- sary Convictions, the Source and Substance of Truths above Sense, and having their evidence in themselves. Its pres- ence is always marked by the necessity of the position affirmed : this necessity being conditional^ when a truth of Reason is ap- plied to Facts of Experience or to the rules and maxims of the Understanding, but absolute^ when the subject matter is itself the growth or offspring of the Reason. Hence arises a distinc- tion in the Reason itself, derived from the different mode of applying it, and from the objects to which it is directed : accor; ding as we consider one and the same gift, now as the ground of formal principles, and now as the origin of ideas. Contem-. plated distinctively in reference to formal (or abstract) truth, it is the speculative Reason ; but in reference to actual ( or mor- al) truth, as the fountain of ideas and the Light of the Con- science, 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 consists 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 Spiri- tual Gifts, with those in the Proverbs and in the Wisdom of Solomon respec ant APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 141 of coincidence in the parts of the same or different objects. Such examples are of no unfrequent occurrence, but they by- no means embarrass them. What follows 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 op- posite 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 atten- tion, when one of the ants arriving at the place, and visiting the works, appeared to be struck by the difficulty which pre- sented itself; but this it as soon obviated, by taking down the ceiling and raising the wall upon which it reposed. It then in my presence, constructed a new ceiling with the fragments of the former one." — Huberts Nat. Hist, of Ants ^ p. 38 — 41. Now I assert, that the faculty manifested in the acts here narrated does not differ in kind from Understanding, 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 con- tra-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-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 : consequently, that which does not fall under this defini- tion, 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 differ- ences of degree. Ileterogenea non comparari ergo nee distin- gui possunt. The inattention to this Rule gives rise to the 142 AIDS TO REFLECTION. numerous Sophisms comprised by Aristotle under the head of Msra(3a(fis e«^ aXXo yevog, 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 difference 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 Circularity, contrast- ed with Strength, or Magnitude. To apply these remarks for our present purpose, we have only to describe Understanding and Reason, each by its char- acteristic qualities. The comparison will show the difference. UNDERSTANDING. REASON. 1. Understanding is discur- 1. Reason is fixed. sive. 2. The Understanding in all 2. The Reason in all its de- its judgments refers to some cisions appeals to itself, as the other Faculty as] its ultimate ground and substance of their Authority. truth. ( Hebrews jyL v. IS). 3. Understanding is the 3. Reason of Contempla- Faculty of Reflection. tion. Reason indeed is far nearer to sense than to Un- derstanding : for Reason ( says our great Hooker) is a direct Aspect of Truth, an inward Beholding, having a similar relation to the Intelligible or Spiritual, as Sense has to the Material or Phenomenal. The Result is, that neither falls under the definition of the other. They differ in kind : and had my object been confined to the establishment of this fact, the preceding Columns would have superseded all further disquisition. But 1 have ever in APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 143 view the especial interests of my youthful Readers, whose re- fieciive 2)0wer is to be cultivated, as well as their particular re- flections to be called forth and guided. Now the main chance of their reflecting on religious subjects aright, and of their at- taining to the contemplation of spiritual truths at all, rests on their insight into the nature of this disparity still more than on their conviction of its existence. I now, therefore, proceed to a brief analysis of the Understanding, in elucidation of the definitions already given. The Understanding then ( considered exclusively as an or- gan of human intelligence), is the Faculty by which we re- flect and generalize. Take, for instance, any Object consist- ing 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 vforms 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 qur 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,[57]. Thus, the whole Process may be reduced to three acts, all depending on and sup- posing a previous impression on the Senses : first, the appro- priation of our Attention; 2. (and in order to the continuance of the first) Abstraction, or the voluntary withholding of the Attention . and 3. Generalization. And these are the proper Functions of the Understanding : 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 in- terrupt the argument, I avail myself of this most useful con- trivance), 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-determined by the Constitution and (as it were) me- 144 AIDS TO REFLECTION. chanism of the Understanding itself. And under some one or other of these Forms[58], the Resemblances and Differences must be subsumed in order to be conceivable, and a fortiori therefore in order to be comparable. The Senses do not compare, but merely furnish the materials for comparison. But this the Reader will find explained in the Note : and will now cast his eye back to the sentence immediately preceding this parenthesis]. Now when a person speaking to us of any particular Object or Appearance refers it by means of some 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^ Noujasvov, to intelligibile, id quod intelligitur) express- es 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, L e. invisible power and presence, the noinen substantivum of all real Ob* jects, and the ground of their reality, independent of the Af- fections 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 intellectus, 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, yQi images used as words or names, that are the alone subjects of Understand- ing. In no instance do we 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 APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 145 they are to be applied to one and the same Phaenomenon, at once distinctly and simultaneously ; but even in common par- lance 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 referring his fancy or me- mory 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 generalizing the notices recei- ved 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 correspond- ent class or kind of Notices — then it follows of necessity, that the understanding is truly and accurately defined in the words of Leighton and Kant, a Faculty judging according to Sense. Now whether in defining the speculative Reason (t. e. the Reason considered abstractedly as an intellective Power) we call it " the source of necessary and universal Principles, ac- cording to which the Notices 6f the Senses are either affirm- ed or denied ;" or describe it as " the Power by which we are enabled to draw from particular and contingent Appearances universal and necessary conclusions [59]: it is equally evident that the two definitions differ in their essential characters, and consequently (by Axiom, p. 142) the subjects difter in kind. Q. E. D. The dependence of the Understanding on the representa- tions of the Senses, and its consequent posteriority thereto, as contrasted with the independence and antecedency of Reason, are strikingly exemplified in the Ptolemaic System ( that truly w^onderful 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 according to its own inherent Laws and constitutive Ideas. APHORISM IX. EDITOR. In Wonder all Philosophy began : in Wonder it ends : and 19 146 AIDS TO REFLECTION. Admiration fills up the interspace. But the first Wonder is the Offspring of Ignorance : the last is the Parent of Adora- tion. The First is the biith-throe of our knowledge : the Last is its euthanasy and apotheosis. SEQUELS : OR THOUGHTS SUGGESTED BY THE PRECEDING APHORISM. As in respect of the first Wonder wg 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 Indi- vidual is capable of directing his attention freely and conscious- ly 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 Fa- miliarity. 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 con- cert with the power in Custom to prevent a fair and equal ex- ertion 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 in- fant minds, that the words ever after represent sensations, feelings, vital 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 its eyes follow and imitate — (yea, what the blue sky is to the Mother, the Mo- ther's upraised Eyes and Brow are to the Child, the Type and Symbol of an invisible Heaven !) — from within and from with- APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 147 out, 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 infu- sed, 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 transposed. As far, at least, as I dare judge from the goings on in my own mind, when with keen delight I first read the works of Derham, Niewentiet, and Lyonet, I should say, that the full and life-like conviction of a gracious Creator is the Proof (at all events, performs the office and answers all the purpose of a proof) of the wisdom and benevolence in the construction 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 attracted to the superstructure raised on these fundamental truths, or to truths of later revelation supplemental of these and not less impor- tant—all the doubts and difficulties, that cannot but arise where the Understanding, " the mind of the flesh,'' is made the mea- sure of spiritual things ; all the sense of strangeness and seem- ing 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) Re- ligion of Nature. But before the man rejects, and calls on 148 AIDS TO REFLECTION. other men to reject, the revelations of the Gospel and the Ee- ligion 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 philosophic Po- et abandoned the Problem in despair. Ever and anon he seem- ed to have hold of the truth ; but when he asked himself, what he meant by it, it escaped from him, or resolved itself into meanings, that destroyed each other. I would have the Scep- tic, w^hile 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 few- est of men ; can, consonantly 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, without gross outrage to fact, they can be said to constitute a Religion of nature, or a Natural Theology antecedent 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 arguments and representations which Bayle supposes to have passed through the mind of Simonides. Or I should be fully satisfied if I could induce these Eschewers of Mystery to give a pa- tient, manly, and impartial perusal to the single Treatise of Pomponatius, De Fato[60]. When they have fairly and satisfactorily overthrown the ob- jections and cleared away the difficulties urged by this sharp- witted Italian against the Doctrines which they profess to re- tain, 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 Engagement — APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL. RELIGION. 149 unless, indeed, by pure heat of Controversy, and to storm the lines of their Antagonists, they can bring to life again the Argu- ments, which they had themselves killed off in the defence of their own positions. In vain shall we seek for any other mode of meeting the broad facts of the scientific Epicurean, or the re- quisitions and queries of the all-analysing Pyrrhonist, 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 accord- ing to Sense, and whose judgments, therefore, are valid only on objects of Sense, to the Superior Courts of Conscience and intuitive Reason ! " The words I speak unto you, are Spint,^^ and such only " are li/e,^'' 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 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 sub- stance 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 re- course to tools so liable to abuse, and of such perilous exam- ple. COMMENT. Since the preceding pages were composed, and during an interim of depression and disqualification, I heard with a de- light and an interest, that I might without hyperbole call me- dicinal, that the contra-distinction of Understanding from Rea- son, for which during twenty years I have been contending, "casting my bread upon the Waters" with a perseverance, which in the existing state of the public taste nothing but the 160 AIDS TO REFLECTION. deepest conviction of its importance could have inspired — has been lately adopted and sanctioned by the present distinguish- ed Professor of Anatomy, in the Course of Lectures given by him at the Royal College of Surgeons, on the Zoological part of Natural History ; and if I am rightly informed, in one of the eloquent and impressive introductory Discourses. In explaining the Nature of Instinct, as deduced from the actions and tendencies of animals successively presented to the Ob- servation of the Comparative Physiologist in the ascending Scale of Organic Life — or rather, I should have said, in an at- tempt to determine that precise import of the Term, which is required by the facts[61] — the Professor explained the nature of what I have elsewhere called the Adoptive Poiver, 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 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 Na- ture of the Adaptive Power in genere, and, secondly, the dis- tinct character of the same Power as it exists specifically and exclusively in the human being, and acquires the name of Un- derstanding ; but he did it in a way w^hich 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 oc- casion of offence — omnem ofrendiculi[62] ansam priecidens. 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 Anticipation of Consequences, that faithless and loveless spirit of fear which plunged Galilseo into a Prison [63] — a spi- rit most unworthy of an educated man, who ought to have learnt that the Mistakes of scientific men have never injured Christianity, while every new truth discovered by them has APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 151 either addedto its evidence, or prepared the mind for its re- ception. ON INSTINCT IN CONNEXION WITH THE UNDERSTANDING. It is evident that the definition of a Genus or Class is an adequate definition only of the lowest cpecies of that Genus : for each higher species is distinguished from the lower by some additional character, while the General Definition includes only the characters common 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 instance 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 prox- imate end, i. e. the growth or reproduction of the Insect's Bo- dy, This we call vital power, or vita propria of the Stom- ach ; and this being the lowest species, its definition is the same with the definition of the kind. 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 vegeta- ble; 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 the butterfly form), to the deposition of its eggs, and the sustenta- tion of the future Larva. Here I see a power of selecting and adapting means to proximate ends according to circumstances : and this higher species of Adaptive Power we call Instinct. Lastly, I reflect on the facts narrated and described in the preceding extracts from Huber, and see a power of selecting and adapting the proper means to the proximate ends, accord- ing to varying circumstances. And what shall we call this yet higher species? We name the former, Instinct: we must call this Instinctive IntelliSgence. 152 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 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 character 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 imme- diate dependency in all the Actions, yet the Actions being de- termined by the purposes, tlie result is equivalent : and both the Actions and Purposes are all in a necessitated reference to the preservation and continuance of the particular Animal or of the Progeny. There is selection, but not choice : volition rather than Will. The possible knowledge of a thing, or the desire to have the thing representable by a distinct correspon- dent Thought, does not, in the animal, suffice to render the thing an object, or the ground of a purpose. 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, peihaps, 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 with- out any reason. Now what is the conclusion from these premises ? Evident- ly 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-consciousness, it instantly becomes UNDERSTANDING : iu 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-exis- tence with far higher Powers of a diverse kind in one and the same Subject. Instinct in a rational, responsible, 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-authen- APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 153 ticated instances oh record, to recall some one of the extraor- dinary actions of Dogs for the preservation of their Masters' lives, and even for the avenging of their deaths. In these in- stances 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 Adaptive Power co-ex- ists with a purpose apparently voluntary^ and the action seems neither pre-determined by the organization of the Animal, nor in any direct reference to his own preservation, or to the con- tinuance 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 mystery, on account of this dawning of a moral nature unaccompanied by any the least evidence of Reason, in whichever of the iwo senses we interpret the word — wheth- er as the practical Reason, i. e. the power of proposing an ul- timaie 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 appearan- ces. But in a question respecting the possesion of Reason, the absence of all proof is tantamount to a proof of the contra- ry. 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 entreat the Reader to re- flect 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 con- fidently appeal to him, whether it is in his power not to con- sider the faculty displayed in these actions as the same in kind with the Understanding, however inferior m degree. Or should he even in these instances prefer calling it Instinct, and this in con^ra-distinction from Understanding, I call on him to point out the boundary between the two, the chasm or par- 20 154 AIDS TO RErLECTION. tition-wall that divides 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 differing in degree from Instinct and in kind from Reason, innocent in its possible influences on the religious character, but it is an indispensible preliminary to the removal of the most formidable obstacles to an intelligent 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. REFLECTIONS BY THE EDITOR INTRODUCTORY TO APHORISM THE TENTH. The most momentous question a man can ask is, Have I a Saviour ! And yet, as far as the individual Querist is con- cerned it is premature and to no purpose, except another ques- tion has been previously put and answered ( alas ! too generally put after the wounded Conscience has already given the an- swer!) viz. Have I any need of a Saviour? For him who needs none, (O, bitter irony of the Evil Spirit, whose whis- pers 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 ivhat the necessity consists ? secondly, whence it pro- ceeded ? and, thirdly, how far the answer to this second ques- tion is or is not contained in the answer to the first ! I entreat 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 moment, and con- APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 155 sider the main points that in this last division of our work have been aheady 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 compre- hended in Nature : or in the language of our 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 possil)le : 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 contains in itself the cause of its own state, must be spiritual^ and consequently super-natural : yet not on that account necessarily miraculous. And such must the responsible Will in us be, if it be at all. ( See p. 87 — 92. ) A prior step had been to remove all misconceptions from the subject ; to show the reasonableness of a belief in the real- ity and real influence of a universal and divine Spirit ; the compatibility and possible communion of such a Spirit with the Spiritual Piinciple in Individuals; and the analogy offered by the most undeniable truths of Natural Philosophy [G4]. (See p. 41—46). 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 re- spects the question. Whether there is any faculty in man by which a knowledge of spiritual truths or of any truths not ab- stracted from Nature, is rendered possible? and an Answer is attempted in 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 156 AIDS TO REFLECTION. Words, and the other to the other — instead of using the words indiiferently and by hap-hazard ; a confusion, the ill effects of which in this instance are so great and of such frequent occur- rence 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 the Un- derstanding, and the imperfection and limited sphere of the lat- ter, have been asserted by many both before and since Lord Bacon [65] ; but still the habit of using Reason and Understand- ing as synonymes, acted as a disturbing force. Some it led into mysticism, others it set on explaining away a clear differ- ence in kind 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 to pre- sent the so called mysteries of Faith, i. e. the peculiar tenets and especial Constituents of Christianity, or Rehgion in spirit and in truth. In right order I must have commenced with the Articles of the Trinity and the Apostacy, including the ques- tion respecting the Origin of Evil, and the Incarnation of the Word. And could I have followed this order, some difficul- ties that now press on me would have been obviated. But (as has already been explained ) the limits of the present Volume rendered it alike impracticable and inexpedient ; for the ne- cessity of my argument would have called forth certain hard, though most true sayings, respecting the hollowness and trick- sy sophistry of the so called " Natural Theology," " Religion of Nature," " Light of Nature," &c. which a brief exposition APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 157 could not save from innocent misconceptions, much less pro- tect against plausible misinterpretation. And yet both Reason and Experience have convinced me, that in the greater num- ber 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 insurmountable 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 perhaps fall where it will kindle. The Reader desirous of more is again referred to the Work already announced. And worthi- ly might the wisest of men make inquisition into the three mo- mentous 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 Inqui- rer, 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 ; con- vince him of the reality of Sin, which is impossible without a knowledge of its true nature and inevitable Consequences ; and then satisfy him as to the fact historically, and as to the truth spiritually, of a redemption therefrom by Christ ; do this for him, and there is little fear that he will permit either logi- cal quirks or metaphj^sical puzzles to contravene the plain dic- tate of his Common Sense, the Sinless One that redeemed Mankind from Sin, must have been more than Man ; and that He who brought Light and Immortality into the World, could not in his own nature have been an inheritor of Death and 158 AIDS TO REFLECTION. Darkness. It is morally impossible, that a man with these con- victions should suffer the Objection of Incomprehensibility (and this on a subject of Faith) to overbalance the manifest absurd- ity and contradiction in the notion of a mediator between God and the Human Race, at the same infinite distance from God as the Race for whom he mediates. The Origin of Evil, meanwhile, is a question interesting only to the Metaphysician, and in a system of moral and reli- gious 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 im- possible positions. Instead therefore of troubling himself with this barren controversy, he more profitably turns his enquiries to that Evil which most concerns himself, and of which he may find the origin. The entire Scheme of necessary Faith may be reduced to two "heads, 1. the Object and Occasion, and 2. the fact and ef- fect, 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 re- maining Aphorisms are all subsidiary to these, or written in the hope of making the minor tenets of general belief be be- lieved in a spirit worthy of these. They are, in short, intend- ed 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 cheerful boldness, which our new alliance with God requires of us as Christians." (Mil- ton). Not the Origin of Evil, not the Chronology of Sin, or the chronicles of the original Sinner ; but Sin originant, un- derived from without, and no passive link in the adamantine chain of Effects, each of which is in its turn an instrument of APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 159 Causation, but no one of them a Cause ! not with Sin inflict^ edj which would be a Calamity! not with Sin (i. e. an evil tendency ) implanted^ 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 [66]! APHORISM X. JEREMY TATLOa. ON ORIGINAL SIN. Is there any such thing ? That is not the question. For it is a Fact acknowledged on all hands almost : and even those who will not confess it in words, confess it in their complaints. For my part I connot but confess that to 6e, which I feel and groan nmder, and by which all the world is miserable. Adam turned his back on the Sun, and dwelt in the Dark and the Shadow. He sinned, and brought evil into his Super- natural endowments, and lost the Sacrament 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 passion- ate 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 I And this being the case of all the world, what was every man's evil became all men's greater evil ; and though alone it was very bad, jet when they came together it was made much worse. Like ships in a storm, every one alone hath enough to do to outride 160 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 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 violently 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, Law- yers and Clients, a Family and a Neighbourhood — then it is that every man dashes against another, and one relation re- quires what another denies ; and when one speaks another will contradict him ; and that which is well spoken is some- times innocently mistaken ; and that upon a good cause pro- duces an evil effect ; and by these and ten thousand other con- current 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 compulsion of Circumstances. Circumstances are compulsory from the absence of a power to resist or control them : and if this absence likewise be the effect of circum- stance (t. 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 sinfulness of Sin J 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 ori- gin, original, or originant. The reader cannot too early be warned that it is not applicable, and, without abuse of lan- guage, can never be applied, to a mere link in a chain of ef- fects, where each, indeed, stands in the relation of a cause to APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 1^1 those that foUow, but is at the same time the effect of all that precede. For in these cases a cause amounts to httle more than an antecedent. At the utmost it means only a conductor of the causative influence : and the old axiom, Causa causae causa causati, applies, with a never-ending regress to each se- veral 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 ori- 5m[67] in anv other. The moment we assume an Origin in Nature, a true" Beginning, an actual First— that moment we rise above Nature, and are compelled to assume a supernatural Power. (Gen. I. V. 1.) It will be an equal convenience to myself and to my Read- ers, to let it be agreed between us, that we will 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 present, of a Free Agent. Even though it were the blood in the chambers of his Heart, or his own in- most Sensations, we will regard them as circumstantial, ex- trinsic, or from ivithout. 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 intention- al; 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 humani- ty peimit 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 distinguished from Idiocy, Frenzy, Delirium, Hypochondria, and Derange- ment (the last term used specifically to express a suspension or disordered state of the Understanding or Adaptive Power) is the Occultation or Eclipse of Reason, as the Power of ul- 21 162 AIDS TO REFLECTION. timate 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 eiids are madness. He has lost his Rea- son. For though Reason, in finite beings, is not the Will — or how could the will be opposed to^^he Reason? — yet it is the condition, the sine qua non ot a jPree-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 complaint is, that the eloquent Bishop, while he admits the fact as established beyond controversy by universal expe- rience, 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 v*^hat 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 Original Sin is or is not the right and proper designation. I can ima- gine 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 temporary deformity and misproportions of im- maturity, or (as in the final sloughing of the Caterpillar) as tjiroes 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 Sufi'erers themselves, or as Sin. Let us, however, waive this objection. Let it be supposed that the Bishop uses the word in a different and more compre- hensive Sense, and that by Sin he understands 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 substance, for instance) except as Acts resulting from the constitution of such bodies ! Or if this sense, though not unknown to the IMystic Divines, should be too APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 163 comprehensive and remote, we will suppose the Bishop to com- prise under the term Sin, the Evil accompanying or conse- quent 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 rea- son would instantly bring me back to my first definition ; and any other reason, than that the human Agent is endowed with Reason, and with a Will which can place itself either in sub- jection or in opposition to his Reason — in other words, that Man is alone of all known Animals a responsible Creature — 1 neither know or can imagine. Thus, then, the Sense which Taylor — and with him the An- tagonists 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 1 have given — namely, that Sin is Evil having an Origin. But inasmuch as it is evil^ in God it can- not originate : and yet in some Spirit {i. e. in some supernatu- ral power) it must. For in Nature there is no origin. Sin therefore is spiritual Evil : but thq 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, condi- tion and common Cause of all Sins ; and when we would fur- ther 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 ab- solutely such, Original Sin. (1 have said, "the corrupt Na- ture of the Will." I might add, that the admission of a Na- ture into a spiritual essence by its own act is a corruption. ) Such, I repeat, would be the inevitable conclusion, if Tay- lor's Sense of the term were carried on into its immediate consequences. But the whole of his most eloquent Treatise makes it certain that Taylor did not carry it on : and conse- quently Original Sin, according to his conception, is a Calami- 164 AIDS TO REFLECTION. ty which bemg common to all men must be supposed to result iVom their common Nature : in other words, the universal Ca- lamity of Human Nature f 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 ap- pear 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 i( he found nothing, that could reconcile his mind to such a belief, in the circumstance that the acts now conse- quent on this Calamity and either directly or indirectly effects of the saine 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 other men is Dlsease^'m these two persons was Guilt? that what in us is hereditary^ and consequently Nature^ in them was original^ and consequently Sin9 Lastly might it not be presumed, that so enlightened, and at the same time so affec- tionate, a Divine, would even fervently disclaim and reject the pretended justifications of God, grounded on flimsy analogies draAvn from the imperfections of human ordinances and human justice-courts — some of very doubtful character even as hu- man Institutes, and all of them just only as far as they are ne- cessary, and rendered necessary chiefly by the weakness and wickedness, 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 equivocation : viz. the gross misuse of the word Right [68]. An instance will explain my meaning. In as far as, from the known frequency of dishonest or mischie- vous persons, 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 APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 165 on that which the Law has made their Property : — nay, of pro- ceeding in sundry instances criminally and even capitally. (Where at least from the known poverty of the Trespasser it is foreknown 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 the third for carrying it oif : and not possessing as many Pence, were sent to Jail.) But surely, either there is no religion in the world, and nothing obligatory in the precepts of the Gospel, or there are occasions in which it would be very ivrong in the Proprietor to exercise the Rights 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 fervent- ly 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 unfairness with which he blackens the established Article — • for to give it, as it had been caricatured by a few Ultra -Cal- vinists 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 forr mer 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 su- pernatural heights of grace" proportionate to the obedience which he required. As a consequence of his disobedience, Adam lost this rectitude, this perfect sanity and proper tionate- ness of his intellectual, moral and corporeal state, powers and impulses ; and as the penalty of his crime, he was deprived of all super-natural aids and graces. The Death, with what- ever is comprised in the scriptural sense of the word. Death, began from that moment to work in him, and this consequence 106 AIDS TO REFLECTION. h3 conveyed to his offspring, and through them to all his pos- terity, *. e. to all mankind. They were born diseased in mind, body and will. For what less than disease can we call a ne- cessity of error and a predisposition to sin and sickness ? Tay- lor, indeed, asocrts^ that though perfect Obedience became in- comparably more difficult, it was not, however, absolutely im- possible. Yet he himself admits that the contrary was uni- versal ; that of the countless millions of Adam's Posterity, not a single Individual ever realized, or approached to the re- alization of, this possibility; and (if my memory does not de- ceive 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 horsehair: there- fore, 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 : therefore, it is possible for him to walk blindfold for two or three leagues without a single deviation ! And this possibility w ould suffice to acquit me of injustice^ though I had placed man-traps with- in an inch of one line, and knew that there were pit-falls and deep wells beside the other ! This assertion, therefore, without adverting to its discord- ance with, if not direct contradiction to, the tenth and thir- teenth 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 APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 1 GT 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 consequence of Adam's act, but the pe- nalty 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 obligation too, the nonfulfilment of Avhich brought with it Death and the unutterable Woe that cleaves to an immortal Soul for ever alienated from its Creator I 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 doc- trine is the same with that laid down in the Articles and Hom- ilies of the Established Church. The only diiTerence that has hitherto appeared, consists in the aforesaid mathematical pos- sibility of fulfilling the whole Law, which in the Bishop's scheme is aflSrmed to remain still in human Nature, or (as it is elsewhere expressed) in the Nature of the hbman Will [69]. But though it were possible to grant this existence of a power in all men, which in no one man was ever exemplified, and where the non-actualization of such power is, a priori, so cer- tain, that the belief or imagination of the contrary in any In- dividual 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 consistently 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 like- wise to overlook the glaring sophistry of concluding, in rela- tion 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 16S AIDS TO REFLECTION. powers to their duties ? Why were they subjected to a Law", the fulfdment of which was all but impossible, yet the penalty on the failure tremendous ? Admit that for those who had never enjoyed a happier lot, it was no punish- ment to be made inhabit a ground which the Creator had cursed, and to have been born with a bod}^ prone to sickness, and a soul surrounded with temptation and having the worst temptation within itseli in its own tempfibility ! To have the duties of a Spirit with the wants and appetites of an Animal ! Yet on such imperfect Creatures, with means so scanty and impediments so numerous, to impose the same task-work that had been required of a Creature v/ith a pure and entire na- ture and provided with super-natural Aids — if this be not to inflict a penalty ! — Yet to be placed under a Law% the difficul- ty of obeying and the consequences of not obeying which are both infinite, and to have momently to struggle with this diffi- culty, 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 incapable. He himself calls it a penalty ; he admits that in efl'ect it is a punishment : nor does he seek to suppress the question that so naturally arises out of this admission — On what principle of Equity were the irnocept offspring of Adam punished at all? He meets it, and puts-in an answer. He states the problem, and gives his solutio?i — namely, that " God on Adam's Account 'was so exasperated loith Mafikind^ that being angry he would still continue the punishment!" The case (says the Bishop) is this: "Jonathan and Michal 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 fur- ther^ I feel myself called on to remind the Reader ^ that these two last words loere added by Jeremy Taylor without the least ground of Scripture^ according to which (2 Samuel, Ixxi.) no crime loas laid to their charge, no blame imjnited to them. Without any pretence of culpable conduct on their part, they APHORISMS ON SPIBIT0AI, SELICIOW. 169 were arraigned as Children of Saul, and sacrificed to a point oj state-expedience. In recommencing the quotation, there- Jore,the Reader ought to let the sentence conclude with the ^'ord^-] "all equally innocent. David took the five Sons of Michai, for she had left him unhandsomely. Jonathan was h,s fnend : and therefore he spared to Son, Mephibosheth. iNow here it was indifferent as to the guilt of the persons (hear %n mii^, Reader! that no guilt was attached to either of them!) whether David should take the Sons of Michai or Jo- nathan's ; but it is likely that as upon the kindness that David had to Jonathan he spared his son ; so upon the just provoca- tion of Michai, 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 Michai. to David." C Tay- lor's Polem. Tracts, p. 711.) ' This Answer, this Solution, proceeding too from a Divine go pre-eminently gifted, and occurring ( with other passages not less starthng) in a vehement refutation of the received doctrine on the express ground of its opposition to the clearest concep- tions and best feelings of mankind-this it is, that surprises me ! It IS of this that I complain ! The Almighty Father ex- asperated with those, whom the Bishop has himself in the same treatise described as "innocent and most unfortunate"- he two things best fitted to conciliate love and pity! Or though they did not remain innocent, yet those whose aban- donment to ameie nature, while they were left amenable to a aw above nature, he afiirms 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 im- perfect Mortal ! Let such of my Readers as possess the Vol- ume of Polemical Discourses, or the opportunity of consult- /"4 'i'? ^ thoughtful perusal to the pages from 869 to 893 (Thtrd edrtwn enlarged, 1674;. I dare anticipate their con- currence with the judgment which 1 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. 32 ^ 170 AIDS TO REFLECTION. * " 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 reason ! the other, looking toward the ' something to be put in its place^^ maimed, featureless, and weatherbitten into an almost vision- ary confusion and indistinctness." With these expositions I hasten to contrast the scriptural article respecting Original Sin, or the Corrupt and sinful Na- ture of the Human Will, and the belief which alone is requi- red of us, as Christians. And here the first thing to be con- sidered, and which will at once remove a world of error, is : that this is no Tenet first introduced or imposed by Christi- anity ; and which, should a man see reason to disclaim the authority of the Gospel, would no longer have any claim on his attention. 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, afiirmed, indeed, in the Christian Scriptures alone with the force and frequency pro- portioned to its consummate importance ; but a fact acknowl- edged in every 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 Apos- tasy of the Pagan World, when the faith in the great I am, the Creator, was extinguished in the sensual polytheism, which is inevitably the final result of Pantheism or the Worship of Nature ; and the only form under which the Pantheistic Scheme — that, according to which the World is God, and the material universe itself the one only absolute Being — can ex- ist 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, and now gleaming, now flashing, through the Mist of Pantheism, and producing the incongruities and gross contradictions of the Brahmin My- APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGIOIT. 171 thology ; while in the rival Sect — in that most strange Phse- nomenon, 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 delusions natu- ral to man, which, together with other superstitions grounded on a supposed essential difference between Right and Wrong, the Sage is to decompose and precipitate from the menstruum of his more refined apprehensions ! Thus in denying the fact, they virtually acknowledge it. From the remote East turn to the mythology of Minor Asia, to the Descendants of Javan who dwelt in the tents of Shem, and possessed the Isles. Here again, and in the usual form of an historic Solution, we find the same Fact^ and as character- istic of the Human Race^ stated in that earliest and most ven- erable My thus (or symbolic Parable) of Prometheus — that truly wonderful Fable, in which the characters of the rebell- ious Spirit and of the Divine Friend of Mankind {esog (ptXav^P'^ifo?) 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 Pan- theism. This and the connected tale of lo, which is but the sequel of the Prometheus, stand alone in the Greek Mythol- ogy, in which elsewhere both Gods and Men are mere Pow- ers and Products of Nature. And most noticeable it is, that soon after the promulgation and spread of the Gospel had awa- kened the moral sense, and had opened the eyes even of its wiser Enemies to the necessity 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 Orig- inal Sin the Greek Mythology rose and set. But not only was the fact acknowledged 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 likewise an acknowledged Mys- tery, and one which by the nature of the Subject must ever 172 AIDS TO REFLECTION. remain such — a problem, 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 responsi- ble Being. It follows necessarily from the postulate of a res- ponsible 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 what- ever 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 per- fect Freedom, but a Nature under the mechanism of Cause and Effect. And if by an act, to 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 re- ceives 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 condition of his Personality ; the ground and condition of the attribute which constitutes him Man. And the ground-work of Per- sonal Being is a capacity of acknowledging 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 there- on 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 contingent 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 Max- im or By-law in the Will contrary to the universal Law of APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 173 right Reason in the Conscience, as the Ground of the action. But this evil Principle again must be grounded in some other Principle 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, notour 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 be- cause he has committed 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 o/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 acknowledged in all Ages, and recognized, but not originating, in the Christian Scriptures. In addition to this Memento it wdll be well to remind the Inquirer, that the stedfast conviction of the existence, per sonality, and moral attributes of God is pre-supposed in the acceptance of the Gospel, or required as its indispensable pre- liminary. 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 ; 174 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 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 diflGiculties 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 at- tack Christianity, or any article which the Church has declar- ed a Christian Doctrine, by arguments, which, if vahd, 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 threatenings and slaugh- ter against" the Church of Christ, as by Paul the Apostle " fully preaching the Gospel of Christ." A moral Evil is an Evil that has its origin in a Will. An Evil common to all must have a ground common to alj. 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 therefore have a common ground". Now this evil ground can- not originate in the Divine Will : it must therefore be refer- red to the Will of Man. And this evil Ground we call Orig- inal 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 comprehend 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 obscure as his sufferings were severe and notorious, was thus addressed 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 phy- sician, I have come to you. Respecting your disease, indeed, 1 can tell you nothing, that you are capable of understanding, APHORISM3 ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 175 more than you know already, or can only be taught by reflec- tion on y^our own experience. But I have rendered the Dis- ease 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 ; nothing more being required on your part, but your best endeavors to follow the prescriptions I shall leave with you. It is, indeed, too probable, from the nature of your dis- ease, that you will occasionally neglect or transgress 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 mis- chievous notion of an inexplicable Disease, involving the hon- our 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 finding some description of the Disease, or some lamentation of its malig- nant and epidemic character! And lastly, what if certain pretended Friends of this good Samaritan, in their zeal to vin- dicate 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 im- plied its existence ? In this Apologue or imaginary Case, Reader ! you have the true bearings of Christianity on the fact and Doctrine of Ori- ginal Sin. The doctrine (that is, the confession of a known fact) Christianity has only in common with every Rehgion, and with every Philosophy, in which the reality of a respon- sible Will and the essential difference between Good and Evil were recognized. Peculiar to the Christian Religion are the 176 AIDS TO RErLECTION. Remedy and ( for all purposes but those of a merely specula- tive Curiosity) the Solution ! By the annunciation of the Re- medy it affords all the solution that our moral interests re- quire ; and even in that which remains, and must remain, un- fathomable 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 : Fow, Sir ! can no more demonstrate the Negative, than I can conceive the Affirmative. The Corrup- tion of my will may very warrantably be spoken of as a Con- sequence of Adam's Existence ; as a consequence, 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 infused into my Will by the Will of ano- ther — which is indeed a contradiction in terms, my Will in such case being no Will — this is nowhere asserted in Scrip- ture explicitly or by implication. It belongs to the very es- sence of the doctrine, that in respect of Original Sin every man is the adequate representative of all men. What won- der, 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 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 tvell 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 Original Sin concerns all men. But it concerns Christians in partic- ular 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, APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 177 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 perraited me to clear away the several delusive and fanciful assertions respecting the state [70] of our First Pa- rents, their wisdom, science, and angelic Faculties, assertions without the slightest ground in Scripture ! Or if consistently with the wants and preparatory studies of those, for whose use the volume was especially intended, I could have entered into the momentous subject of a Spiritual Fall or Apostasy ante- cedent to the formation of Man — a belief, the scriptural grounds of which are few and of diverse interpretation, but which has been almost universal mi the Christian Church. Enough, however, has been - trust, for the Reader to see and (as far as the subjec able of being understood) to understand this long controverted Article in the sense, in which alone it is binding on his faith. Supposing him, there- fore, to know the meaning of original sin, and to have deci- ded for himself on the fact of its actual existence, as the an- tecedent 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 Re- demption. Butbefore we pioceed 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 receiv- ing any addition, from outward Experience, or empirical da- ta— i. e. matter-of-fact given to us through the medium of our Senses— though these Data may have been the occasion, or may even be an indispensable condition, of our reflecting on the former and thereby becoming conscious o( the same. 23 178 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 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 pur- pose, to denominate a Scheme. APHORISM XL EDITOR. In whatever age and country, it is the prevailing mind and character of the nation to regard the present life as subordi- nate to a Life to come, and to mark the present state, the World of their Senses, by signs, instruments 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 peo- ple at large, not by being explained away in the vain hope of accommodating them to the average of their Understanding, but by being made the objects of Love by their combination with events and epochs of History, with national traditions, with the monuments and dedications of Ancestral faith and zeal, with memorial and symbolical observances, with the re- alizing influences 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 un- der the predominance of such Maxims, the national church is no mere St-Aie- Institute. It is the State itself in its intensest federal union ; yet at the same moment the Guardian and Rep- resentative 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 co- alition. As an efficient power, the Agent is but a fraction of unity : he becomes an integer only in the recognition and per- formance of the Moral Law. Nevertheless it is most true (and a truth which cannot with safety be overlooked) that Mo- rality, as Morality, has no existence for a People. It is ei- ther absorbed and lost in the quicksands of Prudential Calcu- lus, or it is taken up and transfigured into the duties and Mys- teries of Religion. And no wonder : since Morality (inclu- APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 179 ding the personal being, the I am, as its subject) is itself a Mystery, and the ground and suppositum of all other Myste- ries, relatively to Man. APHORISM XII. EDITOR. Schemes of conduct, grounded on calculations of Self-inter- est ; or on the average Consequences oT Actions, supposing them general ; form a branch of Political Eco;iomy, to which let all due honour be given. Their utility is not ihere ques- tioned. 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 pur- pose they are in all cases foreign^ and when substituted for it, hostile. Ethics, or the Science of Morality, does indeed ill no wise exclude the consideration of Actid7i ; but it con- templates the same in its originating spiritual Source^ without reference to Space or Time or Sensible existence. Whatev- er springs out of "the perfect Law of Freedom," which ex- ists only by its unity with the Will, inherence in the W^ord, and communion with the Spirit, of God — that (according to the Principles of Moral Science) is good — it is Light and Righteousness and very Truth. Whatever seeks to separate itself from the Divine Principle, and proceeds from a false centre in the Agent's particular Will, is evil — a work of da!rfe- ness and contradiction ! It is Sin and essential Falsehood. Not the outward Deed, constructive, destructive or neutral ; not the Deed as a possible Object of the Senses ; is the Ob- ject of Ethical Science. For this is no Compost, CoUectori- um or Inventory of Single Duties : nor does it seek in the " multitudinous Sea," in the predetermined waves, tidies aVirf currents of Nature that freedom, which is exclusively' an At- tribute of Spirit. Like all other pure Sciences, whatever^ it! enunciates, and whatever it concludes, it enunciates and c6i\- ciudes absolutely. Strictness is its essential Character : atid its first Proposition is, " Whosoever shall keep the wholfe law, and yet offend in one point, he rs guilty' of all." James ii: 10. ) For as the Will' oi^ Sj^irit, the S6urce and Substahce of 180 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 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 severity of Science, be recogni- zed as the proper Counterpart and adequate Representative of a good Will. Is it in this or that limb, or not rather in the whole body, the entire Organismus, that the Law of Life re- flects itself ? Much less then can the Law of the Spirit work in fragments. APHORISM XIIL EDITOR. Wherever there exists a permanent[71] Learned Class, having authority and possessing the respect and confidence of the Country ; and where the Science of Ethics is acknowl- edged and taught in this class as a regular part of a learned education to its future Members generally, but as the special study and indisj^ensable 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 undis- puted truth, and with the People a fact, which no man imag- ines it possible to deny, the Doctrine, thus inwoven in the faith of all and co-eval with the consciousness of each, will for each and all possess a reality, subjective indeed, yet virtu- ally equivalent to that which we intuitively give to the Objects of our Senses. With the Learned this will be the case ; because the Arti- cle is the first — I had almost said, spontaneous — product of the Application of Moral Science to History, of which it is the Interpreter. A mystery in its own right, and by the ne- cessity and essential character 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 connexion of dependency, an intelligibility of relation, and a total harmo- ny, that supersede extrinsic proof. There is here that same proof from unity of purpose, that same evidence of Symme- try, which in the contemplation of a human skeleton flash- APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL, RELIGION. 181 ed conviction on the mind of Galen and kindled meditation into a hymn of praise. Meanwhile the People, not goaded into doubt by the les- sons and examples of their Teachers and Superiors ; not drawn away from the Fixed Stars of Heaven, the form and Magni- tude of which are the same for the naked eye of the Shep- herd as for tlie 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 imper- fectly developed, on a subject not within the sphere of the Faculty nor in any way amenable to its judgment ; the Peo- ple will need no arguments to receive a doctrine confirmed Ijy their own experince from within and from without, and in- timately blended with the most venerable Traditions common to all races, and the traces of which linger in the latest Twi- light of Civilization. Among the revulsions consequent on the brute bewilder- ments 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 Religion this interest, till I am satis- fied 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 Prudence 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 ex- ploded as the mystic Jargon of Dark Ages ; where a lax Sys- tem of Consequences, by which every iniquity on earth may be (and how many have been?) denounced and defended with equal plausibility, is publicly and authoritatively taught as Mo- ral Philosophy ; where the Mysteries of Religion, and Truths supersensual, are either cut and squared for the comprehen- sion of the Understanding, " the faculty judging according to Sense" or desperately torn asunder from the Reason, nay, fa- natically opposed to it; lastly, where Private [72] Interpreta- 182 AIDS TO REFLECTION. tion is every thing and the Church nothing — there the Myste- ry of Original Sin will be either rejected, or evaded, or per- verted into the monstrous fiction of Hereditary Sin, Guilt in- herited ; in the Mystery of Redemption metaphors will be obtruded for the reality ; and in the mysterious Appurtenants and Symbols of Redemption (Regeneration, Grace, the Eu- charist, and Spiritual Communion) the realities will be evap- orated into metaphors. APHORISM XIV. LEIOHTOM As in great Maps or Pictures you will see the border deco- rated with meadows, fountains, flowers, &c. lepresented 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 crea- tures, the succession of ages and the things that come to pass in them, are but as the border to this as the Mainpiece. But as a foolish unskilful beholder, not discerning 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 personal Being, and the re-union of the Human with the Di- vine, 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 ac- cuseth and condemneth thee, forcing thee to a comparison of thy heart therewith, and convicting thee of the incompatible- ness of thy Will and Nature with Heaven and Holiness and an immediate 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 feel- eth himself assaulted with trials and temptations, and the con- APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 183 science hath to do with God, and the tempted man knoweth that the root of temptation 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 Deliverance ! COMMENT. In irrational Agents, viz. the Animals, the Will is hidden or absorbed in the Law. The Law is their Nature. In the ori- ginal purity'tof a rational Agent the uncorrupted Will is iden- tical with the Law. Nay, inasmuch as a Will perfectly iden- tical with the Law is one with the divine Will, we may say, that in the un fallen rational Agent the W^ill 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 com- manding, binding and menacing character which belongs to a Law, acting as a Master or Sovereign distinct from, and exis- ting, as it were, externally for, the Agent who is bound to obey it. Now 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 Laiv for you ; that it acts on the Will not in it ; that it exercises an agency from loithout^ by fear and coer- cion ; proves the corruption of yoiir Will, and presupposes it. Sin in this sense came by the Law : for it has its essence, as Sin, in that counterposition of the Holy Principle to the Will, which occasions 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 (vofxov TsXsjov 70V Tvis sXsj^jag, Jamc5 i. 25. Seepage 14) 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 ceremonial Law is a notion, that could origi- 184 AIDS TO REFLECTION. nate only in utter inattention to the whole strain and gist of the Apostles' Argument. APHORISM XVI. LEIGHTON AlfD ED. Christ's Death was both voluntary and violent. There was external violence: and that was the accompaniment, or at most the occasion, of his Death. But there was internal will- ingness, the spiritual Will, the Will of the Spirit and this was the proper cause. By this Spirit I>e was restored from Death : neither indeed '* was it possible for him to be holden of it." (Acts ii. V. 24 — 27.). "Being put todeath 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 him- self. 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 high- er nature and powder 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 doc- trine, 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 Chris- tians is to eye Christ in every step of his life — not only as their Rule but as their Strength ; looking to him as their Pat- tern both in doing and in suffering, and drawing power from him for going through both : being without him able for no- thing. Take comfort then, thou that behevest ! 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 comfort. Yea, when thou art most sunk in thy sad apprehensions, and he far off to thy thinking then is he nearest to raise and comfort thee : as sometimes it grows darkest immediately before day. APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 185 APHORISIVI XVII. L. AND EDITOR. Would any of you be cured of that common disease, 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 w^ould 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 mayest be assured, if only thou believe in him, and love him. I need not add, keep his commandments : since where Faith and Love are, Obedience in its threefold character, as Effect, Reward, and Criterion, 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 warm- ed it, and made it fragrant. If then it be health and comfort to the Faithful that Christ descended into the grave, with especial confic jnce 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 Redeemer, that they shall rise by the communication and vir- tue 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 APHORISMS. 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 24 186 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 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 pass- ed 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. 87 — 93), and to expose the so- phistry 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. 97 — 101 ). And this was followed by an attempt to establish a dif- ference 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 con- victions respecting spiritual Truths, employed our attention from p. 108 — 126. Having then enumerated the Articles of the Christian Faith peculiar to Christianity, 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 judgment on such questions. I early foresaw, tkat my best chance (I will not say, of giving an insight into the surpassing worth and transcendent reason- ableness 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 Understanding, and in evincing its diversity from Reason. In piirsuing this mo- mentous subject, I was tempted in two or three instances into- disquisitions, that if not beyond the comprehension, were jet unsuited to the taste, of the persons for whom the Work was principally intended. 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 APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 187 paper, willingly given by him to those, for whom it may not be paper lOdsted. Nevertheless, I cannot conceal, that the subject itself supposes, on the part of the Reader, a steadinesfl in self -questioning^ a pleasure in referring to his own inward experience for the facts asserted by the Author, that can only be expected from a person who has fairly set his heart on arri- ving at clear and fixed conclusions in matters of Faith, But where this interest is felt, nothing more than a common Capa- city, with the ordinary advantages of education, is required for the complete comprehension both of the argument and the re- sult. Let but one thoughtful hour be devoted to the pages 135 — 146. In all that follows, the Reader will find no difficul- ty in understanding the Author's meaning, whatever he may have in adojyting it. The two great moments of the Christian Religion are. Ori- ginal Sin and Redemption ; that the Ground, this the Super- structure 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 [73] scheme of a con- temporary Arminian Divine ; and lastly, in contrast with both schemes, I have placed what I firmly believe to be the Scrip- tural Sense of this Article, and vindicated its entire conformity with Reason and Experience. I now proceed to the other mo- mentous Article — from the necessitating Occasion of the Chris- tian Dispensation to Christianity itself ! For Christianity and Redemption are equivalent terms. And here my Comment will be comprised in a few sentences : for I confine my views to the one object of clearing this aw^ful mystery from those too current misrepresentations of its nature and import, that have laid it open to scruples and objections, 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 Myster}^ — not that " it passeth all Understanding ! If the doctrine be more than an hyperbolical phrase, it must do so. But that it is at vari- ance with the Law revealed in the Conscience, that it contra- 188 AIDS TO REFLECTION. diets our moral instincts and intuitions — this is the difficulty, which alone is worthy of an answer ! And what better way is there of correcting the misconceptions than by laying open the source and occasion of them ? What surer way of remo- ving the scruples and prejudices, to which these misconcep- tions have given rise, than by propounding the Mystery itself — namely, the Redemtive 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 preceding, I in- terpose a view of redemption as appropriated by faith, coinci- dent 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 Church it would be difficult to speak too highly) containing the question to be solved, and which is numbered as an Aphorism, rather to preserve the uniformity of appearance, than as being strictly such. Then follows the Comment : as a part and com- mencement of which the Reader will consider the two para- graphs of p. 133 — 135, written for this purpose and in the fore- sight 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 resis- tance to the Evil Principle. There is no standing out with- out some firm ground to stand on : and this Faith alone sup- plies. By Faith in the Love of Christ the power of God be- comes ours. When the Soul is beleaguered by enemies, Weakness on the Walls, Treachery at the Gates, and Cor- ruption 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 iTSolutions and purposes ; but sted- APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 189 /ast by faith. Nor yet stedfast in your Will, but stedfast in the faith. We are not to be looking to, or brooding over our- selves, either for accusation or for confidence, or by a deep yet too frequent self-delusion) to obtain the latter by 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 ;" 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 indictment ! 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 unbeHef ! Dis- claim all right of property in thy fetters I Say, that they be- long 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 Salva- tion, must not thou be emptied of thy sinful Self to become Righteousness in and through his agony and the effective mer- its of his Cioss? 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 admission-right, thy qualification, to him who " charged 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 contemplate th itself and the pleni- tude of its infinity — the only-begotten before all ages ! the be- loved Son in whom the Father is indeed well pleased ! 190 AIDS TO REFLECTION. And as the Mind, so the Body with which it is to be clo- thed ! as the Indweller, so the House in which is to be the Abiding-place [74] ! There is but one Wedding-garment, in which we can sit down at the marriage-feast of Heaven : and that is the Bride-groom's own 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 World began, only to show 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 tiuth, I am the Resur- rection and the Life ! APHORISM XIX. FIELD. The Romanists teach that sins committed after baptism (i. e. for the immense majority of Christians having Christian Pa- rents, all their sins from the Cradle to the Grave ) are not so remitted for Christ's sake, but that we miist suffer that extrem- ity 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-hag, 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 promul- gate. And yet in his large Treatise on Repentance, how near to the spirit of this doctrine — even to the very walls and gates of Babylon — ivas 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, APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 191 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 con- dition that John pay it himself also. * * * The satisfaction of Christ is communicated and applied unto us without suffering the punishment that sin deserveth, [and essentially involveth^ 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 repentance no power to faith ; and that it is in the power of the will either to re- pent 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 Redeemer : the guilt of its rejection, the refusing to avail ourselves of the power, being all that we can consid- er as exclusively attributable to our own act. ] Field's Church, p. 68. COMMENT (cONTAININa AN APPLICATION OF- THE PRINCIPLES LAID DOWN IN PAGE 135—136.) Forgiveness of Sin, the Abolition of Guilt, through the re- demptive power of Christ's Love, and of his perfect Obedi- ence during his voluntary assumption of Humanity, is expres- sed, 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 himself incurred. Now the imjoropriation of this Metaphor — (i. e. the taking it literally )hy tiansferring the sameness from the Consequents to the Antecedents, or infen'ing 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 coisfusion I be- lieve to be altogether unscriptural. Indeed, I know not in what other instance I could better exemplify the species of sophistry noticed in p. 141 — 142, as the Aristotelean fxera/Sao'j^ si^ aXXo ^svog, 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 192 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 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 Re- demption ; 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 en- forced by St. Paul. The Mysterious Act, the Operative cause is t7'anscendent[l 5] — Factum est: and beyond the informa- tion contained in the enunciation of the Fact, it can be char- acterized 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 Gen- tiles. Now the Apostle's Opponents and Gainsayers were principally of the former class. They were Jews : not only Jews unconverted, but such as had partially received the Gos- pel, 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 Fol- lowers of Cephas. Add too, that Paul himself was " a He- brew of the Hebrews ;" intimately versed " in the Jew's re- ligion above many, his equals, in his own nation, and above measure zealous of the traditions of his fathers." It might, therefore, have been anticipated, that his reasoning would re- ceive its outward forms and language, that it would take its predominant colours, from his own past, and his Opponents' present, habits of thinking ; and that his figures, images, anal- ogies, 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 fig- ures of most frequent recurrence, are drawn from points of belief and practice, from laws, rites and customs, 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 APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 193 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 Con- sequences of Christ's Redemption of Mankind. These are : 1 Sin-offerings, sacrificial expiation. 2. Reconciliation, Atone- ment, KaTaXXa77][76]. 3. Ransom from slavery, Redemption, 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 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 indifferent. Now let X signify a Transcendent, i. e. a Cause beyond our Comprehension and not within the sphere of sensible experience : and on the oth- er hand, let A. B. C. and D represent, each some one known and familiar cause in reference to some single and characteris- tic effect: viz. A in reference to k, B to 1, C to m, and D to n. Then I say X-|-k 1 m n is in different places expressed by (or as r=) A+k; B+1; C+m; D+n. And these I should call metaphorical Exponents of X.] Now John, the beloved Disciple, who leant on the Lord's Bosom, the Evangelist xwra -n-vfufxa i. e. according to the Spir- it, 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, 1 say, by a familiar fact the same in kind with that intended, though of a far lower dignity ; — by a fact of every man's ex- perience, known, to all, yet not better understood than the fact described by it. In the Redeemed it is a re-generation a birth, a spiritual seed impregnated and evolted, the germinal 23 194 AIDS TO REFLECTION. principle of a higher and enduring Lifq, of a Spiritual Life — that 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 subsistence. 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 omit- ted the awful truth, that besides that dissolution 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 onx(pi'^akri^ SavttTw ! a fructifying of the corrupt seed, of which Death is the germination. Thus the regeneration 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 ( ^cjo'B'ojouv, life-making) Spirit:" and that in order to this it was necessary, that God should b© manifested in the flesh, that the eternal Word, through whom and by whom the World (xotfiuLog, the Order, Beauty, and sustaining Law of visible na- tures) 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 hath been already observed con- cerning the primal Act of Apostasy, a mystery by the necessi- ty of the subject — a mystery, which at all events it will be time enough for us to seek and expect to understand, when we un- derstand the mystery of our Natural life, and its 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 spiritual things that must be spiritual- ly discerned. Such, however, being the means and the effects of our Redemption, well might the fervent Apostle associate it APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 195 with whatever was eminently dear and precious to ening and afflicted Mortals, and (where no expression could be commen- surate, no single title be other than imperfect) seek from simili- tude of effect to describe the superlative boon by successively transferring to it, as by a superior claim, the name of each sev- eral Act and Ordinance, habitually connected in the minds of all his Hearers with feelings of joy, confidence, and gratitude. 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 re- ceive it, gives the privilege to become the Sons of God (John i. 12), this will admit you to the society of Angels, and ensure you the rights of Brotherhood with 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 Captivi- ty? Here is redemption from a far direr slavery, the slavery of Sin unto Death ! and he, who gave himself for the ransom, has taken Captivity 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 restored you to your Father's Arras, and seated you at your Father's Table ? Had you involved yourself in a heavy debt for certain gew- gaws, for high-seasoned meats, and intoxicating drinks, and glistening apparel, and in default of payment had made your- 196 AIDS TO REFLECTION. self over as a bondsman to a hard Creditor, who, it was fore- known, would enforce the bond of Judgment to the last tittle 1 With what emotions would you not receive the glad tidings, that a stranger, or a friend whom in the days of your wanton- ness you had neglected and reviled, had paid the debt for you, had made satisfaction to your Creditor ? But you have incurred a debt of Death to the Evil 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 Ne- cessity ! 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 paid 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 fig- ure last mentioned, viz. the satisfaction of a Debt. Passing by our modern Alogi who find nothing but metaphors in either Apostle, l^t 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 interpreted : ex. gr. that Sin is, or in- volves 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 ever- lasting misery of Adam and all his posterity, or by a sum of suffering equal to this. Likewise, that God the Father by his absolute decree, or (as some Divines teach) through the ne- cessity of his unchangeable Justice, had determined to exact the full sum ; which must, therefore, be paid either by our- selves, 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 Divines ) is an insolvent Debtor on his own score. In this fearful pre- dicament the Son of God fook compassion on Mankind, and re- APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 1 9T solved 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 Di- vines, 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 endless suc- cession of instalments we should have been paying to the di- vine 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 9 Are Debt, Satisfaction, Payment in full, Creditors' Rights, &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 purpose of illustrating the nature and extent of the consequences and effects of the redemptive A.ct, and to excite in the receiv- ers 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, 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 : conse- quently, the Law of Justice. If you attach any idea to the term^ustice, 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 irreconcileable with the Justice, which the Light of Reason, made Law in the Conscience, dic- tates 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 sub- 198 AIDS TO REFLECTION. ject, 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 j£ 1000 is owing from James to Peter, for which James had given a Bond in Judgment. He is insolvent, and the Bond is on the point of being carried into effect, to James's utter ruin. At this moment Matthew steps in, pays Peter the thousand pounds 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 equiva- lent of the sum James was bound to have paid, and for the sum which Peter had lent. It is the same thing : and this altogeth- er a question of Things. Now instead of James being indebted te Peter for a sum of money, which (he having become insol- vent) Matthew pays for him, we will put the case, that James had been guilty of the basest and most hard-hearted ingrati- tude 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 Affluence — all which he had repaid by neglect, desertion, and open profligacy. 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 appeas- ed, and will be henceforward reconciled to James. I have satis- fied all your claims on him. I have paid his Debt in full : and you are too just to require the same debt to be paid twice APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 1S9 over. You will therefore regard him with the same compla- cency, and receive him into your presence with the same love, as if there had been no difference between him and you. For I have made ii 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 oi 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 influences, or by an in- ward 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 Thingsllll^ or a matter of Debt payable by another. Never- theless, the Effect., — and the reader will remember, that it is the effects and consequences of Christ's mediation, on which St. Paul is dilating — the Effect to James is similar in both cases, t. e. in the case of James, the Debtor, and of James, the undu- tiful Son. In both cases, James is liberated from a grievous burthen ; and in both cases, he has to attribute his liberation to the Act and free grace of another. The only difference is, that in the former case (viz. the payment of the debtj the beneficial Act is, singly and without requiring any re-action or co-agency on the part of James, the efficient cause of his libe- ration; 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, under- stand the different positions asserted in the preceding Argu- 200 AIDS TO REFLECTION. ment 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 Scrip- tural Doctrine of Redemption. And I trust that my Lay Read- ers 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 trans- late themselves into English, when I dare assure them, that they will encounter no other obstacle to their full and easy comprehension of the contents. Synojysis of the Constituent Points in the Doctrine of Re- demption, in Four Questions, with correspondent Answers, QUESTIONS. (I. Agens Causator? ^xr^ , ixn x\ • xi, I 2. Actus Causativus? Who (or What) .s the 3 ^^^^^^^^ Causatum? [ 4. Consequentia ab Effecto ? Answers. \. The Agent and Personal Cause of the Redemption of Mankind is — the co-eternal Word and only begotten Son of the Living God, incarnate, tempted, agonizing (Agonistes aywvi^o/jiEvog), crucified, submitting to Death, resurgent, commu- nicant of his Spirit, ascendent, and obtaining for his Church the Descent and Communion of the Holy Spirit, tlie Com- forter. n. The Causative Act is — a spiritual and transcendent Mys- tery, " that passeth all understanding," in. The Effect caused is — the being born anew : as before in the flesh to the World, so now born in the spirit to Christ. IV. The Consequents from the Effect are — Sanctification from Sin, and Liberation from the inherent and penal conse- quences 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 APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL, RELIGIO^JT. 201 relativeljMo his Creditor ; as (lie saciidcial atonement made by the Priest for the Transgressor of the Mosaic Law ; as the teconciliation to an alienated Parent for a Son who had es- tranged 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 connect- ed with the former by similarity of 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 singuloy 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 origin 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 be- tween the S:>]X7],aa and the /SouXt], 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 Redemption in terms much more nearly resembling those used ordinarily by the Calvinis- tic Divines, and with a conciliative show of coincidence. But this motive was outweighed 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 read- er to re-connect each with the sentence it is supposed to fol- low. 26 202 AIDS TO REFLECTION. Scholium to Ans. II. Nevertheless, the fact or actual truth having been assured to us by Revelation J it is not impossible, by steadfast medita- tion on the idea and super-natural character of a personal Will, for a mind spiritually disciplined to satisfy itself, that the redemptive act supposes ( and that our redemption is even negatively conceivable 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 to Ans. III. W^here two subjects, that stand to each other in the relatfonr of antithesis ( or contradistinction ) are connected by a middle term common to both, the sense of this middie term is indiffer-^ ently 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 Tenn in this connexion. Thus, if 1 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 con- joint purposes of connexion and con-trast, I oppose transparent crystalized Alumen to opake derb (wnc/ir^/^^a/i^^ed) Alumen;, it may easily happen to be far more convenient for me to show the sense of the middleterm, i. e. Alumen, by a pi€"Ce of Pipe- clay than by a Sapphire or Ruby ; especially, if I should be de- scribing 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 oppo- sites here are Flesh and Spirit, this in relation to Christ, that in relation to the World : and these two Opposites are con- nected by the middle term, Birth, which is of course common to both. But for the same reason, as in the instance last-men- APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 203 tloned, the interpretation of the common term is to be ascer- tained from its known sense, in the more familiar connexion — Birth, namely, in relation to our natural life and to the Organ- ized Body, by which we belong to the present World. What- ever the word signifies in this connexion, the same essentially (in kind though not in dignity and value) must be its signifi- cation in the other. How else could it be ( what yet in this text it undeniably ts), the punctum indjffcrens or nota commu- nis, 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 metaphorically, as that the word, Birth, is a metaphor, and " means only " so and so, in the Gos- pel according to St. John. There is, I am aware, a numerous and powerful Party in o«r church, so', numerous and jwvv^erful as not seldom to be entitled the Church, who hold and publicly t-each, that *' Re- generation is only Baptism." ' Nay, the Writer of the Article on the Lives of Scott and Newton in our ablest and most re- spectable Review, is but one among many who do not hesi- tate to brand the contrary opinion as heterodoxy, and schis- matical 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 acknowledged majority, 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 Re- generation 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 ques- tion. Do they believingly suppose a spiritual regenerative power and agency inhering in or accompanying 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 supplant their own assertion, that Regenera- tion means Baptism, by the contradictory admission, that Regeneration is the significatum, of which Baptism is the sig- 204 AIDS TO REFLECTION. nificant. Unless, indeed, they would incur the absurdity of saying, that regeneration is a type of regeneration, and Bap- tism a type of itself — or that Baptism only means Baptism ! And this indeed is the plain consequence, to which they might be driven, should they answer the above question in the nega- tive. 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 permitted to express a hope, that for consistency's sake they would speak less slight- ingly 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 Tay- lor, respecting the latter, — " which, since it is used when the man is above half dead, when he can exercise no act of under- standing, it must needs be nothivg. For no rational man can think^ that any ceremony can make a spiritual change ivith- out a spiritual act of him ihat is to be changed ; nor that it can work by loay of nature^ oi' by charm, but morally and af- ter the manner of reasonable creatures.^^ Taylor's JEpist. Dedic. to his Holy Dyings 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 con- victions respecting Regeneration with the spiritual baptism, as its Condition 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 Fig- ure; 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, 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 ir- rational and superstitious Mysticism. But I abide by a max- APHORISMS ON SPTT?TTUAL FELIGION. 205 iin, which I learnt at an early period of my theological studies, from Benedict 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 without reason, I have been early instructed to con- sider it as a sad and serious evil, pregnant with mischiefs, po- litical and moral. And by none of my numerous Instructors 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 authori- ty 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 attention, wearied, perhaps, by the length and argumentative character rof the preceding discussion^ interpose the following Aphorism. 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 af- firmative measure of our faith, and our faith ought to be larger than our (speculativ ejjxensonj (see j^. 120) 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 Rea- son 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. 110, 111, 142). For although Reason is a right Judge [78], yet it ought not to pass sentence in an enquiry of faith, until all the information be brought in ; all that is within, and all that is without, all that is above, and all that is below ; all that con- cerns it in experience and all that concerns it in act ; whatso- ever is of pertinent observation and whatsoever is revealed. For else Reason may argue^very well and yet conclude falsely. It may conclude well in Logic, and yet infer a false proposition 206 AIDS TO REFLECTION. in Theology (p. 110, line 27). But when our Judge is fully and truly informed in all that, whence she is to make her Judgment, we may safely follow her whithersoever she invites us. APHORISM XXI. JER. TAYLOR. 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 telescope 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 chrystalline humour, 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 one other Transcript from Bishop Taylor, as from a Writer to whose name no taint or suspicion of Calvinistic or schisraatical tenets can attach, and for the pur- pose of softening the offence which, I cannot but foresee, will be taken at the positions asserted in paragraph the first of Aphorism VII. p 127, and the documental proofs of the same in p. 130, 131 : 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 APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 207 least as it may be done by removing the aggravation of novelty from the offensive article. And surely the simple re-asser- tion 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 judg- ment 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 argu- ments — 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 the truest as well as the finest, or expect me to admire the Logic equally with the Rhetoric — a^jtfTaiJLai. 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 irreve- rent 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 discover 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 correctness of the particular case, brought as instance and confirmation. I doubt the validity of the as- sertion as a general rule ; and I deny it, as applied to matters oi faith, 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 Chiistian Faith must have in it something of in-evidence, something that must be made up by- duty and by obedience." — 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 ftUfilments of prophecy, botk as signs and as wonders^ 208 AIDS TO REFLECTION. made plain discovery, and gave unquestionable proof, of his divine character and authority ; that they were to the whole Jewish nation true and appropriate evidences, that He was in- deed come who had promised and declared to their Forefa- thers, Behold, your God will come with vengeance, {Matt. x. 34, Luke xii. 49), even God a recompense! He will come and save you! {Isaiah xxxv. 4, compared with Matt. 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, i{ not its express import, is : Miracula experimento crucis esse, quo solo probandum erat. Homines non, pecudum instar, omnino perituros esse. Now this doctrine 1 hold to be altogether al- ien from the spirit^ and without authority in the letter^ of Scripture. I can recall nothing in the history of human Be- lief, that should induce me, I find nothing in my own moral Being that enables me, to understand it. I can, however, per- fectly well understand, the readiness of those Divines in hoc Paleii Dictum ore pleno jurare, qui nihil aliud in toto Evan- gelio invenire posse profitentur. The most unqualified admira- tion 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 sur- face, 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. 1 1 ) — who, while Heresies, to which the Framers and Compilers of our Liturgy, Homilies and Articles would have refused the very name of Christianity, meet their eyes on the List of Rehgious 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 APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 209 any sense in which it is not equally predicable of Dogs and Horses ; that the Divinity of our Lord, and even his pre-exis- tence ; that Sin, and Redemption through the merits of Christ ; and Grace ; and the especial aids of the Spirit ; and the effica- cy of Prayer ; and the subsistency of the Holy Ghost ; may all be extruded without breach or rent in the Essentials of Chris- tian 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 circulate in the great whispering galle- ry 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 instead of adding to, they should detract from the honor of the Incarnate Word by dis- paraging 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 three dialectic flaws, Petitio principii, Argu- mentum in circulo, and Argumentum contra rem a premisso rem ipsam includente. Yes ! fervently do I contend, that to satisfy the Understand- ing, that there is a Future State, was not the specific Object of the Christian Dispensation ; and that neither the Belief of a ^t'uture State, nor the Rationality of this belief, is the exclu- sive Attribute of the Christian Rehgion. An essential, 3i fun- damental, Article of all Religion it is, and therefore of the Christian ; but otherwise than as in connexion with the Sal- *'27 »i6 AIDS TO REFLECTION. vation of Mankind from the terrors of that State, among the essential Articles jpecw/iar to the Gospel Creed (those, for in- stance, by which it is contra-distinguished 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, previously and on other grounds, " neither would he believe, though a man should be raised from the dead." 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 any 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 de- stroy the faith they were intended to confirm, and reverse the whole character and quality of its effects and influences ! But if, notwithstanding 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 might not over- much trouble those good men who suffered evil things, God was pleased to do two great things. The one was : that he APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 211 sent his Son into the World to take upon him our Nature, that every man might submit to a necessity, from which God s o« n Son was not exempt, when it behoved even Chrut to svffer and so to enter into glory. The other great thing was : that God did not only by Revelation and the Sermons of the Proph- ets fo his Church; but even to all Mankind compe«.rUJj/ teach and effectively persuade, that the Soul of Man does not d that though things were ill here, yet to the good who u u:ilj feel mo't 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 Pl-^; ^ *"s life wherein the wicked shall be punished and the vutuous rewarded ; when he considered, that Orpheus and Socrates, anihow many others, Just men and benefactors of mankind, were either s ain or oppressed to death by evil men. ( Com. ;:; Heb. ch. xi. V. 36-39. ) " And all these rece^^■ednottU Promise." But when Virtue made men poor ; and f.ee speak ^ .Tbrave truths made the wise to lose their liberty ; when an\xcellent life hastened an ojiprobrious death, and the obey- ng Reason and our Conscience lost us our Lives, or at leas aU the means and conditions of enjoying them : it was but tile toTook about for another state of things, where Justice hould rule and Virtue find her own portion. And therefore Men cast out every line, and turned every stone and tried ev- e varsument : and sometimes proved it well, and when they did nk yet they believed strongly; and thkt wkre sure of tVxH NO, .VEN WHKN THE. WERE NOT SURE Or THE AROU- MENT -(S;rman at the Funeral of Sir George Dalston, mh Sept. 1657, p. 2.) COMMENT A fact may be truly stated, and yet the Causes or Reasons assigned fo. it mistaken ; or inadequate ; or pars pro toto, one Zy or few of many that might or should have been adduced. The preceding Aphorism is an instance in point. The Phe- nomenon here brought forward by the Bishop, as the ground and occasion of men's belief of a future state-viz. the fre- 212 AIDS TO REFLECTION. que«t, 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 feel- ings 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 perplexing 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 different in kind^ and which not merely dis- tinguishes but contra-distinguishes, him from animals — at the same time that it has brought into closer view an enigma of yet haider solution — the fact, I mean, of a Contradiction in the Human Being, of which no traces are observable elsewhere, in animated or inanimate nature [79] ! 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 incommensurateness and the unsatisfying qualities of the things around us, that yet are the only objects which our sens- es discover or our appetites require us to pursue. Hence for the finer and more contemplative spirits the ever-strengthen- ing suspicion, that the two Phsenomena must some way or other stand in close connexion with each other, and that the Riddle of Fortune and Circumstance is but a form or effluence of the Riddle of Man '.And hence again, the persuasion, that the solution of both problems is to be sought for — hence the presen- timent that this solution will be found, in the co?i/ra-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 of which results from the parts, often accidental j as that of a pebble, and always only apparent ; or Substances, whose Unity of Action is owing to the nature or arrangement of the partible bodies which they actuate or set in motion ; Steam, for instance, in a steam-engine, or the (so called) imponderable fluids; — as on H APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 213 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 completed Past, that links on to no Present ; as all the properties, that we ourselves have in com- mon 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 contradiction 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 show- er, (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 actually not exist at all : hence, fi- nally, the conclusion, that the Soul of Man, as the subject of Mind and Will, must likewise possess a principle of perma- nence, 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 Scale, or painted Weights, that have only an illusive relief or promi- nence ; so in the Scale of Immortality slight Reasons are in effect weighty, and sufficient to determine the Judgment, there being no counterweight, 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 Musician on the fracture of his instrument or its strings. But though I agree with Taylor so fai', as not to doubt that the misallotment of worldly goods and fortunes was one prin- cipal 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 circum- stance any thing like the importance and extent o( efficacy 214 AIDS TO REFLECTION. % which he in this passage attributes to it. 1 am persuaded, that as the belief of all mankind, of all[80) tribes, 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 Humani- ty. 1 have long entertained, and do not hesitate to avow, the conviction, that the argument from Universality of Belief, urg- ed by Barrow and others in proof of the first Article of the Creed, is neither in point of fact — for two very different ob- jects may be intended, and two (or more) diverse and even contradictory conceptions may be expressed, by the same Name — nor in legitimacy of conclusion as strong and unexcep- tionable, 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. Throughout animated Na- ture, 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 in- stance prove delusive. All other prophecies of Nature have their exact fulfilment — in every other " ingrafted word" 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 as- sumed character of a mere Naturalist, to whom no light of revelation had been vouchsafed : one, who -with gentle heart Had woi-shipp'd Nature in the Hill and Valley, Not knowing what he loved, but loved it all !) Whether, however, the introductory part of the Bishop's ar- gument is to be leceived with more or less qualification, the Fact itself, as stated in the concluding sentence of the Apho- rism, 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 com- ArHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 215 posed while the Temple and the Glories of the Temple Wor- ship 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 reli- gions, and demonstrates the superior spiritual grandeur, the greater intrinsic worth and dignity of the Religion of Christ. On the other hand, at Rome where the Jews formed a numer- ous, powerful, and privileged class (many of them, too, by their proselyting zeal and frequent disputations with the Priests aud 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 Hebrews 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 revela- tion 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 ad- mit (said they) the divine origin and authority of the Law given to Moses, proclaimed 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 perishable, 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 comprised in the latter attribute of our Law. We know, from an authority which you yourselves V 216 AIDS TO REFLECTION. acknowledge for divine, that our Religion is perfect. " He is the Rock, and his Work is perfect." (Dei^/er. xxxii. 4.) If then the Religion revealed by God himself to our Forefathers is perfect^ what need have we of another ? This objection, both from its importance, and from its (for the persons at least, to whom it was addressed) extreme plausibility, behoved to be answered in both epistles. And accordingly, the answer is included in the one (Hebrews) and it is the especial purpose and main subject of the other. And how does the Apo&tle answer it ? Suppose — and the case is not impossible [81] — a man of Sense, who had studied the evidences of Priestly 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 question to him : — what, do you think, will St. PauPs an- swer 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 inva- lidate 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 essential Constituents of all true Rehgion, the Be- lief 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 accompanied 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 pro- fess this belief) without revelation, and without the only pro- per and sufficient evidence of its truth. Your Religion, there- fore, though of divine Origin is, (if taken in disjunction from the new revelation, which 1 am commissioned to proclaim) but a Religio dimidiata ; and the main purpose, the proper char- acter, and the paramount object, of Christ's Mission and Mi- racles, is to supply the ntissing Half by a clear discovery of a future state ; and ( since " he alone discovers who proves^^ ) by proving the truth of the doctrine, now for the first time de- APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 217 clared with the requisite authority, by the lequisite, appropri- ate, and alone satisfactory evidence. But is this the Apostle's answer to the Jewish Oppugners, 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 Argument 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 sentenced all Sinners ( and which even the Gen- tiles without the revealed Law had announced to them by their consciences, " the judgment of God having been made known even to them") must be the same death, from which they were saved by the faith of the Son of God, or the Apostle's reaso- ning would be senseless, his antithesis a mere equivoque, a play on a word, quod idem $onat, aliud vult. Christ "redeem- ed mankind from the curse of the Lvlw'"^ ( Galatians, iii. 11 ) : and we all know, that it was not from temporal d(5ath, or the penalties and afflictions of the present life, that Behevers have been redeemed. The Law, of which the inspired Sage of Tarsus is speaking, from w^hich no man can plead excuse ; the Law miraculously delivered in thundei-s from Mount Sinai, which was inscribed on tables of stone for the Jews^ and writ- ten in the hearts of all men (Rom. xi. 15) — the Law "holy and spiritual /" what was the great point, of which this Law, in its own name, offered no solution ? the mystery, which it left behind 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 ra- ther — what are the means of escape ? Where may Grace be found, and Redemption ? St. Pauls 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 jurisdic- tion of her Court, and takes no cognizance thereof, s:ave in 28 218 AIDS TO REFLECTION. prophetic murmurs or mute out-shadowings of mystic ordinan- ces 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 fer- vent desire, and a source of thanksgiving and exceeding great joy : and by w^hom, and through whom, and for w^hom, and by what means and under what conditions — these are the peculiar and distinguishing fundB.ment3i\s of the Christian Faith ! These are the revealed Lights and obtained Privileges of the Chris- tian Dispensation ! Not alone the knowledge of the Boon, but the precious inestimable Boon itself, is the "Grace and Truth that came by Jesus Christ !'* I believe Moses, I believe Paul ; but I believe in Christ. APHORISM LIIGHTON. ON BAPTISM. "In those days came John the Baptist preaching. ^^ — It will suffice for our present purpose, if by these [82] words we di- rect the attention to the origin, or at least first Scriptural Rec- ord, of Baptism, and to the combinement of Preaching there- with ; 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, infor- ming 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 engraven 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 particularly express by Light. Yet are they both nothing but darkness to us, till the same light shine in our Hearts ; for till then we are nothing but darkness ourselves, 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 com- APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 219 fort 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 Mem- ber 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 respec- ting 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 examina- tion of the Arguments on both sides. As the Comment on the preceding Aphorism, or rather as an expansion of its sul- ject-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. COMMENT Or Aid to Reflection in the forming of a sound Judgement 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 Scrip- ture, and every attempt to explain any thing ow^ 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, theik particular Rea- 2-20 AIDS TO RErLECTION. son. 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 dif- ferent 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 decla- rations of the Divine Word. And as we agree in the opinion, that the Minimi-fidian Party (p. 136) err grievously 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 Wieaths of Inference, this ever-widening spiral Ergo from the narrow aperture of perhaps a single Text : or rather an interpretation forced into it by construing an idio- matic phrase in an artless Narrative with the same absolute- ness, as a it had formed part of a mathematical problem ! 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 information, 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 justification of the slander ? Would you not tell him,rthat 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 Infants at that early period of the Gospel been a known practice, or had this been previ- ously demonstrated, — then indeed the argument, that in all probability there was one or more infants or young children in APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 221 SO large a family, would be no otherwise objectionable than as being superfluous, and a sort of anticlimax in Logic. But if the words are cited as the proof, it would be a clear petitio prindpiij though there had been nothing else against it. But when we turn back to the Scriptures preceding the narrative, and find Repentance and Belief demanded as the terms and in- dispensable Conditions of Baptism — then the case above ima- gined applies 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 in- stance it was, doubtless a privilege or mark of superior rank conferred on the Descendants of Abraham. In the patriarchal times this rite was confined ( the first Governments being The- ocracies) to the Priesthood, who were set apart to that office from their Birth. At a later period this Token of the premier cldss was extended to Kings. And thus, when it was re-or- dained by Moses for the whole Jewish Nation, it was at the same time said — Ye are all Priest^ and Kings — Ye are a con- secrated People. In addition to this, or rather in aid of this. Circumcision was^intended to distinguish the Jews by some in- delible sign : and it was no less necessary that Jewish chil- dren should be recognizable as Jew^s, than Jewish adults — not to mention 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 pe- ruse the first 33 Paragraphs of the 18th Section of Taylor's Liberty of Prophesying ; and then compare with these the re- mainder of the Section added by him after the Restoration : those, namely, in which he attempts to overthrow his own ar- guments. I had almost said, affects : for such is the feeble- ness, and so palpable the sophistry, of his Answers, that I find it difficult to imagine, that Taylor himself could have been sat- isfied 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 Qua- kers only in the right. 222 AIDS TO REFLECTION. Now, in the fiist place, it is obvious, that nothing conclusive c m be drawn from the silence of the New Testament respect- ing a practice, which, supposing it already in use, must jet from the character of the first Converts, have been of compara- tively rare occurrence; 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 men- tioned otherwise than incidentally, and very probably therefore might not have occurred to them to mention at all. But, sec- ondly, admitting that the practice was introduced at a later pe- riod than that in which the Acts of the Apostles and the Epis- tles were composed : I should jet be fully satisfied, that the Church exercised herein a sound [83] discretion. On either supposition, 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 exam- ple, and the Papists of their failure. Let me not, however, deceive you. (The Reader understands^ that I suppose my- self conversing ivith a Baptist. ) I am of opinion, that the Di- vines on your side are chargeable Avith 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 admoni- tions 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 Baptism, are all without exception made to bear a sense neither contained nor deduci- ble: and likewise that ( historically considered) there exists no sufficient positive evidence, that the Baptism of Infants was instituted by the Apostles in the practice of the Apostolic Age [84]. Lastly, we both co-incide in the full conviction, that it is nei- ther 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 conformity to his holy doctrines and example in heart and life, and which faith is itself a de- APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 223 dared mean and condition of our partaking of his spiritual Body, and of being " clothed upon" with his righteousness ; that properly makes us Christians, and can alone be enjoined as an Article of Faith necessary to Salvation, so that the deni- al thereof may be denounced as "a damnable heresy." 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. What- ever 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 Salvation, 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 Salvation, 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 vicarious faith of the Pa- rents and the therein implied promise, 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 Established 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 under a bet- ter Teacher — the Spirit of Adoption, even the spirit that was in Paul, and which still speaks to us out of his writings. You remember and admire the saying of an old Divine, that a cere- mony duly instituted was a Chain of Gold around the Neck of Faith ; but if in the wish to make it co-essential and consub- stantial, 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 forgotten the "pateris et au- ro" of your Virgil: or if you were, you are not so inconsLs- 224 AIDS TO REFLECTION. tent a reasoner, as to translate the Hebraism, Spirit and Fire, in one place by spiritual fire, and yet refuse to translate Water and vSpirit by Spiritual Water in another place : or U, as I my- self 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 inmost principle of action, as Fire pur- ges the metal substantially and not cleansing the surface only ! (See Aph. xxiii. p. 9 — 10.) But in this instance, it will be said, the ceremony, the out- ward 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 an- swer is : that this is a very sufi&cient reason for the contin- ued observance of a cermonial Rite so derived and sanction- ed, even though its own beauty, simplicity, and natural signifi- cancy had pleaded less strongly in its behalf! But it is no reason why the Church should forget, that the perpetuation of a thing does not alter the nature of the thing, and that a ceremony to be perpetuated is to be perpetuated as a cere- mony. It is no reason why, knowing and experiencing even in the majority of her own Members the proneness of the hu- man mind to [85] Superstition, the Church might not rightfully and piously adopt the measures best calculated to check this tendency, and correct the abuse, to which it had led in any particular Rite. But of superstitious notions respecting 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 w^ater would cleanse the baptized person from all sin and ( if he died immediately 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 recommended by the following consideration. Where a ceremony answered and was intended to answer several purposes, which purpose* at APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. Z'Zb 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 mem- bers of the Church, or those who at least bore the Christian name, were of Christian Parents) were necessarily disunited — then either the Church has no power or authority delegated to her (which is shifting the ground of controversy ) — or^e must be authorized to choose and determine, to which of the several purposes the ceremony should be attached. Now one of the purposes 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 Community of Christ- ians : inasmuch as by their demeanour and apparent condition the general estimation of "the City set on a hill and not to be hid" (Math. v. 14J could not 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 pre- vent every occasion, of " Rebuke r" Secondly, to mark out those that were entitled to that especial Dearness ; that watch- ful and disciplinary Love and Loving-kindness ; which over and above the affections and duties of Philanthropy and Uni- versal Charity, Christ himself had enjoined, and with an em- phasis and in a form significant of ii» great and especial impor- tance. 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 misanthropy and bigotry of the Jewish Church and People : and thus without draw-back^ and precluding the objection so commonly made to Sectarian Benevolence, to be distinguished and known to all men by their fervid fulfilment of the latter. How kind these Christ- ians are to the poor and afflicted, without distinction of re- ligion 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 29 225 AIDS TO REFLECTION. the several ends and purposes of Baptism, the outward cere- mony 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 bet- ter calculated to prevent the ceremony from being regarded as other and more than a ceremony, if not the administration of the same on an object j ( yea, a dear and precious object ) of spirital duties, but a subject of spiritual operations and graces only by anticipation and in hope ; — a subject, unconscious as a Flower of the dew falling on it or the early rain, and thus em- blematic of the myriads who ( as in our Indian Empire, and henceforward, we trust, in Africa) are temporally and even morally benefited by the outward 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 appropri- ated by Christ — its application, I say, to the very subjects, whom he himself commanded to be brought to him — the chil- dren in arms^ respecting whom " Jesus was much displeased with his disciples, who had rebuked those that brought them !" What more expressive of the true character of that originant and generic Stain, from which the Son of God, by his myste- rious incarnation and agony and death and resurrection, and by the baptism of the Spirit, came to cleanse the Children of Adam, than the exhibition of the outward element to Infants free from and incapable of crime, in whom the evil principle was present only as potential being, and whose outward sem- blance represented the Kingdom of Heaven ? And can it — to a man, who would hold himself deserving of Anathema Mar an- atha (1 Cor. xvi. 22,) if he did not " lm)e the Lord Jesus" — can it be nothing to such a man, that the introduction and com- mendation of a new Inmate, a new spiritual Ward, to the as- sembled Brethren in Christ ( — and this, as I have shown above, was one purpose of the baptismal Ceremony) does in the bap- tism of an Infant recall our Lord's own presentation in the temple on the eighth day after his birth ? Add to all these con- siderations the known fact of the frequent exposure and the APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 221 general light regard of Infants, at the time when Infant Bap- tism is by the Baptists supposed to have been first ruledhy the CathoUc Church, not overlooking the humane and charita- ble motives, that influenced Cyprian's decision in its favor! And then make present to your imagination, and meditatively contemplate the still continuing tendency, the profitable, the beautiful effects, of this ordinance now and for so many cen- turies back on the great Mass of the 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 Val- ue"^, 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 proba- ble influence on the future education of the Child, the oppor- tunity of instructing and impressing the friends, relatives, and parents in their best and most docile mood ! These are indeed, the mollia tempora fandi. It is true, that by an unforseen acccident, 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 quali- ty of that shown to Moses {Exod. xv. 25) was afterwards "cast into the sw^eet waters from this fountain," and made them like " the waters of Marah," too bitter to be drunk. I allude to the Pelagian Controversy, the perversion of the Ar- ticle of Original Sin by Augustine, and the frightful conclusions which this durus pater infantum drew from the Article thus perverted. It is not, however, to the predecessors of this African, whoever they were that authorized Psedo-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 super- stition, by allowing in urgent cases any and every Adult, Man and Woman, to administer the ceremonial part, the outward rite, of baptism; but reserving to the highest Functionary of the Church (even to the exclusion of the Co-presbyters) the most proper and spirital purpose, viz. the declaration of Repen- 228 AIDS TO REFLECTION. tance 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 spiritual 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 circumstance 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 contiuued to affix the outward rite ; while to the substantial and spiritual purpose, where the effect was to be produced on the Individual's own mind, she gave its beseeming dignity 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 desirable consequen- ces. The Church answers both, the Baptists one only. If, nevertheless, you would still prefer the union of the baptismal rite with the Confirmation, and the Presentation of Infants to the assembled Church had formed a separate institution, avow- edly prospective — I answer : first, that such for a long time and to a late period was my own Judgment. But even then it seemed to me a point, as to which an indifference 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 Peasant's 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 Bbutes to the subversion of all the Duties of Men. In our times, most fortunately for the interests of Religion and Morality, or of their prudential Substitutes at least, the Name of Jacobin was every where APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 299 associated with that of Atheist and Infidel. Or rather, Jaco- binism and Infidelity where the two Heads of the Revolution- ary Geryon — connatural misgrowths of the same Monster- trunk. In the German Convulsion, on the contrary, by a mere but most unfortunate accident^ the same Code of Caliban Juris- prudence, the same sensual and murderous Excesses, were connected with the name of Anabaptist. The Abolition of Magistracy, Community of Goods, the Right of Plunder, Polygamy, and whatever else was fanatical, were comprised in the word, Anabaptism ! It is not to be imagined, that the Fathers of the Reformation could, without a miraculous influ- ence, have taken up the question of Infant Baptism with the requisite calmness and 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 peril- ous 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 darkness 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 question'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 disputed by Divines, whom no pious Protestant of any denomination will deny to have been faith- ful and eminent servants of Christ — should it, I say, be like- wise conceded that the question of Infant Baptism is a point, 230 AIDS TO REFLKCTIOX. on which two Christians, who perhaps differ on this point only, may differ wdthout giving just ground for 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'Oy- ley as opposed to those of the ( so called ) Evangelical Clergy. " The Church of England (says Wall [86] ) does not require assent and consent" to either opinion " in order to lay com- munion." But I will suppose the person a Minister; but Minister of a Church which has expressly disclaimed all pre- tence to infallibity, a Church which in the construction of its liturgy and articles is known to have worded certain passages for the purpose of rendering them subscribable by both A and Z — i. e. the opposite parties as to the points in controversy. I suppose this person's convictions 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 ahsoiutelj precluding a different sense, yet the more probable interpretation is in favor of A i. e. of those who do not con- sider 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 obli- ging 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 Constitution and of its being an Establishment, or to set up a separate Church for himself— 1 cannot avoid the conclusion, that either his Conscience is morbidly sensitive in one speck to the ex- haustion of the sensibilty 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 following Excerpt from the popular Tract before cited, APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 231 in which the writer expresses an opinton, to which I assent with my whole heart : viz. " That all Christians in the world that hold the same funda- mentals ought to make one church, though differing in lesser opinions ; and that the sin, the mischief, and danger to the souls of men, that divide into those many sects and parties among us, does (for the most of them) consist not so much in the opininions 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 him- self says, Johnx. 16. John xvii. 11. And what the primitive Christians practised, Acts ii. 46, and iv. 32. And what St. Paul says 1 Cor. i. 10, 11, 12, and iii. 2, 3, 4, also the whole 12th chapter : Eph. ii. 18, &c. to the end. Where the Jewish and Gentile Christians are showed to be one body, one household, one temple fitly framed together : and yet these were of differ- ent 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. xvi. 17. Are not these passages plain, full, and earnest ? Do you find any of the controverted points to be determined by Scrip- ture in words nigh so plain or pathetic ? MARGINAL NOTE WRITTEN (iN 1816) BT THE EDITOR IN HIS OWN COPY OF wall's WORK. This and the two following pages are excellent. If I addressed the min- isters recently seceded, I woukl first prove from Scripture and Reason the justness of their doctrines concerning Baptism and Conversion. 2. 1 would show, that even in respect of the Prayer-book, Homihes, &c. of the Cliurcli of England, taken as a whole, their opponents were comparatively as ill off ^ themselves, if not worse. 3. That the few mistakes or inconvenient plu'ases of the Baptismal Service did not impose on the conscience the ne- cessity of resigning the pastoral office. 4. That even if they did, this 232 AIDS TO REFLECTION. would by no means justify schism from Lay-membei*ship : 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. Paulwi'ote falsely or idly. 5. That the Escape through the Channel of Dissent is from the Flying Pan to the Fire — or to use a less worn and vulgar simile, tlie 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 fal- lible, and hi the next contend for her absolute freedom from all eiTor — ^ne- ver confine inspiration and perfect truth to the Scriptures, and then scold for the perfect Truth of each and eveiy word m the Prayer-book. Enough for me, if in my Heart of He ails, free from all fear of man and aU lust of preferment, I believe (as I do) the Church of England to be the nwst Apos- tolic Church ; that its doctrines and ceremonies contain nothing dangerous to Righteousness 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 ^vritten and intended to insert a similar exposition on the Eucharist. But as the leadmg view has been given in the Comment on Redemption, its length induces him to defer it, together with the arti- cles on Faith and the Philosophy of Prayer, to a small supplementary Vol- CONCLUSION. I AM not so ignorant of the temper and tendency of the ag(? in which I live, as either to be unprepared for the Sort of re- marks which the literal interpretation of the Evangelist will call forth, or to attempt an answer to them. Visionary Ra- vings, Obsolete Whimsies, Transcendental Trash, &c. &c. I leave to pass at the price current,, among those who are wil- ling to receive abusive phrases as substitutes for argument. Should any Suborner of anonymous Criticism have engaged some literal y Bravo or Buffoon beforehand, to vilify this work, as in former instances, I would give a friendly hint to the ope- rative Critic that he may compile an excellent article for the occasion, and with very littk trouble, out of Warburton's Bro- chure 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 re- puted moderation must give a weight to their words, that I owe it both to my own character and to the interests of my read- ers, not to leave 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 sentiments at large in another work. Those who have condescended 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 com- mon to all minds : and secondly the confusion of Nature, i. e. the active powers communicated to matter, with God, the Cre- ^ ator. And if the same persons have done more than merely looked into the present volume, they must have seen, that to 30 234 AIDS TO REFLECTION. eradicate, and, if possible, to preclude, both the one and the other stands prominent among its avowed objects. ( See p. 92—101: 116—118). . Of William Law's Works I am acquainted with the Serious Call ; and besides this I remember to have read 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 w^ere 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 recapitulated the tenth part of the Authors, An- cient and Modern, Romish and Reformed, from Law to Clem- ens Alexandrinus and Irenaeus, in whose w^orks the same phrase occurs in the same sense. And after all, on such a subject how worse than childish is the whole dispute ! Is the fourth Gospel authentic ? And is the interpretation, I have given, true or false ? These are the only questions which a wise man would put, or a Christian be anxious to an- swer. 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 tolera- ble sense. And this position alone I conceive myself interest- ed in defending. 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 assur- ance, 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 opposite conclusion, should object to the use of expressions which they had ranked among the most obvious marks of spu- riousness, follows as a matter of course. But that men, who with a clear and cloudless assent receive the sixth chapter of this Gospel as a faithful, nay, inspired Record of an actual dis- CONCLUSION. 235 course, should take offence at the repetition of words which the Redeemer himself in the perfect foreknowledge that they would confirm the disbelieving, alienate the unsteadfast, and transcend the present capacity even of his own Elect, had cho- sen as the most appropriate ; and which after the most decisive proofs, that they were misinterpreted by the greater number of his Hearers, end not understood by any, he nevertheless re- peated with stronger emphasis and ivithout comment, as the only appropriate symbols of the great truth he was declaring, and to realize which sysvsTo tfa^f ;[87]— that in their own dis- courses these men should hang back from all express referenee 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 w^ith 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 un- equivocal 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 vindicate or excuse ! There is, however, one opprobrious phrase which 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 permit- ted, I should have attached 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 re- ception given to the present volume encourage 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 ^36 AIDS TO REFLBXJTION". concerned with it. When a man refers to inward feelings and experiences J 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 acci- dents and anomalies of individual sensations or fancies, and the use of peculiar terms invented or perverted from their or- dinary significations, for the purpose of expressing these idio- syncracies^ and pretended facts of interior consciousness, I nasae Mysticism. Where the error consists simply in the Mystic's attaching to these anomalies of his individual tempe- rament the character of Reality^ and in receiving them as per- manent Truths, having a subsistence in the Divine Mind, though revealed to himself alone ; but entertains this persua- sion without demanding or expecting the same faith in his neighbours — I should regard it as a species of enthusiasm, 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 sometimes is the case) by an uneasy and self-doubting state of mind that «eeks confirmation in outward sympathy, is led to impose his faith, as a duty, on mankind 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 dangerous Member of Society. And most so in those ages and coun- tries in which Fanatics of elder standing are allowed to perse- cute the fresh competitor. For under these predicaments. Mysticism, though originating in the singularities of an indi- vidual Nature, and therefore essentially anomalous, is never- theless highly contagious. It is apt to collect a swarm and cluster circum fana, 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 enthusiastic Mystics : a species that may again be subdivided into two ranks. And it will not be other than germane to the subject, if I en* CONCLUSION. 237 deavour to describe them 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 Ian- thorn 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 [88] the Child of Cain to have found. And here, hungry and thirsty, the way-wearied Man rests at a fountain ; and the Taper of his Lanthorn throws its Light on an overshadowing Tree, a Boss of snow-white Blos- soms, through which the green and growling Fruits peeped, and the ripe golden Fruitage glowed. Deep, vivid, and faith- ful 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 forward : 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 Objects , 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 Daw^n 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, con- nect, and piece out his recollections. His narration is received as a Madman's Tale. He shrinks from the rude laugh and con- temptuous 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 Audi- tors ; 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 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, 238 AIDS TO REFLECTION. in the 17th of our Elizabeth's Reign, and who died in the 22d of her Successsor'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 Educa- tion and favorable Fortune. 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 him too to the same Oasis or Islet of Verdure on the Sea of Sand. He wanders at leisuie in its maze of Beauty and Sweetness, and thrids his way through the odorous and flow- ering Thickets into open " Spots of Greenery," and discovers statues and memorial characters, grottos, and refreshing Caves. But the Moonshine, the imaginative Poesy of Nature, spreads its soft shadowy charm over all, conceals distances, and mag- nifies 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 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 linea- ments, 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 be- wildered 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 Ma- terialism, is in ill-repute : and a confessed Materialist there- fore a rare character. But if the faith be ascertained by the CONCLUSION 239 fruits; if the predominant, 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 direc- tion ; I must reverse the position. Only not all are Ma- terialists. Except a few individuals, 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 distinguishes Mind from Matter, the Subject of his conscious- ness from the Objects of the same. The former is his Mind : and he says, it is immaterial. But though Subject and Sub- stance are w^ords of kindred roots, nay, little less than equiv- alent terms, yet nevertheless it is exclusively to sensible Ob- jects, to Bodies, to Modifications of Matter, that he habitu- ally attaches the attributes of reality, of Substance. Real and Tangible, Substantial and Material, are Synonimes for fiim. 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 negatives, 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 con- ceive of it as a somewhat by itself, and then give to the emp- tiness the properties of containing, holding, being entered, and so forth. In short, though the proposition would perhaps 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 attempt 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 refused to the Mind. I am persuaded, however, that the dogmatism of the Cor- puscular School, though it still exerts an influence on men's notions and phrases, has received a mortal blow from the in- creasingly dynamic spirit of the physical Sciences now high- est in public estimation. And it may safely be predicted, that 240 AIDS TO HErLECTION. the results will extend beyond the intention of those, who are gradually effecting this revolution. It is nbt Chemistry alone that will be indebted to the Genius of Davy, Oersted, and their compeers : and not as the Founder of Physiology 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 tangibi- lity 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 " / have seen this or that^^^ — as the paper, ink, and differ- ently combined straight and curved lines of an Edition of Ho- mer bear to what we understand by the words, Iliad and Odyssey. Nay, nothing would be more easy than so to con- struct the paper, ink, painted Capitals, &c. of a printed disqui- sition on the Eye, or the Muscles and Cellular Texture [i. e. the Flesh ) of the Human Body, a& 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 Nitrogen, Oxygen and Hydrogen, Sulphur, Phosphorus, and one or two Metals and Metallic Bases, con- stitute the whole. It cannot be these, therefore, that we mean by an Eye^ by our Body. But perhaps it may be a par- ticular 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 Combination ? If not, then detach this Eye from the Body ! Look steadily at it — as it might lie on the Marble Skb of a dr§ing Room. Say it were the eye of a Murderer, a Bellingham : or the eye of a murdered Patriot, a Sidney I — behold it, handle it, with its various ac- companiments or constituent parts, of Tendon, Ligament, Membrane, Blood-vessel, Gland, Humors j 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 CONCLUSION. 241 Traveller, " That is Babylon, or Persepolis."— Is this cold "Jelly tlie 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 Ber- zelius 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, yon re- ally do, not what, as a philosopher, you ought to believe— is it not, I say, far rather the distinct and individualized Agen- cy that by the given combinations utters and bespeaks its Pres- ence.? Justly and with strictest propriety of language may I say. Speaks, It is to the coarseness of our Senses, or rath- er 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 color- ing stuff are fixed, and, for an indefinite period at least, re- main the same. But the particles that constitute the size, the visibility of an organic structure (see p. 42) 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 appropriates 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 steadfast-seeming Cloud on the edge-point of a Hill in the driving air-current, which momently condensed and recomposed 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 combining 31 242 AIDS TO REFLECTION. power by inherent reciprocal attractions, repulsions, and elec- tive affinities, and are themselves the joint Artists of. their own combinations ? 1 will not reply, though well I might, that this would be to solve one problem by another, and merely to shift the mystery. It will be sufficient to remind the thoughtful Queii^t, that even herein consists the essential difference, the contia-distinction, of an Organ from a Machine ; that not on- ly the characteristic Shape is evolved from the invisible cen- tral power, but the material Mass itself is acquired by assimila- tion. 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 exercises an Alchemy still more stupendous. As the unseen Agency weaves its magic eddies, the foliage becomes indiffer- ently 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 translucence, 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, but /ac<5 ; to deny which is impossible, not to reflect on which is igno- minious. 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 Philsophy, with both its twins, Materialism on the one hand, and Idealism, rightlier named Subjective Holism^ on the other : the one obtruding on us a World of Spectres and Apparitions ; the other a mazy Dream ! Let the Mechanic or corpuscular Scheme, which in its abso- luteness and strict consistency w^as first introduced 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 ab- stracting from corporeal substance all its positive properties, and obliged to consider Bodies as differing from equal portions CONCLUSION 243 of Space [89] only by 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 pi'oductive 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 Fountain of Life ; Nothingness and Phantom from the Plenitude of Re- ality ! 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 of Kep- ler, expanded and organized in the soul of Newton, and there (if I may hazard so bold an expression) refining itself into an almost celestial Clearness, had expelled the Cartesian Vorti- ces; [90] then the necessity of an active power, of positive forces present in the Material Universe, forced itself on the conviction. For as a Law without a Law-giver is a mere ab- straction ; so a Law without an Agent to realize it, a Con- stitution 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 Gravitating Power ! The Law and the Law-giver were indentified. God (says Dr. Priestly ) 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 Uni- verse and evacuating the natural World of all Nature, ended by substituting the Deity, and reducing the Creator to a mere 244 AIDS TO REFLECTION. Anima Mundi : a scheme that has no advantage over Spino- sism but its inconsistency, which does indeed make it suit a certain Order of Intellects, who, like the Pleuronectse (or Flat Fish) in Ichthyblogy 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 un- willingness 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 fre- quent victims to this epidemic fastidium. Alas ! even the sincerest seekers after light are not safe from the contagion. Some have I known, constitutionally religious — I speak feel- ingly ; for I speak of that which for a brief period was my own state — who under this unhealthful influence have been so estranged from the Heavenly Father , the Living God, sls even to shrink from the personal 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 : ma- ny, who find the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, far too real, too substantial ; who feel it more in harmony with their indejfipite 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 tlie living Air ; A Motion and a Spirit, that impels All thinkmg things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through ah things ! " Wordsworth. CONCLUSION. 245 And this from having been educated to understand the Divine Omnipresence in any sense rather than the alone safe and le- gitimate one, the presence of all things to God ! Be it, however, that the number of such men is compara- tively 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 is an inward withdrawing from the Life and Personal Being of God, a turning of the Thoughts exclu- sively to the so called physical Attributes, to the Omnipres- ence in the counterfeit form of Ubiquity, to the Immensity the Infinity, the Immutability ! — the attributes of Space with a no- tion of Power as their Substratum ! — a Fate, in short, not a Moral Creator and Governor ! Let intelligence be imagined, and wherein does the conception of God diflfer essentially from that of Gravitation ( conceived as the Cause of Gravity ) in the understanding 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 Holiness, and the divine Hatred of Sin, yea and Sin itself, are w^ords 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 Christianity ! I am weary of the Word. Make a man feel the want of it ; rouse him, if you can, to the self-knowledge of his need of it ; and you may safely trust it to its own Evi- dence, — remembering only the express declaration of Christ himself: No man cometh to me, unless the Father leadeth him! Whatever more is desirable — I speak now with refer- ence 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 of infidel antagonists, in the form of Ecclesiastical History. The last fruit of the Mechanico-corpuscular Philosophy, say rather of the mode and direction of feeling and thinking pro- duced by it on the educated class of society ; or that result. 246 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 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 purposes of Christianity, and included in the process of our Redemption, to rouse and emancipate the Soul from this debasing Slavery to the out- ward Senses, to awaken the mind to the true Criteria of Re- ality, viz. Permanence, Power, Will manifested in Act, and Truth operating as Life. " My words," said Christ, " are Spirit ; and they {i. e. the spiritual powers expressed 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 impor- tant 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 pheenomena, Water, Flesh, &c., in senses that by no possibility could apply to the color, figure, specific mode of Touch or Taste produced on ourselves, and by which we are made aware of the pres- ence of Things, and understand them — Res, quae sub appari- tionibus istis statuenda sunt. And this awful Recalling of the drowsed soul from the dreams and phantom world of sensuali- ty to actual Reality, — how has it been evaded ! These words, that were Spirit ! these Mysteries, which even the Apostles must wait for the Paraclete, (t. e. the Helper, the Strength- ener ) in order to comprehend ! these spiritual things which can only be spiritually discerned, — were mere Metaphors, Figures of Speech, Oriental Hyperboles. " 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 Univeisities, to our incomparably constituted CONCLUSION. ^^'^ Church, and even to our National Character. The few who have read my two Lay- Sermons are no strangers to my opin- ions 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 irrev- erence of celebrated Names, especially of the late Dr. Paley. O, if I were fond and ambitious of Uterary Honor, of public Applause, how well content 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 1 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 Gen- ius 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 Posthumous Discourses : the amount of w^hich 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 strong- ly of the value, benefit and efficacy, of the Death of Christ," assuredly mean something; but ivhat 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 de- fended on the same pretence ? A similar impression, I confess, was left on my mind by Dr. Magee's statement or exposition (adnormam 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 disquisition on the sacrificial rites of Pa- ganism, had raised in my mind. 248 AIDS TO REFLECTION. And yet I cannot read the pages of Paley, here referred to, aloud, without the livehest sense : how plausible and popu- lar they will sound to the great majority of Readers ! Thou- sands 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 re- moving the apprehended distance between him and the supe- rior Author ; and it flatters him still more by enabling him to transfer to himself, and to appropriate, this superiority : and thus to make his very weakness the mark and evidence of his strength. Ay, quoth i\\erational 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 Arch- bishop 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, 1 will continue my address to the Man of Sense in the words of an old Philosopher : — " Tu vero crasssis auribus et obstinato corde respuis quae forsitan vere perhibeantur. Minus hercule calles, pravissimis opinionibus ea jiutari men- dacia, quce vel auditu nova, vel visu rudia, vel certe supra cap- turn cogitationis extemporanecB tuce ardua videantur : quae, si paulo accuratius exploraris, non modo compertu evidentia, sed etiam factu facilia, senties," Apul; 1. 1. S. T. COLERIDGE. 249 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. 207 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 tlie resurrection of life ; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation ;' — he had pronounced 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 mes- sage in which the wisest of mankind 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 adeo expers invidiae, ut siquid erudite dictum inspiceret alterius, non minus gauderet ac si suum esset." My own heart assures me, that this is less than the truth : that Virgil would have read a beautiful pas- sage 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 delicate 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 convey it, serve as a measure of the vital im- portance I attach to the convictions which impelled me to ani- madvert on the same passage as doctrine, S. T. C. 32 NOTES ON AIDS TO REFLECTION. [i] p. S, So Leigliton mys : my own experience wotiia rather have aoggeflted the contrary remark. [For remarks on the peculiar advantages for reflection and Inducementic to the exercise of it, in the character and circumstances of tlie young, the reader is referred to the Introduction to the tliird Volume of the Friend. If I mistake not, there is many a yoilng man among those, who are about entering upon the theatre of the world, and anxiously contemplating the commg struggle between the generous impulses of his own spirit and the law, which this world imposes upon its votaries, who will understand and re-peruse with both pleasure and profit the language there used. The Friend, it may be necessaiy to remark, is a work of Coleridge but httle known in tliis country. Should the present volume gain the attention of the public, we may hope soon to see that and other works of its author re- published among us. Am. Ed.] [2] p. 3. Distinction bettceen Thought and Attention.^ — By thought is here meant the voluntary reproduction in our own minds of those states of conscious- ness, or (to use a phrase more familiar to the religious reader) of those in- ward experiences, to which, as to his beet 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 for- mer, we submit to an impression — we keep the mind steady in order to receive the stamp. In the latter, we seek to imitate tlie artist, while we our- selves make a copy or duplicate of his work. We may learn arithmetic, or the elements of geometry, by continued attention alone ; but self -knowl- edge, or an insight into the laws and constitution of the human mind and 252 AIDS TO REFLECTION. t'le grounds of religion and true morality, in addition to the effort of atten- tion requires the energy of thought. [3] p. 3. [To those, who are unaccustomed to the language of the author, it may be of service to remark once for all, that he often aims to attain a greater degree of precision, and to secure the advantage, enjoyed so eminently in the Greek and German languages, of presenting a thought in a form, that is picturable to the imagination, by recalling compound and derivative words to their original and etymological import. He has himself remarked upon the benefit resulting from it in the next note, and illustrated it par- ticularly in several words in different parts of the work ; but the careful reader will often discover this pecuharity in his use of words, where no notice of it is given. The peculiarity indeed is not so much in his giving them a new sense, as in Umiting and defining \vitli more precision the meaning, which they have, and using in a precise and exclusive sense terms, which custom had rendered vague and unfit for tlie purposes of an accurate and discriminating mind. These remarks refer here particularly to tlie words enlivening and inform- ing, especially the latter, in the sentence, to which this note is attached. It will give the reader at least some clue to the author's meaning and to his sentiments on these subjects, if by the enlivening Breath he miderstands the life-givhig Breath or Spirit, and by the informing word the inward power or principle, which in all organized bodies modifies the hving agen- cy, appoints the measure of its working, and determines the specific /or/w of its developement in each several kind. This specific principle of or- ganization, which, as an antecedent law preexisting in the seed of every j)Iant and so in the germs of all organized bodies, awaits the actuating pow- er of life, predetermming the several shapes or forms. In which it is to be unfolded, and by which alone it is manifestable to the senses, I undei-stand the author to mean by the WORD ; and both the actuatuig, quickening spirit, and the informing word belong to all organized bodies in conmion. It may perhaps render the charge of novelty and absurdity in regard to the author's language here and elsewhere less confident to remark in passing that the livmg and specific agencies here spoken of are the inherent /o/vn^ of the Peripatetics, the ideas of Plato and Ld. Bacon, (divinae mentis ideaa. Nov. Or. 23 and 51), and that it is consonant with the language of the Old Testament to represent not only the thoughts, the ideas, but the Breath and the Word of the Divine Being as hving, formative, creative. Thus too, in reference to the higher powers of spiritual life in Christians, our Saviour says the tvords that I speak unto you, they are spiiit, and they are life^ i. e. have in them a living and life-giving energy. — Coincident with this view of life, as being not the mere resulting product of independent mechanical, chemical, or clectiical agencies, acting in harmony, but a dis- NOTES. 253 tiuct, specific power, possessing its owii inherent principle of unity in eacli organized body, and essentially independent of the organizations, which it bodies forth, and from the pheenoniena, i. e. the sensible a[)pearances from which its existence is infeiTed, Coleridge interprets tlie vis plastica, or vis vitae forjiiatrix of the elder physiologists, the Uildimgstrieb, or iiisus for- mativus of Blumenbach, and the hfe, or living principle of John Hunter. " For in wliat other sense," he remarks in a note to the Friend, vol. 3. p. 214, " can tve understand either his assertion, that this principle or agent is 'independent of organization,' which yet it animates, sustains and re- pairs, or the purport of that magnificent commentary on his system, the tiiuiterian Musajum in Lincoln's Inn Fields. The Hunterian idea of a life or vital principle 'independent of the organization,' yet in each organ working instinctively towards its preserv^ation, as the ants or termites in re- pairing the nests of their own fabrication, demonstrates, that John Hunter did not, as Stahl and others had done, individualize, or make an hyposta- sis of the principles of fife, as a somewhat manifestable per se and conse- quently itself a phaenomenon ; the latency of which was to be attributed to accidental, or at least contingent causes, ex. gr. the limits or mipei-fcction of our senses, or the inaptness of the media ; but that herein he philoso- phized in the spirit of the purest Newtonians, who in like manner refused to hypostatise the law of gravitation into an ether, wliich even if its exis- tence were conceded, would need anqther gravitation for itself. " The Hunterian position is a genuine philosopliic IDEA." It would i)erliaps have been out of place here to occupy even so much space in explaining the author's views of the philosoi)liy of life, but that the same mode of philosophizing is applied by him to those higher pow- ers and principles of our intellectual, moral and spiritual being, by which we are made to differ in kind from the inferior forms of vegetable and animal organization. If the reader clearly apprehends the law of lift, as a living power or agency, antecedent to and independent of the visible and tan- gible forms, which it constructs, he will have httle difiiculty in undei-stand- ing what is said of the transfusion of a higher gift and specially inbreatb- ed, of a soul, having its hfe in itself, and independent for its subsistence of the inferior powers, with which it co-exists. He will be i)repared to ai)prehend at least the meaning of the doctrine, that distinct specific forms or laws of being are superadded to that hfe, which is common to all, each having its own developement, and by their living agency constituthig our intellectual, moral and spiritual hfe. But the work itself will develope the author's views on this subject more fully ; and for some parts of it more particularly important in this connexion the reader is referred to die 29th note and the references there made. The 50th note, and the 6th and 7th Essays of the Friend, vol. 3, will also aid in the more full undei-standhig of the whole subject of this note. — Am. En.] 254 AIDS TO REFLECTION. [4] p. 4. Quod stat suhtusy that whicli stands beneath^ and (as it were) supports, tlie 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 tlimi that of accustoming young people to seek for tlie ety- mology, or primary meaning, of the words they use. There are casee, in which more knowledge of more value may be conveyed by the history of a ivord, than by the history of a campaign. [5] p: 5. 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 preach- ing before a Cluistian community, it sounds too much hke Pagan Phi- losojjhy. The passage in St. Peter's epistle, is the only scripture authority that can be pretended for its use, and I think it riglit, therefore, to notice, that it rests either on an oversight of the translators, or on a change in tlie meaning of tlie word ehice their time. [6] p. 5. The effects of a zealous ministry on the intellects and acquirements of the labouring classes are not only attested by Baxter, and the Presbyterian divines, but admitted by Bishop Burnet, who, during his mission in the west of Scotland, was "amazed to find a poor commonalty so able to ar- gue," &c. But we need not go to a sister Church for proof or example. The diffiision of light and knowledge through this kingdom, by the exer- tions of the liishops and clergy, by Episcopalians and Puritans, from Ed- ward VI. to the restoration, was as wonderful as it is praiseworthy, and may be justly placed among the most remarkable facts of histoiy. [The folio whig extract from the Autliors second Lay Sermon, p. 88 — ^91, may suggest some useful/eflections respecting tlie difference between tlie religious character of the age here refeiTcd to, and tliat of our own. — Am. Ed.] "As my first presumptive proof of a difference (I might almost have said, of a contrast) between the religious character of the period since the Revolution, and that of the period fiom the accession of Edward the Sixth to the abdication of the second James, I refer to the Sermons and to the theological Works generally, of the latter period. It is my fiill conviction, that in any half dozen Sermons of Dr. Donne, or Jeremy Taylor, there are more thouglits, more facts and images, more excitements to inquiry and intellectual effort, than arc presented to the congregations of the pro- sent day in as many churches or meetings during twice as many months. Yet both these were the most popular preacJiers of their times, were heard with enthusiasm by crowded and promiscuous Audiences, and the effect NOTES. 20b produced by their eloquence was held in reverential and aiTectionate re- membrance by many attendants on their ministry, who, like the pious Isaac Walton, were not themselves men of learning or education. In addition to this fact, think hkewise on the large and numerous editions of massy, closely printed folios : the impressions so lai'ge and the editions so numer- ous, that all the industry of destruction for the last hundred years has but of late sufficed to make them rare. From the long list select those works alone, which we know to have been the most cun-ent and favorite works of their day : and of these again no more than may well be supposed to have had a place in the scantiest libraries, or perhaps with the Bible and Common Prayer Book to have formed the library of their owner. Yet on the single shelf so filled we should find almost every possible question, that could interest or instioict a reader whose whole heait was in his reli- gion, discussed with a command of intellect that seems to exhaust all tlie learning and logic, all the historical and moral relations, of each several subject The veiy length of the discoui-ses, with which these "rich souls of wit and knowledge" fixed the eyes, ears, and hearts of their crowded congregations, are a source of wonder now-a-days, and (we may add) of self-congratulation, to many a sober Christian, who forgets with what de- light he himself has listened to a two hour's harangue on a Loan or Tax, or at the trial of some remarkable cause or culprit. The transfer of the interest makes and explauis the whole diflference. For though much may be fairly charged on the revolution in the mode of preaching as well as in the matter, since the fresh morning and fervent noon of the Reforma- tion, when tliere was no need to visit the conventicles of fanaticism in or- der to See God's ambassador in tlie pulpit stand. Where they could take notes fi'om his Look and Ileind ; And from his speakmg action bear away More sermon than our preachers used to say ; yet this too must be referred to the same change in the habits of men's minds, a change that involves both the shepherd and the flock : though like many other Effects^ it tends to reproduce and strengthen its own cause." [7] p. 7. The following sonnet was extracted by mo from Herbert's Temple, in a work long since out of print, for the purity of the language and the fiilncss of the sense. But I shall be excused, I trust, in repeating it here for higlier merits and with higher purpose?, as a forcible comment on the words in the text. 256 AIDS TO REFLECTION. Graces vouchsafed in a Christian Land. Lord ! with what care hast thou begut us round ! Parents first season us. Then sclioohnastera 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 ! J)il)les laid ojjen ; millions of surprises ; Blessings beforehand ; ties of giatefulncsa ; The sound of glory ringing in our eai-s : Without, our shame ; within, our consciences ; Angels and gi'ace ; eternal hopes and feai*s ! Yet all these fences, and their whole array, One cmuiing bosom sin blows quite away. [8] p. 9. See the epistle of St. James, c. i. v. 26, 27. where, in the authorized version, the Greek word ^(;»;cx«j« is falsely rendered rdif^ion: whether by mistake of the translator, or from the intended sense having become obsolete, I cannot decide. At all events, for the English reader of our times it has the effect of an eri'oneous translation. It ndt only obscures the connexion of the passage, and weakens the pecuhar force and subhmi- ty of the thought, rendering it comparatively flat and trivial, ahnost indeed tautological, but has occasioned tliis particular verse to be perverted ijuo a support of a veiy dangerous error ; and the whole epistle to be consid- ered as a set-off against tlie epistles and declarations of St. Paul, instead of (what in fact it is ), a masterly comment and confirmation of the same. I need not inform the religious reader, that James, c. i. v. 27. is the fiivour- ite text and most boasted authority of those divines who represent the Re- deemer of the world as little more than a moral reformer, and the Chris- tian faith as a code of ethics, differing from the moral system of Moses and the prophets by an additional motive ; or rather, by the additional strengtii and clearness wliich the historical faet of the resurrection has given to the same motive. [9] p. 10. The Greek word f/f > fro, unites in itself the two senses of began to exist and ivas made to exist. It exemplifies the force of the middle voice, in dis- tinction from the verb reflex. In answer to a note on John i. 2. in the uni- tarian 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 NOTES. 257 finite, as delivered, or supposed to be delivered, in the Cabiric or Sanio- thraciaii mysteries, in the Comedy of tlie Birds. ■' lyirex* OvQavog i2x«avo? re Kai rt}. [10] p. 10. James C. i. v. 6 Ss naQay.ml-ag bic rouovri?.ttov rov rr,g tltv^iQictc. The Greek word, parakiipsas, signifies the incurvation or bending of the body in the act of looking doivn into ; as, for instance, in the endeavor to see the re- flected 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 to discover the living fountain and spring-head of the evidence of the Christian faith in the behever himself, and at the same time to point out the seat and region, where alone it is to be found. Quantum sumus, scvnius. That which we find within ourselves, which is more than our- selves, and yet the ground of whatever is good and pennanent therein, is the substance and life of all other knowledge. N. B. The Famihsts of the sixteenth century, and similar enthusiasts of later date, overlooked the essential point, that it was a laiv^ and a law that involved its own end (teAoc), a perfect law {cunog) or law that perfects or completes itself; and therefore, its obhgations are called, in reference to human statutes, imperfect duties, i. e. incoercible from without. They overlooked that it was a law that portions out {Nouog from vsfiw to allots or make division of) to each man the sphere and hmits, within which it is to be exercised— which as St. Peter notices of certain profound passsages in the writings of St Paul, (2 Pet. c. iii. v. 16.) oi auudug xat agr,^ixrot gQs^'/.naiv, us y-ui rag Aoi/cctg ynaifcig, nnog rtjv tdiocv avrwv a.rwXtiar. [11] p. 11. In accordance with a precedmg remaik, on the use of etymology, in dis- ciplining the youtliful mind to thoughtful habits, and as consistent with the title of this work, 'Aids to Reflection,' I shall oflfer no apology for the fol- lowing and similar notes : Aphorism, determinate position, from the Greek apo, from ; and horizem, to bound, or hmit ; whence our horizon. — In order to get the full sense of a word, we should fii-st present to our mmds the visual image that foniis its primaiy meaning. Draw lines of different colours roimd the diflferent 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 dis- trict can be contemplated apart from the rest, as a whole in itself. This twofold act of circumscribing, and detaching, when it i» exerted by the 33 258 AIDS TO REFLECTION. niind on subjects of reflection and reason, is to aphorize j and the reeult an aphorism. [12] p. 11. To KorjoY Stj]Q};xaaiv «i$ no?.?.o)r 0ton- iStoTtjrag. — Damosc. de Myst. Egypt, l. €. They divided the intelligible into many and several individualities. [13] p. 11. From &iQfOiCj a wailful raising into public notice, an uplifting (for display) of any particular opinion differing from the estabhshed behef of the church at large, and making it a gi'ound of schism, i. e. division, from schizein, to cut off-— whence our " scissars" is supposed to have been derived. [14] p. 11. I mean tliese words in their large and philosophic sense in relation to the spirit^ or originating temper and tendency, and not to any one mode un- der which, or to any one class, in or by which, it may be displayed. A sedi- tious spirit may, (it is possible, though not probable) exist in the council- chamber of a palace as strongly as in a mob in Palace- Yard ; and a sec- tarian spirit in a cathedral, no less than in a conventicle. [15] p. 11. Whereas Christ's other disciples had a breeding under him, St. Paul was bom an apostle ; not cai-ved out, as the rest, by degiees and in course of time, but a fusHe 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 spirit was the lightning that melted, and the mould that received and shaped him. — Donne's Sermons — quoted from memory. [1&] p. 12. 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 undei-standing is convinced and made aware of its existence and direction* [17] p. 12. The following extract from Leighton's Theological Lectures, sect. II. cannot be introduced more to the purpose than as a comment on this sen- tence : *The human mind, however stunned and weakened by the fall, still re- tains 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. NOTES 259 This at least is beyond all doubt and indisputable, that all men wish well ID themselves ; nor can the mind divest itself of this propensity, witliout divesting itself of its being. This is what tlie schoolmen mean when in their manner of expfession they say, that 'the will {mem. voluntas, not ar- bitrium) is carried towards happiness not simply as loill, but as nature.^ ' I v^enture to remark that this position, if not more ccHawly would be more evidently true, if histead of beatitudo, the word indolentia,{ t, e. free- dom 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 conclusion, however, follows inevitably from the preceding position, viz. that this propensity can never be legitimately made the prin- ciple of morality, even because it is no pait or appurtenance of the moral will ; and because the proper object of the moral principle is to limit and control this propensity, and to determine in what it may be, and in what it onght to be, gi-atitied ; while it is the business of philosophy to instruct the understanding, and the office of religion to convince the whole man, that otherwise than as a regulated, and of course therefore a svbordinale, end, this propensity, mnate mid inalienable though it be, can never be re- ahzed or fulfilled. Tr,v Ato.TOUuv nodyi ru ao:ia~frai ^ ©fQttnaiv(c, [18] p. 14. Logos in Greek signifies an intelligible ivord as distinguished from l>i;tu<^ a flowing or articulate sound ; and it likewise signifies Vie understanding, in distinction from n«5 (the pure reason ) in one direction, and from aioHr^oig (tlie sense) in tlie other. [19] p. 15. It is worthy of observation, and may furnish a fruitful 8ul)ject for future reflection, how nearly this scriptural division coincides with tlie Platonic, which, commencing with the prudential, or the habit of act and purpose proceeding fi-om enlightened self-interest, [qui animi imperio, corjioris servitio, reruni auxilio, in })roprium sui commodum et sibi providus utitur, hunc esse pi-udentem statuimus], ascends to the moral, t. e. to the purifying and remedial virtues ; and seeks its summit in the imitation of the Di\'ine nature. In this last division, answering to that which we have called the Spiritual, Plato includes all those inward acts and aspirations, waitings, and watchings, which have a growtli in godDkeness for their immediate pur- pose, and the union of the human soul with the Supreme Good as their ultimate object. Nor was it altogether ^vithout grounds that several of the Fathers ventured to believe that Plato had some dim conception of the necessity of a DiAine 3Iediator, whether through some indistinct echo of the patriarchal faith, or some rays of light refi"acted froHi the He- brew prophets through a Phoenician medium (to which he may possi- 260 AIDS TO REFLECTION. bly have referred in his phrase, ^eoTiaQadoTog ao(pta, tlie wisdom dehvered from God,) or by his own sense of tlie mysterious contradiction in human natiu'e between the will and the reason, the natural appetences and the no less umate law of conscience {Romaiis 11. 14. 15.) we shall m vahi attempt to determine. It is not impossible tliat all three may have co-operated in partially unveiling these awful truths to this plank from the wreck of pai- adise thrown on the shores of idolatrous Greece, to tins Divine Philoso- pher, Che in quella schiera and6 piu presso al segno Al qual aggiunge, a chi dal cielo e dato. Petrarchf Dd Triunfo deUa Fama, Cap. IIL I. 5, 6. [20] p. 18. Apud Ciceroncni et Platonem, aUosque ejusmodi scriptores, multa sunt acut6 dicta, et leniter calentia, sed in iis omnibus hoc non invenio, Veniic ad mcy i&c. [Matt. vii. 28.] [21] p. 19. £i; Tt T«Tu)»' jjfc^utt iiiitovavP.a^otg, [22] p. 21. (The reference to tliia note was accidentally omitted at the end of Aph- orism 6th.) [A few remarks have been made in the Introduction and in the 3d note respecting the peculiarities of Coleridge's language ; but so much has been said by many, with whom I have had occasion to convei-se, respecting his faults in this particular, that I would gladly induce the reader's of tliis work to give a more special attention to his own views of propriety in tlie use of language, as exliibitedin the Aphorisms, with whicli this note is comiected, and in other passages refeiTed to below. — My own opinion is, that no wri- ter in the language, with whose works I have been acquainted, uses worda with more ^ precision, or adlieres more strictly to the fixed and permanent laws of language. No one writes with a more habitual and present appre- hension of the precise import of every term, which he employs, or more seldom gives his own intellect or that of his reader the indulgence of vague and general expressions. The faults of his language, if faults they 1)6, are such as might be expected from one, — who has been accustomed to think witli unsparing effort, to mark with keen and philosophical discrimi- nation tlie differences of tilings, — who is at the same time familiar witli the powers of other and better languages, and with the distinctions of thought, which they express, and who, knowing the full powers of his own, is de- termined to exhaust them in recording the results of his anal ysis, and giv- NOTES. 261 ing expression to the subtlest forms of thought. — In most cases, wliere his use of language may at first seem wholly unauthorized, it will bo found, that he has derived it from those profound thinkers and unrival- led masters of language, the great English Pliilosophers and Divines of the 17th Century. Now, I ask, is he not right in recuning to them and recalling then* language, if what he beheves be true, that aside from the nomenclature of the sciences, the interests of the language at large fall under the special guardiEUiship of logic and rational psychology, and that from the revolution downward these have been falling into neglect or dis- repute ; that the so called common language of the day, including even that of our popular metaphysics, is but the language of the market, too vague and ambiguous to satisfy a mind, that would think and reason in precise and steadtlist terms. If this be true, and if, as he also beheves, the great and leaduig principles of pliilosophy adopted in that age, and as it were incorporated in the language of its disthiguished writers, were far more rational and spiritual than tliose, wliich now prevail, I see not how ho could adopt a less offensive or a simpler method for recallmg theu' philoso- phy, tlian to recall and explain their language. The only way to under- stand their philosophy or his, is by understanding the tenns, in which it is taught, and till we do both, we are not competent to judge between his views and those, which are now so popular among us. If his philosoph- ical or theological views be found false, or absurd, let them be rejected, or if the metaphysical distinctions, on which he insists, can be shown to be idle and fruitless, let them be treated as they deserve ; but no one can pro- nomice judgment upon them without at least a serious effort to understand them. His writings, moreover, are now acquiring too much authority and influence among men of sound and sober thinkmg to be treated with neg- lect, and wherever his philosophical views are adopted, his use of language will be found rational and skilfully adapted to the circumstances of the case. But I have introduced these remarks not with a view to discuss the subject myself so much as to engage the special and candid attention of the reader to the author's own remarks, which will be found m different parts of the work, but especially in the second letter of a selection fi-om his Literaiy Correspondence republished at the end of the Volume. — ^Am. Ed.] [23] p. 25. [The relation of prudence to morality, and tlie essential difference in kind between the latvs of duty, existing a priori in the reason and con- science, and the maxims of interest, formed by the understanding from the results of experience, are exhibited more at large in the Aphorisms, which immediately follow, and the Reflections concerning morality in the next section of the work. It may not be improper, however, here to forewarn the reader, that in order to a clear apprehension of the author's views oi' S62 AIDS TO REFLECTION, this subject in all tlieir important bearings, and also of tlie relation of mo- rality to religious principle and faith, he must first have some knowledge of his metaphysical system and of the meanings, with which he has connect- ed the words reason, understanding, free-ioUl, conscience, and other leading terms. It will be found, that he employs these in a precise, exclusive, and steadfast sense, not only in this, but in all his works, and 1 may add, that when these are understood, and their meaning kept distinctly before the mhid in reading his writings, the chief causes oftebscurity will be remo- ved. But it would be anticipating too much, ana indeed would not be possible in the compass of a note, to explain terms, which may be said to include his whole system. I have spoken of them here with a view to di- rect the careful attention of the reader to the manner in which they are used throughout the work, and to the explanation given by the author both in the text and in the extracts from his other works, which will be added for the same purpose of illustration. When these are miderstood, the rea- der will see their application to the whole subject of the philosophy of morals, — the relation of moral rectitude to the understanding, the reason, the conscience, and the free-^vill, — and the nature of the difference between the principles of moral obligation taught here, and those generally recei- ved among us, whether from Paley or Brown. In the mean time the fol- lowing remarks upon the system of Dr. Paley, and the discussion of his doctrine of general consequences will less require an acquaintance with the author's general system, to render them intelligible, and fi'om the gi-eat importance of the subject, and the value of the extracts, I hope will not be thought out of place in this work. The first extract is from Coleridge's second Lay Sermon, p. 69 — 71, note. "In the magnitude and awfulness of its objects alone, the late Dr. Paley, by a use of terms altogether arbitrary, places the distinction between Pru- dence and vutue, the former being self-love in its application to the sum of pain and pleasure that is likely to result to us, as the consequence of our actions, in the present hfe only ; while the latter is the same self-love, that together with the present consequences of our actions, takes in likewise the more important enjoyments or sufferings which, according as we obey or disobey His known commands, God has promised to bestow, or threat- ened to inflict, on us in the hfe to come. According to this writer, it be- comes the duty of a rational free agent (it would be more pertinent to say, of a sentient animal capable of Forecast) to reduce his WiU to an habitual coincidence vnth his Reason, on no other ground, but because he believes that God is able and determined either to gratify or to torment hun. Thus, the great principle of the Gospel, that we are bound to love our neighbors as omselves and God above all, must, if translated mto a consistency with this theory of enlightened Self-love, run thus : On the ground of our fear ofv torment and our expectation of pleasure from an infinitely powerful Being, we are under a prudential obligation of acting towards our neigh- NOTES. 263 bours as if we loved them equally with ourselves ; but ultimately and in very truth to lovo oui-selves only. .\iid this is the Work, this the System of moral and political Philosophy cited as highest authority in our Senate and Courts of Judicature ! And (still worse !) this is the Text-Book for the moral Lectures at one of our Universities, justly the most celebrated for scientific ardor and manly thinking. 'Tis not widiout a pang of fihal soitow that the Writer makes this acknowledgement, which nothing could have extorted from him but the strongest conviction of the mischievous and de- basing tendencies of that wide-spread system, in which the Works of Dr. Paley (his Sermons excepted) act not the less pernicious part, because the most decorous and plausible. The fallacious sophistry of the grounding principle in this whole system has been detected by Des Cartes, and Bish- op Butler : and of late years, with great ability and originality, by Mr. W. Hazlitt." [The following comprises nearly all of the 11th Essay in the second Vol- ume of the Friend :] "The doctrine of General Consequences, as the chief and best crite- rion of the right or wrong of particular actions, I conceive to be neither tenable in reason nor safe in practice : and the following are the grounds of my opinion. First ; this criterion is purely m/coZ, and, so far possesses no advantages over the former systems of morality : while it labours under defects, with wliiph those are not justly chargeable. It is ideal : for it depends on, and must vary with, the notions of tlie individual, who in order to determine the na- ture of an action is to make the calculation of its general consequences. Here, as in all other calculation, the result depends on that faculty of the soul in tlie degi-ees of which men most vary from each other, and which is itself most affected by accidental advantages or disadvantages of educa- tion, natural talent, and acquired knowledge — the faculty, I mean, of fore- sight and systematic comprehension. But surely morahty, which is of equal importance to all men, ought to be grounded, if possible, in that part of our nature which in all men may and ought to be the same : in the conscience and the common sense. Secondly : this criterion confounds morality witli law ; and when the author adds, that in all probability the divine Justice will be regulated m the final judgment by a similar rule, he draws away the attention from the imll, that is, from the inward motives and impulses which constitute the essence of morcdity, to the outward act : and thus changes the virtue commanded by the gospel into the mere le- gality, which was to be enhvenedby it. One of the most persuasive, if not one of the strongest, arguments for a future state, rests on the behef, that although by the necessity of things our outward and temixjral welfare nuist be regulated by our outward actions, which alone can be the objects and guides of human law, there must yet needs come a juster and more ap- propriate sentence hereafter; in which our intentions will be considered. 264 AIDS TO REFLECTION. and our happiness and misery made to accord ^vith the grounds of our actions. Oiu* fellow-creatures can only judge what we are by what we do ; but in the eye of our Maker what we do is of no woitli, except as it flows from what we are. Though the fig-tree should produce no visible fruit, yet if the hving sap is in it; and if it has struggled to put forth buds and blossoms, which have been prevented from maturing by inevitable contingencies of tempests or untimely fi-osts, the virtuous sap will be ac- counted as fruit : and the curse of barrenness will light on many a tree, from the boughs of which hundreds have been satisfied, because the om- niscient judge Imows that the fruits were threaded to the boughs artificial- ly by the outward working of base fear and selfish hopes, and were nei- ther nourished by the love of God or of man, nor grew out of the gi*ace8 engrafl;ed on the stock by rehgion. This is not, indeed, aU tliat is meant in the apostle's use of the word, faith, as the sole principle of justifica- tion, but it is included in his meaning and forms an essential part of it — and I can conceive nothing more gi-oundless, than the alann, that this doc- trine may be prejudicial to outward utility and active well-doing. To sup- pose that a man should cease to be beneficent by becoming benevolent, seems to me scarcely less absurd, than to feai* that a fire may prevent heat, or that a perennial fountain may prove the occasion of drought. Just and generous actions may proceed from bad motives, and both may, and ofl;en do, originate in parts and as it were fragments of our nature. A lascivious man may sacrifice half his estate to rescue his fiiend from prison, for he is constitutionally sympathetic, and the better part of his nature happened to be uppermost. The same man shall afl;envards exert the same disre- gard of money in an attempt to seduce that friend's wife or daughter. But faith is a total act of the soul : it is the tvhole state of the mind, or it is not at all ! and in this consists its power, as well as its exclusiv-e worth. This subject is of such immense importance to the welfare of all men, and the understanding of it to the present tranquillity of many thousands at this time and in this countiy, that should there be one only of all my Readers, who should receive conviction or an additional light fi'om what is here written, I dare hope that a great majority of the rest would in consid- eration of that solitaiy eflfect think these pai-agraphs neither wlioUy unmter- esting or altogether without value. For this cause I will endeavour so to explain this principle, that it may be intelligible to the simplest capacity. The apostle tells those who would substitute obedience for faith (addres- sing the man as obedience personified) ^^Know thai thou bearesi not the Root bid the ROOT thee^'' — a sentence which, methinks, should have rendered all disputes concerning faith and good works uni)ossible among those who profess to take the Scriptures for tlieir guide. It would appear incredible, if the fact were not notorious, that two sects should ground and justify their opposition to each other, the one on the words of the apostle, that we are justified by faith, i. e. the inward and absolute gi'ound of our ac- NOTES. 2G5 tloos ; and thjei other oh the declaration of Clirist, that he will judge us ac- cording to tJtir atetions. As if an action conld be either good or bad dis- joined from its principle ! as if it could be, in tlie christian and only prop- er sense of the word, an action at all, and not rather a mechanic series of lucky or unlucky motions! Yet it may well be worth the while to sliew the beamy and harmony of tiiese twin tiutlis, or mther of this one gi-eat titilih considered in its two principal bearings. God will judge each man before ali hiefn: conseijuently lie will judge us relatively to man. But mhnknbws" i^iot the heart of man ; scarcely does any one know Ms own.. There ;must therefore be outward and visible signs, by which men may be able fco judge of the inward state: and tliereby justify the Avays of God to tlieir own spirits, hi the reward or punishment of tlieuKselves and their fellow-men. Now good worivs are these signs, and as such become necessary. In short there are two parties^ Grod and the human race : and both -are to be Scitisfied ! first, God, who seeth the i-oot and knoweth tho heart : therefoi-e there must be taith, or the entire and absolute principle. Tlien m«w, who can jiulge only by the fruits; therefore that faith must bear fruits of righteousness, that principle must inanifesl itself by actions. But that which God sees, Ihat alone justifies ! What man sees^ does in this life shew that the justifying principle may be the root of the thing seen ; but in the final judgment the acceptance of these actions will shew, tliat this principle actually was the rdot. In tliis world a good life is a presumption of Si good man : his viituous actions are the only possible, though still ambiguous, manifestations of his virtue : but the absence of a good life is not only a presumption, but a proof of the contmry, as long as it con- thiues. Good works may exist ivithoiit saving piinciples, and therefore canimt contain in themselves tlie piinciple of salvation ; but saving prin- ciples never did, never can, exist without good works. On a subject of such infinite importance, I have feared prolixity less than obscurity. Men often talk againsi; faith, and make strange monsters in tlieir imagination of those who ja-ofess to abide by the words of the Apostle^ interpreted liter- ally : and yet in their ordinary feelings they themselves judge and act by a similar prmeiple. For what is love without kmd offices, wherever they are possible ? (and they are always possible, if not by actions connnonly so called,''yet by kind words, by kind looks ; and, where even these are out of our power, by kind thoughts and fei-vent prayers !) yet what noble mind would not be oflfended, if he were supposed to value the serviceable oflices equally vnth the love that produced them : or if he were thought to value the love for the sake of the services, and not the services for the sake of the love ? I return to the question of general consequences, considered as tlie cri- terion of moral actions. The admii*er of Paley's System is required to suspend for a short time the objection, which, I doubt not, he has already made, that general consequences are stated by Paley as tho criterioa of 34 266 AIDS TO RSFtECTION. the action, not of tlie agent, I will endeavor to satisfy.' Him 'oh this point; when I have completed my present chain of argument, i It has been shewn, that this criterion is no less ideal than that of anijf former system : that is, it is no less incapable of receiving any external' experiiftental proofs compulsoiy on the understaiidings of all men, siich as the criteria exhibk-»i ed in chemistry. Yet, milike the elder Systems of Morality, it remains in the world of the senses, without deriving any evidence therefrom. ;The agent's mind is compelled to go out of itself in order to bring back conjec- tures, the probability of which will vary with the shrewdness of the indi- vidual. But this criterion is not only ideal: it is likewise- imaginary, i If we beheve m a scheme of Providence, all actions alike^vork lor ^ood. There is not the least ground for su})posing tliat tlie crimes of Nero wcife less instrumental in biinging about our present advanUiges, than the vir-i tues of the Antonines. Lastly ;. the criterion is either nugatory or false. It is demonstrated, that the only real consequences cannot be meant The individual is to imagine what the general consequences wonld be, all other things remaining the same, if all men were to act as he is about tc» act I scarcely need remind the reader, what a source of self delusioil and sophistiy is here opened to a mind in a state of temptation. WiH it not say to itself, I know that all men will not act so : and the immediate good consequences, which I shall obtiin, are real while the bad conse- quences are imaginary and improbable ? When tlie foundations of mo- rality have once been laid in outward consequences, it will be in vain to recall to tlie mmd, what the consequences would be, were all men to rea- son in the same way : for the very excuse of this mind to itself is, that neitlier its action nor its reasoning is likely to have any consequences at all, its immediate object excepted. But suppose the mind in its sanest state. How can it possibly form a notion of the nature of an action con- sidered as indefinitely multiplied, unless it has previously a distinct notion of the nature of the single action itself, which is the multiplicand ? If I conceive a crown multiphed a hundred fold, the single crown enables me to miderstand what a hundred crowns are ; but how can the notion hun- dred teach me what a crown is ? For the crown substitute X. Y. or abra- cadabra, and my imagination may multiply it to infinity, yet remain as much at a loss as before. But if there be any means of ascertaining the action in and for itself, what further do we want ? Would we give Ught to the sun, or look at our own fingers through a telescope ? The nature of every action is determined by all its circumstances ; alter the circum- stances and a similar set of motions may be repeated, but they are no longer the same or similar action. What would a surgeon say, if he were advised not to cut off a limb, because if all men were to do the same, the consequences would be dreadful? Would not his answer be — " Whoever does the same under the same circumstances, and with tlie same motives, will do right ; but if the circumstances and motives are NOTES. 267 different,. what have I to do witii it 7" I confess myself unable to divino any possiWe usie, or even meaning, in this doctrine of general consequen- ces, unless it be^ that in all our actions we are bound to consider the ef- fect of our example, and to guard, as much as possible, against the ha- zard of their being misunderstood. I will not slaughter a lamb, or drown a litter of kittens in the presence of my child of four years old, because the child cannot understand my action, but wiU understand that his Fa- ther has inflicted pain, and taken away life from beings that had never of- fei^ded him. All this is true, and no man in his senses ever thought oth- ^i-Wise. But methuiks it is strange to state that as a criterion of morality, which is no more than an accessaiy aggravation of an action bad in its own nature, or a ground of caution as to the mode and time in wliich we are to do or suspend what is in itself good or innocent. Tl;e duty of setting a good example is no doubt a most imix>rtant duty ; but the. example is good or bad, necessary or mmecessary, according as the action may be, which has a chance of being imitated. I once knew a gmall, but (in outward circumstances at least) respectable congregation, four-fiftlis of whom professed that tliey went to church entirely for the example's sake ; in other words to cheat each other and act a common lie ! These rational Christians had not considered, that example may en- crease the good or evil of an action, but can never constitute either. If it was a foolisli thing to kneel when they were not inwardly praying, or to sit and hsten to a discourse of which they believed little and cared uotliing, they were settuig a foohsh example. Persons in their respectable circum- stances do not tliink it necessary to clean shoes, Uiat by their example they may encourage the shoe-black in continuing his occupation : and -Christi- anity does not tliink so memily of herself as to fear tliat the poor and af- flicted will be ^ whit the less pious, tliough they should see reason to be- lieve that tliose, who possessed the good things of tlie present life, were determined to leave aU the blessings of the future for their more humble mferiors. If I have spoken witli bitterness, let it be recollected that my subject Is hy}x>crisy. It is Ukewise fit, that in all our actions we should have considered how far they ai*e likely to be misunderstood, and from su])erficial resemblances to be confounded with, and so appear to authorize, actions of a very differ- ent character. But if this caution be intended for a moral rule, the misun- derstanding must be such as might be made by persons who are neither very weak nor veiy wicked. The apparent resemblances between the good action we were about to do and the bad one which might possibly be done in mistaken imitation of it, must be obvious : or that wliich makes them essentially different, must be subtle or recondite. For what^ is there which a wicked man blinded by his passions may not, and which a mad- man will not, misunderstand ? It is ridiculous to frame rules of morality with a view to those who are fit objects only for the physician or tlie mag^is- trate. 368 AIDS TO REFLECTION. The question may be tlms illustrated. At Florence there is an unfinished bust of Brutus, by Michael Angelo, under which a Cardinal wrote tlie fol- lowing distich : Duiii Briiti effigiem sculptor de marmore fiiixit, In menten^ sceleris venit, et abstinuit. Jhihe Sculptor toas forming the effigy of Brutus^ in marbley he recollected his act of guilt and refrained. An EngUsh Nobleman, indignant at this distich, wrote hnmediately under it the following : Brutum effinxisset sculptor, sed mente recursat Multa viri virtus : sistit et obstupuit. The Sculptor would have framed a Brutus, but Hie vast and manifold yiriue of the man flashed upon his thought : he stopped and remained in asto- nished admiration. Now which is the nobler and more moral sentiment, the Italian Cardi- nal's, or the English nobleman's ? The Cardinal would appeal to the doc- trine of general consequences, and pronounce the death of Csesar a mur- der, and Brutus an assassm. For (he would say) if one man may be al- lowed to kill another because he thinks him a tyrant, religious or political phrenzy may stamp the name of tyrant on the best of kings : regicide will be justified under the pretence of tyrannicide, and Brutus be quoted as au- thority for the Clements and Ravaillacs. From kings it may pass to gene- rals and statesmen, and from these to any man whom an enemy or enthu- siast may pronounce unfit to hve. Thus we may have a cobler of Messi- na in every city, and bravos in our streets as common as in those of Naples, with the name Brutus on their stilettos. The Englishman would commence his answer by commenting on the words "because he thivks him a tyrant" No ! he would reply, not because the patriot thinks him a tyrant ; but because he knows Iiim to be so, and knows liliewise, that the vilest of his slaves cannot deny the fact, tliat he has by violence raised himself above the laws of his country — ^because he knows that all good and wise men equally with himself abhor the fact! If there be no such state as that of being broad awalte, or no means of distinguishing it when it exists ; if because men sometimes dream that they are awake, it must follow that no man, when awake, can be sure that he is not dreaming ; if because an hypochondriac is positive that his legs are cylinders of glass, all other men are to learn modesty, and cease to be so positive that their legs are legs ; what possible advantage can your crite- rion of GENERAL CONSEQUENCES poscss ovcr any other rule of directiori'? If no man can be sure that what he thinks a robber witli a pistol at his breast demanding his pui-se, may not be a good friend enquiring after his NOTES. 269 health ; or that a tymnt (the son of a cobler perhaps, who at the head of a regiment of perjured traitors, has driven the representatives of his coun- try out of the senate at the point of the bayonet, subverted the constitu- tion which had trusted, enriched, and honoured him, trampled on the laws which before God and Man he had sworn to obey, and finally raised him- self above all law) may not, in spite of his own and his neighbours' know- ledge of the contrary, be a laAvfiil king, who has received his power, how- ever disspotic it may be, from the kmgs his ancestoi-s, who exercises no other power than what had been submitted to for centuries, and been ac- knowledged as tlie law of tlie country ; on what ground can you possibly expect less fallibility, or a result more to be relied upon in the same man's calculation of your general consequences ? Would he, at least, find any difficulty in converting your criterion into an autliority for his act ? What should prevent a man, whose perceptions and judgements are so strangely distorted, from arguing, that nothing is more devoutly to be Avished for, as a general consequence, than tliat eveiy man, who by violence places him- self above the laws of his countiy, should in all ages and nations be con- sidered by mankind as placed by his own act out of the protection of law, and be ti'eated by tliem as any other noxious wild beast would be ? Do you think it necessary to try adders by a jury ? Do you hesitate to shoot a mad dog, because it is not in your power to have him first tried and con- demned at the Old Bailey ? On the other hand, what consequence can be conceived more detestable, tlian one which would set a bounty on the most enormous crime in human nature, and establish it as a law of religion and morality that the accomplishment of tlie most atrocious guilt invests tlie per- petrator with impunity, and rendei-s liis person forever sacred and mviola- ble ? For madmen and enthusiasts what avail your moral criterions ? But as to your Neapolitan Bravos, if the act of Brutus, who, " In pity to the general wrong of Rome, Sleio his best lover fcrr the good of Rome," authorized by the laws of his country, in manifest opposition to all selfish interests, in the face of tlie Senate, and instantly presenting himself and his cause fii*st to that Senate, and then to the assembled Commons, by tliem to stand acquit- ted or condemned — if such an act as this, with all its vast out-jutting cir- cumstances of distinction, can be confounded by any mind, not frantic, with the crime of a cowardly skulkmg assassin who hires out his dagger for a few crowns to gratify a hatred not his own, or even with the deed of that man who makes a compromise between his revenge and his coward- ice, and stabs in tlie dai'k the enemy whom he dared not meet in the open field or summon before the laws of his country — what actions can be so diflTerent that tliey may not be equally confounded ? The ambushed sol- dier must not fire his musquet, lest his example should be quoted by the villain who, to make sure of his booty, discharges his piece at the unsuspi- cious passenger from behind a hedge. The physician must not adminis- ter a solution of arsenic to the leprous, lest his example should be quoted 270 AIDS TO REFLECTION. by professional poisoners. If no distinction, full and satisfactory to Ui© conscience and common sense of mankinfi be afforded by the detestation and horror excited in all men, (even in the meanest and most vicious, if they are not wholly monsters) by the act of the assassin, contrasted with tlie fervent admiration felt by the good and wise in all ages when they mention the name of Brutus ; contrasted with the fact that the honour or disrespect witli which that name was spoken of, became an historic crite- rion of a noble or a base age ; and if it is in vain tliat our own hearts an- swer to tlie question of the Poet : "Is there among the adamantine spheres Wheeling unshaken through the boimdless void, Aught that with half such majest}' can fiU The human bosom, as when Brutus rose Refulgent from the stroke of Csesai-'s fate Amid the crowd of Patriots ; and his arm Aloft extending, like eternal Jove, When guilt brings down the thunder, callM aloud On Tully's name, and shook his crimson sword, And bade the Father of his Country, Hail ! For lo the Tyrant prostrate on the dust, And Rome again is free !" — If, I say, all this be fallacious and insufficient, can we have any finner reliance on a cold ideal calculation of imaginary general consequen- ces, which, if they were general, could not be consequences at all : for they would be effects of the frenzy or frenzied wickedness, which alone could confound actions so utterly dissimilar ? No ! (would the ennobled descendant of our Russels or Sidneys conclude) No ! Calunuiious bigot ! never yet did a human being become an assassin from his own or the gen- eral admiration of the hero Bmtus ; but I dard not wan*ant, that villains might not be encouraged in their trade of secret murder, by finding their own guilt attributed to the Roman patriot, and might not conclude, that if Brutus be no better than an assassin, an assassin can be no worse than Brutus. I request, that the preceding be not interpreted as my own judgment on tyrannicide. I think with Machiavel and with Spinosa, for many and weighty reasons assigned by those philosophers, that it is difficult to con- ceive a case, in which a good man would attempt tyrannicide, because it is difficult to conceive one, in which a wise man would recommend it. In a small state, included withm the walls of a single city, and where the ty- ramiy is maintained by foreign guards, it may be otherwise ) but in a na- tion or empire it is perhaps inconceivable, that the circumstances which made a tyranny possible, should not likewise render tlie removal of the NOTES. 271 tyrant useless. The jfiatriot'a sword may cut off the Hydra's head ; but he possesses no brand to stanch the active corruption of the body, which is Sure to re-produce a successor. -f^'I must now in a few words answer the objection to the former part of tmy argument (for to that part only the objection appUes,) namely, that the doctrine of general consequences was stated as the criterion of the action, not of the agent. I might answer, that the author himself had in some measure justified me in not noticing this distinction liy holding forth the probability, that the Supreme Judge will proceed by the same rule. The agent may then safely be mcluded in the action, if both here and hereafter the action only and its general consequences will be attended to. But my main ground of justification is, that the distinction itself is merely logical, not real and vital. The character of the agent is determined by his view of the action : and that system of morality is alone true and suited to hu- man nature, which unites the intention and the motive, the warmth and the hght, in one and the same act of mind. This alone is worthy to be called a moral principle. Such a principle may be extracted, though not without difficulty and danger, fi-om the ore of the stoic philosophy ; but it is to be found unalloyed and entire in the Christian system, and is there called Faith." The system of Paley, I am aware, i^ not now so generally received in this country, as to call for the very special attention of the friends of truth ; yet many are still disposed to defend it, at least, with such sUght modifica- tions, as to show, that its radical defects are not perceived. Those, who reject it entirely, do so on different grounds fi-om those above presented, and for the most part adopt as a substitute the system of Brown, which, if there be any tnitli in the doctrines exhibited in this volume, is alike radi- cally erroneous. Both systems in fact have their origin in nearly the same general views of the human mind — ^\'iews, which preclude tlie existence of the reason and free-will, as these powers ai'e defined by Coleridge, and leave us only those powers of the understanding and of choice or selec- tion, which belong to us in common with the brutes. Whether it be pos- sible upon such a system of what is called the Philosophy of the human mind, the adherents of which, not only among professed Metaphysicians, but among Naturalists, and even Theologians, maintain in so many words, that we have no powers differing in kind from those, which belong to dogs and horses, whether, I say, it be possible upon such grounds of general philosophy to construct a rational system of morals, to account satisfactori- ly for the difference between regret and remorse, to explain the difference between things and persons, to show why we should not acknowledge the rights of brutes, and try them by a jury, and in general to justify the ways of God to man, remains yet a fair field for experiment. In the mean time the careful reader will find, if I mistake not, in the metaphysical views contained in this work materials for a moral system so much, more ration- 272 AIDS TO REFLECTION. al and satisfying, so much more consistent with our moral feelings and pur idea of the Divine Being, as will go far to sustain the trutli of tliese views themselves. I will barely remark farther, that the bearing of this work upon the ethical system of Brown will be sufficiently obvious in the sub- sequent parts of the volume, especially in the contradistinction tauglit to exist between nature and the will, and the relation, which, on this system^ moral rectitude holds to the will and to the reason.— Am. Editor.] [24] p. 28. Vieturos a^mus semper, nee vivimus unquani. [25] p. 29. Spes spem excipit, ambitionem ambitio, et miseriarum non quseritur finis, sed schema tantum mutatur. [26] p. 31. This paragraph is abridged fi-om the Watchman, No. IV. Mai-ch 25, 1796; respecting which the inquisitive Reader may consult my "Literary Life." S. T. C. [27] p. 32. There sometimes occurs an apparent Play on worrls, which not only to the MoraUzer, but even to the philosophical Etymologist, 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 iRo, as to convert it at length into their proper self, and thus actually to become the Dress. Such a one, (safehest spoken of by the neider Pronoun), I con- sider as but a suit of Ziye Finery. It is indifferent whether we say — It be- c&mes He, or, He becoines it. [38] p. 34. ,„, It might be a mean of preventing many unhappy Marriages, if the youth of both sexes had it early impressed on their minds, that Maniage contracted between Christians is a true and perfect Symbol or MystCTy ; that is, the actualizing Faith being supposed to exist in the Receivers, it is an outward Sign co-essential with that which it signifies, or a living Part of that, the whole of which it represents. Maniage therefore, in the Christian sense (Ephesians v. 22 — 33), as symbohcal of the imion of tlie 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 reasons; fii-st, that the Sign is not disUnc- live of tlie Church of Christ, and the Ordinance not pecidiai* nor owing its origin to the Gospel Dispensation ; secondly, it is not of universal obli- NOTES. 273 gation, not a mefins of Grace enjoined on all Christians. In other and plainer words, Maniage does not contam in itself an open Profession of Christ, and it is not a Sacrament of the Chiv)-ch,hut only of certain Indi- vidual members of the Church. It is evident, however, that neither of these Reasons affect or diminish the religious nature and dedicative force of the marriage Vow, or detract from the solemnity of the Apostohc Dec- laration: 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 resulting, form an altogether distinct consideration. When I meditate on the words of the Apos- tle, 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 created 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 celebrating Marriages univei-sally by the civil magistrate, in the fii-st instance, and leaving the religious Covenant, and sacramental Pledge to the election of the Parties themselves, adopted during the Repubhc in England, and in our own times by the French Legislature, was not in f(Kt, whatever it might be in intention, reverential to Christianity. At all events, it was their own act and choice, if the Parties made bad worse by the profanation of a Gospel Mystery. [29] p. 44. Whatever is comprized in the Chain and Mechanism of Cause and Effect, of course necessitated, and having its necessity in some other thing, antecedent or concurrent — ^this is said to be 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 mdeed of the New Testament through- out, Spiritual and Supernatural are synonymous. [The Comment, to which this note is attached, exhibits in part the au- thor's views on certain subjects, which are felt and acknowledged to be of the utmost importance, and at the same time exceedingly difficult of expla- nation. Whether there be an essential difference between morahty and spiritual religion — ^the mode of transition from tlie one to the other — the contradistinguishing character of the will as spiritual and above nature — and the possibihty of such a communion and co-agency of the Divine spirit with our spirits, as shall transfonn them into the Divine image, consistently with the idea of a free will as foi-med by the reason, are undoubtedly sub- jects desei-ving and requiring tlie most serious and profound reflection. The manner, in which they are treated m this work, if I do not mistake, 35 274 AIDS TO REFLECTION. will at least have the interest of novelty for most of its readers, and can hardly fail to give them more satisfaction, in regard to some points, than the authors generally resorted to among us on subjects of this sort. It will at once be obvious, that all these subjects are here presented to us in a far different point of view from that, in which they are and must be contem- {Jiated by the disciples of Locke, and those who, with Brown, deny to man any powers of will, which are riot subjected to the law of nature, and in- cluded in tbe mechanism of cause and effect. The difference in the views exhibited, it will be seen again, results from the same fundamental prin- ciples of philosophy, which I have referred to in former notes, and which it will be especially incumbent on the reader to understand in order to a fiill apprehension of the audior's meaning here. To anticipate the most important difficulties, likely to be felt by a reader unacquainted with the system, I will merely observe, what would not perhaps be learned distinct- ly from the previous parts of the work, that according to the author's views and use of language a fact may be above our undei-standings, which is not inconsistent with reason, and which reason requires us to believe ; it may be inconceivable under those conditions, which limit the powers of con- ception in the understanding, and yet its truth be discovered intuitively by tlie reason ; it may be irrepresentable under the forms of time and space, i. e. something, of which neither extension, nor place, nor the attiibutes of time, as before and afler, can be predicated, and yet its reality force itself up- on our conviction. The distinction between these powers, and the appropri- ate offices of each, are exhibited by the author in a subsequent part of the volume ; but if, for the present, what has now been said be admitted, and the definition of nature given in his note recognized, the meaning of the Comment will be sufficiently obvious, and its doctrines seen to be at least free from absurdity. But as the reader is now entering upon those views of the will as super- natural, and of the spiritual powers of man which constitute the ground work of the system, I cannot perhaps aid him more effectually than by re- ferring him, either for his present or fliture convenience, to those parts of the volume where they are most clearly stated. By comparing different passages together, one unacquainted with the system and the meaning of terms will gain more instruction than from any illustrations which I could ftimishv The following passages have occuiTed to me as having a more or less important connexion with the leading principles mentioned. It may not be expedient to anticipate the author's progress by reading tliem all in connexion with this Comment, but they may be compared at the reader's option. In the. text the passages wiU be found at pp. 87 — ^92, 102 — 105, 132-134, 12^U5, 151—156, 160—163, 183—184, 19^-194, 205—206, 211 — 213, 238 — 246. Among the notes, the most important in this connex- ion, are the 50th, 55th, 64th, 66th, 67th, 69th, and 78th. Some parts of the appendix, also, will be found to illustrate the author's views of these subjects. NOTES. 275 The following is inserted here from the Friend, vol. 3d, p. 166—168* "The word Nature has been used in two senses, viz-, actively and pas- sively ; energetic (=foniia formans), and material (=;forma formata). In the first sense it signifies the inward principle of whatever is requisite for the reaUty of a thing, as existent: while the esserwe, or eeeential pro- perty, signifies the iimer principle of all that appertauR to the posaibilUy of a thing. Hence, in accumte language, We say the essence of a mathemati- cal circle or other geometrical figure, not the nature ; because in the con- ception of fonns purely geometrical there is no expression or impli«atioa of their real existence. In the second, or material sense, of the word NA- TURE, we mean by it the sum total of all things, as far as they are objects of our senses, and consequently of possible experience— tlie aggregate of phenomena, whetlierexistmg for our outward senses, or for our inner sense. The doctrme concerning material nature would therefore, (the word Phys- iology being botli ambiguous in itself, and already otherwise appropriated) be more properly entitled Phsenomenology, distinguished mto its two grand divisions. Somatology and Psychology. The doctrine concerning energetic nature is comprised in the science of DYNAMICS ; the union of which with Phsenomenology, and tlie alUance of both with the sciences of the Possible, or of the Conceivable, viz. Logic and Mathematica, constitute NATURAL PHILOSOPHY."— Am. Ed.] [30] p. 44. Some distant and faint similitude of this, that merely as a similitude may be mnocently used to quiet the Fancy, provided it be not imposed on the understajiding 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. [31] p. 45. "The River windeth at his own sweet WiU." W&rdsworWs exquisite Sonnet on Westminster-bridge at Svn-nse. Bnt who does not see that here the poetic charm arises from the known and felt iwip-opriefy of the expression, in the technical sense of the word impropriety^ among Grammarians ? [32] p. 53. One of the numerous proofs against those who with a strange incon- sistency hold the Old Testament to have been inspired throughout, and yet deny that the doctrine of a future state is taught therein. 276 AIDS TO REFLECTION. [33] p. 67. [The following is the passage referred to in the Omniana. — Am. Ed.] I am fiimly persuaded, that no doctrbie was ever widely diffused among various nations through successive ages, and under different religions (such as is the doctrine of original sin, and redemption, those fundamen- tal articles of every Imown religion professing to be revealed) which is not founded either in the nature of things or in the necessities of our na- ture. In the language of tlie schools, it carries with it presumptive evi- dence, tliat it is either dbjedivdy or svhjedively true. And the more strange and contradictory such a doctrme may appear to the understanding, or discui-sive faculty, the stronger is the presumption in its favour : for whatever satirists may say, and sciolists imagine, the human mind has no predi- lection for absurdity. I do not however mean, that such a doctrine shall be always the best possible representation of the ti-uth, on which it is founded, for the same body casts strangely different shadows in different places and different degrees of hght ; but that it always does shadow out some such truth and derives its influence over our faith froni our obscure perception of that truth. Yea, even where the person him- self atmbutes his belief of it to the miracles, with which it was announced by the founder of his rehgion. It is a strong presumptive proof against materialism, that there does not exist a language on earth, fiom tlie rudest to the most refined, in which a materialist can talk for five minutes together, without involving some contradiction in terms to his own system. Direction. Will not this apply equally to the astronomer? Newton, no doubt, talked of the sun's rising and setting, just like other men. What should we think of the coxcomb,who should have objected to him, that he contradicted his own system ? Answer. — No ! it c^ les not aj)ply equally ; Say rather, it is utter- ly inapplicable to the astronomer and natural philosopher. For his phi- losophic, and his ordinary language speak of two quite diflferent things, both of which are equally true. In his ordinary language he refers to a fact of appearance, to a phaenomenon common and necessaiy to all per- sons in a given situation : in his scientific language he determines that one position, figure, &c. which being supposed, the appearance in question would be the necessaiy result, and all appearances in all situations may be demonstrably foretold. Let a body be suspended in the air, and strong- ly illuminated. What figure is here ? A triangle. But what here ? A trapezium,....and so on. The same question put to twenty men, in twenty different positions and distances, would receive twenty different answers : and each would be a true answer. But what is that one figure, which being so placed, all these facts of appeai'ance must result, according to the law of perspective ?....Aye ! tliis is a different question,....tliis is a new sub- ject. The words, which answer this, would be absurd, if used hi reply to the former. NOTES. 277 Thus, the language of the scriptures on natural objects is as strictly phi- losophical as that of the Newtonian system. Perhaps, more so. For it is not only equally true, but it is univei-sal among mankhid, and unchange- able. It describes facts of appearance. And what other language would have been consistent with the divine wisdom ? The inspired writers must have bon'owed their terminology, either from the crude and mistaken phi- losophy of their own times, and so have sanctified and perpetuated false- hood, unintelligible meantime to all but one in ten thousand ; or they must have anticipated the terminology of the true system, without any revela- tion of the system itself, and so have become unintelligible to all men ; or lastly, they must have revealed the system itself, and thus have left nothing for the exercise, developement, or reward of the human understanding, in- stead of teaching that moral knowledge, and enforcing those social and ci- vic virtues, out of which the arts and sciences will spring up in due time, and of their own accord. But nothing of this apphes to the materiahst ; he re- fers to the very same facts, which the common language of mankind speaks of: and these too are facts, that have then: sole and entire being in our own consciousness ; facts, as to which esse and conscire are identical. Now, whatever is conmion to all languages, in all climates, at all times, and in all stages of civilization, must be the Exponent and Consequent of the common consciousness of man, as man. Whatever contradicts this universal lan- guage, therefore, contradicts the miiversal consciousness ; and the facts in question subsisting exclusively in consciousness, whatever contradicts the consciousness, contradicts the fact. [34] p. 58. 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 managed by the Fancy. Such are many terms and phrases from the Humoral Physiology long exploded, yet are far more popular than any description would be from the Theory that has taken its place. [35] p. 62. In check of fanatical pretensions, it is expedient to confine the term mi- raculous, to cases where tlie Senses are appealed to, in proof of something that transcends, or cannot be a part of, the Experience derived from the Senses. [36] p. 62, For let it not be forgotten, that Morality, as distinguished from Prudence 278 AIDS TO REFLECTION. imi)lying (it matters not under what name, whether of Honour, or Duty, or Conscience, still, I say, implying), and being grounded in, an awe of the Invisible and a Confidence therein beyond (nay occasionally in apparent contradiction to) the inductions of outward Experience, is essentially reli- gious, [See note 23.— Am. Ed.] [37] p. 72. See Huber on Bees, and on anta. [The meaning of some part of this Comment will be rendered more clear by refemng to the passage of the work in p. 151 — 154. — Am. Ed.] [38] p. 75. About the end of the same year (says Kalm), anotlier of these Animals (Mephitis Americana) crept into our cellar ; but did not exhale the smallest scent, because it icas not disturbed. A foolish old Woman, hoisever, who per- ceived it at night, by the shining, and thouglit, I suppose, that it would set the world on Jive, killed it : and at that Tnoment its stench began to spread. We recoimnend this anecdote to the consideration of sundry old Wo- men, on tliis side of the Atlantic, who, though they do not wear the ap- propriate garment, are worthy to sit in their committee-room, like Bicker- staff in tlie Tatler, under the canopy of their Grandam's Hoop-petticoat. [39] p. 76. To the same purpose are the two following sentences from Hilary : Etiam quae pro ReU^one dicimus, cum grand! metu et disciplina dicere debemus. — Hilarius de Trinit. Lib. 7. Non Relictus est hominum eloquiis de Dei rebus aUus quam Dei sermo. Idem. The latter, however, must be taken with certain Qiialijicaiions and Ex- ceptions : as when any two or more Texts are in apparent contradiction, and it is required to state a truth that comprehends and reconciles both, and which, of course, cannot be expressed in the words of either. Ex. gr. the filial subordination {My Father is greater than i), in the equal Deity {My Father and I are one), [40] p. 82. yitravota, the New Testament word, which we render by Repentance, compoimded of fitra, trans, and wc, mens, the Spirit, or practical Reason. [41] p. 83. May I without offence be permitted to record tlie very appropriate title. NOTES. 279 with which a etem Humorist lettered a collection of Unitarian Tracts ?— " Salvation made easy ; or, Every Man his own Redeemer." [42] p. 88. 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 in- flicted on Suicides, must be regarded as posthumous : the willful extinc- tion 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-unsettling scheme of Expe- dience, which is the anarchy of Morals. [Fully and strongly as I am convinced of the importance and the truth of the distinctions made, and the doctrines taught, in this PreUminary to Aphorisms on Spiritual Religion, I shall not attempt to add any thing to the distinctness or conclusiveness, with which they are stated by the au- thor. I will venture however in his behalf to solicit the readers of the work and especially those, who have received their notions of tlie will from Edwards or from Brown, to give this and the other passages referred to in note 29th, a candid and studious attention. The relation of the will to the reason and conscience will be found exliibited more fully in other parts of the work. — Am. Ed.] [43] p. 98. [The distinguishing character, and the appropriate functiomoLReason, in the sense in which it is used by the author, will be found pp. 136-139- 141-145, and in the 59th note. Its authority in relation to matters of faith is more fidly stated in subsequent parts of the work. The following may be referred to among others, pp. 108-120, 132-134, 192-194, 204-206, and the appendix to the fii-st Lay Sermon republished at the end of this Vol- ume. This is a subject much talked of among speculative theologians and religious writers of eveiy class, yet how seldom with any definite and sat- isfactory result. A critical analysis of our cognitive faculties, and of the subjective grounds of faith in the human mind, is obviously the only method of arriving at fixed and rational conclusions respecting it ; and I speak with confidence in saying, that a careful study of the passages in this work referred to above, and a clear apprehension of the distinction pointed out between the understanding and the reason,, and of the distinct offices of the latter, as speculative, and as practical reason, will do more to solve the difficulties of the student on matters of this sort, than any or all other discussions of the subject, which he will be likely to meet with in 280 AIDS TO REFLECTION. the English Language. In regaid to the use of terms here it is deserving of remark, tliat Hemy More, one of the most learned and profound phi- losophei-s of the most philosopliical age, has employed the word reason a garly in the same sense as that, in which it is used by Coleridge. Tliis appeal's from tlie extracts before and after the Aphorism, widi which this note is connected, and still more clearly from "the Preface genei-al" to his Philosophical Works. "Take away REASON," he remaiks, "and all re- ligions are ahke tme ; as the light being removed all things ai'e of one col- our." For other exti-acts see note 59th. I might refer to the works of this autlior for examples of a use very similai* to that adopted by Coleridge in regard to the meaning assigned to many other important words besides the one mentioned, as sense, understanding, notion, perception, conceptimi, idea, subject, object, &c. To those, who are not convinced that all true philosophy is to be found in the writers of the last centuiy, and are fond of seeking it in the forgotten folios of a more ancient date, the works of this audior will afford both instruction and amusement. The axioms laid down in the commencement of his treatise on the Immortality of the Soul, and the first Book of his "Antidote against Atheism," are evidence of pro- found philosophical insight into the laws of the human mind and the grounds of our knowledge. The following remarks respecting the man- ner, in which his works should be read, I could wish the reader to apply to the present work. " If any," he says, " expect or desire any general in- struction or preparation for the more profitably perusing of these my wri- tings, I must profess, that I can give none that is peculiar to them, but what vnll fit all writings that are writ with FREEDOM and REASON. And this one royal nde I would recommend for edl, not to judge of the truth of any proposition till we have a settled and determinate apprehension of the terms thereof. Which law, though it be so necessary and indispensable, yet there is none so fi-equently broken as it is : the effect whereof is those many heaps of volummous ^vritings, and inept oppositions and controver- sies that fill the world. Which were impoissible to be, if men had not got a habit of fluttering mere words against one another, without taking no- tice of any determinate sense, and so did fight as it were with so many Hercules' clubs made of pasteboard, which cause a great sound, but do no execution towards the ending of disputes. See note 58. The following on the subject of the Aphorism is from the Friend, vol. 3. pp. 103-106. — Am. Eb.] "We have the highest possible authority, that of Scripture itself, to jus- tify us in putting the question : Whether miracles can, of themselves, work a true conviction in the mind ? There are spiritual truths which must derive their e\idence from within, which whoever rejects, "neither vrillhe believe though a man were to rise from the dead" to confirm them. And under the Mosaic laAv a miracle in attestation of a false doctrine subjected the miracle-worker to death : whether really or only seemingly supemat- NOTES. 281 iiral, makes no difference in the present argument, its power of convin- cing, whatever that power may be, whether great or small, depending on the fulness of the belief in its miraculous nature. Est quibus esse vide- tur. Or rather, that I may express the same position in a form less likely to offend, is not a true efficient conviction of a moral truth, is not " the creating of a new heart," which collects the energies of a man's whole being in the focus of the conscience, the one essential miracle, the same and of the same evidence to the ignorant and the learned, which no supe- rior skill can counterfeit, human or dsemoniacal ? Is it not emphatically that leading of the Father, without which no man can come to Christ ? Is it not that implication of doctrine in the miracle, and of miracle in the doctrine, which is the bridge of communication between the senses and the soul ? Tl^at predisposing warmth that renders the understanding sus- ceptible of the specific impression from the historic, and fi^om all other outward, seals of testimony ? Is not this the one infallible criterion of miracles, by which a man can knoio whether they be of God ? The ab- hon-ence in which the most savage or barbarous tribes hold vntchcrafl, in which however their behef is so intense* as even to control the springs of life, — is not this abhoiTcnce of witchcraft under so full a conviction of its reality a proof, how little of divine, how little fitting to our nature, a mir- acle is, when insulated from spiritual truths, and disconnected from reli- gion as its end ? What then can we think of a theological theoiy, which adoptmg a scheme of prudential legahty, common to it with "the sty of Epicurus" as far at least as the springs of moral action are concerned, makes its whole religion consist in the belief of miracles ! As well might the poor African prepare for himself a fetisch by plucking out the eyes from the eagle or the lynx, and enshrining the same, worship in them the power of vision. As the tenet of professed Christians (I speak of the prm- ciple, not of the men, whose hearts will always more or less correct the er- rors of their understandings) it is even more absurd, and the pretext for such a rehgion more inconsistent than the religion itself. For they profess to derive from it their whole faith in that futurity, which if they had not previously beheved on the e^ddence of their own consciences, of Moses and the Prophets, they are assured by the great Founder and Object of Christianity, that neither will they believe it, in any spiritual and profitable sense, though a man should rise from the dead." y [44] p. 100. The very marked, positive as well as comparative, magnitude and promi- nence of the Bump, entitled Benevolence (^ee Spurzheim's Map of the *I refer the reader to Heame's Travels among the Copper Indians, and to Bryan Edwards' account of the Oby in the West Indies, grounded on judicial documents and personal observation. 36 282 AIDS TO REFLECTION. Human Skully on the head of the late Mr. John Thurtel, has wofuUy un- settled the faith of many ardent Phrenologists, and strengthened the pre- vious 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 nctv-name this and one or two other of these convex gnomons, is quite a different question. At pi-esent, 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 vmindicated Convolutes of the Brain, that secrete honesty and common-sense. The organ of Destructiveness was indu'ectly poten- ziakd by the absence or imperfect developement of the Glands of Reason and Conscience, in tliia " unfortunate GenUeman ."' [45] p. 106. [Those w1k> are disposed to defend the doctrines of Edwards on the subject of the Will, are requested, before they take offence at the language of this passage, to reperuse the Preliminary remarks, p. 87 — 92, and can- didly to examine, in connexion with it, the author's views of original sin, beginning at p. 158, being careful to obtain " a settled and detemiinate ap- prehension" of the several unportant terais made use of The Will, ac- cording to Edwards, "is as the greatest apparent good is." The strongest motive in the view of the understanding detei-mines the Will. — But the motive again, or the greatest apparent good, is as the man is- The man makes the motive. One man fhids a motive to sin, where another would find the strongest incitement to virtue. The detemiining power or cause, then, is in the man, and, keeping in view the distinction between nature and will, the important question is, w^iether this power or determining cause be in his nature or m his ivill. If it be in his nature, and the law of cause and effect, which constitutes his nature, be the law of his will, in other words, if his will be absorbed in that law, and a part of his nature, (see page 183) then whatever evil there may be in the acts of his will must be charged upon his nature ; and if this nature or law of cause and effect, by which his will is detemiined, do not result in any sense fiom a previous act of the will, if it be implanted, inherited, or inflicted, in any way, for which the individual could not be personally responsible, then the evil na- ture of a m£Ln differs nothing in its relation to moral rectitude and moral responsibility fi'om tlie evil nature of a brute. He may feel regret for it, but he should not feel remorse. If on the other hand the determining cause, the moving power or influence be 7iot in his nature, if the act of the will be not predetermined by a cause out of the will, of which it is the effect, so as to be a link in the chain of antecedents and consequents, which we call nature ; then the determining cause must be in the will itself, and the NOTES. 283 will is self-dotermined. If it be an evil will, it must Iiave become m by Its own act, or it is not sinful. If the man's nature have the ascendency and the dominion, so that the will is subjected to the lav/ of the flesh, the law in the members, it must have been self-subjected, and the person is responsi- ble for his evil nature. "For a nature in the will is an evil nature." But there is little gained by multiplying words, and the objections to this view of the subject, that may naturally be cx})ected from those, who are accus- tomed to the New England writei-s, at least all, that are most important, and to which the objector has a right to demand an answer, will find a ra- tional one in the i)assages referred to, and in those, which relate to the of- fice of Reason. — See references in the 43d note, — on tlie general subject of the note, see also note 29. — Am. Ed.] [46] p. 107, At a period, in which Doctor Marsh and Wordsworth have, by the Zealots on one side, been charged with popish principles on account of their Anti-hibliolalry^ and the sturdy adherents of the doctrines common to Luther and Calvin, and the literal interpreters of the Articles and Homilies, are (I ymh. I could say, altogether without any fault of their own) regard- ed by the Clergy generally as virtual Schismatics, Dividers o/*, though not froiih, the Church, it is serving the cause of charity to assist in circulating the follo\ving instructive passage from the Life of Bishop Hackett respect- ing the disputes between the Augustinians, or Luthoro-calvinistic Divines and the Grotians of his age : in which controversy (says his Biographer) he, Hacket, " was ever very moderate." "But having been bred under Bishop Davenant and Dr. Ward in Cam- bridge, he was addicted to then' sentiments. Archbishop Usher would say, that Davenant understood those controversies better than ever any man did since Augustin. But he (Bishop Hackett) used to say, that he was sure, he had three excellent men of his mind hi this controversy. 1. Padre Paolo (Father Paul) whose Letter is extant to Heinsius, aivm 1604. 2. Thomas Aquinas. 3. St. Augustin. But besides and above them all, he beheved 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 Ai-minius himself for his excellent Wit and Pails, but only tax his want of reading and knowledge in Antiquity. And he ever held, it was the foohshest thing in the world to say the Arminians were popisJdy 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 Presbyterians when Jfard and Davenant, and Prideaux, and Brownri^, those stout Champions for Episcopacy, were decided And- Arminians : while Arminius himself was ever a Presbyterian. Therefore he greatly commended the moderation of our Church, which extended equal Communion to both." 284 AIDS TO REFLECTION. [47] p. 108. The gigantic Indian Spider. See Baker's Microscopic Experiments. [48] p. 114. Exempli gratia : at the date of St. Paul's Epistles, the (Roman) World may be resembled to a Mass in the Furnace in the fii-st moment of fusion, here a speck and there a spot of the melted Metal shining pure and bril- liant amid the scum and dross. To have received the name of Christian was a privilege, a liigh and distinguishing favour. No wonder therefore, that in St. Paul's writings the words Elect and Election, often, nay, most often, mean the same as eccaliimeni, ecclesia, i. e. those who have been call- ed out of tlie World : and it is a dangerous pervei-sion 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 tbc accidental circumstance, that the kyriak, JEdes Dominica, Lord's House, Kirk ; and Ecclesia, the sum total of the Eccalumeni, evocati, CaUed-out ; are both rendered by the same word Church. [49] p. 116. Or (I might have added) auTf Idea which does not either identify the Creator vnth the Creation ; or else represent the Supreme Being as a mere impersonal Law or Ordo ordinans, diftering from the Law of Gravitation only by its universality. [50] p. 117. I have elsewhere remarked on tlie assistance which those that labour after distinct conceptions would receive from tlie re-introduction of the tenns objective and subjective, objective and subjective reality, &c. as substi- tutes for real and notional, and to the exclusion of the false antithesis be- tween real and ideal. For the Student in that noblest of the Sciences, the Scire teipsum, the advantage would be especially great*. The few *See the " Selection from Mr. Coleridge's Literary Coire^ondence'^ in Blackwood's Ed. Magazine, for October 1821, Letter ii.p. 244—253, which however, should any of my Readers take the the trouble of consulting, 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 tlie part of the Edi- tor, 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. [Most of the above-mentioned " Selection" will be found in the Appen- dix to this Volume. It is reprinted without any attempt at coiTection. Am. Ed.] NOTES. 2S5 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 tiiith." The words sound paradoxical ; but mean no more than this — ^that the mathematical properties of Figure and Space are not less certainly the properties of Figure and Space because they can never be perfectly realized in wood, stone, or iron. Now this assertion of Eu- ler's might be expressed at once, briefly and simply, by saying, that the pi'operties in question were subjectively true, though not objectively or that the Mathematical Arch possessed a subjective reality^ though incapable of being realized objectively. In hke manner if I had to express my conviction, that Space was not itself a Thing, but a mode or form of perceiving, or the inward ground and condition in the Percipient, in consequence of which Things are seen as outward and co-existing, I convey this at once by tlie 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 miiul, 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 inchvidual Fonn in every Seed and Plant is a Sidjectj and without any exertion of poetic privilege Poets may speak of the Soul of the Flower. But the man would be a Dreamer, who other- wise 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 c/wcwrst2;a fonnas suas sive canonas recipit ab intuitu,) I may be permitted so to elucidate my pre- sent meaning. Every Line may be, and by the ancient Geometricians ims, 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-i)oint, the In- difference of the two poles or coiTclative opposites. Logically applied, the two extremes or poles are named Thesis and Antithesis : thus in the line I T A we have Tr= Thesis, A r=: Antithesis, and I = Punctum Indifferens 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 : fof 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 286 AIDS TO REFLECTION. rz: A. Thus In chemistry Sulphuretted Hydrogen is an Acid relatively to the more powerful Alkalis, and an Alkali relatively to a pow^erful Acid. Yet one other remai'k, and I pass to the question. In order to render the constructions of pure Mathematics applicable to Pliilosophy, the Pythago- reans, 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 lan- guage of that School) transcendent to all pmduction, which it caused but did not paital^e m. 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 Pomt 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 tlie Supreme Being alone, the Pythagorean tetractts ; 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. 42) might be generahzed under the relation of Identity. 2. Thesis or Position. 3. Antithesis, or Opposition. 4. Indifference. (To which when we add the Synthesis or Composition, m its several forms of EquUibrium, as in quiescent Electricity ; of Neu- tralization, 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 tlie five most general Forms or Preconcep- tions 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 ab- stract Notion ? (And if it does mean either of these, the word is super- fluous : and while it remains undetennined 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 finem). But supposing 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 aflirm, 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 Ob- jective ti-uth ; 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 conceiv- ed as subsistmg 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 Syllo- gistic Logic — the science of legitunate conclusions; and the Critical Logic, NOTES. 287 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 Sci- ence ; the Reader will find proofs of the Utility of this Scheme, including the five-fold Division above-stated, and numerous examples of its applica- tion. Nor is it only in Theology that its importance will be felt, but equally, nay in a greater degi'ee, as an instrument of Discovery and universal Me- thod in Physics, Physiology, and Statistics. As this third Section does not pretend 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 Aimexment to the " Elements of Discourse," yet so as that each may be purchased sepamtely. [As the above note, so far at least as it relates to the definition of an idea, will appear very abstmse and unintelligible to many readers, I shall bring together a few exti-acts from other parts of the author's works, for the puii)ose of illustration, though some of them will perhaps not be thought to throw much Ught upon the subject. "There is, strictly speaking, no proper opposition but between thb TWO polar forces of one and the same power. Every power in na- ture AND IN SPIRIT miist evolvt an opposite, as thesole meam and condiiion of its manifestation : and all opposition is a tendency to reunion. This is the universal law of polarity or essential Dualism, first promulga- ted by Heraclitus, 2000 years afterwards re-published, and made the found- ation both of Logic, of Physics, and of Metaphysics by Giordano Bruno. The prmciple may be thus expressed. The Identity of Thesis and Antithesis is the substance of all Being ; their Opposition the condition of all Eristence, or Being manifested ; and every Thing or Phaenomenon is the Exponent of a Synthesis as long as the opposite energies are retained in that Synthesis. Thiis Water is neither Oxygen nor Hydrogen, nor yet is it a commixture of both ; but the Synthesis or Indifference of the two : and as long as the copula endures, by which it becomes Water, or rather which alone is Water, it is not less a simple Body than either of the ima- ginary Elements, improperly called its Ingredients or Components. It is the object of the mechanical atomistic Psilosophy to confound Synthesis with synartesis, or rather with mere juxta-position of Coi-puscles separated by invisible Intei-spaces. I find it difficult to detennine, whether this tlie- ory contradicts tlie Reason or the Senses most : for it is alike inconceiva- ble and unimaginable."— T/ie Fnend, vol. It pp. 155—156. The foUowmg is the continuation of a passage partly inserted in note 29th. " Having thus explained the term Nature, we now more especially en- treat tlie reader's attention to the sense, in which here, and every where 288 AIDS TO REFLECTION. through this Essay, we use the word Idea. We assert, that tlie very im- pulse to universalise any phsenomenon involves the prior assumption of some efficient law in nature, which in a thousand different forms is ever- more one and the same ; entire in each, yet comprehending all ; and in- capable of being abstracted or generahzed from any number of phaenom- ena, because it is itself pre-supposed in each and all as their common ground and condition : and because every definition of a genus is the ad- equate definition of the lowest species alone, while the efficient law must contain the ground of all in all. It is attributed, never derived. The ut- most we ever venture to say is, that the falling of an apple suggested the law of gi-avitation to Sir I. Newton. Now a law and an idea are coitc- lative temis, and differ only as object and subject, as being and truth. Such is the doctnne of the Novum Organum of Lord Bacon, agreeing (as we shall more largely show in the text) in all essential points with the ti'ue doctrine of Plato, the apparent differences being for the greater part occasioned by the Grecian sage having applied his principles chiefly to the investigation of the mind, and the method of evolving its powers, and the English philosopher to the developement of nature. That our great countiyman speaks too often deti'actingly of tlie divine philosopher must be explained, partly by the tone given to thinking minds by the Reform- ation, the founders and fathers of which saw in the Ai'istotelians, or school- men, the antagonists of Protestantism, and in tlie Italian Platonists the despisers and secret enemies of Christianity itself; and partly, by his hav- ing formed his notions of Plato's doctrines fi'om the absurdities and phan- tasms of his mismterpreters, rather than from an unprejudiced study of the original works." — The Friend, vol. 3. pp. 168 — 169. In the next extract the relation of the subjective idea to the coiTelativc law existing objectively in nature, is illustrated by an example, which will probably render the whole subject more intelligible, as well as give some notion of the autlior's views on subjects of physical science. "But in experimental philosophy, it may be said how much do we not owe to accident ? DoublJess : but let it not be forgotten, that if the dis- coveries so made stop there ; if they do not excite some master idea ; if they do not lead to some law (m whatever dress of theory or hypotheses the fashions and prejudices of the time may disguise or disfigure it) : the discoveries may remain for ages limited in their uses, insecure and unpro- ductive. How many centuries, we might have said millennia, have pass- ed, since the first accidental discovery of the attraction and repulsion of light bodies by rubbed amber, &c. Compare the interval with the pro- gress made withui less than a centuiy, after the discovery of the phsenom- ena that led immediately to a theory of electricity. That iicre as in ma- ny other instances, the theory was suppoited by insecure hypotheses ; that by one theorist two heterogeneous fluids are assumed, the vitreous and the resinous ; by another, a plus and minus of the same fluid ; that a third NOTES. considers it a mere modification of light ; while a fourth composes the ^ electrical aura of oxygen, hydrogen, and caloric ; this does but place tlie ti-uth we have been evolving in a stronger and clearer light. For abstract from all these suppositions, or rather imaginations, that which is common to, and involved in them all ; and we shall have neither notional fluid or fluids, nor chemical compounds, nor elementary matter— but the idea of two — opposite— forces, tending to rest by equiMbrium. These are the sole factors of the calculus, alike in all the theories. These give the law, and in it the method, both of arranging the phsenomena and of substantiating appearances into facts of science ; with a success proportionate to the clearness or confusedness of the insight into the law. For this reason, we anticipate the greatest improvements in the method, the nearest approaches to a system of electricity from those philosophers, who have presented the law most purely, and the con-elative idea as an idea : those, namely, who, smce the year 1798, in the true spirit of experimental dynamics, rejecting the imagination of any material substrate, simple or compound, contem- plate in the phsenomena of electricity the operation of a law which reigns through all nature, the law of polarity, or the manifestation of one pow- er by opposite forces: who trace in these appearances, as the most obvi- ous and striking of its innumerable forms, the agency of the positive and negative poles of a power essential to all material construction ; the sec- ond, namely, of the three primary principles, for which the beautiful and most appropriate symbols are given by the mind in the tlu'ee ideal dimen- sions of space."— TAe Friend, vol. 3. p. 186— 188. " The diflTerence, or rather distinction between Plato and Lord Bacon is simply this : that philosophy being necessarily bi-polar, Plato treats piin- cipally of the truth, as it manifests itself at the ideal pole, as the science of intellect (i. e. de mundo mtelligibili) ; while Bacon confines himself, for the most part, to the same truth, as it is manifested at the other, or mate- rial pole, as the science of nature (i. e. de mundo sensibiH). It is as ne- cessary, therefore, that Plato should direct his inquiries chiefly to those objective truths that exist in and for the intellect alone, the images and representatives of which we construct for ourselves by figure, number, and word ; as that Lord Bacon should attach his main concern to the tmths which have their signatures in nature, and which, (as he himself plamly and oflen asserts) may indeed be revealed to us through and ivith, but never hif the senses, or the faculty of sense. Otherwise, indeed, histead of be- ing more objective than the former (which they are not in any sense, both being in this respect the same), they would be less so, anfl in fact, incapa- ble of being insulated from the " Idola tribus quse in ipsa natura humana fundata sunt, atque in ipsa tribu sen gente hominum : cum omnes percep- tiones tam sensus quam mentis, sunt ex analogia hominis non ex analo- gia universi." (N. O. xli.) Hence, too, it will not surprise us, that Plato so oflen calls ideas living laws, in which the mind has its whole true be- 37 290 AIDS TO REFLECTION. ing and permanence ; or that Bacon vice versa, names the laws of nature, ideas ; and represents what we have, in a former part of this disquisition, called facts of science and central phcenomenay as signatures, impressions, and symbols of ideas. A distinguishable power self-affimied, and seen in its miity with the Eternal Essence, is, according to Plato, an Idea : and the discipline, by wliich the human mind is purified from its idols {«i5wAa), and raised to the contemplation of Ideas, and thence to the secure and ever-progressive, though never-ending, investigation of truth and reality by scientific method, comprehends what the same philosopher so highly extols mider the title of Dialectic. According to Lord Bacon, as descri- bing the same truth seen from the opposite point, and appUed to natural philosophy, an idea would be defined as — Intuitio sive inventio, quae in perceptione sensus non est (ut quae purae et sicci luminis Intellectioni est propria) idearum divinse mentis, prout in creaturis per signaturas suas sese patefaciant. That (saith the judicious Hooker) which doth assign to each thing the kind, that which determines the force and power, that which doth appoint the form and measure of working, the same we term a Law. The Friend, vol. 3. p. 210—213. To do justice to the subject of the last extract the whole Essay should have been inserted, but much of it would be alien to the main purpose of the note. I trust however, what is here said of tlie coincidence of the philosophy of Bacon with that of Plato, will awaken the curiosity of some who have been taught to consider them as directly opposed, and lead them to read all that is said upon this subject in the Friend, vol. 3. Essays 7 and 8. If he do so, or take the pains to examine tlie subject at his leisure by comparing the works of those great men, he will be convinced, that at least many of the prevailing notions, respecting the philosophy of Plato, could have originated only in ignorance or misrepresentation. Though his works are often spoken of, and his doctrines alluded to, by Stewart, I remember but few instances, in which he refers to particular passages, and in these he does it on tlie autliority of others. Now to say nothing of what might be considered in any man the presumption, at least the in- expediency, of writing and pubUshing a work of general metaphysics, without first becoming acquainted with works on the subject so lojig and widely celebrated, as those of Plato, it was certainly incumbent on him to speak of what he had not read with extreme caution. That he has not been sufficiently guarded in the representations which he makes of Pla- to's doctrines, is apparent even to those who have but a slight acquaint- ance with the oiiginal ; and there can be no doubt, that both he and Dr. Reid entirely misapprehended the genei-al character of his philosophy. One of the few references to paiticulai* passages is made, in the beginning of his chapter on perception, to the 7th Book of Plato's Republic, "in which," he says, " he compares the process of the mind in perception to that of a person in a cave, who sees not external objects themselves, but NOTES. 291 only their shadows." Now let any scliolar, who lias studied Bacon's No- vum Organum, and can construe a sentence of Greek, read the passage referred to, and compare it with the latter part of the Gth Book, and he ■will find, instead of a fanciful account of the process of i)erception, some- thing indeed about a person in a cave, into which the shadows of objects are thrown, but designed to illustrate a subject entirely different. By comparing it Avith the Novum Organmn, he will be convinced, that Plato is here exhibiting the difficulties and obstructions, which the reason, rag, (lux intellectiis, lumen siccum) finds, in its search afler truth and in the contemplation of ideas, from the unreal pJmntasms, and deceptive idolSf tidiuXi/y (idola tribus, specus, fori, theatri of Ld. Bacon) of the senses and the understanding. I refer to tliis as an instance merely, by which every one may verify for himself the above charges of ignorance and misappre- hension. I have been willing to dwell the longeron this subject, because it is obvi- ously one of great practical impoilemce to the cause of education among us. If it be a fact, that the system of Plato, and tha of Lord Bacon, are essen- tially one and the same, and that both have been gi-ossly misapprehended, while a system of superficial and idea-less materialism has been unwar- rantably associated with the name and authority of the latter, it is surely time for the students in our Colleges and Universities to seek a knowledge of Plato's ideaSj and of Bacon's laws, from Plato and Ld. Bacon themselves, rather than from the popular philosophers of the day. A considerable portion of the Appendix to this Volume will be found to have a bearing upon the subject of tliis note. — Am. Ed.] [51] p. 119. In a letter to a Friend on the mathematical Atheists of the French Re- volution, La Lande and others, or rather on a young man of distinguished abilities, but an avowed and proselyting Paitizan of their Tenets, I conclu- ded with these words : " The man who will believe nothing but by force of demonstrative evidence (even though it is strictly demonstrable that tlie demonstrability required would countervene all the purposes of the Truth in question, all that render the belief of tlie 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 Conscience, and the essential differ- ence between Right and Wrong, I confess, he puzzles me. I cannot with- out gross inconsistency appeal to his Conscience and Moral Sense, or I should admonish him that, as an honest man, he ought to odveHise himself with a Cavete omnes ! Scelus sum. And as an honest man ndyeelf, I dare not advise him on prudential grounds to keej) his opinions seipret, lest I should make myself his accomplice, and be helping him on tvith k Wrap- rascal. 292 AIDS TO REFLECTION. [Many persons, who have never carefully reflected upon the grounds of their belief in the Being and Attributes of God, or learned to distinguis^h between those which are subjective, in the reason and conscience, and to be learned by reflection, (see note 10) and those which are objective, in the order and apparent purpose discovered in tlie world without, may at first be surprised at the declarations of tlie author in the passage, to which this note belongs. A careful exami^iation however, of all his language respect- ing this subject and topics nearly connected with it, in this passage, in notes 43 and 59, and in the Appendix, will satisfy them, I think, not only that his views are not designed, but tliat tliey have no tendency to weak- en and unsettle our faith. According to his view of the subject, the true and abiding ground of all efiicient and living faith in the Being and Attri- butes of the one holy, all-perfect and personal Grod, is to be found not in data, facts given (see p, 177) from without, but by reflecting on and deve- loping the inward and inalienable law of our own rational and personal being. The idea of God being thus formed, and a corresponding object- ive reality believed in, on otlier grounds, such a work as Paley's Natural Theology may do much to illustrate his power and skill, as manifested in the works of his hands, but could never prove to the satisfaction of a mind really sceptical the existence of a first cause corresponding to the rational idea of God. Is it not indeed a fact, notwitlistanding the alnnidant com- mendation bestowed upon the work of Dr. Paley, the dependence placed upon it in our systems of instruction, and the assertion, that a mind un- satisfied with this argument is not to be satisfied at all — is it not a fact, I say, that many young men of ingenuous minds, but at the same time lo- gical and critical in their enquiries, are left unsatisfied with tlie results of tiie work. I fear there are many who, having been taught tliat this is the great and triumphant argument, the sure gi'ound, on which a behef in the existence of God depends, find their faith rather weakened by it than con- firmed, or at best lose more in regard to their views of his character, than they gain in their belief of his existence. It enters, we must remember, mto the very nature of the argument, which Paley has developed, and perhaps no one could have done it more justice, the argument from effects to their causes, I mean, that we can only infer the existence of a cause adequate to the production of the effect. Now what is tlie eflTect, for which Dr. Paley seeks a cause, and from which he infers the existence of God ? Simply the manifestation of design, of an intelligent, perhaps also a benevolent pm-pose, in the works of nature. The cause therefore, accor- ding to Dr. Paley, is an intelligent, probably a benevolent cause ; a being or a power capable of forethought, of forming a paipose and of adapting means to the accomphshment of its purpose. So far too as we can judge^ and so far as the practical purposes of the argument are concerned, this causative agency is unlimited in the choice of its ends, and carries tliem into effect with infinite power and sldll. This seems to me to be a fair NOTES. 293 statement of the inference even in Dr. Paley's view of the subject. But does the cause thus infen*ed answer to our idea of an all-perfect and per- sonal God ? To one acquainted with the distinctions unfolded by Coleridge in subse- quent parts of this work, it would convey my view of the subject, to eay tliat the cause here inferred coiTesponds in kind to the powers of the un- derstanding and the faculty of selection, but does not necessarily involve according to the terms of the argument the distinguishing attributes of personahty, viz. reason, self-concipusness, and free-will. But as the read- er is not supposed to have adopted those distinctions, I beg him to con- sider whether we have not experience, that a power, the same in kind with that to which Dr. Paley's argument, if taken strictly, leads us, may exist independently and free from any supposed conjunction with the at- ti'ibutes, whatever they are, which constitute personality. For proof, tliat we have, I refer him to the passage of this work in pp. 137 — 154, and if in connexion with this he will carefully and candidly reflect on the notion which he attaches to the v/ords person and personality, and why it is, that his reason revolts at the thought of addressing a brute, as a personal and responsible being, however remarkable his powers may be as a brute, he cannot but be convinced, that there is something in personahty and the at- tributes constituting it, which lays the gi'ound of a most sacred and invio- lable distinction. He will be convinced that no possible addition to the degree of those powers, which belong in common to rational and in-ational beings, could ever invest a brute agent with the attributes of personahty ; that there must therefore be a difference in kind, and not in degree only, between those beings to which the notion of personality attaches, and those to which we cannot api)ly it without a conscious feeling of its ab- surdity ; and that there must be a very great defect and inadequacy in an argument for the existence of God, which proves at best only the exis- tence of a power, which may or may not. co-exist with pei-sonality. In his chapter on the personality of the Divine Being, Dr. Paley says : " CONTRIVANCE, if established, appears to me to prove eveiy thing, which we wish to prove. Amongst other things it proves the personality of the Deity. That, which can contrive, which can design, must be a person." Now let me ask any reader to examine the proofs referred to above, or to recall the facts of his own experience, and say, whether iiTational, brute beings do not contrive, whether they do not design, whetlier they do not perceive, an end, provide means, and direct them to their end ; and whether, if they can and do manifest these powers, it will follow tliat they are per- sons. If it be a difference of degi'ees merely, there is surely far less dif- ference between brutes and men, than between man and his creator ; and there could not be the absurdity, which we should nevertheless be con- scious of committing, in extending the term to them. If it be not a dif- ference of degrees, if personality involves a difference in kind, and a dif- ference, which ji; the ground of a vast and most sacred distinction, then 294 AIDS TO REFLECTION. Dr. Paley's argument seems to me to fall far short of proving the exist- ence of a behig correspondhig to tlie rational idea of God. The truth is the argument from effect to cause in tliis case, as presented by Dr. Paley, hicludes two distinct things. It infers Jlrst the existence of a cause adequate to the effect. This we do by virtue of a proposition, which, though syntlietic, results fi'om the inherent forms or laws of the human understanding, and is the necessary ground of experience. (See note 67). But secondly it infers the existence of a cause corresponding m its subjective cJmractei', or as it is in itself, to the character of the effect, or at least of a cause analogous to known causes, which produce similar effects. Now the question arises, whether in either case the inference is authorized or required by the same laws of thought in tlie understanding, as the fust in- ference. We see certain effects, means adapted to ends &c., where the cau- sative agency is put forth by men, by rational, personal agents. We disco- ver similar effects in the works of nature, which must be traced to an invisi- ble, unknovm cause. How far are we directed by the authority of reason, or required by the laws of tlie understanding, to infer the nature of the cause here from the nature of the effect, or from the similarity of the effects in the two cases to infer a similarity of the unknown cause to that which is known? Dr. Paley's inference is, that the unknown cause is an intelligent, personal agent, corresponding in kind to the highest known agency, which produces similar effects. But we have seen, I think, that similar effects may be produced by a power inferior in kind, neither rational, nor person- al. How then do we know, or how can we learn by this process of ar- guing, that the unknown cause of those effects, which Dr. Paley has ex- hibited, that the mysterious and dread ground of being in all, that exists and tliat we call nature, is not a necessitated as well as a necessaiy Being or that it is even self-conscious and intelligent. If now, as I trust will be the case, the reader shrinks with a conscious feeling of dread and abhorrence from such a conclusion, as impious^ I would earnestly beg of him not to charge it upon me, and at the same time warn him not to ascribe the feeling, which such a conclusion woidd awa- ken, to any convictions of the being and attributes of a personal God, which the supposed strength and influence of Paley's argument may have been thought to produce. That faith in the Bemg of God, and that rever- ence for his holy and perfect character, in virtue of whicli we shrink from atheism, as a violation of our moral being, as absurd and impious, lie far deeper, than those convictions of the mere undei-standing, " the faculty judging according to sense," which may have been derived from the argu- ment in question. — Am. Ed.] [62] p. 124. Virium et ])roprietatiun, quae non nisi de 6'u6stantibus predicari possunt, formis suj^erstantibus Attributio, est SurERsxiTio. NOTES. 295 [53J p. 128. See pp. 42—44. [The reader is requested to connect with the subject of this Aphorism and Comment, also note 29, and the passage in the text at pp. 200 — ^218. To those, who wish to examine closely the creed of the author, it will be of use also to refer here to the whole article on Redemption, beginning at p. 184.— Am. Ed.] [54] p. 134. [The following is tlie passage refen-ed to in the text extracted from his firet Lay Sermon or the Statesman's Manual. — ^Am. Ed.] " In nothing is Scriptural history more strongly contrasted with tlie his- tories of highest note in the i)resent age, than in its freedom fiom the hol- lo wness of abstractions. While the latter present a shadow-fight of Things and Quantities, the former gives us the history of Men, and balances the impoitant influence of individual Minds with the previous state of the national morals and manners, in which, as constituting a specific suscep- tibility, it presents to us the ti'ue cause both of the Inuflence itself, and of the Weal or Woe that were its Consequents. How should it be other- wise ? The liistories and political economy of the present and preceding century partake in the general contagion of its mechanic philosophy, and are the product of an unenhvened generalizing Understanding. In the Scriptures they are the living educts of the Imagination ; of that reconci- ling and mediatory power, which incorporating the Reason in Images of the Sense, and organizing (as it were) the flux of the Senses by the per- manence and self-circling energies of the Reason, gives birth to a system of symbols, harmonious in themselves, and consubstantial with the truths, of which they are the coiiductors. These ai'e the Wheels which Ezekiel beheld, when the hand of the Lord was upon him, and he saw \isions of God as he sate among the captives by the river of Chebar. Whithersoever the Spiiit was to gOj the wheels weiU, and thither was their spirit to go : for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels also. The trutlis and the symbols that represent them move in conjunction and form the living cha- riot that bears up (for us) the tlirone of the Divine Humanity. Hence, by a derivative, indeed, but not a divided, influence, and though in a second- ary yet in more than a metapliorical sense, the Sacred Book is wcrdiily intitled the word of god. Hence too, its contents present to us the stream of time continuous as Life and a symbol of Eternity, inasmuch as the Past and the Futui*e are virtually contained in the Present. According therefore to our relative position on its banks the Sacred Histoiy becomes })rophetic, the Sacred Prophecies historical, while the power and substance of both inhere in its Laws, its Promises, and its Comminations. In the Scriptures therefore both Facts and Persons must of necessity have a two- gp6 AIDS TO REFLECTION. f{>ld significance, a past and a future, a temporary and a perpetual, a par- ticular and a universal application. They must be at once Portraits and Ideals, Eheu! paupertina philosophia in paupertinam religionem ducit: — A hunger-bitten and idea-less philosophy naturally produces a starveling and comfortless rehgion. It is among the miseries of the present age that it recognizes no medium between Literal and Metaphorical. Faith is ei- ther to be buried in the dead letter, or its name and honors usurped by a counterfeit product of the mechanical imderstanding, which in the blindness of self-complacency confounds symbols with allegories. Now an Allegory is but a ti-anslation of abstract notions into a picture-language which is itself nothing but an absti-action from objects of the senses ; the principal being more worthless even than its phantom proxy, both alike unsubstantial, and the former shapeless to boot. On the other hand a Sym- bol (6 hiv ati ruvTf^yopixoj) is characterized by a translucence of the Special in the Individual, or of the General in the Especial, or of the Universal in the General. Above all by the transhicence of the Eternal through and in the Temporal. It always partakes of the Reahty which it renders in- telligible ; and while it enunciates the whole, abides itself as a living part in that Unity, of which it is the representative. The other are but empty echoes which the fancy arbitrarily associates with apparitions of matter, less beautiful but not less shadowy than the sloping orchard or hill-side pasture-field seen in the transparent lake below. Alas ! for the flocks that are to be led forth to such pastures ! " It shall even he as when the hungry dreameth, and behold ! he eateth ; bid he waketh and his soul is empty : or as when the thirsty dreaineth, and behold he drinketh : but he awaketh and is faint /" (Isaiah xxix. 8.) O ! tliat we would seek for the bread which was given from heaven, that we should eat thereof and be strengthened ! O that we would draw at the well, at which the flocks of our forefathers had living water dra%\Ti for them, even that water which, instead of mocking the thirst of him to whom it was given, becomes a well within himself spiing- ing up to life everlasting ! When we reflect how large a part of our present knowledge and civil- ization is owing, directly or indu*ectly, to the Bible ; when we are com- pelled to admit, as a fact of history, that the Bible has been the main Lev- er by which the moral and intellectual character of Europe has been rais- ed to its present comparative height ; we should be struck, methinks, by the marked and prominent diflTerence of this Book from the works which it is now the fashion to quote as guides and authorities in morals, politics and histoiy. I will point out a few of the excellencies by which the one is distmguished, and shall leave it to your own judgment and recollection to perceive and apply the contrast to the productions of highest name in these latter days. In the Bible eveiy agent appeai-s aaid acts as a self-sub- sisting individual : each has a hfe of its own, and yet all are one lilfe. The NOTES. 297 elements of necessity and free-will are reconciled in the higher power of an omnipresent Providence, that predestmates the whole in the moral freedom of the integral parts. Of this the Bible never suffei-s us to lose sight. The root is never detached from the ground. It is God every where : and all creatures conform to his decrees, the righteous by perfor- mance of the law, the disobedient by the sufferance of the penalty." [See also notes 33 and 66. — Am. Ed.] [55] p. 135. [The Essay in the Friend referred to in the text, will be found entire in note 59, and the Appendix to the Statesman's Manual, in the Appendix to tliis volume. — Am. Ed.] [56] p. 136. There is this advantage in the occasional use of a newly minted term or title expressing the doctiinal schemes of particular 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, 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 occasional accompaniment of the principles denied by the parties themselves, as apphcable to them collectively. On the other hand, convinced as I am, that cun-ent appellations are never wholly indifferent or inert ; and that, when employed to express the cha- racteristic BeUef 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 be- yond what the duties of courtesy can demand or justify. In a tract pubhshed in the year 1816, 1 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 indistinguishable Unicity or sameness, are incompatible tenns. 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 Sameness, 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 appropriated by the Sect, and in which they mean it to be understood, it is a presumptuous Boast and an unchari- table calumny. No one of the Churches to which they on this article of the Christian Faith stand opposed, Greek or Latin, ever adopted the term, Trini — or Tri-uni-tarians as then- ordinary and proper name : and had it 38 293 AIDS TO REFLECTIOX. been otherwise, yet Unity is assuredly no logical Opposite to Tri-uniiy, which expressly includes it. The triple Alliance is a fortiori Alliance. The true designation of their characteristic Tenet, and which would sim- ply and inoffensively express a fact admitted on all sides, is Psilaiithropism or the assertion of the mere humanity of Christ." I dare not hesitate to avow my regiet, that any scheme of doctrines or tenets should be the subject of penal law : though I can easily con- ceive, that any scheme, however excellent in itself, may be propagated, and however false or injurious, may be assailed, in a manner and by means that would make the Advocate or Assailant justly punishable. But then it is the mannei-, the means, that constitute the crim^. The merit or demerit of the Opinions themselves depends on their originating and de- termining causes, which may differ in every different Behever, 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 conse- quent hardship. Judging by all that we can pretend to know or are en- titled 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 liis love, as he was intrepid and indefatigable in his pursuit, of Truth? Now let us con- struct three parallel tables, the fii-st containing the Articles of Belief, moral and theological, maintained by the venerable Hooker, as the representative of the Established Church, each article l)eing distinctly lined and number- ed; the second the Tenets and Persuasions of Lord Herbeit, as the repre- sentative of the platonizing Deists; and the third, those of Dr. Priesiley. Let the points, in which the second and third agree mth or differ from the first, be considered as to the comparative number modified by the comparative weight and importance of the several points — and let any competent and upright Man be appointed the Arbiter, to decide according to his best judgement, without any reference to the truth of the opinions, which of the two differed from the first 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 hberality towards the persons who dissent from us. On the contraiy, I more than suspect that the former hberality does in too many men arise from a latent pre-dispo- sition to transfer their reprobation and intolerance from the Doctrines to the Doctoi-s, from the Belief to the Believers. Indecency, Abuse, Scoffing on subjects dear and a^vfuI to a multitude of our fellow-citizens — Appeals to the vanity, appetites, and malignant passions of ignorant and incompe- tent 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 feels it his duty to hold himself infallible, and dares not hesitate in giving utterance to the verdict NOTES." 299 of Ills conscience, in the Jury-box as fearlessly as by his fireside. It is far otherwise with respect to matters of faith and inwaixl 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 liis 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 do.es not necessarily make tlie man a heretic ; but an evil heart can make any doc- trine heretical. Actuated by these principles, I have objected to a false and deceptive designation in tlie case of one System. Pei-suaded, that the doctrines, enimierated in p. 127 — 128, are not only esseiUial to the Christian Religion, but those which contra-distinguish the rehgion as Chrisiian, I merely repeat this persuasion in an other form, when I assert, that (in my sense of the word, Christian) unitarianism is not Christianity. But do I say, tliat those, who call themselves Unitarians, are not Christians? God forbid' I would not think, much less promulgate, a judgement at once so pre- sumptuous 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 kuidness towards me as his Neighbour and Fellow-christian. This latter and most endearing name I scarcely know how to withhold even from my friend, Htman Hurwitz, as often as I read wliat every Reverer of Holy Writ and of the English Bible ought to read, his admirable VmniciiE HEBRAicie! It has trembled on the verge, as it were, of my lips, eveiy time I have conversed with that pious, learned, strong-minded, and single-hearted Jew, an Israehtc 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 \dvam secum, secum requiescam, Nee fiat melior sors mea sorte sua ! From a poem of Hildehert on Ms Master, the persecuted Berengarius. Under the same feelings I conclude this Aid to Reflection by appljdng the principle to another misnomer not less inappropriate and far more in- fluential. Of those, whom I have found most reason to respect and value, many have been members of the Church of Rome : aud certainly I did not honour those the least, who scrupled even in common parlance to call our Church a Refomied Church. A similar scruple would not, methinks, disgrace a protestant as to the use of the words, Catholic or Roman CathoUc ; and if (tacitly at least, and in thought) he remembered that the 300 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 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 Courtf and the local Tribunals of the City of Rome ; and neitlier are or ev- er have been Catholic, i. e. univei-sal, throughout the Roman Empire, or even in tlie whole Latin or Western Church — and .^n/i-catholic, because no other Church acts on so narrow and excommunicative a principle, or is characterized by such a jealous spirit of monopoly. Instead of a Cath- olic (universal) spirit it may be ti'uly described as a spirit of particularism counterfeiting CathoUcity by a negative totality and heretical self-circum- scription — ^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 conveyhig my reflections in his own words, in the following golden passages firom his Life, "faithfully pub- lished from his own original MSS. by Mathew Sylvester, 1696." " My censures of the Baptists 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 misex- pressions and misunderstanding us, with our mistakes of them and incon- venient expressions of our own opinions, have made the difference in most points appear much gi-eater 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 usui^pations of their Hierarchy, and Priesthood, under the name of spuitual authority exercising a temjioral 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 Baptist cannot go beyond a reprobate ; but now I doubt not that God hath many sancti- fied ones among them who have received the true doctrine of Christianity so practically that their contradictory errors are like a conquerable dose of poison which a healthfid nature doth overcome. And I can never believe that a man may not he saved by that religion, which doth but hing him to the true,love of God and to a heavenly mind and life : nor that God vnU ever cast a Sovl into hell, that truly loveth him. Also ,at first it Avould disgi-ace any doctrine with me if I did but hear it called Popery and anti-chiistian ; but I have long learned to be more impartial, and to know that Satan can use even the names of Popery and Antichrist, to bring a truth into sus- picion and discredit." — Baxter's Life, part I. p. 131. [57] p. 143. According as we attend more or less to the differences, the Sort becomes, of course, more or less comprehensive. Hence there arises for the system- atic Naturalist the necessity of subdividing the Sorts hito Orders, Classes, NOTES. 301 Families, &c. : all which, however, resolve themselves for the mere Logi- cian into the conception of Genus and Species, i. e. the comprehending, and the comprehended. [68] p. 144. 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 lengtli of our own foot, or of our hand and ami from the elbow joint, it is evident that in order to do this we must have the con- ception of Measure. Now these antecedent and most general Conceptions are what is meant by the constituent /orww of the Understanding : we call them constituent because they are not acquired by the Understanding, but are impUed in its constitution. As rationally might a Circle be said to ac- quire 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 fai intellectii quod non prius in Sensu ( There is nothing in the Understanding not derived from tlio Senses, or — There is nothing co?iceived that was not previously per- ceived); he replied — praeter intellectum' ipsum (except tlie understanding itself). And here let me remark for once and all: whoever would reflect to any pui-jjose — whoever is in earnest in his pursuit of Self-knowledge, and of one of the principal means to this, an insight into the meaning of the words he uses and the different meanings properly or improperly conveyed by one and the same word, accordhig as it is used in the Schools or the Market, according as the kind or a high degree is intended (ex. gr. Heat, Weigh*, &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 pedantiy, 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 expressed 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 lan- guage he uses in strict reasoning, is as his Watch compared with the Chronometer in his Observatory. He sets the fornier by the Town-clock, or even, perhaps, by the Dutch clock in his kitchen, not because he be- lieves it right, but because his neighbours and his Cookg-o by it. To af- ford the reader an opportunity for exercising the forbearance here recom- mended, I turn back to the phrase, "most general Conceptions," and ob- serve, that in strict and severe propriety of language I should have said generali/ic or generiflc rather than general, and Concipiences or Conceptive Acts rather tlian conceptions. It is an old Complaint, that a Man of Genius no sooner appcai-s, 302 AIDS TO BEFLECTIOPf. J>ut the Host of Dunces are up in arms to repel the mvading AUen. Tliis observation would have made more converts to its truth, I suspect, had it l>een worded more dispassionately, and with a less contemirtuous antithe- sis. For " Dunces" let us substitute " the Many,'" or the '' oito; y.oauog'' [litis loorld) of the Apostle, and we shall perhaps find no great difficulty m accounting for the fact. To amve at the root^ indeed, and last Ground of tlie 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 tiibes of North America, or the yet ruder Natives of the Indian Isles, to learn how shght a degree of Difference will, in uncultured minds, call up a sense of Diversity, an inward perplexity and contradiction, as if the Strangers were and yet were not of the same kind with themselves. Who has not had occasion to observe tlie effect which the gesticulations and nasal tones of a Frenchman produce on our' own Vulgar? Here we may see the origin and primaiy import of om- " Unkindness.^'* It is a sense of Unkind, 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 Pindai*'s remark on sweet Music holds equally true of Genius : as many as are not delighted by it are disturbed, perplexed, initated. The beholder either recognizes it as a projected Form of liis own Being, that moves before him with a Gloiy 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 })roximate causes. And as the first I would rank the person's not understanding what yet he expects to un- derstand, and as if he had a right to do so. An original IMathematical Work, or any other that requires peculiar and (so to say) technical marks and symbols, will excite no uneasy feelings — ^not m the mind of a compe tent Reader, for he understands it ; and not with othei*s, because tliey nei iher expect nor are expected to understand it. The second place we may assign to the JViisunderstanding, which is almost sure to follow in cases where the incompetent person, finding no outward marks (Diagrams, ar- bitraiy 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 deti-act from his estimation as a man of abihties generally, imll attach some meaning to what lie hears or reads ; and as he is out of hu- mour with the Author, it will most often be such a meaning as he can quarrel with and exhibit in a ridiculous or offensive point 6f view. But above all, the whole World almost of Minds, as far as regards intel- lectual efforts, may be divided into two classes of the Busy-indolent and Lazy-indolent. To both alike all Thinking is painful ; and all attempts to rouse them to think, whether in the re-examination of their existing Con- NOTES. 303 victions, or for tho reception of new light, are irritating. "It nmy all be veiy deep and clever ; but really one ought to be quite sure of it before one wrenches onp'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 wc have a right to relaxation and amusement." Well ! but in their studious hours, when their Bow is to be bent, when they are apud MusaSy or amidst the Muses ? Alas ! it is just the same 1 The same craving for amusement i. e. to be away from the Muses ! for re- • laxaiion, i. e. the unbending of a Bow which in fact had never been strung ! There ai*e 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 dinj rea- ding, the keeping company with themselves is, after all, the insufferable annoyance : and the true secret of their dislilce to a work of Thought and Inquiry lies in its tendency to make them acquainted with their own per- manent Being. The other road to their favour is to introduce to them their own thoughts and predilections, tricked out in the Jine language, in which it would gratify their vanity to express them in their own conver- versation, and with which they can imagine themselves shoiving off": and tliis (as has been elsewhere remarked) is the characteristic difference be- tween 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 simj)lest and most native language ; in the former the most obvious and common-place thoughts in the most far-fetched and motley language. But lasdy, and as the sine qua 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 Gen- ius, 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 Reseai'ch to the capacity of the People, presenting in the Concrete, by instances and examples, what had been as- certained in the Abstract and by disco veiy of the Law. JS/ow 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 intellectu- al Excellence. P. S. In a continuous work, the fi-equent insertion and length of Notes would need an Apology : in a book of Aphorisms and de- tached Comments none is necessary, it being understood beforehand, that the Sauce and the Garnish are to occupy the greater part of the Dish. S. T. C. 304 AIDS TO REFLECTION. [59] p. 145. Take a familiar illustration. My Sight and Touch convey to me a certain impression, to which my Understanding applies it's pre-conceptions [concepttis antecedentes et generalissimi) of Quantity and Relation, and thus refers it to the Class and Name of three-cornered Bodies — ^we will sup- pose 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 equilateral) 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 pro- portion has been found without exception till at length it becomes a fact of experience, that in cdl Triangles,- hitherto seen, the two sides are greater than the third : and there will exist no ground or analogy for an- ticipating 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 animals, if not in the same, yet 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 Experience remains commensurate with the experimental notices of the senses, fi-om which it is generalized. Reason, on the other hand, either predetermines 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 Experiment verify, nor Experience confirm. Yea, this is the test and character of a truth so affirmed, that in its own proper fonn it is inconceivable. For to conceive is a function of the Under- standing, 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 conti'adictory conceptions, each of which is partially true, and the conjunction of both conceptions becomes the representative or expression (=:the exponent) of a truth beyond concei)tion and inexpressible. Exam- ples. Before Abraham tvas, 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 in- deed learn from another, but which (were this possible) I might have NOTES. oUO learnt from Plato, Kepler, and Bacon; from Luther, Hooker, Pascal, Leibnitz, and Fenelon. But in this last pai-agraph I have, I see, un- wittingly overetepped my purpose, according to which we were to tako Reason as a smiply intellectual power. Yet even as such, and with all the disadvantage of a technical and arbitrary Abstraction, it has been made evident — 1. that there is an intuition or iwimediate Beholding, ac- companied by a conviction of the necessity and universaUty of the truth so beheld not derived from the Senses, which Intuition, when it is con- strued by pure Sense, gives buth to the Science of Mathematics, and when applied to Objects supersensuous or spiritual, is the Organ of Theology and Philosophy; — and 2. that there is likewise a reflective and discursive 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 generahzing the Notices of the Senses, constitutes Sensible Experience, and gives rise to Maxims or Rules, which may become more and more general^ but can never be raised to universal Verities, or beget a consciousness of absolute Certainty ; though they may be sufl[icient 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 com- pare 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 con- formable to the laws and purposes of Language, to call two so altogether disparate Subjects by one and the same name ? Or, having two names in our language, should we call each of the two diverse subjects by both — 1. e. by either name, as caprice might dictate ? If not, then as we have the two words. Reason and Understanthng (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 fi'om 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 " SJie always concludes j-ationallij, though not a Woman of much Understanding^^) to see, that we cannot reverse the order — i. e, call the higher Gift Understanding, and the lower, Reason. What should prevent us — I asked. Alas! that which has prevented us — the cause of this confu- sion in the terms — is only too obvious : viz. inattention to the momentous distinction in the things, and (generally) to tlie duty and habit recommend- ed 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 doc- trme, bhndness of Heart and contempt of the Word," is best declared by the philosophic Apostle : "they did not like to retain God in their knowledge," 39 306 AIDS TO REFLECTION. (Rom. L 28,) and though thoy could not extinguish " the Light that hghteth every man,''^ and which " shone in the Darkness ;" yet because the Dark ness could not comprehend the Light, they refused to bear witness of the Light, and worshipped, instead, the shapmg 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 (t. c. by super-indu- cing on the animal instinct the principle of Self-consciousness). [The subject of the Comment to which this note is attached, and of the note itself, I consider, and it is indeed represented by the author, as very essential to the right apprehension of the whole system. The distinction between reason and the understanding, and that between nature and the free-will, are indeed the ground of all that is most peculiar and important in the author's views ; and I have wished particularly to aid the reader, as far as may be, in obtaining a distinct notion of their import. The passages, which best illustrate the latter distinction, were referred to in note 29 ; and I propose to bring together, here, the means of illustrating the former, bo far as I can well find them in the w^orks of the author. The following Es- say is the one referred to, p. 135 and note 55, and is from the Friend, vol. 1, p. 2(53 — ^277. In connexion with it the reader is requested to peruse note [C] in the appendix to the Statesman's Manual, near the end of this volume. See also note 43^ and the references there made, and note 66.j "In tlie Appendix to his first Lay Sermon, the Author has indeed treat- ed tlie question at considerable length, but chiefly in relation to the heights of Theology and Metaphysics. In tlie next number he attempts to ex- plain himself more popularly, and trusts that with no great expenchture of attention the reader will satisfy his mind, that our remote ancestoi-s spoke as men acquainted with the constituent parts of their own moral and in- tellectual being, when they described one man as being out of his senses^ anotlier as oui of his wits, or deranged in his understanding, and a third as having lost his reason. Observe, the understanding may be deranged, weak- ened, or perverted; but the reason is either lost or not lost, that is, wholly present or wholly absent." ESSAY. Man may rather be defined a rehgious than a rational character, in re- gard that in other creatures there may be something of Reason, but there is nothing of Rehgion. Harrington. If the Reader will substitute the word " Understanding" for "Reason," and the word "Reason" for "Religion," Harrington has here completely expressed the Truth for which the Friend is contending. But that this was Hanington's meaning is evident. Otherwise instead of comparing two faculties witli each other, he would contrast a faculty with one of its own objects, which would involve the same absurdity as if he had said, \ NOTE«. S07 thJat man might rather be defined an astronomical than a seeing animal, because other animals possessed the sense of Sigiit, Ijut Were incapable of l)eholding tlie satellites of Saturn, or the nebulae of fixed stare. If further confirmadon Ije neceseaiy, it may be supplied by the following re- flection, the leading thought of which I remember to have read in tho works of a continental Philosopher. It shotild seem easy to give tlie de- finite distinction of the Reason from the Understanding, because we con- stantly imply it when we speak of the difference betwieen ourselv^ and the brute creation. No one, except as a figure of speech, ever s{>eaks of aa animal reason f" but that many animals possess a share of Understand- ing, perfectly distinguishable from mere Instinct, we all allow. Few persons have a favorite dog without making instances of its intelligence an occa- sional topic of conversation. They call for our admiration of the individ- ual animal, and not with exclusive reference to the Wisdom in Nature, as in the case of the storgk or maternal instinct of beasts ; or of the heiaii- gular cells of the bees, and tlxe wonderful coincidence of this fomi with the geometrical demonstration of the largest possible number of rooms in a given space. Likewise, we distinguish various degrees of Understanding there, and even discover, from inductions supplied by the Zoologists, tljat the Understanding appears (as a general rule) in an inverse proportion to the Instinct. We hear little or nothing of the instincts of "the half-rea- soning elephant," and as httle of the Understanding of Cater})illars and Butterflies. (N. B. Though reasoning does not in our language, in the lax use of words natural in conversation or popular Avritings, imply scien- tific conclusion, yet the phrase "half-reasoning" is evidently used by Pope as a poetic hyperbole.) But reason is wholly denied, equally to the high- est as to the lowest of the brutes ; otlienvise it must be wholly attributed to them, and with it therefore Self-consciousness, and persontditi/, or IMoral Being." I should have no objection to define Reason %vith Jacobi, and with his *I have this moment looked over a Translation of Blumenbach's Plivsi- ology by Dr. Elliotson, which forms a glaiing exception, p. 45. I do not know Dr. Elliolson, but I do know Professor Blumenbach, and was an as- siduous attendant on the Lecmres, of which this classical work was the text-book : and I know that that good and great man woidd start back with surprise and indignation at the gross materiaUsm morticed on to his work : the more so because during the whole |>eriod, in which the identi- fication of Man with the Brute in kind was the fashion of NaturaUsts, Blu- menbach remained ardent and instant in controvertijig the opmion, and exjwsing its fallacy and falsehood, both as a man of sense and as a Natu- ralist. I may truly say, that it was uppermost in his heart and foremost in his speech. Therefore, and from no hostile feeling to Dr. Elliotson (whom I hear spoken of with great regard and respect, and to whom I mvsplf give credit for his manly openness in the avowal of his opinions) I have f«lt the present animadversion a duty of justice as well as gratitude. S. T. C.S April, 1817. 308 AIDS TO REFLECTIOIC. friend Hemsterhuis, as an organ bearing the same relation to spiritual ob- jects, the Universal, the Eternal, and the Necessaiy, as the eye bears to material and contingent phaenomcna. But then it must be added, that it is an organ identical with its appropriate objects. Thus, God, the Soiil, eternal Truth, &c. are the objects of Reason ; but they are themselves reason. We name God the Supreme Reason ; and Milton says, " Whence the Soul Reason receives, and Reason is her Being." Whatever is conscious 5'e?/^knowledge is Reason ; and in this sense it may be safely defined the organ of the Supersensuous ; even as the Understanding wherever it does not possess or use the Reason, as another and inward eye, may be defined the conception of the Sensuous, or the faculty by which we generalize and arrange the phsenomena of perception : that fac- ulty, the functions of which contain the rules and constitute the possibiHty of outward Experience. In short, the Understanding supposes something that is imderstood. This may be merely its own acts or forms, that is, for- mal Logic ; but real objects, the materials of substantial knowledge, must be furnished, we might safely say revealed^ to it by Organs of Sense. The understanding of the higher Brutes has only organs of outwai-d sense, and consequently material objects only ; but man's understanding has likewise an organ of inward sense, and therefore the power of acquainting itself with mvisible reahties or spiritual objects. This organ is his Reason. Again, the Understanding and Experience may exist^ without Reason. But Reason cannot exist without Understanding ; nor does it or can it ma- nifest itself but in and through the understanding, which in our elder wri- ters is ofl;en called discourse, or the discursive faculty, as by Hooker, Lord Bacon, and Hobbes : and an understanding enlightened by reason Shaks- pear gives as the contra-distinguishing character of man, under the name discourse of reason. In short, the human understanding possesses two dis- tinct organs, the outward sense, and "the mind's eye" which is reason: wherever we use that phrase (the mind's eye) in its proper sense, and not as a mere synonyme of tlie memoiy or the fancy. In this way we recon- cile tlie promise of Revelation, that the blessed will see God, with tlie de- clai'atioji of St. John, God hath no one seen at any time. We will add one other illustration to prevent any misconception, as if Ave were dividing the human soul into different essences, or ideal persons. In this piece of steel I acknowledge tlie propeities of hai'dness, brittleness, *Of this no one would feel inclined to doubt, who had seen the poodle dog, whom the celebrated Blumexbach, a name so dear to science, as a physiologist and Comparative Ajiatomist, and not less dear as a man, to all Englishmen who have ever resided at Gottingen in the coui-se of their education, trained uj), not only to hatch tiie eggs of the hen with all the mother's care and i)atience, but to attend the chickens afterwards, and find the food for them. I have myself known a Newfoundland dog who watched and guarded a family of young children with all the intelligence of a nurse, during their walks. NOTES. 309 high polish, and the capability of forming a miiTor. I find all these like- wise in the plate glass of a friend's carriage ; but in adilition to all these, I find the quality of transparency, or the power of transmitting as well as of reflecting the rays of light. The application is obvious. If the I reader therefore will take the trouble of bearing in mind these and the following explanations, he will have removed beforehand every possible difficulty from the Friend's political section. For there is another use of the word. Reason, arising out of the former indeed, l>ut less de- fimteTHhd more exposed to misconception. In this latter use it means the understanding considered as using the Reason, so far as by the organ of Reason only we possess the ideas of the Necessary and the Universal ; and this is the more common use of the word, when it is applied with any attempt at clear and distinct conceptions. In this narrower and derivative sense the best definition of Reason, which I can give, will be found in the third member of the following sentence, in which the understanding is described hi its three-fold operation, and from each receives an appropri- ate name. The Sense, (vis sensitiva vel intuitiva) perceives : Vis regula- trix (the understanding, in its own peculiar operation) conceives: Vis ra- tionalis (the Reason or rationalized understanding) comprehends. The first is impressed through the organs of sense ; the second combines these mul- tifarious impressions into individual JVbtioiiSy and by reducing these notions to Rules, according to the analogy of all its former notices, constitutes Ex- perience ; tlie third subordinates both these notions and the rules of Ex- perience to ABSOLUTE PRINCIPLES or ncccssaiy Laws : and thus, concern- ing objects, which our experience has proved to have real existence, it de- monstrates, moreover, in what way they are possible, and in doing this con- stitutes Science. Reason, therefore, in this secondary sense, and used not as a spiritual Organ but as a Faculty (namely, the Understanding or Soul enlightened by that organ) — Reason, I say, or the scientific Faculty, is the Intellection of the possibility or essential properties of things by means of the Laws that constitute them. Thus the rational idea of a Circle is that of a figure constituted by the circumvolution of a straight line with its one end fixed. Every man must feel, that though he may not be exerting different fac- ulties, he is exerting his faculties in a different way, when in oiie instance he begins with some one self-evident truth, (that the radii of a circle, for instance, are all equal,) and in consequence of this being true sees at once without any actual experience, that some other thing must be true likewise and that, this being true, some third thing must be equally true, and so on till he conies, we will say, to the properties of the lever, considered as tlie spoke of a circle ; which is capable of having all its marvellous powers demonstrated even to a savage who had never seen a lever, and without supposing any other [)revious knowledge in his mind, but this one, tliat there is a conceivable figure, all possible lines fi-om the middle to the cir- cumference of which are of the same length : or when, hi the second in- 310 AIDS TO REFLECTION. Stance, he brings together the facts of experience, each of which has its o^^'n separate value, neither encreased nor diminished by the truth of any other fact which may have preceded it : and making these several facts bear upon some paiticular project, and finding some in favour of it, and some against it, determines for or against the project, according as one or the other class of facts preponderate : as, for instance, whether it would be better to plant a particular spot of ground with larch, or with Scotch fir, of with oak in preference to either. Surely every man will acknowl- edge, that his mind was very diflferently employed in the first case from what it was in the second ; and all men have agreed to call the results of the first class the truths of sdenccy such as not only are true, but which it is impossible to conceive otherwise : while the results of the second class are called fads, or things of experience ; and as to these latter we must often content ourselves %viih the greater probabUUy, that they are so, or so, rather than otherwise — ^nay, even when we have no doubt that they are so in the paiticular case, we never presume to assert that they must continue 60 always, and under all circumstances. On the contrary, our conclusions depend altogether on contingent circwnstances. Now when the mind is employed as in the case firet-mentioned, I call it Reasoning, or the use of the pure Reason ; but, in the second case, the Understanding or Prudence. This Reason appUed to the motives of our conduct, and combined with the sense of our moral responsibihty, is the conditional cause of Conscience, which is a spiritual sense or testifying state of the coincidence or discord- ance of the FREE WILL With the Reason. But as the reasoning consists wholly in a man's power of seeing, whether any two ideas, which happen to be in his mind, are, or are not, in contradiction \vith each other, it fol- lows of necessity, not only that all men have reason, but that every man has it in the same degi-ee. For Reasoning (or Reason, in this its secondary sense) does not consist in the Ideas, or in their clearness, but simply, when they are in the mind, in seeing whether they contradict each other or no. And again, as in the determinations of Conscience the only knowledge required is that of my own intention — whether in doing such a thing, in- stead of leaving it undone, I did what I should think right if any other person had done it ; it follows that in the mere question of guilt or inno- cence, all men have not only Reason equally, but likewise all the materi- als on which the reason, considered as Conscience, is to work. But when we pass out of ourselves, and speak, not exclusively of the agent as mean- ing well or ill, but of the action in its consequences, then of course expe- rience is required, judgment in making use of it, and all those other qual- ities of the mind which are so differently dispensed to different persons, botli by nature and education. And though the reason itself is the same in all men, yet the means of exercising it, and the materials (i. e. the facts and Ideas) on which it is exercised, being possessed in vei-}- different de- grees by diflferent persons, the practical Restdt is, of course, equally diflfer- NOTES. 311 ent — and the whole ground work of Rousseau's Philosophy ends in a mere Nothingism. — Even in that branch of knowledge, on which the ideas, on the congruity of which with each other the Reason is to decide, are all possessed alike by all men, namely, in Geometry, (for all men in their senses possess all the component images, viz. simple curves and straight lines) yet the power of attention required for the perception of linked Truths, even of 5mcA Truths, is so very different in A and in B, that Sir Isaac New- ton professed that it was in this power only that he was superior to ordi- nary men. In short, the sophism is as gross as if I should say — The Souls of all men have the faculty of sight in an e^woZ degree — forgetting to add, that tliis faculty cannot be exercised without eyes, and that some men are blind and others short-sighted, &c. — and should then take advantage of this my omission to conclude against the use or necessity of spectacles, microscopes, &c. — or of choosing the sharpest sighted men for our guides. Having exposed this gross sophism, I must warn against an opposite er- ror — ^namely, that if Reason, as distinguished from Prudence, consists merely m knowing that Black cannot be White — or when a man has a clear conception of an inclosed figure, and another equally clear concep- tion of a straight line, his Reason teaches him that these two conceptions are incompatible in the same object, i. e. that two straight lines cannot in- clude a space the said Reason must be a veiy insigni/icaivt faculty. But a moment's steady self-reflection will shew us, that in tlie simple de- termination "Black is not White" — or, "that two straight lines cannot in elude a space" — all the powers are implied, that distinguish Man from An- imals — ^first, tlie power of reflection — ^2d. of comparison — 3d. and therefore of suspension of the mind — 4th. therefore of a controlling will, and the power of acting from notions, instead of mere images exciting appetites ; from motives, and not from mere dark instincts. Was it an insignificant thing to weigh the Planets, to determine all their coui-ses, and prophecy every possible relation of the Heavens a thousand yeai*s hence ? Yet all this mighty chain of science is nothing but a linking together of truths of the same kind, as, the whole is gi'eater than its part : — or, if A and B r=C, then A = B — or3-f-4 = 7, therefore 7-J-5 =: 12, and so forth. X is to be found either in A or B, or C or D r It is not found in A, B, or C, there- fore it is to be found in D. — What can be simpler ? Apply this to an an- imal — a Dog misses his master where four roads meet — he has come up one, smells to two of the others, and then with his head aloft darts for- ward to the third road without any exam'mation. If this was done by a conclusion, the Dog would have Reason — how comes it then, that he never shews it in his ordinary habits ? Why does this stoiy excite either won- der or incredulity ? — If the stoiy be a fact, and not a fiction, I should say — the Breeze brought his Master's scent down the fourth Road to the Dog's nose, and that there/ore he did not put it down to the Road, as in the two former instances. So awful and almost miraculous does the simple act of 312 AIDS TO REFLECTION. concluding, that take 3 from 4, there remains oney appear to us when attri- buted to the most sagacious of all animals." The next extract is from the Friend, vol. 1. pp. 187 — 188, and gives in few words the author's view of the subject treated of in note 51. " God created man in his own image. To be the image of his own eternity created he man ! Of eternity and self-existence what other like- ness is possible in a jfinite being, but immortality and moral self-determin- ation ! In addition to sensation, perception, and practical judgment (in- sthictive or acquirable) concerning the notices furnished by the organs of perception, all which in kind at least, the dog possesses in common with his master ; in addition to these, God gave us reason, and with reason he gave us reflective self-consciousness ; gave us principles, distinguish- ed from the maxims and generalizations of outward experience by their absolute and essential universality and necessity ; and above all, by super- adding to reason the mysterious faculty of fiee-will and consequent per- sonal amenability, he gave us conscience — ^that law of conscience, which in the power, and as tlie indwelling word, of an holy and omnipotent le- gislator, commands us — from among the numerous ideas mathematical and philosophical, which the reason by the necessity of its own excellence creates for itself— unconditionally commands us to attribute reality^ and actual existence^ to those ideas and to those only, without which the conscience itself would be baseless and contradictor}' — to the ideas of Soul, of Free- will, of Immortality, and of God ! To God, as the reality of the conscience and the source of all obliga- tion ; to Free-will, as the power of the human being to maintain the obe- dience, which God through the conscience has commanded, against all the might of nature ; and to the Immortality of the Soul, as a state in which the weal and woe of man shall be propoitioned to liis moral wortli. With this faitli all nature, • all the mighty world Of eye and ear- presents itself to us, now as the aggi-egated material of duty, and now as a vision of the Most High revealing to us the mode, and time, and })articu- lar instance of applying and realizing that universal nile, pre-established in the heait of our reason !" The following passages are from the first Lay Sermon, pp. 21 — ^24, 28 — 30 and 02— ()4 : "The Hebrew legislator, and the other insj)ired poets, prophets, histori- ans and moralists of the Jewish church have two immense advantages in their favor. First, their particular rules and prescripts flow directly and visibly from universal principles, as from a fountain : they flow from prin- ciples and ideas that arc not so properly said to be confirmed by reason as to be reason itself! Principles, in act and procession, disjoined from which. NOTES. 313 and from the emotions that inevitably accompany tlie actual intuition of their truth, tlie widest maxims of prudence are like arms without hearts^ nuiscles without nerves. Secondly, from the veiy nature of these princi- ples, as taught ui tlie Bible, they are understood m exact proportion as tliey are behoved and felt. The regulator is never separated from the main spring. For the words of the apostle are hterally and philosophically true : We (that is, the human race) live by faith. Whatever we do or know, that in kind is different from the brute creation, has its origin in a deter- mination of the reason to have faith and trust in itself. This, its fii-st act of faith, is scarcely less than identical with its own being. Implicitly it is the Copula— it contains the possibility^of every position, to which there exists any correspondence in reality. It is itself, therefore, the realizing principle, the spiritual substratum of the whole complex body of truths. This primal act of faith is enunciated in the word, God : a faith not de- rived from experience, but its ground and source, and without which the fleeting chaos of facts would no more form experience, than the dust of the grave can of itself make a living man. The imperative and oracular form of the inspu-ed Scripture, is the form of reason itself in all things purely rational and moral. If it be the word of Divine Wisdom, we might anticipate that it would in all things be distinguished from otlier books, as the supreme Reason, whose knowledge is creative, and antecedent to the things known, is dis- tinguished from the understanding, or creaturely mind of the mdividual, the acts of which are posterior to the things, it records and arranges. Man alone was created in the image of God : a position groundless and inexpli- cable, if the reason in man do not differ from the understanding. For tliis the inferior animals, (many at least) possess in degree : and assuredly the divine image or idea is not a thing of degrees. Hence it follows that what is expressed in the inspired writings, is impli^ in all absolute science. The latter whispers what the former utter as with the voice of a trumpet. As sure as God liveth, is the pledge and as- surance of every positive truth, that is asserted by the reason. The hu man imderstanding musing on many things, snatches at truth, but is frus- trated and disheartened by the fluctuating nature of its objects; its con- clusions therefore arc timid and uncertain, and it hath no way of giving permanence to things but by reducing them to abstractions: hardly (saith the author of the Wisdom of Solomon, of whose words the preceding sentence is a paraphrase) hardly do we guess aright at things that are upon earth, and with labour do we find the things that are before us; but all certain knowledge is in the power of God, and a presence from above. So only have the ways of men been reformed ; and every doctrme that con- tains a saving truth, and all acts pleasing to God (in other words, all actions consonant with human nature, in its original intention) are through wis- dom : that is, the rational spirit of man. 40 314 AIDS TO REFLECTION. This then is the prerogative of the Bible ; this is the privilege of its be- lieving students. With them the principle of knowledge is likewise a spring and principle of action. And as it is the only certain knowledge, so are the actions that flow with it the only ones on which a secure rehance can be placed. The understanding may suggest motives, may avail itself of motives, and make judicious conjectures respecting the probable con- sequences of actions. But the knowledge taught in the Scriptures produ- ces the motives, involves the consequences ; and its highest formula is still : As SURE AS God liveth, so will it be unto tliee ' In the genuine enthusiasm of morals, religion, and patriotism, tlie en- largement and elevation of the soul above its mere self attest the presence, and accompany the intuition, of ultimate principles alone. These alone can interest the undegraded human spirit deeply and enduringly, because these alone belong to its essence, and ^vill remain with it permanently. Notions, the depthless abstractions of fleeting phaenomena, the shadows of sailing vapors, the colorless repetitions of r^n-bows, have effected their utmost when they have added to the distinctness of our knowledge. For this vei-y cause they are of themselves adverse to lofty emotion, and it re- quires tlie influence of a hght and warmth, not their own, to make tliem chrystaUize into a semblance of gi-owth. But eveiy principle is actuahzed by an idea ; and every idea is living, productive, partaketh of infinity, and (as Bacon has subUmely observed) containeth an endless power of semina- tion. Hence it is, that science, which consists wholly in ideas and princi- ples, is power. Scientia et potentia (saith the same philosopher) in idem coincident. Hence too it is, that notions, linked arguments, reference to particular facts, and calculations of prudence, influence only the compara- tively few, the men of leisurely minds who have been trained up to them : and even these few they influence but faintly. But for the reverse, I appeal to the general character of the doctrines which have collected the most nu- merous sects, and acted upon the moral being of the converts Avith a force that might well seem supernatural ! The great principles of our rehgion, the subUme ideas spoken out everywhere in the Old and New Testament, resemble the fixed stars, which- appear of the same size to the naked as to the armed eye ; the magnitude of which the telescope may rather seem to diminish than to increase. At the annunciation of principles, of idecis, the soul of man awakes, and starts up, as an exile in a far distant land at the unexpected sounds of his native language, when afl:er long years of ab- sence, and almost of obhvion, he is suddenly addressed in his own mo- ther-tongue. He weeps for joy, and embraces the speaker as his brother. How else can we explain the fact so honorable to Great Britain, that the poorest* amongst us wifl contend with as much enthusiasm as the richest * The reader will remember the anecdote told with so much humour in Goldsmith's Essay. But this is not the fii-st instance wliere the mind in its hour of meditation finds matter of admiration and elevating thought, in ch-cumstances that in a different mood had excited its mirth. o 1 re NOTES. ^'^^ for the rights of property ? The*^ rightis are the s])heree and necessary conditions of free agency. But free agency contains the idea of the free will; and in tliis he intuitively knows the sublimity, and tlie iiifmite hopes, fears, and capabiUties of his own nature. On what other ground but the cognatenessof ideas and principles to man as man, does the nameless sol- die^r rush to the combat in defence pf the liberties or the honor of his country?— Even men woflilly neglectful of die precepts of rehgion will shed their blood for its truth. All other sciences are confined to abstractions, unless when the term Sci- ence is used in an improper and flattering sense— Thus we may speak without boast of Natural History; but we have not yet attained to a Science of Nature. The Bible alone contains a Science of Reality : and therefore each of it's Elements is at the same time a living Germ, in which tlie Present involves the Future, and in the Finite the Infinite exists po- tentiaUy. That hidden mystery in every, the minutest, form of existence^ which contemplated under the relations of tune presents itself to the un- dei-standing retrospectively, as an infinite ascent of Causes, and prospect- ively as an interminable progression of EfFects-~that which contemplated in Space is beheld intuitively as a law of action and re-action, continuous and extending beyond all bound— this same mystery freed from the phae- iiomena of Time and Space, and seen in the depth of real Being, reveals itself to the pure Reason as the actual immanence of All in Each. Are we struck with admiration at beholding tlie Cope of Heaven imaged in a Dew-drop ? The least of the animalcula to which that drop would be an Ocean contains in itself an infinite problem of which God Omni- present is the only solution. The slave of custom is roused by the Rare and Accidental alone ; but the axioms of the untliinking are to the philo- sopher the deepest problems, as being the nearest to the mysterious Root, and partaking at once of its darkness and it's pregnancy. O what a mine of undiscovered treasures, what a new world of Power and tnith would the Bible promise to our future meditation, if in some gi'a- cious moment one soUtary text of all its inspired contents should but dawn upon us in the pure untroubled brightness of an Idea, that most glorious birth of the God-like within us, which even as the Light, its material sym- bol, reflects itself from a thousand surfaces, and flies homeward to its Pa- rent mind enriched with a thousand fonns, itself above form and still re- maining in its own simplicity and identity! O for a flash of that same Light, in which the first position of geometric science that ever loosed it- self from the generalizations of a groping and insecure experience, did for the first time reveal itself to a human intellect in all its evidence and aU its fiuitfulness. Transparence without Vacuum, and Plenitude without Opa- city ' O that a single gleam of our own inward experience would make comprehensible to us the rapturous Eureka, and the grateful Hecatomb, of the phUosopher of Samos! or that Vision which from the contempla- 3i8 AIDS TO REFLECTION. tion of an arithmetical harmony rose to the eye of Kepler, presenting the planetary worltl, and all their orbits in the divine order of their ranks and distances : or which, in the falHng of an Apple, revealed to the ethereal in- tuition of our own Newton tlie constructive principle of the material Uni- verse." The definitions, which follow, exhibit the distinctions aimed at by the author in few words. " Under the term Sense, I comprise whatever is passive in our being, without any reference to the questions of MateriaUsm or Immateriahsm ; all that man is in common with animals, in kind at least — ^his sensations, and impressions, whether of his outward senses, or tlie inner sense of ima- gination. This, in the language of the Schools, was called the vis recep- tiva, or recipient property of the soul, from the original constitution of which we perceive and imagine all things under the forms of space and time. By tlie UNDERSTANDING, I mean the faculty of thinking and forming jtw/g- ments on the notices furnished by the sense, according to certain rules ex- isting in itselfj which rules constitute its distinct nature. By the pure Rea- son, I mean the power hf which we become possessed of principle, (the eternal verities of Plato and Descartes) and of ideas, (N. B. not images) as the ideas of a point, a line, a circle, in Mathematics ; and of Justice, Ho- liness, Free- Will, &c. in morals. Hence in works of pure science the de- finitions of necessity precede the reasoning, in other works they more apt- ly form the conclusion." — The Friend vol. 1, pp. 305—306, Note. As the Philosophical works of Heniy More, from whoso Theological works extracts are inserted in the text, pp. 97, 99, and who was referred to in note 43, are seldom to be found in this countiy, I have selected a few passages from them having more particular reference to the subject of this note. The references are to a London folio edition of 1712. "To take away Reason under what fanatic pretence soever is to disrobe the Priest and despoil him of his breast-plate and which is worst of all to rob Christianity of that special prerogative it has above all other religions iri the world, namely, that it dares appeal unto reasoii." — Preface, p. 6. " I should commend to them, tliat would successfully philosophise, the beUef and endeavoui* after a certain principle more noble and inward than reason itself, and without which reason will faulter, or at least reach but to mean and frivolous things. I have a sense of something in me, while I thus speak, which I must confess is of so retruse a nature, that I want a name for it imless I should adventure to term it Divine Sagacity, which is the fii-st rise of a successful reason." And this, he afterwards observes, is the sentiment of Aristotle, that there is something before and better than Rea- son, whence Reason itself has its lise. The success of the mind therefore in its speculation after truth " is from the presence of God, who does in- deed move all things, in some sort or other, but residing in the most unde- NOTES. 317 filed spirit, moves it in the most excellent manner, and endues it with that jDivine SagacUy I spoke of, which is a more inward, compendious and comprehensive presentation of trutli, ever antecedaneous to that reason, which in theories of greatest importance approves itself afterwards upon the exactest examination to be most solid and perfect every way, and tru- ly that vdsdom, which is peculiarly styled the gift of God, and hardly com- petible to any but to persons of a pure and unspotted mind. Of so great concernment is it sincerely to endeavour to be holy and good." — p. 7 & 9. I have been strongly tempted to insert, here, another Essay from the Friend, the 9th of vol. 3, as exhibiting more distinctly the author's views of the relation of reason, as the power of spiritual intuition in man, to the Supreme Reason, and showing their resemblance to those of H. More. It w^ould however swell the size of this volume too much, and those who would be desirous of reading it, will be desirous also of reading the whole of that most valuable work. The reader I believe will find a key to the subject, which I wished to explain, by referring to this volume, p. 3, to the extracts from the 1st Lay Sermon above and note [C] in the Appendix. See also note 65. The following from More illustrates the distinction between reason and the understanding, and the hmitations of the latter in regai'd to the truths of reason. "If the difticulty of framing a conception of a thing must take away the existence of the thing itself, there will be no such thing as a body left in the world, and then will all be spirit or nothing. For wlio can frame so safe a notion of a body, as to free himself from the entanglements, tliat the extension thereof will bring along with it? For this extended matter consists of either indivisible points, or of particles divisible in hiflnituni. Take which of tl>i^se you will (and you can find no thu-d) you will be wound into the most notorious absurdities that may be. For if you say it consists of points, from this position I can necessarily demonstrate, that eveiy spear or spire-steeple^ or what long body you will, is as thick as it is long, that the tallest cedar is not so high as the lowest mushroon, and tliat the moon and the earth are so near each other, that the thickness of your hand will not go betwixt, that rounds and squares are all one figure, that even and odd numbers are equal with one a]iother, and that the clearest day is as dark as the blackest night. And if you make choice of the other mem- ber of the disjunction, your fancy will be but little better at ease ; for no- thing can be divisible into parts it has not. Therefore if a body be divisi- ble into infinite parts, it has infinite extended parts. And if it has an in- finite number of extended parts, it cannot but be a hard mystery to the imagination of man, that infinite extended parts should not amount to one whole hifinite extension. And thus a grain of mustard seed would be as well uifinitcly extended as the whole matter of the universe, and a thou- sandth pait of that grain as the grain itself. Which things are more un- 318 AIDS TO REFLrECTION. conceivable, than any tiling in the notion of a spirit. Tlierefore we are not scornfully and contemptuously to reject any notion for seeming at first to be clouded and obscured with some difficulties and intricacies of con- ception." — Antidote against Atheism, p. 14. What follows, making some allowance for particular expressions, will be seen to coincide with the views of Coleridge, and will be thought by many, at least, to be a sufficient exi)lanation and defence of the doctrine of innate ideas, " It will not be amiss here briefly to touch upon that notable point in philosophy, ivhether the soul of man he ahrasa tahida, a table-book wherein no- thing is writ, or whether she have some innate notions and ideas in herself. For so it is, that she having taken first occasion of thinking fi-om external objects, it hath so imposed upon some men's judgments, that they have conceited that the soul has no knowledge nor notion, but what is in a passive way impressed or dehneated upon her from the objects of sense ; they not warily enough distinguishing betwixt extrinsical occasions and adequate or principal causes of things. But the mind of man more free and better exercised in die close obser- vation of its own operations and nature, cannot but discover that there is an active and actual knowledge in a man, of which tliese outward objects are rather the reminders, tlian the first begetters or implanters. And when I say actual knowledge, I do not mean there is a certain number of ideas flaring and shining to the animadversive faculty, like so many torches or stars in the frmament to outward sight, that tliere are any figures, that take their distinct places, and are legibly writ there like the red letters or astronomical characters in an cdnmnack : But I understood thereby an active sagacity in the soul, or quick recollection, as it were, whereby some small business being hinted upon her, she runs out presently into a more clear or larger conception. And I cannot better describe her condition than thus : Suppose a skil- ful musician fallen asleep in the field upon the grass, during which time he shall not so much as dream any thing concerning his musical faculty, so that in one sense there is no actual skill or notion nor representation of any thing musical in him ; but his friend sitting by him that cannot sing at all himself, jogs him and awakes him and desires him U) sing this or the other song, telling him two or three words of the beginning of the song, whereupon he presently takes it out of his mouth, and sings the whole song upon so slight and slender intimation. So the mhul of man being jogged and awakened by the impulses of outward objects, is stirred up into a more full and clear conception of what was but iniperfcctly hinted to her from external occasions ; and this faculty I venture to call actual knowledge, in such a sense as the sleeping musician's skill might be called actual skill when he thought nothing of it. And that tliis ts the condition of the soul is discoverable by sundry ob- NOTES. 319 sensations. As for example, exhibit to the soul through the outward sen- ses the figure of a circle ; she acknowledgeth presently this to be one kind of fgure^ and can add forthwith, that if it be perfect, all the lines, from some one point of it dra^vn to the perimeter^ must be exactly equal. In like manner shew her a triangle ; she will straightway pronounce, that if that be the right figure it makes toward, the angles must be closed in indi- visible points. But this accuracy either in the circle or the triangle cannot be set out m any material subject: therefore it remains that she hath a more fiall and exquisite knowledge of things in herself than tlie matter can lay open before her. Let us cast in a thii-d instance: let somebody now demonstrate this tiiangh described in the matter to have its three angles equal to two right ones ; why yes, saith the soul, this is true, and not only in this particular triangle^ but in all plain triangles that can possibly be described in the mat- tei\ And thus, you see, the soul sings out the whole song upon the first hint, as knowing it veiy well before. Besides this, there are a number of relative notions or ideas in the mind of man, as well Mathtmaticvl as Logical, which if we prove cannot be the impresses of any material object from without, it will necessarily follow that tliey are fi'om the soul herself within, and are the natural furniture of humane understanding. Such are these, cause, effect, whole and paH, like and unlike. So equality and inequaLity, Aoyo? and avaloyia^ proportion and analogy, symmetry and asymmetry, and such like : all which relative ideas I shall easily prove to be no material impresses fi-om without upon the soul, but her own active conception proceeding from herself whilst she takes notice of external objects. For that these ideas can make no impresses up- on the outward senses is plain from hence, because they are no sensible nor physical affections of the matter. And how can that that is no physical affection of the matter, affect our corporeal organs of sense ? But now that these relative ideas, whether Logical or Mathematical, be no physical affections of the matter, is manifest from these two arguments. First, they may be produced when there has been no physical motion nor alteration in the subject to which they belong, nay, indeed, when there hath been nothing at all done to the subject to which they do accrue. As for example, suppose one side of a room whitened, the other not touched or meddled with, this other has thus become unlike, and hath the notion of dissimile necessarily belonging to it, although there has nothing at all been done thereunto. So suppose two pounds of lead, which therefore are two equal pieces of that Metal, cut away half from one of them, the other pound nothing at all being done unto it has lost its Notion of equal, and hath acquired a new one of double unto the other. Nor is it to any purpose to answer, that though there was nothing done to tliis pound of lead, yet there was to the other ; for that does not at all enervate the Rea- son, but shews that the notion of sidy-double, which accrued to that lead which had half cut away, is but our mode of conceiving, as well as the 320 AIDS TO REFLECTION. other, and not any physical affectmn that stiikes the corporeal organs of the hody. as hx>t and cold^ hard and sojl, while and hlack, and the hke do. Where- fore the ideas of eqwd and uneqiial, double and sub-double^ like and unlike, with the rest are no external impresses upon the senses, but the soul's own active manner of conceiving those things which ore discovered by the outward senses. The second argument is, that one and the same part of the matter is capable, at one and the same time, wholly and entirely, of two contrary ideas of this kind. As for example, any piece of matter that is a middle proportional betwixt two other pieces is double, suppose, and suh-dovhle, or triple and svb-triple^ at once. Which is a manifest sign that these ideas are no affections of the matter, and therefore do not affect our senses ; else they would affect the senses of beasts, and they might also grow good Ge- ometricians and Arithmeticians. And they not affecting our senses, it is plain that we have some ideas that we are not beholding to our senses for, but are the mere exertions of the mind, occasionally awakened by the appulses of the outward objects ; which the outward senses do no more teach us, than he that awakened the musician to sing, taught him his skill." Antidote against Atkeism^ p. 17 — 19. In the next chapters he proceeds to show, that the idea of Grod has its origin in the soul of man in the same manner as the ideas mentioned in the above extract. Like them it resides there inseparably and immutably, and the fact of its being obscurely or imperfectly developed in some minds, or in whole nations, no more proves that it is not there, as a necessaiy part or product of the universal reason of man, in the sense above ex- plained, than a similar imperfect developement of geometrical truths au- thorises a like inference in regard to them. In regard to the objective ex- istence of God, he agrees with Des Cartes in considering necessary exis- tence a part of the rational idea, an answer to which may be found in the second letter of " Selections from the Correspondence of Mr. Coleridge," at the end of this volume. His other proofs of it, however, are solid and rational, but not paiticularly to my pui-pose here. The following is inserted fi-om his "Discourse of Enthusiasm" for its coincidence in thought and language with the views of Coleridge. "Assuredly that spiiit of iUuminaiion, which resides in the souls of the faithful, is a principle of the purest reason that is communicable to the hu- man nature. And what this spirit has, he has from Christ, (as Christ him- self witnesseth) who is the eternal P.oyoc, the all-comprehending wisdom and reason of God, wherein he sees through the natures and ideas of all things, with all their respects of dependency and independency, congruity and incongruity, or whatever habitude they have one to another, with one continued glance at once." — p. 39. These extracts from a writer of such eminence, as Henry More, will do something, I trust, if either acknowledged authority or rational argument NOTES. 2^^ can do any thin??, to counteract some of the prejudices against the auUior of this work and the language which he employs. They will show, that neither his language nor his philosophy are wholly unauthorised even among English writers of great reputation, and indeed only tmie and space would be wanting to multiply extracts having the same tendency from many other great writers of acknowledged authority among the older En- glish philosophers and divines. If such tlien be the fact, if the philoso- phical views exhibited in this work are found essentially to coincide with those of Plato and Lord Bacon, and of many others of the most distin- guished philosophers of ancient and modem times, may we not venture, at least without incurring the charge of arrogance and youthful presump- tion, to indulge a suspicion, that "there are more things in heaven and earth, than are dreamed of" in the sensuous and empirical philosophy of the day. Though all the worid may now be going in one dii-ection, self- confident and self-satisfied, it can do no harm, at most to any but them- selves, if some few should pause, and hesitate, and look about them, or even refuse to advance farther, till they have examined the records of their progress, and ascertained their position and course by the great landmarks of immutable truth and reason.— Am. Ed.] [60] p. 148. The Philosopher, whom the Inquisition would have burnt ahve as an Atheist, had not Leo X. and Cardinal Bembo decided that the Work might be formidable to those semi-pagan Christians who regarded Rev- elation as a mere Make- weight to their boasted Religion of Nature ; but contained nothing dangerous to the Catliolic Church or offensive to a true Believer. [61] p. 150. 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 de- termines negatively only — L e. the word does not explain wfutt tliis com- mon gi'ound is ; but simply indicates, that there is such a ground, and that it is different ui kind from that m which the responsible and con- sciously voluntaiy Actions of Men originate. Thus, in its true and pri- mary import, Instinct stands in antithesis to Reason ; and the perplexi- ty and contradictory statements into which so many meritorious Natural- ists, and popular Writers on Natmal Histoiy (Priscilla Wakefield, Kirby, Spence, Huber, and even Reimarus) have fallen on this subject, arise wholly from their taking the word in opposition to Undei-standing. I notice this, because I would not lose any opportunity of impressing on the minds of my youthful readers the important truth, that Language (as the embodied and articulated Spirit of the Race, as the gi'owth and ema- nation of a People, and not the work of any individual Wit or Will) is of- 41 322 AIDS TO REFLECTION. ten inadequate, sometimes deficient, but never false or delusive. 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-mai'k pomting to the road on which tliis solution is to be sought for. [62] p. 150. Noque quicquam adubito, quin ea candidis omnibus faciat satis. Quid autem facias istis qui vel ob ingcnii peitinaciam sibi satisfieri nolinf, vel stupidiores sint quam ut satisfactionem intelhgant? Nam qucmadmo- dum Simonides dixit, Thessalos hebetiores quam ut possint a se de- cipi, ita quosdam videas stupidiores quam ut placari queant. Adhuc non miiann est invenir<3 quod calumnietur qui nihil aliud quserit nisi quod calumnietur. {Erasmi Epist. ad Dorpiwn.) At all events, the follow- ing Exposition has been recieved 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. [63] p. 150. And which (I might have added) in a more enlightened age, and in a Protestant Countiy, impelled more than one German Univei-sity to an- atlicmatize Fr. IlofRnan'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 univei-sity of Jena, in the attempt to raise a Spirit for the discovery ©•f 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 fu- migations and charms. One only was restored to Life : and from his ac- count of the Noises and Spectres {in his ears and eyes) as he was losing his senses, it was taken for gi-anted that the had Spirit had destroyed them. Frederic Hoffinan admitted that it was a very had spirit that had tempted them, the Spirit of Avarice and folly; and that a very noxiovs Spirit (Gas, or Geist, is the German for Spirit) was the immediate cause of their death. But he contended that this latter Spirit was the Spirit of Chai'coal, which would have produced the same effect, had the young men been chanting psalms instead of incantations; and acquitted the Devil of all direct con- cern in the business. The Theological Faculty took the alarm: even Physicians pretended to be hoiTor-struck at Hoffman's audacity. The Controversy and its appendages embittered several years of this great and good man's life. [64] p. 155. 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 con- NOTES. 323 ccption ina(le(iuate to the demands even of his Pliilosoi)hy. Hence in tlie progress of his reasoning, he confounds the Natura JVaturata{thiit h, the sum total of the Facts and Pha3nomena of the senses) with an hypotheti- cal Natura JVatiirans a Goddess Nature, that has no better claim to a place in any sober sj^stem of Natural Philosophy than the Goddess Midti- tudo ; yet to which Aristotle not rarely gives the name and attributes of the Supreme Being. The result was, that the Idea of G<3d thus identifi- ed with his hypotlietical J^alure becomes itself but an Hypothesis^ or at best but a precarious inference fi'om incommensurate premises and on disputable Principles : while in other passages, God is confounded with (and eveiy where, in Aristotle's genuine works, included in) the Universe : which most grievous error it is the great otid characterietic Merit of Plato to have avoided and denounced. [65] p. 156. Take one passage among many from the posthumous Tracts (1060) of John Smith, not the least Star in that bright Constellation of Cambridge Men, the cotemporaries of Jeremy Taylor. " While we reflect on our own idea of Reason, we know that our own Souls ai'e not it, but only par- take of it ; and that we have it >nxruus6flir and not xai' ovanjv. 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 individual, to be denominated mme." This^w?-e mtelhgence he then proceeds to contrast with the Discursive Faculty, i. e. the tlndei-standing. [See extracts from Henry More's works, in note 59 — Am. Ed.] [66] p. 159. We have the assurance of Bishop Horsley, tliat 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 difterent interpretation as affecting the orthodoxy, of the in- tei-preter : Divines of the most unimpeachable orthodoxy, and the most averse to the allegorizing of Scripture histoiy in general, having from the earliest ages of the Christian Church adopted or permitted it in this in- stance. And indeed no unprejudiced man can pretend to doubt, that if in any other work of Eastern Origin he met with Trees of Life and of Knowledge ; talking and conversable Snakes ; Inque rei signum Serpentem serpere jussmn ; 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 anything like tJie same antiquity, could it surprise him to find events of true histoiy in comexion with, or historical person- ages among the Actors and Interlocutors of, the Parable. In the tern- 334 AIDS TO REFLECTION. language of Egypt tlie Serpent was the Symbol of the Understanding in its twofold function, namely, as the faculty of wi^arw to proxirmte or medud 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 tdtimate End ; and again it typifies the understandmg as the discui*sive and logical Faculty possessed individually by each Individual — the Logos Iv ixa- coi, in distinction fromtlie Nous t. c. Intuitive Reason, the Source of Ideas and ABSOLUTE Truths, and the Principle of the Necessary and the Universal in our Aftinnations and Conclusions. Without, or in contra-vention to, the Reason {i. e. " the spiritual mind" of St. Paul, and the Light that lighldh even/ man"of St. John) this Understanding (? tuoiyt Soxtt, U{)oq ftv&oc, ahi&torarov y.ai aq/utoraroY (fi7.oaoifii\ua, svotfitoi ittv oe^Sanua, avrtTotg tb (fwrav ig Se TO nav ipur.rsu)g /uTeL'jt. 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. ^symbol is a sign included in the Idea which it represents : ex. gr. an actual ;7a/^ chosen to 326 AIDS TO REFLECTION. represent the ivhole, as a lip with a chin prominent is a Symbol of Man ; or a lower form or species used as the representative of a higher in the same kind : by which definition the Symbolical is distinguished toto genere from the Allegoric and Metaphorical. But, perhaps, parables, cdlegories, and allegorical or typical apphcations, are incompatible with inspired Scrip- ture ! The writings of Sl Paul ai-e sufficient proof of the contrary. Yet I readily acknowledge, that allegorical applications are one thing, and alle- gorical interpretation another : and that where there is no ground for sup- poshig 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 tliem, or any favourable opinion of the Rabbinical Commentators and Traditionists, from whom the fashion was derived, that in canying 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 believ- ing the Jewish Nation collectively to be therein impersonated, seeming to me unanswerable. (See tiie Appendix to the Statesman's Manual, Note B.) Secondly, as to chapters now in question — that such interpretation is at least tolei-ated by our church, I have the word of one of her most Zeal- ous Chami>ions. And lastly, it is my deliberate and conscientious convic- tion, 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 Narra- tive itself. [The curious reader may find a similar view of this subject in Hemy More's " Philosophical Cabbala" in his Philosophical Works. See also notes 33 and 54. — Am. Ed.] [67] p. 161. This sense of tlie word is implied even in its metaphorical or figurative use. Thus we may say of a River that it originates in such or such o. foun- tain ; but the water of a Canal is derived from such or such a River. The Power which we call nature, may be thus defined : a Power subject to the Law of Continuity [Lcz Continui. — In JValura non dalur Scdtus,) which law the human Understanding, by a necessity arising out of its own constitu- tion, can conceive only under the form of Cause and Eflfect. That this form (or law) of Cause and Effect is (relatively to the World wiihnd, or to Things as they subsist independently of our perceptions) only a form or mode of thinking ; that it is a law inherent in the Understanduig itself (just as the symmetiy of the miscellaneous objects seen by the kaleido- scope inheres in (t. e. results from) the mechanism of the kaleidoscope itseli) — this becomes evident as soon as we attempt to apply the prc-con- oeption directly to any operation of Nature. For in this case we are for- NOTES. 327 ced to represent the cause as being at the same inetant the effect, and vice vei'sa the effect as being the cause — a relation vvliich we seek to express by the tenns Action and Re-action ; but for which the term Reciprocal Action or the Law of Reciprocity {germanic^ Wechselwirkung) would be botji more accurate and more expressive. These are truths which can scarcely be too frequently impressed 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-natu- ral : and for our undeistanding, 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 JVatiire is but a shadow of our own casting. It is a reflection from our own }flU or Spirit. Herein, indeed, the WiU consists. This is the essential character by which WILL is opposed to Nature, as Spirit^ and raised above Nature as self -deter- mining Spirit — this, namely, that it is a power of originating an act or state. A young fiiend or, as he was pleased to describe himself, a pupU of miney ivho is beginning to learn to tJiink, asked me to explain by an instance what is meant by ^oiiginating an act or state." My answer was — ^Thia morning I awoke with a dull pain, which I knew from experience the getting up would remove; and yet by adding to the drowsiness and by weakening or depressing the volition' [voluntas sensoi'ialis sen 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 disinclination, 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 I mean by oj-iginating an act. At the same time you will see that it belongs exclusively to the Will [arbiirium) ; 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 accompa- nying it. As we know what Life is by Being, so we know what Will is by Acting. That in vnlling (replied my young friend) we appear to our- selves to constitute an actual Beginning, and that tliis seems unique, and without any example in our sensible experience, or in the phsenomena of Natiu-e, is an undeniable fact. But may it not be an illusion arising fi*om our ignorance of the antecedent causes ? You ma?/ suppose this (I rejohied) 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 cha- racter of Ilimianity, 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 camiot, as I could in the case of an arithmetical 328 AIDS TO REFLECTION. or geometrical proposition, render it impossible for you to suppose it. Whe- ther you can reconcile such a supposition with the belief of an All-wise Creator, is another question. But taken singly, it is doubtless in your pow- er to suppose this. Were it not, the belief of the contrary would be no subject of a Command, no part of a moral or religious Duly. You would not, however, suppose it imihovt a reason. But all the pretexts that ever have been or ever can be afforded for tliis supposition, are built on certain J^otions of the Understandmg that have been generahzed 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 sensi- ble 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 si 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 a Jinite 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 act is manifested and made effectual, the fn'de W^ill give^ 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 or- dinary 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. [See notes 29, 43, and 59.— Am. Ed.] NOTES. 329 [68] p. 164. It may conduce to the readier comprehension of this point if I saj', that the Equivoque consists in confounding the almost technical Sense of the JVoun Substantive, Right (a sense most often determined by the genitive case following, as the Right of Propeit)^, the Right of Husbands to chas- tise their Wives, and so fortlO 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, gv. " the right way to obtain the right distance at which a Picture should be examined," &c. ; and the other, when it expresses a perfect con- "^miity and commensurateness with the immutable Idea of Equity, or perfect Rectitude. Hence the close connexion between the words, right- eousness and g-oc?liness, i. e. godlikeness. I should be tempted to subjoin a few words on a predominating doc- trine closely connected witli the present argument — the Paleian Principle of General Consequences ; but the inadequacy 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 of, we cannot too oft- en 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 ! that he should be made aware of the absurdity of attributing any form of Generalization to the all-perfect Mind. To generalize is a faculty and function of thig Hu- man Understanding, and from its imperfection and limitation are the use and the necessity of generalizing derived. GeneraUzation is a Substitute for Intuition, for the Power of intuitive (that is, immediate) knowledge. 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 exerci- sing ; but yet a Substitute only, and an imperfect one to boot. To attri- bute it to God is the grossest Anthropomoi-phism : aud 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. [See note 23.— Am. Ed.] [69] p. 167. Availing himself of the equivocal sense, and (I most readily admit) tlie injudicious use, of the word "free" in the — even on this accoxmt— faulty phrase, "/ree only to sin,"*^ Jeremy Taylor treats the notion of a power in the Will of determining itself to evil without an equal power of detcnnin- 42 330 AIDS TO REFLECTION. ing itself to Good, as a "foolery.''^ I would this had been the only in- stance in his " Deus Justificatus" of that inconsiderate contempt so fre- quent in the polemic treatises of minor Divines, who will have Ideas of Reason, Spiritual Truths that can only l)e spiritually discerned, translated for tliem into adequate conceptions of the Understanding. The great arti- cles of Corruption and Redemption are propounded to us as Spiritual Mys- teries ; and eveiy interpretation, that pretends to explain them into com- prehensible notions, does by its veiy success furnish presumptive proof of its failure. Tlie acuteness and logical dexterity, with which Taylor has brought out the falsehood or semblance of falsehood m 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 JSTature in a Will implies already a Con-uption of that Will ; that a J^ature is as inconsistent >vith freedom, as free choice with an incapacity of choo- sing aught but evil. And lastly, a free power in a JVature 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. [See notes 29 and 45. — Am. Ed.] [70] p. 177. For a specimen of these Rabbinical Dotages I refer, not to the wri- tings 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. [71] p. ISO. A Learned Order must be supposed to consist of three Classes. First, those who are employed in adding to the existing Sum of Power and Knowledge. 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 knowledge and cultivation, which for all is requisite or clearly useful. Third, the Fonners and Instructers 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 Mem- bers of the Legal and Medical Professions, who have received a learned education under accredited and responsible Teachers. NOTES. 331 [72] p. 181. The Author of tlie Statesman's Manual must be the most Inconsist- ent of men, if he can be justly suspected of a leaning 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 eveiy adult in the Brit- ish Empire should be able to read his Bible, and have a Bible to read! Nevertheless, it may not be supei-fluous 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 con- demns only the pretended right of eveiy Individual, competent and in- competent, to interpret Scripture in a sense of his own, in opposition to the judgment of the Church, without knowledge of the Originals or of the Languages, the History, Customs, Opinions and Controversies of the Age and Country in which they were written ; tmd where the Interpreter judges in ignorance or in coiTtempt of uninterrupted Tradition, the unan- imous 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 gi-ounds, or rather the no-grounds^ on which the judgment is formed and relied on — ^the self-willed and separa- tive [schismatic) Setting-up [JuBresis). See note 13. My fixed Principle is : that a Christianity without a Church exer- cising Spiritual authority is Vanity and Dissolution. And my belief is, that when Popery is rushmg in on us hke an inundation, the Nation will find it to be so. I say Popery ; for this too I hold for a delusion, that Ro- manism or Roman CathoUcism is separable from Popery. Almost as rea- dily could I suppose a Circle without a Centre. [If the author means in the last paragraph, a church cstahlishmeiit and its attendant authority, the experience of this country will be thought, by most Christians here, to furnish a sufficient answer. — Am. Ed.] [73] p. 187. To escape the consequences of this scheme, some Arminian Divines have asserted that the penalty inflicted on Adam and continued in his pos- terity was simply the loss of immortality. Death as the utter extinction of personal Being : immortality being regarded by them (and not, I think, without good reason) as a super-natural attribute, and its loss therefore in- volved in the forfeiture of super-natural graces. This theory has Us gold- en side : and as a private opinion, is said to have the countenance of more than one Dignitaiy of our Church, whose general ortliodoxy is beyond impeachpwnrt. For here tlie Penalty resolves itself into the Consequence, and this the natural and [naturally) inevitable Consequence of Adam's Crime. For Ad^an, indeed, it was a positive punishment : a punishment of his guilt, the justice of which who could have dared arraign ? Wliile 33^ AIDS TO REFLECTION. for the Offsprfng of Adam it was simply a not superadding to their nature the privilege by which the Original Man was contra-distinguished from the brute creation — a mere negation, of which tliey had no more right to complain than any other species of Animals. God in this view appears only in his Attribute of Mercy, us averting by supernatural interposition a consequence naturally inevitable. This is the golden side of the Theory. But if we approach to it from the o])posite direction, it first excites a just scruple from the countenance it seems to give to the doctrine of Material- ism. The supporters of this Scheme do not, I presume, contend, tliat Ad- am's Offspring would not have been born Me7i, but have formed a new species of Beasts ? And if not, tlie notion of a rational and self-conscious Soul, perishing utterly with the dissolution of the organized Body, seems to require, nay, almost involves, the o^Mnion that the Soul is a quahty or Accident of the Body — a mere harmony resulting from Organization. But let this pass unquestioned ! Whatever else the Descendants of Ad- am might have been without the intercession of Christ, yet (this interces- sion having been effectually made) they are now endowed with Souls tliat are not extinguished together witli the material body. Now unless these Divines teach likewise the Romish figment of Purgatory, and to an extent in which tlie Church of Rome herself would denounce the doctiine as au impious heresy : unless they hold, that a punishment temporaiy and re- medial 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 progres- sive amendment — unless they go these lengths (and the Divines here in- tended 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 nan'owness in the article of Redemption. I at least find it impossible, with my present human feeUngs, not to imagine otherwise, than that even in heaven it would be a fearful thing to know, that in or- der 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 infi- nitely more calamitous ; and that my felicity had been purchased by tlie everlasting misery of the majority of my fellow-men, who, if no redemp- tion had been provided, afler inheriting the pains and pleasures of earthly existence during the numbered hours, and the few and evil — evil yet feio — days of the yeais of their mortal hfe, would have fallen asleep to wake no more, woidd have sunk into the dreamless Sleep of the Grave, and have been as the murmur, and the plaint, and the exulting swell, and tlie sharp scream, which the unequal Gust of Yesterday snatched from the strmgsof a Wind-IIarp ! NOTES. 333 111 another place I have ventured to question the 8]jirit and tendency of J. Taylor's Work on Repentance. But I ought to have added, that to dis- cover and keep tlie tiue medium in exj^ounding and applying the Efficacy of Christ's Cross and Passion, is beyond compai-e tlie most difficult and delicate point of Practical Divinity — and that which especially needs " a guidance from aboveJ'^ [74] p. 190. 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 infornnng power and vivilic hfe 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 not made with hands, eternal in the heaveiis" yet brought down to us, made appropriable 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 Mortality might he swallowed up of life." 2 Cor. v. 1 — 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 w^ord for word, even to a disregard of the En- glish Idiom, and with what would be sei-viie and superstitious fidelity in the translation of a common classic ? I can see no reason why the ovdnq^ 80 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, ror, rov, rf-? — and a greater, as to the h tojj', both in this place and in John i. v. 18, being adequately rendered by our " u}hich is" P. S. What sense some of the Greek Fathers attached to, or infeiTed from, St. Paul's " in the Heavens," the Theological Student (and to Theologians is this note principally addressed) may find in Water- land's Letters to a Country Clergyman — a Divine, whose Judgment and strong sound sense are as unquestionable as his Leai'iiiiig and Orthodoxy. 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 intei-pretations (see p. 13) I have in this note fallen into " the fond humour of the Mystic Divines and Mlegotizers of Holy Writ." There is, believe me ! a wide difference between symbolical and allegorical. If I say, tliat the Flesh and Blood (Corpus noumenon) of the Incarnate Word, is Power and Life, I say hkewise that this mysterious Po>ver and Life aie 334 AIDS TO REFLECTION. veribj and actually the Flesh aiid Blood of Christ. They are the Allegori- zers, who turn the Gth c. of the Gospel according 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 heai'd tho sublime Morahty of his Sermon on the Mount, had glorified God for the Wisdom which they had heard, and had been prepared to acknowledge, "this is mdeed the Christ" — went back and walked no more with him! — the hard sayuig, which even the Twelve were not yet competent to un- derstand farther than that they were to be spiritually understood ; and which the Chief of the Apostles was content to receive "v>ith an implicit and anticipative faith ! — they^ I repeat, are the AUegorizers who moralize these hard sayings, these high words of Mystery, into an hyperbolical Me- taphor per Catachresin, that only means a belief of the Doctrines which Paul believed, an obedience to the Law respecting 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 mis- understood a Metaphor 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 ? 3Iy words indeed sound strange : but I mean no more than what you have oflen and often heard fi-om me before with dehght and entire acquiescence ! — Credat Judseus ! Non ego. It is suflicient for me to know that I have used the language of Paul and John as it was understood and interpreted by Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Irenajus, and (if he does not lie) by tlie whole Christian Church then existing. [75] p. 192. [In his Literaiy Life, vol. 1. c. 12, tlie Author has distinguished ti-ans- cendental and transcendent, according to the scholastic use of them. In philosophical enquiries, that is transcendental, which lies beneath, or, as it were behind our ordinary consciousness, but of which we become conscious by a voluntaiy effort of self-inspection. That is transcendent, which is out of the reach of all thought and self-consciousness, and cannot, therefore, become an object of knowledge — and a transcendent cause is a cause, the knowledge of which as His in itself, lies beyond the reach of all our cog- nitive faculties. — Am. Ed.] [76] p. 193. This word occurs but once in the New Testament, viz. Romans v. 11, the margmal rendering being, reconciliation. The ])ei-sonal Noun, xura.^- Xctxrt]<; is still in use with the modern Greeks for a money-changer, or one who takes the debased Currency, so general in countries under despotic or other dishonest governments, in exchange for sterling Coin or Bullion ; the purchaser paying the catallagg, i. e. the difle«;nce. In the elder NOTES. 505 Greek writers the verb means to exchange for an opposite, as yciT,,ni«faBTo rr,v tx^Qctv Toitf (intaiorcuig. — ^He exchanged within himself enmity for friend- ship (that is, he reconciled himself) with his Party— or as we say, made it up with them, an idiom which (with whatever loss of dignity) gives the ex- act force of the word. He made up the difference. The Hebrew word of very freqnent occurrence in the Pentateuch, which we render by the sub- stantive, atonement, has its radical or visual image, in copher, pitch. Gen. vi. 14. thou shalt pitch it within and imthout 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 Enghsh verbs, to caulk, to solder, to poy or pay (from poix, pitch), and the French suivcr. Thence meta- phorically, expiation, the piacida having tlie same root, and being grounded on another property or use of Gums and Rosins, the supposed cleansing powers of their funn'gation. 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 In- terpreters mean primai-y and radical, the assertion does not need a con- futation: all radicals belonging to one or other of three classes. 1. Inter- jections, or sounds expressing sensations or passions. 2. Imitations of sounds as splash, roar, whiz, &c. 3. and principally, visual images, objects of siglit. But as io frequency, in all the numerous (fifty, I believe) instan- ces of the word in the Old Testament, I have not found one in which it can, or at least need, be rendered by Ransom: though beyond all doubt Ransom is used in the Epistle to Timothy, as an equivdmt term. [77] p. 199. On a subject, concerning which we have so deep an interest in forming just and distinct conceptions, no serious Inquirer after rehgious truth; much less any man dedicated to his pursuit, and who ought to be able to declare with the Psalmist, it is "more desirable to me than thousands of gold and silver : therefore do I hate every false way ;" will blame my soli- citude 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 plau- sible 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 supported, 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 fii-st and most obvious principles of morahty, and how spontaneously Common Sense starts forward, as it were, to repel it. Let it be imagined, that the late ]Mr. Fauntleroy had, in comphance with the numerous petitions in his behalf, received a pai'don- that soon after some other Individual had been tried and convicted of forging a note for 336 AIDS TO RHFLECTION. a Ilundrod Pound — that on application made for the extension of mercy to the culprit it should be declared that in a commercial country like thia it was contraiy to all Justice to grant a pardon to a man convicted of For- gery — and that in invalidation of this dictum, the apphcants 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 Thousand Pound ! — Now it is plain, that the Logic of this reply would remain the same, if instead of comparative Criminality I had sup})osed 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 ho would describe it, let him peruse the following extract : [D'om Bcddwhi's London WeeUy Journal, Saturday Dee, 4, 1824.] MANSION HOUSE. Monsieur Edmimd AngeUni, Professor of the Languages, and la Tuoralcj whose fracas with the Austrian Ambassador was reported on Wednesday, came before the Lord Mayor, and presented 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 ouglit 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 ANGELmi, 18 Ossulston-street, Somers-town. of Venice." The Lord Mayor expressed his surprise at tlie appUcation; and Mr. Ano-elini 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 iimocent 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 BO. But in answer to this, doubts were expressed whether Monsieur Angeli- ni was sufficiently pure to satisfy justice. * * ^ * * * Tlie Reader is now, I trust, convinced, that though tlie Case put by me, introductory to this extract, was imaginary, the Logic was not of my in- vention. It is contrary to all Justice, that an innocent person should he sac- rificed, Sfc. ^c. ; but a person altogether innocent — ^Aye ! that is a differ- ent question ! [78] p. 205. Which it could not bo, in respect of spmtual truths and objects super- NOTES. 337 sensuous, if it were the same with, and merely another name for,"t}ie Fa- culty jiidging according to Sense" — i. e. the Understanding, or (as Taylor most often calls it in distinction from Reason) Discourse [Discursns sen Fa- cnltas discursiva vel discursona). N. B. The Reason, so instructed and so actuated as Taylor requires in the sentences immediately following, is what T have called the Spirit. Vide p. 137—138. [79] p. 212. I trust, that my .%« will exempt me from the charge of presumption, when I avow, that the forty lines here following are retained as a speci- men of accmmdalive 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 Sorites in our — perhaps in a7iy — Language, the Reader may find in the Friend, vol, ii. p. 157, transcribed from J. Taylor's Dissiuisive from Po- pery. [80] p. 214. I say, cdl : for the accounts of one or two travelling French PhUosophes, professed Atheists and Partizans of Infidelity, respecting one or two Afi*!- can Hordes, CaflTres and poor outlawed Boschmen hunted out of their hu- manity, ought not to be regarded as exceptions. And as to Heame's As- sertion i*especting 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, unconsciously sup- plies data, fi-om whence the contrary may safely be concluded. Hearne perhaps, put down his friend Motannabbi's jPor^-philosophy for the opinion of his tribe ; and fi*om his high appreciation of the moral character of this murderous Gymnosophist it might, I fear, be inferred, that Hearne himself was not the very person one would, of all others, have chosen for the pur- pose of instituting the inquiiy. [81] p. 216. The case here supposed actually occurred in my own experience 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 bigot- ted 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 infor- med Natives of the South of Europe — a tendency to Deism. The results, however, of the infidel system in France, with his opportunities of ob- serving the eflTects of irreligion on the French ofllicers in Spain, on the one hand ; and the undeniable moral and intellectual superiority of Protostan 43 338 AIDS TO REFLECTION. Britain on the other ; had not been lost on him : and here he began to think for himself and resolved to study the subject. He had gone through Bishop Warburton's Divine Legation, and Paley's Evidences ; but had ne- ver read the New Testament consecutively, and tlie epistles not at all. [82] p. 218. By certain bibhcal Philologists of the Teutonic School (Men distinguish- ed by Learning, but still more characteristically by hardihood in conjecture, and who suppose the Gospels to have undergone several successive re- visions and enlargements by, or under the authority of, the sacred Histori- ans) these words are contended to have been, in the first deb very, the com- mon commencement of all the Gospels xaru aapxa (i. e. according to (he Flesh) in distinction from St. John's, or the Gospel xara nvivua (i. e. accord- ing to the Sj)irU). — Editor. [83] p. 222. 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 been asserted. But that it has been proved ; or even rendered plausible ; or that the Tenet is not to be placed among the reviUsionary 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 chiefty if not exclusively in reference to the extravagances built on this tenet, that the great Selden ventured to declare, that the words Scru- iamini 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 Hungai'ian Sistei*s, always quarrelling and inveterately averse^ but yet joined at the Trunk. [84] p. 222. More than tliis we do not consider as necessary for our argument. And as to Robinson's assertions, in his History of Baptism, that infant Baptism did not commence till the time of Cyprian, who, condeimiing it as a general practice, allowed it in paiticular cases by a dispensation of Charity ; and that it did not actually become the ordinary rule of the Church, till Augustin, in tlie fever of his anti-pelagian Dispute, had mtroduced the Calvinistic interpretation of Original Sin, and the dire state of infants' dying unbaptized — I am so far from acceding to them, that I reject the whole statement as rash, and not only unwarranted by the Au- thorities he cites, but unanswerably confuted by Baxter, Wall, and many other learned Psedo-baptists before and since the puWication of his Work. NOTES. 339 I confine myself to the assertion — not that infant Baptism was not ; but — that there exist no sufficient proofs that it was, the practice of the Apoe- tolic Age. [85] p. 224. Let me be permitted to repeat and apply JVote 52. Superstition may be defined as iSiiperstautium (cujusmodi sunt Caerimoniaa et Signa externa, quee, nisi in significando, nihili sunt et psene niliil) 5'w6stantiatio. [86] p. 230. Conference between two men that had doubts of infant 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 deduci- ble generally from many passages, and in perfect accordeuice with the spirit of tl^ie whole. P. S. A mighty Wrestler in the cause of Spiritual Religion and Gospel Morality, in whom more than in any other Contemporary I seem to see the Spirit of Luther revived, expressed to me his doubts whether we have a right to deny tliat an infant is capable of spiritual influence. To such a man I could not feel justified in returning an answer extempore, or without having first submitted my convictions to a fresh revisal. I owe him, however, a dehberate answer ; and take tliis opportunity of discharg- ing the debt. The Objection supposes and assumes the veiy point which is denied, or at least disputed — ^viz. that Infant-baptism is specially injoined in the Scrip- tures. If an express passage to this purport had existed in the New Tes- tament, the other passages, which evidently imply a sjiiritual operation un- der the condition of a preceding spiritual act on the part of the person baptized, remaining as now — then indeed, as the only way of removing tlie apparent contradiction, it migJit be allowable to call on the Anti-poedo- bap- tist to prove the negative — namely, that an infant a week old is not a sub- ject capable or susceptible of spiritual agency. — And vice versa, should it be made known to us, that infants are not without reflection and self-con- sciousness — then, doubtless, we should be entitled to infer that they were capable of a spiritual operation, and consequently of that which is signi- fied in the baptismal 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-boni Babe ; but who rest tlie defence of Infant-baptism on the assertion, that God was pleased to affix the performance of this rite to his ofier of Salva- ion, as the indispensable, though arliitrary, condition of the infant's salva- 340 AIDS TO REFLECTION. bility ? — As Kings in former ages, when they conferred Lands in perpetu- ity, would sometimes, as the condition of the Tenure, exact from the Be- neficiary a hawk, or some trifling ceremony, as the putting on or off of tlieir Sandals, or whatever else royal caprice or the whim of the moment inight 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! [87] p. 235. Of which our he was made Jlesh, is perhaps the best, that our language admits, but is still an inadequate translation. See note 9. 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 au- thority 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 die Boast of Catholicism) ex- ceeds my powers of conjecture ! [88] p 157. 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 Mariner and the fii-st Book of Chris- tabel ? ♦^Encinctur'd with a twine of Leaves, That leafy t^vine his only Dress ! A lovely Boy was plucking fruits In a moonlight \vilderness. Tlie 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 shado\vy 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 hnger here ? NOTES. 341 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. [89] p. 243. Such is the conception of Body in Des Cartes' own system. Body is eveiy where confounded with Matter, and might in the Cartesian sense be defined, Space or Extension with the attribute of Visibihty. As Des Cartes at the same time zealously asserted tlie existence of intelli- gential Beings, the reality and independent Self-subsistence of tlie Soul, Berkleianism or Spinosism was the immediate and necessary Conse- quence. Assume a plurality of self-subsisting Souls, and we have Berk- leianism ; assume one only, (unam et unicam Substantiam), and you have Spinosism, i. e. the assertion of one infinite Self-subsistent, with the two At- tributes of Thinking and Appearing. "Cogitatio infinita sine centro, et om- niformis Apparitio." How far the Newtonian Vis inertiae (interjireted any othei-wise than as an arbitrary termrrzx 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 liis 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 For- ces — "Gedanken von der wahren Schatzung der lebendigen Kraflie : 1747" — in whifh Kant demonstrates the right reasoning to be with the latter; but the A ruth of jPad, the evidence of experience, with the former; and gives the explanation, namely : Body, or Coi-poreal 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 de- monstrate geometrically a problem not susceptible of geometrical con- struction. — This Tract, with the succeeding Himmels-system, may with propriety be placed, after the Principia of Newton, among the strikmg in- stances of early Genius; and as the first product of the Dynamic Philos- ophy in the Physical Sciences, from the time, at least, of Giordano Bruno, whom the Idolaters burnt for an Atlieist, at Rome, in tlie year 1000. — See the Friend, Vol. 1. p. 193—197. [90] p. 243. For Newton's own doubtfully suggested Ether or most subtle Fluid, as the ground and immediate Agent in tlie phaenomena of universal Grav- itation, was either not adopted or soon abandoned by his Disciples; not 343 AIDS TO REFLECTION. only as introducing, against his own Canons of Right Reasoning, an Ens iinaginarium into physical Science, a Su^dion in the place of a le- gitimate Supposition', but because the Substance (assuming it to exist) must itself form part of the Problem, it was meant to solve. Meantime Leibnitz's Pre-established Harmony, which originated in Spinosa, found no acceptance ; and, lastly, the Notion of a corpuscular Substance, with Properties put into it, like a Pincushion hidden by the Pins, could pass with the unthinking only for any thing more than a Confession of igno- rance, or technical terms expressing an hiatus of scientific insight. APPENDIX, CONTAINING A "SELECTION FROM MR. COLERIDGE'S LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE," REPRINTED FROM BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE, FOR OCTOBER 1821; AND THE "APPENDIX TO THE STATESMAN'S MANUAL." The expediency of inserting in this volume the articles which follow may not perhaps be very obvious. My motive for doing it, aside from the inherent value of the articles themselves, is to place before the readers of the Aids to Reflection, as far as I could do so, the means of clearly under- standing the language and sentiments of the Author in that Work. In regard to seveml important points, I think they will find their views made more clear by reference to these, though in themselves they may be found more difficult to understand, than the work to which they are appended. They are, moreover, several times refeiTed to in the Aids to Reflection, and probably few of the Readers of that Work would have access to them elsewhere. The thii'd letter of the " Selection" is omitted, as not paiticu- larly suited to the purpose of this work. The Appendix to the Statesman's Manual is reprinted entire. A few sentences have reference to the text of that work, but could not well be omitted. For the most part they may be considered as independent essays having reference, as the author elsewhere tells us, to the heights of Metai)hysics and Theology, and deeply interest- ing to those, who will reflect enough to understand them. SELECTION FROM MR. COI^ERIDGE'S LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE, WITH FRIENDS AND MEN OF LETTERS. LETTER I. FROM A PROFESSIONAL FRIEND, My Dear and Honoured Sir,---I was much struck with your Excerpta from Porta, Eckartshausen, and others, as to the effect of the ceremonial drinks and unguents, on the (female) practitioners of the black arts, whose witchci-aft you believe to have consisted in the unhappy craft of bewitch- ing themselves. I, at least, know of no reason, why to these toxications, (especially when taken through the skin, and to the cataleptic state indu- ced by ihem,) we should not attribute the poor wretches' own belief of their guilt I can conceive, indeed, of no other mode of accounting — I do not say for their suspicious last dying avowals at the stake ; but — for their private and voluntaiy confessions on their death-beds, which made a convert of your old favourite, Sir T. Brown. Perhaps my professional pursuits, and medical studies, may have predisposed me to be interested ; but my mind has been in an eddy ever since I left you. The connexions of the subject, with classical and with druidical superstitions, pointed out by you — the Circeia poctda — the herbal spells of the Haxae, or Druidesses — the somniloquism of the prophetesses, under the coercion of the Scandi- navian enchanters — the dependence of the Greek oracles on mineral wa- ters, and stupifying vapours from the earth, as stated by Plutarch, and more than once alluded to by Euripides — the vast spi-eadof the same, or similar, usages, from Greenland even to the southernmost point of America ; — you sent me home with enough to think of ? But more than all, I was struck and interested with your concluding remark, that these, and most other superstitions, were, in your belief, but the cadaver et putrimenta of a DEFUNCT NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. Why uot rather the imperfect rudiments? I asked. You promised me your reasons, and a fuller explanation. But let me speak out my whole wish ; and call on you to redeem the pledges you gave, so long back as October 1809, that you would devote a series of 44 S46 AIDS TO REFLECTION. papers to the subject of Dreams, Visions, Presentations, Ghosts, Witchcraft, Cures by sympathy, in which you would select and explain the most in- teresting and best attested facts that have come to your knowledge from books or personal testimony. You can scarcely conceive how deep an interest I attach to this request; nor how many, beside myself, in the circle of my own acquaintance have the same feeling. Indeed, my dear Sir ! when I reflect, tliat there is scarcely a chapter of history in which superstition of some kind or other does not form or supply a portion of its contents, I look forward, with un- quiet anticipation, to the power of explaining the more frequent and best attested narrations, at least without the necessity of having recourse to the supposition of downright tricks and lying, on one side, or to the devil and his imps on the other. * * * * Your obliged Pupil, and affectionate Friend, J- L . P. S. — Dr. L. of the Museum, is quite of your opinion, that little or no- thing of importance to the philosophic naturalist can result from Compar- ative Anatomy on Cuvier's plan ; and that its best trophies will be but life- less skeletons, till it is studied in combination with a Comparative Physi- ology. But you ought yourself to vindicate the priority of your claim. But I fear, dear C, that Sic Vos^ non VoUs^ was made for your motto throughout life. LETTER II. IN ANSWER TO THE ABOVE. Well, my dear pupil and fellow student ! I am willing to make the at- tempt. If the majority of my readers had but the same personal knowl- edge of me as you have, I should sit down to the work with good cheer. But this is out of the question. Let me, however, suppose you for the moment, as an average reader — address you as such, and attribute to you feelings and language in character. — Do not mistake me, my dear L . Not even for a moment, nor under the pretext of rrums a non movendo, would I contemplate in connexion with your name " id genus lectorum, qui meliores obtrectare mahnt quam imitari : et quorum similUudinem des- perent, eorundem affectent simvltatem — sciUcet uti qui suo nomine obscuri sunt, meo innotescant."* The readers I have in view, are of that class who with a sincere, though not very strong desire, of acquiring knowl- edge, have taken it for granted that all knowledge of any value respecting *The passage, which cannot fail to remind you of H and his set, is from Apuleius' Lib. Floridorum — the two books of which, by-the-bye, seem to have been transcribed from his common-place book of Good Tilings, happy phrases, &c. that he had not had an opportunity of bring- ing in in his set writings. APPENDIX. 347 the mind, \e eitlier to be found in three or foui- books, tlie eldest not a hiin- flred years old, or may be conveniently taught witliout any other terms or previous explanations than these works have already rendered familiar among men of education. Weil, friendly reader ! as the problem of things Uttle less (it seems to you) than impossible, yet strongly and numerously attested by evidence which it seems impossible to discredit, has interested you, I am willing to attempt the solution. But then it must be under certain conditions. I must be able to hope, I must have sufficient grounds for hojung, that I shall be understood, or rather that I shall be allowed to make myself under- stood. . And as I am gifted with no magnetic power of throwing my rea- der into the state of dear-seeing (clairvoyance) or luminous vision ; as I have not the secret of enabling him to read with the pit of his stomach, or with his finger-ends, nor of calling into act " the cuticular faculty," dor- mant at the tip of his nose ; but must rely on words — I cannot form the hope rationally, unless the reader will have patience enough to master the sense in which I use them. But why employ loords that need explanation ? And might I not ask in my turn, wonld you, gende reader, put the same question to Sir Edward Smith, or any other member of the Linneean Society to whom you had apphed for instruction in Botany ? And yet he would require of you that you should attend to a score of technical terms, and make yourself master of the sense of each, in order to your understanding the distinctive character of a grass, a mushroom, and a lichen ! Now the psychologist, or speculative philosopher, will be content with you, if you will impose on yourself the trouble of understanding and remembering one of the number in order to understand your own nature. But I will meet your question direct. You ask me why I use words that need explanation'^ Because (I reply) on this subject there are no others ! Because the darkness and the main difficul- ties that attend it, are owing to the vagueness and ambiguity of the words in common use ; and which preclude all explanation for him who had re- solved that none is required. Because there is already a falsity in the very phrases, "words in common use ;" "the language of common sense." Words of most frequent use they may be, comm,on they are not ; but the language of the market, and as such, expressing degrees only, and therefore incom- petent to the purpose wherever it becomes necessary to designate the kind independent of all degree. The philosopher may, and often does, employ the same words as in the market ; but does this supersede the necessity of a previous explanation ? As I referred you before to the Botanist, so now to the Chemist. Light, heat, charcoal, are every man's words. But Jhced or invisible light ? The frozen heat ? Charcoal in its simplest form, as diamond^ or as black-lead ? Will a sti'anger to chemistry be worse off, would the Chemist's language be less likely to be understood by his using different words for distinct meanings, as carbon, caloric, and tlie like ? 348 AIDS TO REFLECTION. But the case is still stronger. The chemist is compelled to make words, in order to prevent or remove some error connected with the common word ; and this too an error, the continuance of which was incompatible with the first principles and elementary truths of the science he is to teach. You must submit to regard yourself ignorant even of the words, air and wa- ter ; and will find, that they are not chemically intelligible without the terms, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, or others equivalent. Now it is even so with the knowledge, which you would have me to communicate. There are cer- tain prejudices of the common, t. c of the average sense of men, the ex- posure of which is the first step, the indispensable preliminarj^ of all ra- tional psychology : and these cannot be exposed but by selecting and ad- hering to some one word, in which we may be able to trace the growth and modifications of the opinion or belief conveyed in this, or similar words, not by any revolution or positive change of the original sense, but by the transfer of this sense and the difference in the application. Where there is but one word for two or more diverse or disparate meanings in a language, (or though there should be several, yet if perfect synonyimes, they count but for one word,) the language is so far defective. And this is Q defect of frequent occurrence in all languages, prior to the cultivation of science, logic and philology, especially of the two latter : and among a free, hvcly, and ingenious people, such as the Greeks were, sophistry and the influence of sophists are the inevitable result. To check this evil by striking at its root in the ambiguity of words, Plato wrote the greater part of his published works, which do not so much contain his own system of philosophy, as the negative conditions of reasoning aright on any system. And yet more obviously is it the case with the Metaphys- ics, Analytics, &c. of Aristotle, which have been well described by Lam- bert as a dictionary of general terms, the process throughout being, first, to discover and establish definite meanings, and then to appropriate to each a several word. The sciences will take care, each of its own nomencla- ture ; but the interests of the language at large fall under the special guar- dianship of logic and rational psychology. Where these have fallen into neglect or disrepute, from exclusive pursuit of wealth, excess of the com- mercial spirit, or whatever other cause disposes man in general to attach an exclusive value to immediate and palpable utility, the dictionaiy may swell, but the language will decline. Few are the books published within the last fifty years, that would not supply their quota of proofs, that so it is with our own mother English. The bricks and stones are in abund- ance, but the cement none or naught. That which is indeed the common language exists every where as the menstruum, and nowhere as tlie whole See BiograpUa Literaria — while the language complimented with this name, is, as I have already said, in fact the language of the maiket. Eve- ry science, every trade, has its technical nomenclature ; every folly has its famy words ; every vice its own slang — and is the science of humanity to APPENDIX. 349 be the one exception ? Is philosophy to work without tools ? to have no straw wherewith to make the bricks for her mansion-house but what she may pick up on the high road, or steal, with all its impurities and sophis- tications, from the litter of the cattle market ? For the present, however, my demands on your patience are very limit- ed. — If as the price of much entertainment to follow, and I trust of something besides of less transitory interest, you will fairly attend to the liistoiy of two scholastic terms, object and subject, with their derivatives ; you shall have my promise that I will not on any future occasion ask you to be attentive, without tryuig not to be myself dull. That it may cost you no more trouble tlian necessary, I have brought it under the eye in numbered paragraphs, with scholia or commentary to such as seemed to require it. Yours most affectionately, S. T. COLERIDGE. On the Philosophic import of the Words Object and Subject. §1. Existence Is a simple intuition, underived and indecomponible. It is no idea^ no particular form, much less any determination or modification of the possible : it is nothing that can be educed from the logical conception of a tiling, as its predicate: it is no property of a thing, but its reality itself; or as the Latin would more conveniently express it — Nulla rei proprictas est, sed ipsa ejus realitas, SCHOLIUM. Herein lies the sophism in Des Cartes' celebrated demonstration of the existence of the Supreme Being fiom the idea. In the idea of God are contained all attributes that belong to the perfection of a being : but exist- ence is such : therefore God's existence is contained in the idea of God. To this it is a sufficient answer, that existence is not an attribute. It might be sho^vn too, from the barrenness of the demonstration, by identifying the deduction with the premise, i. e. for reducing the minor or term included to a mere repetition of the major term including. For in fact the syllogism ought to stand thus : the idea of God comprises the icka of all attributes that belong to perfection ; but the idea of existence is such : therefore the idea of his existence is included in the idea of God. Now, existence is no idea, but a fact : or, though we had an idea of existence, still the proof of its correspondence to a reality would be wanting, i. e. the very point would be wanting which it was the purpose of the demonstration to sup- ply. Still the idea of the fact is not the fact itself Besides, the term idea, is here improperly substituted for the mere supposition of a logical subject, necessarily presumed in order to the conceivableness {cogitahilitas) of any qualities, proi)erties, or attriUites. But this is a mere ens logiciuu, (vol 350 AIDS TO REFL.ECTIOJN . ctiam grammalicum)j the result of the thinker's own unity of coneciousness and no less contained in the conception of a plant or of a chimera, than in the idea of a Supreme Bemg. If Des Cartes could have proved, that his idea of a Supreme Being is universal and necessary, and that the con- viction of a reality perfectly coincident with the idea is equally universal and inevitable ; and that tliese were in truth but one and the same act or hituition, unique, and Avithout analog}^, though, fi'om the inadequateness of our minds, from the mechanism of thought, and the structure of language we are compelled to express it dividually, as consisting of two correlative terms, — ^this would have been something. But then it must be entitled a statemenij not a demonstration — the necessity of which it would supersede. And something like this may perhaps be found true, where the reasoning powers are developed and duly exerted ; but would, I fear, do little to- wards settling the dispute between the religious Theist and the speculative Atheist or Pantheist, whether this be all, or whether it is even what we mean, and are bound to mean, by the word God. The old controversy would be started, what are the possible perfections of an Infinite Being — in other words, what the legitimate sense is of the term, hifinite, as appli- ed to Deity, and what is or is not compatible with that sense, §2. I think, and while thinking, I am conscious of ceitain workings or move- ments, as acts or activities of my being, and feel myself as the power in which they originate. I feel myself working ; and the sense or feeling of this activity constitutes the sense and feeling of existence,! e. of my ac- tual being. SCHOLIUM. Movements, motions, taken metaphorically, without relation to space or place. Kirtioetg fiij xaxa ronov\ oi oxTTrep xtvijottf, of AristOtle. §3. In these workings, however, I distinguish a difference. In some I feel myself as the cause and proper agent, and the movements themselves as the work of my own power. In others, I feel these movements as my own activity ; but not as my own acts. The first we call the active or positive state of our existence ; the second, the passive or negative state. The active power, nevertheless, is felt in both equally. But in the first I feel it as the cause actmg, in the second, as the condition^ without which I could not be acted on. SCHOLIUM. It is a truth of highest imj}ortance, that agere et pati are not different kinds, but the same kind in different relations. And tliis not only in con- sequence of an immediate reaction, but the act of receiving is no lesa truly APPENDIX. 351 "n ad, than the act of influencing. Thus, the hings act in being stimula- ted by the air, as truly as in the act of breathing, to which they were stim- ulated. The Greek verbal termination, w, happily illustrates this. Iloioi, nparru), naaxoi, in philosophical grammar, are all three verbs active ; but the first is tlie SiCtiye-transitive, in which the agency passes forth out of the agent into another. Tt nomg ; what are you doing? The second is the active intrans^iiive. Ttnparrstg- hmo do you do? or how are you? The third is the active-passive, or more appropriately the active-patient, the verb recipient or receptive, rt Ttaax^^? ; what ails you ? Or, to take another idiom of our language, that most livelily expresses the co-presence of an agent, an agency distinct and alien from our own, What is the matter with you ? It would carry us too far to explain the nature of verbs passive, as so called in technical grammar. Suffice, that this class originated in the same cau- ses, as led men to make the division of substances into living and dead — a division psychologically necessary, but of doubtfiil philosophical validity. §4. With the workings and movements, which I refer to myself and my own agency, there alternate — say, rather, I find myself alternately conscious of forms (^Impressions, images, or better or less figurative and hypothetical, presences, presentations,) and of states or modes, which not feeling as the work or eflTect of my own power, I refer to a power other than me, i. e. (in the language derived from my sensfe of sight) without me. And tliis is the feeling I have of the existence of outward things. SCHOLIUM. In this superinduction of the sense of outness on the feeling of tlie a>ctual arises our notion of the real and reality. But as I cannot but reflect, that as tlie other is to me, so I must be to the other, the terms real and actual, soon become confounded and interchangeable, or only discriminated in the gold scales of metaphysics. §5. Since both, then, the feeling of my own existence and the feeling of the existence of things without, are but this sense of an acting and working — it is clear that to exist is the same as to act or work ; (Quantum operor, tantum sum,) that whatever exists, works, (rrds in action ; actually is ; is indeed,) that not to work, as agent or patient, is not to exist ; and lastly, that patience (z=vis patiendi,) and the reaction that is its co-instantaneous consequent, is the same activity in opposite and alternating relations. §6. That wliich is inferred m. those acts and workings, the feeling of which is one with the feeling of our own existence, or inferred from those which we refer to an agency distinct from our own, but in hoth instances is infer- red, is the SUBJECT, i. e. that which does not appear, but lies itnder (quod jacet subter) the appearance. 352 AIDS TO REFLECTION. §7. But in tlie first instanco, that, namely, which is infen-ed in ite effects, and of course therefore «c//*-inferred, the euhject is a mind, i, e, that which knows itself, and may be inferred by others ; but which cannot appear. §8. That, in or from which the subject is inferred, is the object, id quod jacet 6b oculos, that which lies before us, that which lies strait opposite. SCHOLIUM. The terms used in psychology, logic, &c. even those of most frequent occun-ence in common life, are, for the most part, of Latin derivation ; and not only so, but the original words, such as quantity, quality, subject, object, &c. &c. formed in the schools of philosophy for scholastic use, and in correspondence to Greek technical terms of the same meaning. Ety- mology, therefore, is little else than indispensable to an insigjit into the ti-ue force, and as it were, freshness of the words in question, especially of those that have passed from the schools into the market-place, from the medals and tokens {(^vu^oXa) of the philosophers' guilder company into the current coin of the land. But the difference between a man who under- stands them according to their first use, and seeks to restore the original impress and superscription, and the man who gives and takes them in small change, unweighed, and ti'ied only by the sound, may be illustrated by imagining the different points of view in which the same cowry would appear to a scientific conchologist, and to a chaffering negx-o. This use of etymology may be exemplified in the present case. The immediate ob- ject of the mind is always and exclusively the workings or makings above stated and distinguished into two kinds, § 2, 3, and 4. Where the object consists of the first kind, in which the subject infers its own existence, and which it refers to its own agency, and identifies with itself, (feels and contemplates as one with itself, and as itself), and yet without confounding the inherent distinction between subject and object, the subject wimesses to itself that it is a mind, t. e. a subject-object, or subject that becomes an object to itself. But where the workings or makings of the second sort are the object, irom objects of this sort we always infer the existence of a subject, as in the former case. But we infer it from them, rather than in them ; or, to express the point yet more clearly, we infer two sut)jects. In the object, we infer our own existence and subjectivity ; from them the existence of a subject, not our own, and to this we refer the object, as to its proper cause and agent. Again, we always infer a correspondent subject ; but not al- ways a viind. Whether we consider this other subject as anotJiev mind, is determined by the more or less analogy of the objects or malvings of the second class to those of the first, and not seldom depends on the varying degrees of our attention and previous knowledge. APPENDIX. 353 Add to these difTerencog thic modifying influence of the senses, the sense of .sight more particularly, in consequence of which this subject other than we, is presented as a subject ovi of us. With the sensuous vividness con- nected wdth, and which m part constitutes^ this outness or outwardness, contrast the exceeding obscurity and dimness in the conception of a sub- ject not a mind ; and reflect too, that, to objects of the Jlrst kind, we can- not attribute actual or separative outwardness ; while, in cases of the sec- ond kind, we are, afl;er a shorter or longer time, compelled by tlie law of association to transfer this outness from the inferred subject to the present object. Lastly, reflect that, in the former instance, the object is identified with the subject, both positively by the act of the subject, and negatively by unsusceptibility of oumess in the object: and that in the latter the very contrary takes place ; namely, instead of the object being identified with the subject, the subject is taken up and confounded in the object. In the ordinary and uni'cflecting states, therefore, of men's minds, it could not be othei-wise, but that, in the one instance, the object must be lost, and indis- tinguishable in the subject ; and that in the other, the subject is lost and forgotten in the object, to which a necessary illusion had already transferred that outness, which, in its origin, and in right of reason, belongs exclusive- ly to the subject, i. e.the agent ah extra inferred fi-om the object. For out- ness is but the feeling of othernessy (alterity) rendered intuitive, or alterity visually represented. Hence, and also because we find this outness and the objects, to which, though they are, in fact, workings in our own being, we transfer it, independent of our will, and apparently common to other minds, we learn to connect therewith the feeling and sense of reality ; and the objective becomes synonymous first with external, then with real, and at length it was employed to express universal and permanent validity, free from the accidents and particular constitution of individual intellects ; nay, when taken in its highest and absolute sense, as free from the inherent limits, partial perspective, and refracting media of the human mind in specie, [idola trihus of Lord Bacon,) as distinguished from mind in toto genere. In direct antithesis to these several senses of the term, objective, the subjective has been used as synonymous with, first, inward ; second, unreal ; and third, that, the cause and seat of which are to be referred to the special or individual peculiarity of the percipient's, mind ,organs, or re- lative position. Of course, the meaning of the word in any one sentence cannot be definitely ascertained but by aid of tlie context, and will vary with the immediate purposes, and previous views and pei-suasions of the writer. Thus, the egoist, or ultra-idealist, affirms all objects to be subjective ; the disciple of Malbranche, or of Berkeley, that the objective subsists wholly and solely in the universal subject — God. A lady, otherwise of sound mind, was so affected by the reported death of her absent husband, that eveiy night at the same hour she saw a figure at the foot of her bed, which she identified with him, and minutely described to the bystanders, during the continuance of the vision. The husband returned, aiid previ- 45 354 AIDS TO REFLECTION. ous to the meeting, was advised to appear for the first time at the foot of the bed, at the precise instant that the spirit used to appe ar, and in the dress described, in the hope that the original might scare away the coun- terfeit ; or, to speak more seriously, in the expectation that the impression on her senses from without would meet half way, as it were, and repel, or take the place of, the image from the brain. He followed the advice ; but the moment he took his position, the lady shrieked out, "My God there are two ! and" — The story is an old one, and you may end it, happily or tragically, Tate's King Lear or Shakspeare's, according to your taste. I have brought it as a good instance of the force of the two words. You and I would hold the one for a subjective, phenomenon, the other only for objective, and perhaps illustrate the fact, as I have already done elsewhere, by the case of two appearances seen in juxta-position, the one by trans- mitted, and the other by reflected, Hght. A believer, according to the old style, whose ahnanack of faith has the one trifling fault of being for the year of our Lord one thousand four, instead of one thousand eight hun- dred and twenty, would stickle for the objectivity of both.* Andrew Baxter, again, would take a different road fi*om either. He would agree with us in calling the apparition subjective, and the figure of the husband objective, so far as the uhi of the latter, and its position extra cerebrum, or in outward spaces, was in question. But he would differ from us in not identifying the agent or proper cause of the former — i. e. *Nay, and relate the circumstance for the very purpose of proving the reality or objective truth of ghosts. For the lady saw both ! But if tliis were any proof at all, it would at best be a superfluous proof, and super- seded by the bed-posts, &c. For if she saw the real posts at the same time with the ghost, that stood betwixt them, or rather if she continued to see the ghost, spite of the sight of these, how should she not see the real husband ? What was to make the difiference between the two soUds, or intercept the rays from the husband's dressiiig-gown, while it allowed free passage to those from the bed-curtain ? And yet I first heard this story, from one, who, though professedly an unbeliever in this branch of an- cient Pneumatics, (which stood, however, a niche higher, I suspect, in his good opinion, than Monboddo's ancierd Metaphysics,) adduced it as a some- thing on the other side! — A puzzling fact! and challenged me to answer it. And this, too, was a man no less respectable for talents, education, and active sound sense, than for birth, fortune, and official rank. So strangely are the healthiest judgments suspended by any out of the way combina- tions, connected with obscure feelings and inferences, when they happen to have occurred within the nanator's own knowledge ! — The pith of this argument in support of g-^osf-objects, stands thus : B=::D : C=:D : ergo, B:^C. The D, in this instance, being the equal visibility of the figure, and of its real duplicate, a logic that would entitle tlie logician to dine oflf a neck of mutton in a looking-glass, and to set his little ones in downright earnest to hunt tJie rabbits on the wall by candle-light. Things, that fall imder the same definition, belong to the same class; and visible, yet not tangible, is the generic character of reflections, shadows, and ghosts ; and apparitions, their common, and mo.st certainly their proper. Christian name. APPENDIX. 365 the apparition — with the subject beliolding. The shape beheld he would grant to be a making ui the beholder's own brain ; but the facient, he would contend, was a several and otfier subject, an intrusive supernumerary or squatter in the saine tenement and work-shop, and working with the same tools [dpyuva,) as the subject, their rightful owner and original occu- pant. And verily I could say something in favour of this theory, if only I might put my own interpretation on it — having been hugely pleased with the notion of that father of oddities, and oddest of the fathers, old Ter- TULLiAN, who considei-s these soggetti eattivi, (that takes possession of oth- er folk's kitchens, pantries, sculleries, and water-closets, causing a sad to-do at /leo^-quaiters,) as creatures of the same order with the TseniaB, Lumbrici, and Ascarides — i. e. the Round, Tape, and Thread-worms. Daemones haec sua corpora dilatant et contrahunt ut volunt, sicut Lunibrici et alia qvxRdam insecta. Be this as it may, tlie difference between this last class of speculators and the common run of ghost-fanciers, will scarcely enable us to exhibit any essential change in the meaning of the terms. Both must be described as asserting the objective nature of the appearance, and in both the term contains the sense of real as opposed to imaginary, and of outness no less than of o^i^erness, the difference in the former be- ing only, that, in the vulgar belief, the object is outwai'd in relation to tlie whole circle, in Baxter's, to the centre only. The one places the ghost without, the other within, the line of circumference. I have only to add, that these different shades of meaning form no vaUd objection to the revival and readoption of these correlative terms in phys- iology* and mental analytics, as expressing the two poles of all conscious- ness, in their most general form and highest abstraction. For, by the law of association, the same metaphorical changes, or shiftmgs and ingraflings of tlie primary sense, must inevitably take place in all terms of greatest comprehensiveness and simplicity. Instead of subject and object, put thought and thing. You will find these liable to the same inconveniences, with the additional one of having no adjectives or adverbs, as substitutes for objective, subjective, objectively, subjectively. It is sufficient that no heterogeneous senses are confounded under the same tenn, as was the case prior to Bishop Bramhall's controversy with Hobbes, who had availed himself of the (attliat time, and in the common usage) equivalent words, compel and oblige, to confound the thought of moral obligation with that of compulsion and physical necessity. For the rest, the remedy must be provided by a dictionary, constructed on the one only philosophical prin- ci])le, which, regardmg words as living growths, offsets, and organs of the *" Physiology," according to present usage, treats of the laws, organs, functions, &c. of life ; " PJiysics" not so. Now, qiiere : The etymological im))ort of the two Avorda being the same, is the difference in their applica- tion accidental and arbitrary, or a hidden irony at the assumption on which the division is grounded? "i^i/Ot, ut^v ^ur^g, anv Xoyu, or -ioyo? ntpi flivonog ^lr^ tuiurig sg-t Aoyoc uXoyoi;. 356 AIDS TO REFLECTION. human soul, seeks to trace each historically, through all tlie periods of its natural gi'owth, and accidental modifications — a work worthy of a Royal ajnd Imperial confederacy, and which would indeed hallow the Alliance ! A work which, executed for any one language, would yet be a benefaction to the world, and to the nation itself a source of immediate honour and of ultimate weal, beyond the power of victories to bestow, or the mines of Mexico to purchase. The reahzation of this scheme hes in the far dis- tance ; but, m the meantime, it cannot but, beseem every individual com- petent to its furtherance, to contribute a small portion of the materials for the future temple — from a polished column to a hewn stone, or a plank for the scaffolding ; and as they come in, to erect with them sheds for the workmen, and temporaiy structures for present use. The preceding anal- ysis I would have you regard as my first contribution ; and the tii-st, be- cause I have been long convinced that the want of it is a serious impedi- ment — I will not say, to that self-knowledge which it concerns all men to attain, but — to that self-understanding or insight, which it is all men's in- terest that some men should acquire ; that "the heaven-descended, rrv)Oi ^tavTor," (Juv. Sat.) should exist not only as a wisdom, but as a science. But every science will have its rules of art, and with tliese its technical terms ; and in this best of sciences, its elder nomenclature has fallen into disuse, and no other been j)ut in its place. To bring these back into light as so many delving tools dug up from the rubbish of long deserted mines and at the same time to exemplify their use and handling, I have drawn your attention to the three questions : — What is the primaiy and proper sense of the words Subject and Object, hi the technical language of phi- losophy ? In what does Objectivity actually exist ? — From what is all ap- parent or assumed Objectivity derived or transfeiTcd ? It is not the age, you have told me, to bring hard words into fashion. Are we to account for this tender mouthedness, on the ground assigned by your favourite, Persius : (Sat. iii. 113.) " Tentemus fauces : tenero latet ulcus in ore Putre, quod baud decoat crustosis radere verbis ?" But is the age so avei-se to hard words ? Eidouranion ; Phantasmagoria ; Kaleidoscope ; Marmaro-kainomenon {for cleaning mantle-pieces) ; Protoxi- des ; Deutoxides ; Tritoxyds ; andDr. Thomson's Latm-greek-cnglish Per- oxides ; not to mention the splashing shoals, that " confound the language of the nation With long-tailed words in osity and ation,''* (as our great living master of sweet and perfect English, Hookham Frere, has it), would seem to argue the very contraiy. In the train of these, me- thinks, object and subject, with their derivatives, look tame, and claim a place in the last, or at most, in the humbler seats of the second sj>ecies, in the far-noised cluaeification — the long-tailed pigs and pigs without a tail. APPENDIX. 357 Jiye^ hut ml on such dry topics! — I submit. You have touched tlie vuhiei-able heel — "lis, quibus siccum kuiien abest," they jiiust needs be d)^. We have Lord Bacon's word for it. A topic that requires steadfast intuitions, clear conceptions and ideas, as the source and substance of both, and that will admit of no substitute for these, in images, fictions, or factitious facts, must be dry as the broad-awake of sight and day -light, and desperately barren of all that interest which a biisy yet sensual age requires and finds in the " uda sonniia," and moist moonshine of an epicurean philosophy. For you, however, and for those who, like you, are not so satisfied with the present doctrines, but that you would fain try " another and an elder lore," (and such there are, I know, and that the number is on the increase,) I hazard this assurance, — That let what will come of the terms, yet with- out the trutJis conveyed in these terms, there can be no self-knowledge ; and without this, no knowledge of any kind. For the fragmentary re- collections and recognitions of empiricism* usurping the name of experi- ence, can amount to opinion only, and that alone is knowledge which is at once real and systematic — or, in one word, organic. Let monk and pietist pei-vert the precept into sickly, brooding, and morbid introversions of con- sciousness — you have learnt, that, even under the wisest regulations, think- ing can go but halfway toward this knowledge. To know the ivJiole truth,"! we must likewise act : and he alone acts, who makes — and this can no / man do, estranged from Nature. Learn to know thyself in Nature, that ' thou mayest understand Nature in thyself. But I forget myself My pledge and purpose was to help you over the threshold into the outer coiut ; and here I stand, spelling the dim charac- ters hi woven in the veil of Isis, in the recesses of the temple. I must conclude, therefore, if only to begin again without too abrupt a dro}J, lest I should remind you of Mr. in his Survey of Middlesex who having digressed, for some half a score of pages, into the heights of cosmogony, the old planet between Jupiter and Mars, that went off, and spht into the four new ones, besides the smaller rubbish for stone showers the formation of the galaxy, and the other world- worlds, on the same principles, and by similar accidents, superseding the hypothesis of a Crea- tor, and demonstrating the supei-fluity of church tithes and country par- sons, takes up the stitch again witli — But to return to the subject of dung. God bless you and your Affectionate Friend, S. T. COLERIDGE. *Let y express the conditions under which E, (that is, a series of forms, facts, circumstances, &c. presented to the senses of an individual,) will become Experience — and we might, not unaptly, define the two words thus : E-{-2/=Experience ; E— ?/:=Empiricisni. 353 AIDS TO REFLECTIOiV. L.ETTER IV. TO A JUNIOR SOPH, AT CAMBRIDGE. Often, my dear young friend ! often and bitterly, do I regret the stupid prejudice that made me neglect my mathematical studies, at Jesus. There is something to me enigmatically attractive and unaginative in the gene- ration of cui-ves, and in the whole geometry of motion. I seldom look at a fine prospect or mountain landscape, or even at a grand picture, without abstracting the hnes with a teeling similar to that with which I should contemplate the graven or painted walls of some temple or palace in Mid Africa — doubtful whether it were mere Ai'abesque, or undeciphered cha- racters of an unknoAvn tongue, framed when the language of men was nearer to that of nature — a language of symbols and correspondences. I am, therefore, far more disposed to envy, than join in the laugh against your fellow-collegiate, for amusing himself m the geometrical construction of leaves and flowers. Since the receipt of your last, I never take a turn round the garden without thinking of his billow-lines and shell-hnes, under the well-sound- ing names of Cumiiids and Conchoids ; they have as much life and poe- try for me, as their elder sisters, the Naids, Nereids, and Hama-diyads. I pray you, present my best respects to him, and tell him that he brought to my recollection the glorious passage in Plotinus, " Should any one inter- rogate Nature kow she works if graciously she vouchsafe to answer, she will say, it behooves thee to understand me {or better aiid more liieraUy^ to go along with me) in silence, even as I am silent, and work without words ;" but you have a Plotmus, and may construe it for yourself. — (Ennead 3. 1. 8. c. 3.) attending particularly to the comparison of the process pursued by Nature, with that of the geometrician. And now for your questions respecting the moral influence of W.'s minor poems. Of course, this will be greatly modified by the character of the recipient. But that in the majority of instances it has been most salutary, I cannot for a moment doubt. But it is another question, whether verse is the best way of disci- phning the mind to that spiritual alchemy, which communicates a sterhng value to real or apparent trifles, by using them as moral diagi-ams, as your friend uses the oak and fig-leaves as geometrical ones. To have formed the habit of looking at every thing, not for what it is relative to the pur- poses and associations of men in general, but for the truths which it is suit- ed to represent — ^to contemplate objects as words and pregnant symbols — the advantages of this my dear D., are so many, and so impoitant, so em- inently calculated to excite and evolve the power of sound and connected reasoning, of distinct and clear conception, and of genial fcehog, that there are few of W.'s finest passages — and who, of living poets, can lay claun to half the number ? — that I repeat so often, as that homely quatrain, APPENDIX. 359 O reader ! had you in your mind Such stores as silent thought can bring ; O gentle reader ! you would find A tale in every thing. You did not know my revered friend and patron ; or rather, you do know the man, and mourn his loss, from the character I have* lately given of him. The following supposed dialogue actually took place, in a con- versation with him ; and as in part, an illustration of what I have ah-eady said, and in part as text and introduction to much I would wish to say, I entreat you to read it with patience, spite of the triviality of the subject, and mock-heroic of the title. SUBSTANCE OF A DIALOGUE, WITH A COMMENTARY ON THE SAME. A I never found yet, an inkstand that I was satisfied with. B. What would you have an inkstand to be ? What quahties and pro- perties would you wish to have combined in an inkstand ? Reflect ! Con- sult your past experience ; taking care, however^ not to desire things de- monstrably, or self-evidently incompatible with each other ; and the union of these desiderata Avill be your ideal of an inkstand. A friend, perhaps, suggests some additional excellence that might rationally be desired, till at length the catalogue may be considered as complete, when neither your- self, nor others can think of any desideratum not anticipated or precluded by some one or more of the points already enumerated ; and the concep- tion of all these, as realized in one and the same artefact, may be fairly en- titled, the Ideal of an Inkstand, That the pen should be allowed, without requiring any effort or intcr- ruptive act of attention from the writer, to dip sufficiently low, and yet be prevented, without injuring its nib, from dipping too low, or taking up too much ink : That the inkstand should be of such materials as not to decom- pose the ink, or occasion a deposition or discoloration of its specific ingredi- ents, as, from what cause I know not, is the fault of the black Wedgewood- ware inkstands ; that it should be so constructed, that on being overturned the uik cannot escape ; and so protected, or made of such stufl^, that in case of a blow or fall fi-om any common height, the inkstand itself will not be broken ; — that from both these qualities, and from its shape, it may be safely and commodiously travelled with, and packed up with books, linen, or whatever else is hkely to form the contents of the portmanteau, or travelling trunk ; — that it should stand steadily and commodiously, and be of as pleasing a shape and appearance as is compatible with its more nn the 8th Number of the Friend, as first circulated by the post. 1 ,dare assert, that it is worthy of i)rcservation, and will send a transcri])t in my next. 360 AIDS TO REFLECTION. important uses ; — and lastly, though of minor regard, and non-essential, that it be capable of including other implements or requisites, always, or occasionally, connected with the art of writing, as pen-knife, wafers, &c. without any addition to the size and weight otherwise desirable, and with- out detriment to its more important and proper advantages. Now, (continued B.) that we have an adequate notion of what is to be wished, let us try what is to be done ! And my friend actually succeeded in constructing an inkstand, in which, during the twelve years that have elapsed since this conversation, alas ! I might almost say, since his death, I have never been able, though I have put my wits on the stretch, to de- tect any thing wanting that an inkstand could be rationally desired to pos- sess ; or even to imagine any addition, detraction, or change, for use or appearance, that I could desire, without involving a contradiction. Here ! (methinks I hear the reader exclaim) Here's a meditation on a broomstick with a vengeance ! Now, in the first place, I am, and I do not care who knows it, no enemy to meditations on broomsticks ; and though Boyle had been the real author of the article so waggishly passed off for his on poor Lady Berkley ; and though that good man had written it in grave good earnest, I am not certain that he would not have been employ- ing his time as creditably to liimself, and as profitably for a large class of readei's, as the witty dean was while composing the Drapier's Letters, though the muses forbid that I should say the same of Maiy Cooke's Pe- tition, Hamilton's Bawn, or even the rhyming coiTespondence with Dr. Sheridan. In hazarding this confession, however, 1 beg leave to put in a provided always, tliat the said Meditation on Broomstick, or aliud quidibet ejusdem fariiKB, shall be as ti'uly a meditation as the broomstick is veiily a broomstick — and that the name be not a misnomer of vanity, or fraudu- lently labelled on a mere compound of brain-dribble and piinter's ink. For meditation, I presume, is that act of the mind, by which it seeks tvithin either the law of the phenomena, which it had contemplated without, [meditatio scierdi/ica,) or semblances, symbols, and analogies, coiTesponsive to the same, {meditatio eihica.) At all events, therefore, it implies thinkings and tends to make the reader tfiink ; and whatever does this, does what in the present over-ex:cited state of society is most wanted, though perhaps least desired. Between the thinking of a Harvey or Quarles, and the thinking of a Bacon or a Fenelon, many are the degi-ees of difference, and many the differences in degree of depth and originality ; but not such as to fill up the chasm in genere between thinking and no-thinking, or to render the discrimination difficult for a man of ordinary undei-standing^ not under the same* contagion of vanity as the writer. Besides, there *" Verily, to ask, what meaneth this ? is no Herculean labour. And the reader languishes under the same vain glory as his author, and hath laid his head on the other knee of Omphale, if he can mistake the thin voca- bles of incogitance for the consubstantial w^ords which thought bcgctteth and goeth forth m:'—Sir T. Brown, MSS. APPENDIX. 361 are shallows for the full grown, that are the maximum of safe depth for the younglings. There are ti-uths, quite common-place to you and me, that for the uninstructed many would be new and full of wonder, as the com- mon day light to the Lapland child at the re-ascension of its second sum- mer. Thanks and honour in the highest to those stars of the first magni- tude that shoot their beams downward, and while in their proper form they stir and invirtuate the sphere next below them, and natures pre-as- similated to their influence, yet call forth likewise^ each afler its own norm or model, whatever is best in whatever is susceptible to each, even in the lowest. But, excepting these, I confess that I seldom look at Harvey's Meditations or Quarles' Emblems,* vvdthout feeling that I would rather be the author of those books — of the innocent pleasure, the purifying emo- tions, and genial awakenings of the TiumMnity through the whole man, which those books have given to thousands and tens of thousands — than shine the brightest in the constellation of fame among the heroes and Dii minores of literature. But I have a better excuse, and if not a better, yet a less general motive, for this solemn trifling, as it will seem, and one that will, I trust, rescue my ideal of an inkstand from being doomed to the same slut's comer with the de trtbus Capellis^ or de umbra cmm, by virtue of the process which it exemplifies ; though I should not quarrel with the allotment, if its risible merits allowed it to keep company with the ideal immortalized by Rabelais in his disquisition inquisitory De Rehus optime ahstergentibus. Dared I mention the name of my Idealizery a name dear to science, and consecrated by discoveries of far extending utility, it would at least give a biographical interest to this trifling anecdote, and perhaps entitle me to claim for it a yet higher, as a trait in mimimis^ characteristic of a class of powerful and most beneficent intellects. For to the same process of thought we owe whatever instruments of power have been bestowed on mankind by science and genius ; and only such deserve the name of inventions or discoveries. But even in those, which chance may seem to claim, " qu(e hoinini obvenisse videantur potius quam homo venire in ea" — which come to us rather than we to them — this process will most often be found as the indispensable antecedent of the discovery — as the condition, without which the suggesting accident would have whispered to deaf ears, unnoticed ; *A full collection, a Bibliotheca Specialis, of the books of emblems and symbols, of all sects and parties, moral, theological, or political, including those in the Centeimaries and Jubilee volumes, published by the Jesuit and other religious orders, is a desideratum in our library literature that would well employ the talents of our ingenious masters in wood engra- ving, etching, and lithography, under the superintendence of a Dibdin, and not unworthy of royal and noble patronage, or the attention of a Long- man and his compeers. Singly or jointly undertaken, it would do honour to these princely merchants in the service of the muses. What stores might not a Southey contribute as notes or interspersed prefaces ? I could dream away an hour on the subject. 46 362 AID3 TO REFLECTION. or, like the faces in the fire, or the landscapes made by damp on a white- washed wall, noticed for their oddity alone. To the birth of the tree a prepared soil is as necessary as the falling seed. A Daniel was present ; or the fatal characters in the banquet-hall of Belshazzar might have struck more terror, but woidd have been of no more import than the trail of a luminous wonn. In the far greater niuiiber, indeed, of these asserted boons of chance, it is the accident that should be called the condition — and often not so nxuch, but^uerely the occasion — ^while tlie proper cause of the invention is to be sought for in the co-existing state and previous habit of the observer's rahid. I cannot bring myself to account for respiration from tlie stimulus of the mr, without ascribing to the specific stimulability of the lungs, a yet more important part in the joint product. To how ma- ny myriads of individuals had not the rise and fall of the lid in a boihng kettle been famihar, an appearance daily and hourly in sight ? But it was reserved for a mind tliat understood what was to be wished, and knew what was wanted in order ta it& fulfilment — ^for an armed eyo; which meditation had made contemplative, an eye Jirmed from with- in, with an instrument of higher powers than glasses can give, with the logic of method, the only true Organum Fleviisticum which possesses the former arud better half of knowledge in itself as the science of wise questioning,* and the other half in reversion — ^it was reserved for the Marquis of Worcester to see and have given into his hands, from the alternation of expansion and vacuity, a power mightier than that of Vulcan and all his Cyclops ; a power that found its practical limit only where nature could supply no limit strong enough to confine it. For the genial sphit, that saw what it had been seeking, and saw because it sought, was it reserved in the dancing lid of a kettle or coffee-urn, to behold the future steam-engine, the Talus, with whom the Britomart of science is now gone forth to subdue and humanize the planet ! When the bodily organ, steadying itself on some chance thing, imitates, as it were, the fixture of " the inward eye" on its ideal shapings, then it is that Nature not seldom reveals her close affinity with mind, with that more than man which is one and the same in all men, and from which " the soul receives Reason : and reason is her being .'" Par. Lost. Then it is, that Nature, like an individual spirit or fellow soul, seems to think and hold commune with us. If, in the present contempt of all mental analysis not contained in Locke, Hartley, or Condillac, it were safe to borrow from " scholastic lore" a technical tenn or two, for which I have not yet found any substitute equally convenient and serviceable, I should *"Prudens quaestio dimidium scientise," says our Verulam, the second founder of the science, and the first who on principle applied it to the ideas in natme, as his great compeer Plato had before done to the laws in the mind. APPENDIX. 363 say, that at such moments Nature, as another subject veiled bchmd tlie vis- ible object without us, solicits the intelligible object hid, and yet struggling beneath the subject within us, and hke a helping Lucina, brings it forth for us into distinct consciousness and common Ught. Who has not tried to get hold of some half-remembered name, mislaid as it were in the me- mory, and yet felt to be there ? And who has not experienced, how at length it seems given to us, as if some other unperceived had been em- ployed in the same search ? And what are the objects last spoken of, wliich are in the subject, [i. e. the individual mind) yet not subjective, but of universal valichty, no accidents of a particular mind resulting from its individual structure, no, nor even of the human mind, as a jiarticular class or rank of intelhgencies, but of imperishable subsistence ; and though not things, [i. e. shapes in outward space,) yet equally independent of tlie be- holder, and more than equally real— what, I say, are those but the names of nature ? the nomina quasi ry^t^rot, opposed by the wisest of the Greek schools to pha^nomena, as the intelligible coiTespondents or correlatives in the mind to the invisible supporters of the appearances in the world of the senses, the upholding powers that cannot be seen, but the presence and actual being of which must be supposed— nay, ivill be supjjosed, in defi- ance of eveiy attempt to the contraiy by a crude materialism, so alien from humanity, that there does not exist a language on earth, in which it could be conveyed without a contradiction between the sense and the words employed to express itl Is this a mere random flight in etymology, hunting a bubble, and bring- ing back the film ? I cannot think so contemptuously of the attem])t to fix and restore the true import of aiiy word ; but, in this instance, I should regard it as neither unjjrofitable, nor devoid of rational interest, were it only that the knowledge and recejrtion of the import here given, as the etymon, or genuine sense of the word, would save Christianity from the reproach of containing a doctrine so repugnant to the best feelings of hu- manity, as is inculcated in the following passage, among a hundred othei-s to the same purpose, in eai-licr and in more recent works, sent forth by professed Christians. " Most of the men, who are now alive, or that have been living for many ages, are Jews, Heathens, or Mahometans, strangers, and enemies to Christ, in whose name alone we can be saved. This con- sideration is extremely sad, when we remember liow great an evil it is, that so many millions of sons and daughters are born to enter into the posses- sion of devils to eternal ag-c^."- Taylor's Holy Dying, p. 28. Even Sir T. Brown, while his heart, wrestling with the dogma grounded on the trivial interpretation of the word, nevertheless receives it in this sense, and ex- presses most gloomy apprehensions " of the ends of those honest worthies and philosophers," who died before the birtliof our Saviour, "It is hard," says he, "to place those souls in hell, whose worthy lives did teach us vir- tue on earth. How strange to them will sound the history of Adam, when they shall sutler for him fhcy never heard of I" Yet he concludes by con 364 AIDS TO REFLECTION. deinning the insolence of reason in daring to doubt or controvert tlie ver- ity of the doctrine, or, " to question tlie justice of the proceeding," tvhick verity, he fears, the wofiil lot of ^^ these great examples of virtue must con- Jirm.^^ But here I must break off. Yours most affectionately, S. T. COLERIDGE. LETTER V. TO THE SAME. My dear D. — ^The philosophic poet, whom I quoted in my last, may here and there have stretched his prerogative in a war of offence on the ge- neral associations of his contemporaries. Here and there, though less than the least of what the Buffoons of parody and the Zanies of anonymous criticism would have us believe, he may be thought to betray a preference of mean or trivial instances for grand morals, a capricious predilection for incidents that contrast with the dept]^ and novelty of the truths they are to exemplify. But still to the principle, to the habit of tracmg the presence of the high in the humble, the mysterious Dii Cabiri, in the form of the dwarf Miner, with hammer and spade, and week-day apron, we must at- tribute Wordsworth's peculiar power, his leavenijig influence on the opin- ions, feelings, and pursuits of his admirers — most on the young of most promise and highest acquirements ; and tliat, while others arc read with delight, his works are a religion. A case still more in point occurs to me, and for the truth of which I dare ]jledge myself. The ait of printing alone seems to have been privileged with a Minerval birth — to have risen in its zenith ; but next to this, perhaps, the rapid and almost instantaneous advancement of pottery from the state in which Mr. Wedgewood found the art, to its demonstrably highest practicable perfection, is the most stri- king fact in the history of modern improvements achieved by individual genius. In his early manhood, an obstinate and harassing complaint con- lined him to his room for more than two years ; and to this apparent ca- lamity Mr. Wedgewood was wont to attribute his after unprecedented suc- cess. For awhile, eis was natural, the sense of thus losing the prime and vigour of his Ufe and faculties, preyed on his mind incessantly — aggravated, no doubt, by the thought of what he should have been doing this hour and this, had he not been tlius severely visited. Then, what he should like to take in hand ; and lasdy, what it was desirable to do, and how far it might be done, till generalizmg more and more, the mind began to feed on the thoughts, which, at their first evolution, (in their laj-va state, may I say ?) had preyed on the mind. We imagine tlie presence of what we desire in the very act of regretting its absence, nay, in order to regret it the more lively ; but while, with a strange wilfulness, we are thus engendering grief on grief, nature makes use of the product to cheat us into comfort and ex- ertion. The positive shapings, though but of the fancy, will sooner or la- APPENDIX. 365 ter displace tlie mere knowledge of the negative. All activity is in itself pleasure ; and according to the nature, powers, and previous habits of the sufferer, tlie activity of the fancy will call the other faculties of the soul into action. The self-contemplative power becomes meditative, and the mind begins to play tlie geometrician with its own thoughts — abstracting from them the accidental and individual, till a new and unfailing source of employment, the best and surest nepenthe of soHtary pain, is opened out in the habit cf seeking the principle and ultimate aim in the most imper- fect productions of ait, in tlie least attractive products of nature ; of be- holding the possible in the real ; of detecting the essential fonn in the in- tentional ; above all, in the collation and constructive imagining of the out- ward shapes and material forces that shall best express the essential form, in its coincidence with the idea, or realize most adequately that power, which is one with its correspondent knowledge, as the revealing body with its indwelling soul. Anotlier motive will present itself, and one that comes nearer home, and is of more general application, if we reflect on the habit here recommen- ded, as a source of support and consolation in circumstances under which we might otherwise sink back on ourselves, and for want of colloquy with our thoughts — with the objects and presentations of the inner sense — lie listening to the fretful ticking of our sensations. A resource of costless value has that man who has brought himself to a habit of measuring the objects around him by their intended or possible ends, and the proportion in which this end is realized in each. It is the neglect of thus educatmg the senses, of thus disciplining, and in the proper and primitive sense of the word, informing, the fancy, that distinguishes at first sight the ruder states of society. Every mechanic tool, the commonest and most indis- pensable implements of agriculture, might remind one of the school-boy's second stage in metrical composition, in which his exercise is to contain sense, but he is allowed to eke out the scanning by the interposition, here and there, of an equal quantity of nonsense. And even in the existing height of national civilization, how many individuals may there not be found, for whose senses the non-essential so preponderates, that though they may have lived the greater part of their lives in the country, yet with some exceptions for the products of their own flower and kitchen garden, all the names in the index to Withering's Botany, are superseded for them by the one name, a weed ! •' It is only a weed /" And if tliis indif- ference stopt here, and this particular ignorance were regarded as the disease, it would be sickly to complam of it. But it is as a system that it excites regret — it is that, except only the pot-herbs of lucre, and the bar- ren double flowers of vanity, their own noblest faculties, both of thought and action, are but weeds — in which, should sickness or misfortune wreck them on tlie desert island of their own mind, they would either not think of seeking, or be ignorant how to find, nourishment or medicine. As it 366 AIDS TO REFLECTION. is good to be provided witli work for rainy days, Winter industiy is tlie best ciieercr of winter gloom ; and fire-side contrivances for summer use, bring summer sunshine and a genial inner warmth, which the friendly hearth blaze may conspire with, but cannot bestow or compensate. A splenetic friend of mine, who was fond of outraging a truth by some whimsical hyperbole, in his way of expressing it, gravely gave it out as his opinion, that beauty and genius were but diseases of the consumptive and scrofulous order. He would not cany it further ; but yet, he must say, that lie Jmd observed that veiy good people, persons of unusual virtue and benevolence, were in general afflicted with weak or restless nerves ! Af- ter yielding him the expected laugh for the oddity of the remark, I re- minded him that if his position meant any thing, the converse must be true, and we ought; to have Helens, Medicaean Venuses, Shakspeares, Ra- phaels, Howards, Clarksons, and Wilberforces by thous^ids ; and the as- semblies and pump-rooms at Bath, Harrowgate, and Cheltenham, rival the conversazioni in tlie Elysian Fields. Since then, however, I have often re- cuiTcd to the portion of trutli that lay at the bottom of my friend's con- ceit. It cannot be denied, that ill health, in a degree below direct pain, yet distressingly affecting the sensations, and depressing the animal spirits, and thus leaving the nervous system too sensitive to pass into the ordinary state of feeliiig, and forcing us to live in alternating positive.^, is* a hot-bed for whatever geniis and tendencies, whether in head or heait, have been planted there independently. Surely, there is nothing fanciful in considering tliis as a providential provision, and as one of the countless proofs that we are most benignly, as well as wonderfully, consti'ucted ! The cutting and imtating grain of sand which by accident or incaution has got within the shell, incites the living innate to secrete from its own resources the means of coating the intru- sive substance. And is it not, or may it not be, even so, Avith the in-egu- larities and unevenness of health and fortune in our own case ? We, too, may turn diseases into pearls. The means and materials are withm our- selves ; and the process is easily understood. By a law common to all ^Perhaps it confirms while it limits this theory, that it is chiefly verified in men whose genius and pursuits are eminently subjective, where the mind is intensely watchful of its own acts and shapings, thinks, while it feels, in order to understand, and then to generalize that feeUng ; above all, where all the powers of the mind are called into action, simultaneously, and yet severally, while in men of equal, and perhaj)s deservedly equal celebrity, whose jjui-suits are objective and universal, demanding the energies of at- tention and abstraction, as in mechanics, mathematics, and all departments of physics and physiology, the veiy contrary would seem to be exempli- fied. Shakspeare died "at 53, and probably of a decline ; and in one of his sonnets lie speaks of himself as gray' and prematurely old ; and Mil- ton, who suffered from infancy those intense head-aches which ended in blindness, insinuates that he was never free from pain, or the anticipation of pain. On the other hand, the Nevvtons and Leibnitzes have, in general, been not only long-hved, but men of robust health. APPENDIX. 3G7 animal life, we are incapable of attending for any continuance to an ob- ject, the paits of which are indistinguishable from each other, or to a se- ries, where the successive links are only numerically different. Nay, the more broken and iiTitating, (as, for instance, the fractious noise of the dashing of a lake on its border, compared with the swell of the sea on a calm evening,) the more quickly does it exhaust our power of noticing it. The tooth-ache, where the suffering is not extreme, often finds its speedi- est cure in the silent pillow ; and gradually destroys our attention to itself by preventing us from attending to any thing else. From the same cause, many a lonely patient listens to his moans, till he forgets the pain that oc- casioned them. The attention attenuates, as its sphere contracts. But this it does even to a i)oint, where the person's own state of feeling, or any particular set of bodily vsensations, are the direct object. The slender thread winding in narrower and narrower circles round its source and centre, ends at length in a chrysalis, a dormitoiy within which the spinner un- dresses himself in his sleep, soon to come forth quite a neiv creature. So it is in the slighter cases of suflTering, where suspension is extinction, or followed by long interv'als of ease. But where the unsubdued causes are ever on the watch to renew the pain, that thus forces our attention in upon ourselves, the same baiTcnness and monotony of the object that in minor grievances lulled the mind into oblivion, now goads it into action by the restlessness and natural impatience of vacancy. We cannot perhaps divert the attention ; our feelings will still form the main subject of our thoughts. But something is already gained, if, instead of attending to our sensations, we begin to think of them. But in order to this, we must re- flect on these thoughts — or the same sameness will soon sink them down into mere feehng. And in order to sustain the act of reflection on our thoughts, we are obliged more and more to compare and generalize them, a process that to a certain extent implies, and in a still greater degree ex- cites and introduces, the act and power of abstracting the thoughts and images from their original cause, and of reflecting on them widi less and less reference to the individual sufl^ering that had been their first subject. The vis medicatrix of Nature is at work for us in all our faculties and ha- bits, the associate, reproductive, comparative, and combinatory. That this source of consolation and support may be equally in your power as in mine, but that you may never have occasion to feel equally grateful for it, as I have, and do in body and estate, is the fervent wish of your affectionate S. T. COLERIDGE. APPENDIX TO THE STATESMAN'S MANUAL, CONTAINING COMMENTS AND ESSAYS. [A.] In tins use of the word " sufficiency," I prc-euppose on the part of the reader or hearer, a humble and docile state of mind, and above all the practice of prayer, as the necessary condition of such a state, and the best if not the only means of becoming sincere to our own hearts. Christianity is especially differenced from all other religions by being grounded on facts which all men alike have the means of ascertaining — the same means, with equal facility, and which no man can ascertain for another. Each person must be herein querist and respondent to himself; Am I sick, and therefore need a physician ? — ^Am I in spiritual slavery, and therefore need a ransomer ?— Have I given a pledge, which must be redeemed, and which I cannot redeem by my own resources ? — Am I at one with God, and is my will concentric with that holy power, which is at once the constitutive will and the supreme reason of the universe ? — If not, must I not be mad if I do not seek, and miserable if I do not discover and embrace, the means of at-one-ment ? To collect, to weigh, and to appreciate historical proofs and presumptions is not equally wdthin the means and opportunities of eve- ry man alike. The testimony of books of history is one of the strong and stately pillars of the church of Chiist ; but it is not the foundation ; nor can it without loss of essential faith be mistaken or substituted for the foundation. There is a sect, which,, in its scornful pride of antipathy to mystericSy (that is, to all those doctrines of the pure and intuitive reason^ which transcend the understanding, and can never be contemplated by it, but through a false and falsifying perspective,) affects to condemn all in- ward and preliminary experience, as enthusiastic delusion or fanatic con- 47 370 AIDS TO REFLECTION. tagion. Historic evidence, on the other hand, these men treat, as tlie Jews of old treated the brazen serpent, which was the relic and evidence of the miracles worked by Moses in the wilderness. They turned it into an idol : and therefore Hezekiali (who clave to the Lord, and did right in the sight of tlie Lord, so that after him was none hke him, among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before liim) not oidy ' removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves ;' but likewise brake in pieces the Brazen Serpent that Moses had made : for the children of Is- rael did bum incense to it. To preclude an error so pernicious, I request that to the wilful neglect of those outward ministrations of the word which all EngUshmen have tlie privilege of attending, the reader will add the setting at nought like- wise of those mward means of gi'ace, witliout which the language of the Scriptures, in the most faithful translation ai^d in tlie purest and plainest English, must nevertheless continue to be a dead language : a sun-dial by moonlight [R] Not without great hesitation should I express a suspicion concerning the genuineness of any, the least unportant passage in the New Testa- ment, unless I could adduce the most conclusive evidence from the earli- est manuscripts and commentators, in support of its interpolation : well knowing that such peniiission has already opened a door to the most fear- ful license. It is indeed, in its consequences, no less than an assumed right of picking and chusing our religion out of the Scriptures. Most as- suredly I would never hazard a suggestion of this kind in any instance in which the retention or the omission of the words could make the slightest difference with regard to fact, miracle, or precept. Still less would I start the question, where the hypothesis of their interpolation could be wrested to the discountenancing of any article of doctrine concerning which dis- sension existed : no, not though the doubt or disbelief of the doctrine had been confined to those, whose faith few but themselves would honour with the name of Christianity; however reluctant we might be, both from the courtesies of social life and the nobler chaiities of humility, to withhold from the persons themselves the title of Christians. But as there is nothing in v. 40 of Matthew, c. xii. which would fall with- in this general rule, I dare permit myself to propose the query, whether there does not exist internal evidence of its being a gloss of some mileam- ed, though pious, christian of the first century, which had slipt into the text ? The following are my reasons. 1. It is at all events a comment on the words of our Saviour, and no part of his speech. 2. It interrupts the course and breaks down the jut and application of our Lord's argument, as addressed to men, who, from their unwillingness to sacrifice their vain traditions, gainful hypocrisy, and pride both of heart and of deameanor, APPENDIX. 371 demanded a miracle for the confirmation of moml truths that must have borne witness to their own divhiity in tlie consciences of all who had not rendered themselves conscience-proof. 3. The text strictly taken is ir- reconcileable with the fact as it is afterwards related, and as it is univer- sally accepted. I at least remember no calculation of time, accordhig to which the interspace from Friday evening to the earliest dawn of Sunday morning, coirid be represented as three days and three nights. As three days our Saviour, himself speaks of it (John ii. 19,) and so it would be de- scribed in conmioii language as well as according to the use of the Jews ; but 1 can find no other part of Scrij)ture which authorizes the phrase of three nights. This gloss is not found either in the repetition of the cir- cumstances by Matthew himself (xvi. 4,) nor in Mark, (viii. 12,) nor in Luke, (xii. 54 :) — Mark's narration doth indeed most strikingly confirm my secon