Part II. p. 40.

THE LITERARY REMAINS

OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

COLLECTED AND EDITED BY

HENRY NELSON COLERIDGE, ESQ. M.A.

VOLUME THE FOURTH

ALBI DISCIP ANGLVS

LONDON

WILLIAM PICKERING

1839

CONTENTS

ADVERTISEMENT

Notes on Luther

Notes on St Theresa

Notes on Bedell

Notes on Baxter

Notes on Leighton

Notes on Sherlock

Notes on Waterland

Notes on Skelton

Notes on Andrew Fuller

Notes on Whitaker

Notes on Oxlee

Notes on A Barrister's Hints

Notes on Davison

Notes on Irving

Notes on Noble

Essay on Faith

* * * * *

ADVERTISEMENT.

For some remarks on the character of this publication, the Editor begs

to refer the Reader to the Preface to the third volume of these Remains.

That volume and the present are expressly connected together as one

work.

The various materials arranged in the following pages were preserved,

and kindly placed in the Editor's hands, by Mr. Southey, Mr. Green, Mr.

Gillman, Mr. Alfred Elwyn of Philadelphia, United States, Mr. Money, Mr.

Hartley Coleridge, and the Rev. Edward Coleridge; and to those gentlemen

the Editor's best acknowledgments are due.

Lincoln's Inn,

9th May, 1839.

* * * * *

LITERARY REMAINS.

* * * * *

NOTES ON LUTHER'S TABLE TALK [1]

I cannot meditate too often, too deeply, or too devotionally on the

personeity of God, and his personality in the Word, [Greek: Gío to

monogenei], and thence on the individuity of the responsible

creature;--that it is a perfection which, not indeed in my intellect,

but yet in my habit of feeling, I have too much confounded with that

'complexus' of visual images, cycles or customs of sensations, and

fellow-travelling circumstances (as the ship to the mariner), which make

up our empirical self: thence to bring myself to apprehend livelily the

exceeding mercifulness and love of the act of the Son of God, in

descending to seek after the prodigal children, and to house with them

in the sty. Likewise by the relation of my own understanding to the

light of reason, and (the most important of all the truths that have

been vouchsafed to me!) to the will which is the reason,--will in the

form of reason--I can form a sufficient gleam of the possibility of the

subsistence of the human soul in Jesus to the Eternal Word, and how it

might perfect itself so as to merit glorification and abiding union with

the Divinity; and how this gave a humanity to our Lord's righteousness

no less than to his sufferings. Doubtless, as God, as the absolute

Alterity of the Absolute, he could not suffer; but that he could not lay

aside the absolute, and by union with the creaturely become affectible,

and a second, but spiritual Adam, and so as afterwards to be partaker of

the absolute in the Absolute, even as the Absolute had partaken of

passion ([Greek: tou páschein]) and infirmity in it, that is, the finite

and fallen creature;--this can be asserted only by one who

(unconsciously perhaps), has accustomed himself to think of God as a

thing,--having a necessity of constitution, that wills, or rather tends

and inclines to this or that, because it is this or that, not as being

that, which is that which it wills to be. Such a necessity is truly

compulsion; nor is it in the least altered in its nature by being

assumed to be eternal, in virtue of an endless remotion or retrusion of

the constituent cause, which being manifested by the understanding

becomes a foreseen despair of a cause.

Sunday 11th February, 1826.

One argument strikes me in favour of the tenet of Apostolic succession,

in the ordination of Bishops and Presbyters, as taught by the Church of

Rome, and by the larger part of the earlier divines of the Church of

England, which I have not seen in any of the books on this subject;

namely, that in strict analogy with other parts of Christian history,

the miracle itself contained a check upon the inconvenient consequences

necessarily attached to all miracles, as miracles, narrowing the

possible claims to any rights not proveable at the bar of universal

reason and experience. Every man among the Sectaries, however ignorant,

may justify himself in scattering stones and fire squibs by an alleged

unction of the Spirit. The miracle becomes perpetual, still beginning,

never ending. Now on the Church doctrine, the original miracle provides

for the future recurrence to the ordinary and calculable laws of the

human understanding and moral sense; instead of leaving every man a

judge of his own gifts, and of his right to act publicly on that

judgment. The initiative alone is supernatural; but all beginning is

necessarily miraculous, that is, hath either no antecedent, or one

[Greek: hetérou genous], which therefore is not its, but merely an,

antecedent,--or an incausative alien co-incident in time; as if, for

instance, Jack's shout were followed by a flash of lightning, which

should strike and precipitate the ball on St. Paul's cathedral. This

would be a miracle as long as no causative 'nexus' was conceivable

between the antecedent, the noise of the shout, and the consequent, the

atmospheric discharge.

The Epistle Dedicatory.

But this will be your glory and inexpugnable, if you cleave in truth

and practice to God's holy service, worship and religion: that

religion and faith of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is pure and

undefiled before God even the Father, which is to visit the fatherless

and widows in their affliction, and to keep yourselves unspotted from

the world.

James i. 27.

Few mistranslations (unless indeed the word used by the translator of

St. James meant differently from its present meaning), have led astray

more than this rendering of [Greek: Thraeskeía.] (outward or ceremonial

worship, 'cultus', divine service,) by the English 'religion'. St. James

sublimely says: What the 'ceremonies' of the law were to morality,

'that' morality itself is to the faith in Christ, that is, its outward

symbol, not the substance itself.

Chap. I. p. 1, 2.

That the Bible is the word of God (said Luther) the same I prove as

followeth: All things that have been and now are in the world; also

how it now goeth and standeth in the world, the same was written

altogether particularly at the beginning, in the first book of Moses

concerning the creation. And even as God made and created it, even so

it was, even so it is, and even so doth it stand to this present day.

And although King Alexander the Great, the kingdom of Egypt, the

Empire of Babel, the Persian, Grecian and Roman monarchs; the Emperors

Julius and Augustus most fiercely did rage and swell against this

Book, utterly to suppress and destroy the same; yet notwithstanding

they could prevail nothing, they are all gone and vanished; but this

Book from time to time hath remained, and will remain unremoved in

full and ample manner as it was written at the first.

A proof worthy of the manly mind of Luther, and compared with which the

Grotian pretended demonstrations, from Grotius himself to Paley, are

mischievous underminings of the Faith, pleadings fitter for an Old

Bailey thieves' counsellor than for a Christian divine. The true

evidence of the Bible is the Bible,--of Christianity the living fact of

Christianity itself, as the manifest 'archeus' or predominant of the

life of the planet.

Ib. p. 4.

The art of the School divines (said Luther) with their speculations in

the Holy Scriptures, are merely vain and human cogitations, spun out

of their own natural wit and understanding. They talk much of the

union of the will and understanding, but all is mere fantasy and

fondness. The right and true speculation (said Luther) is this,

Believe in Christ; do what thou oughtest to do in thy vocation, &c.

This is the only practice in divinity. Also, 'Mystica Theologia

Dionysii' is a mere fable, and a lie, like to Plato's fables. 'Omnia

sunt non ens, et omnia sunt ens'; all is something, and all is

nothing, and so he leaveth all hanging in frivolous and idle sort.

Still, however, 'du theure Mann Gottes, mein verehrter Luther'! reason,

will, understanding are words, to which real entities correspond; and we

may in a sound and good sense say that reason is the ray, the projected

disk or image, from the Sun of Righteousness, an echo from the Eternal

Word--'the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world';

and that when the will placeth itself in a right line with the reason,

there ariseth the spirit, through which the will of God floweth into and

actuates the will of man, so that it willeth the things of God, and the

understanding is enlivened, and thenceforward useth the materials

supplied to it by the senses symbolically; that is, with an insight into

the true substance thereof.

Ib. p. 9.

The Pope usurpeth and taketh to himself the power to expound and to

construe the Scriptures according to his pleasure. What he saith, must

stand and be spoken as from heaven. Therefore let us love and

preciously value the divine word, that thereby we may be able to

resist the Devil and his swarm.

As often as I use in prayer the 16th verse of the 71st Psalm, (in our

Prayer-book version), my thoughts especially revert to the subject of

the right appreciation of the Scriptures, and in what sense the Bible

may be called the word of God, and how and under what conditions the

unity of the Spirit is translucent through the letter, which, read as

the letter merely, is the word of this and that pious but fallible and

imperfect man. Alas for the superstition, where the words themselves are

made to be the Spirit! O might I live but to utter all my meditations on

this most concerning point!

Ib. p. 12.

Bullinger said once in my hearing (said Luther) that he was earnest

against the Anabaptists, as contemners of God's word, and also against

those which attributed too much to the literal word, for (said he)

such do sin against God and his almighty power; as the Jews did in

naming the ark, God. But, (said he) whoso holdeth a mean between both,

the same is taught what is the right use of the word and sacraments.

Whereupon (said Luther) I answered him and said; Bullinger, you err,

you know neither yourself, nor what you hold; I mark well your tricks

and fallacies: Zuinglius and OEcolampadius likewise proceeded too far

in the ungodly meaning: but when Brentius withstood them, they then

lessened their opinions, alleging, they did not reject the literal

word, but only condemned certain gross abuses. By this your error you

cut in sunder and separate the word and the spirit, &c.

In my present state of mind, and with what light I now enjoy,--(may God

increase it, and cleanse it from the dark mist into the 'lumen siccum'

of sincere knowledge!)--I cannot persuade myself that this vehemence of

our dear man of God against Bullinger, Zuinglius and OEcolampadius on

this point could have had other origin, than his misconception of what

they intended. But Luther spoke often (I like him and love him all the

better therefor,) in his moods and according to the mood. Was not that a

different mood, in which he called St. James's Epistle a 'Jack-Straw

poppet'; and even in this work selects one verse as the best in the

whole letter,--evidently meaning, the only verse of any great value?

Besides he accustomed himself to use the term, 'the word,' in a very

wide sense when the narrower would have cramped him. When he was on the

point of rejecting the Apocalypse, then 'the word' meant the spirit of

the Scriptures collectively.

Ib. p. 21.

I, (said Luther), do not hold that children are without faith when

they are baptized; for inasmuch as they are brought to Christ by his

command, and that the Church prayeth for them; therefore, without all

doubt, faith is given unto them, although with our natural sense and

reason we neither see nor understand it.

Nay, but dear honoured Luther! is this fair? If Christ or Scripture had

said in one place, 'Believe, and thou mayest be baptized'; and in

another place, 'Baptize infants'; then we might perhaps be allowed to

reconcile the two seemingly jarring texts, by such words as "faith is

given to them, although, &c." But when no such text, as the latter, is

to be found, nor any one instance as a substitute, then your conclusion

seems arbitrary.

Ib. p. 25.

This argument (said Luther), concludeth so much as nothing; for,

although they had been angels from heaven, yet that troubleth me

nothing at all; we are now dealing about God's word, and with the

truth of the Gospel, that is a matter of far greater weight to have

the same kept and preserved pure and clear; therefore we (said

Luther), neither care nor trouble ourselves for, and about, the

greatness of Saint Peter and the other Apostles, or how many and great

miracles they wrought: the thing which we strive for is, that the

truth of the Holy Gospel may stand; for God regardeth not men's

reputations nor persons.

Oh, that the dear man Luther had but told us here what he meant by the

term, Gospel! That St. Paul had seen even St. Luke's, is but a

conjecture, grounded on a conjectural interpretation of a single text,

doubly equivocal; namely, that the Luke mentioned was the same with the

Evangelist Luke; and that the 'evangelium' signified a book; the latter,

of itself improbable, derives its probability from the undoubtedly very

strong probability of the former. If then not any book, much less the

four books, now called the four Gospels, were meant by Paul, but the

contents of those books, as far as they are veracious, and whatever else

was known on equal authority at that time, though not contained in those

books; if, in short, the whole sum of Christ's acts and discourses be

what Paul meant by the Gospel; then the argument is circuitous, and

returns to the first point,--What 'is' the Gospel? Shall we believe you,

and not rather the companions of Christ, the eye and ear witnesses of

his doings and sayings? Now I should require strong inducements to make

me believe that St. Paul had been guilty of such palpably false logic;

and I therefore feel myself compelled to infer, that by the Gospel Paul

intended the eternal truths known ideally from the beginning, and

historically realized in the manifestation of the Word in Christ Jesus;

and that he used the ideal immutable truth as the canon and criterion of

the oral traditions. For example, a Greek mathematician, standing in the

same relation of time and country to Euclid as that in which St. Paul

stood to Jesus Christ, might have exclaimed in the same spirit: "What do

you talk to me of this, that, and the other intimate acquaintance of

Euclid's? My object is to convey the sublime system of geometry which he

realized, and by that must I decide." "I," says St. Paul, "have been

taught by the spirit of Christ, a teaching susceptible of no addition,

and for which no personal anecdotes, however reverendly attested, can be

a substitute." But dearest Luther was a translator; he could not, must

not, see this.

Ib. p. 32.

That God's word, and the Christian Church, is preserved against the

raging of the world.

The Papists have lost the cause; with God's word they are not able to

resist or withstand us. * * * 'The kings of the earth stand up, and

the rulers take counsel together, &c'. God will deal well enough with

these angry gentlemen, and will give them but small thanks for their

labor, in going about to suppress his word and servants; he hath sat

in counsel above these five thousand five hundred years, hath ruled

and made laws. Good Sirs! be not so choleric; go further from the

wall, lest you knock your pates against it. 'Kiss the Son lest he be

angry, &c'. That is, take hold on Christ, or the Devil will take hold

on you, &c.

The second Psalm (said Luther), is a proud Psalm against those

fellows. It begins mild and simply, but it endeth stately and

rattling. * * * I have now angered the Pope about his images of

idolatry. O! how the sow raiseth her bristles! * * The Lord saith:

'Ego suscitabo vos in novissimo die': and then he will call and say:

ho! Martin Luther, Philip Melancthon, Justus Jonas, John Calvin, &c.

Arise, come up, * * * Well on, (said Luther), let us be of good

comfort.

A delicious paragraph. How our fine preachers would turn up their

Tom-tit beaks and flirt with their tails at it! But this is the way in

which the man of life, the man of power, sets the dry bones in motion.

Chap. II. p. 37.

This is the thanks that God hath for his grace, for creating, for

redeeming, sanctifying, nourishing, and for preserving us: such a

seed, fruit, and godly child is the world. O, woe be to it!

Too true.

Ib. p. 54.

That out of the best comes the worst.

Out of the Patriarchs and holy Fathers came the Jews that crucified

Christ; out of the Apostles came Judas the traitor; out of the city

Alexandria (where a fair illustrious and famous school was, and from

whence proceeded many upright and godly learned men), came Arius and

Origenes.

Poor Origen! Surely Luther was put to it for an instance, and had never

read the works of that very best of the old Fathers, and eminently

upright and godly learned man.

Ib.

The sparrows are the least birds, and yet they are very hurtful, and

have the best nourishment.

'Ergo digni sunt omni persecutione'. Poor little Philip Sparrows! Luther

did not know that they more than earn their good wages by destroying

grubs and other small vermin.

Ib. p. 61.

He that without danger will know God, and will speculate of him, let

him look first into the manger, that is, let him begin below, and let

him first learn to know the Son of the Virgin Mary, born at Bethlehem,

that lies and sucks in his mother's bosom; or let one look upon him

hanging on the Cross. ** But take good heed in any case of high

climbing cogitations, to clamber up to heaven without this ladder,

namely, the Lord Christ in his humanity.

To know God as God ([Greek: tòn Zaena], the living God) we must assume

his personality: otherwise what were it but an ether, a gravitation?

--but to assume his personality, we must begin with his humanity, and

this is impossible but in history; for man is an historical--not an

eternal being. 'Ergo'. Christianity is of necessity historical and not

philosophical only.

Ib. p. 62.

'What is that to thee'? said Christ to Peter. 'Follow thou me'--me,

follow me, and not thy questions, or cogitations.

Lord! keep us looking to, and humbly following, thee!

Chap. VI. p. 103.

The philosophers and learned heathen (said Luther) have described God,

that he is as a circle, the point whereof in the midst is every where;

but the circumference, which on the outside goeth round about, is no

where: herewith they would shew that God is all, and yet is nothing.

What a huge difference the absence of a blank space, which is nothing,

or next to nothing, may make! The words here should have been printed,

"God is all, and yet is no thing;" For what does 'thing' mean? Itself,

that is, the 'ing', or inclosure, that which is contained within an

outline, or circumscribed. So likewise to 'think' is to inclose, to

determine, confine and define. To think an infinite is a contradiction

in terms equal to a boundless bound. So in German 'Ding, denken'; in

Latin 'res, reor'.

Chap. VII. p. 113.

Helvidius alleged the mother of Christ was not a virgin; so that

according to his wicked allegation, Christ was born in original sin.

O, what a tangle of impure whimsies has this notion of an immaculate

conception, an Ebionite tradition, as I think, brought into the

Christian Church! I have sometimes suspected that the Apostle John had a

particular view to this point, in the first half of the first chapter of

his Gospel. Not that I suppose our present Matthew then in existence, or

that, if John had seen the Gospel according to Luke, the 'Christopædia'

had been already prefixed to it. But the rumor might have been whispered

about, and as the purport was to give a psilanthropic explanation and

solution of the phrases, Son of God and Son of Man,--so Saint John met

it by the true solution, namely, the eternal Filiation of the Word.

Ib. p. 120. Of Christ's riding into Jerusalem.

But I hold (said Luther) that Christ himself did not mention that

prophecy of Zechariah, but rather, that the Apostles and Evangelists

did use it for a witness.

Worth remembering for the purpose of applying it to the text in which

our Lord is represented in the first (or Matthew's) Gospel, and by that

alone, as citing Daniel by name. It was this text that so sorely, but I

think very unnecessarily, perplexed and gravelled Bentley, who was too

profound a scholar and too acute a critic to admit the genuineness of

the whole of that book.

Ib.

The Prophets (said Luther) did set, speak, and preach of the second

coming of Christ in manner as we now do.

I regret that Mr. Irving should have blended such extravagancies and

presumptuous prophesyings with his support and vindication of the

Millennium, and the return of Jesus in his corporeal individuality,

--because these have furnished divines in general, both Churchmen and

Dissenting, with a pretext for treating his doctrine with silent

contempt. Had he followed the example of his own Ben Ezra, and argued

temperately and learnedly, the controversy must have forced the

momentous question on our Clergy:--Are Christians bound to believe

whatever an Apostle believed,--and in the same way and sense? I think

Saint Paul himself lived to doubt the solidity of his own literal

interpretation of our Lord's words.

The whole passage in which our Lord describes his coming is so

evidently, and so intentionally expressed in the diction and images of

the Prophets, that nothing but the carnal literality common to the Jews

at that time and most strongly marked in the disciples, who were among

the least educated of their countrymen, could have prevented the

symbolic import and character of the words from being seen. The whole

Gospel and the Epistles of John, are a virtual confutation of this

reigning error--and no less is the Apocalypse whether written by, or

under the authority of, the Evangelist.

The unhappy effect which St. Paul's (may I not say) incautious language

respecting Christ's return produced on the Thessalonians, led him to

reflect on the subject, and he instantly in the second epistle to them

qualified the doctrine, and never afterwards resumed it; but on the

contrary, in the first Epistle to the Corinthians, c. 15, substitutes

the doctrine of immortality in a celestial state and a spiritual body.

On the nature of our Lord's future epiphany or phenomenal person, I am

not ashamed to acknowledge, that my views approach very nearly to those

of Emanuel Swedenborg.

Ib. p. 121.

Doctor Jacob Schenck never preacheth out of his book, but I do, (said

Luther), though not of necessity, but I do it for example's sake to

others.

As many notes, 'memoranda', cues of connection and transition as the

preacher may find expedient or serviceable to him; well and good. But to

read in a manuscript book, as our Clergy now do, is not to preach at

all. Preach out of a book, if you must; but do not read in it, or even

from it. A read sermon of twenty minutes will seem longer to the hearers

than a free discourse of an hour.

Ib.

My simple opinion is (said Luther) and I do believe that Christ for us

descended into hell, to the end he might break and destroy the same,

as in Psalm xvi, and Acts ii, is shewed and proved.

Could Luther have been ignorant, that this clause was not inserted into

the Apostle's Creed till the sixth century after Christ? I believe the

original intention of the clause was no more than 'vere mortuus est'--in

contradiction to the hypothesis of a trance or state of suspended

animation.

Chap. VII. p. 122.

When Christ (said Luther) forbiddeth to spread abroad or to make known

his works of wonder; there he speaketh as being sent from the Father,

and doth well and right therein in forbidding them, to the end that

thereby he might leave us an example, not to seek our own praise and

honor in that wherein we do good; but we ought to seek only and alone

the honor of God.

Not satisfactory. Doubtless, the command was in connection with the

silence enjoined respecting his Messiahship.

Chap. VIII. p. 147.

Doctor Hennage said to Luther, Sir, where you say that the Holy Spirit

is the certainty in the word towards God, that is, that a man is

certain of his own mind and opinion; then it must needs follow that

all sects have the Holy Ghost, for they will needs be most certain of

their doctrine and religion.

Luther might have answered, "positive, you mean, not certain."

Chap. IX. p. 160.

But who hath power to forgive or to detain sins? Answer; the Apostles

and all Church servants, and (in case of necessity) every Christian.

Christ giveth them not power over money, wealth, kingdoms, &c; but

over sins and the consciences of human creatures, over the power of

the Devil, and the throat of Hell.

Few passages in the Sacred Writings have occasioned so much mischief,

abject slavishness, bloated pride, tyrannous usurpation, bloody

persecution, with kings even against their will the drudges, false

soul-destroying quiet of conscience, as this text, 'John' xx. 23.

misinterpreted. It is really a tremendous proof of what the

misunderstanding of a few words can do. That even Luther partook of the

delusion, this paragraph gives proof. But that a delusion it is; that

the commission given to the Seventy whom Christ sent out to proclaim and

offer the kingdom of God, and afterwards to the Apostles, refers either

to the power of making rules and ordinances in the Church, or otherwise

to the gifts of miraculous healing, which our Lord at that time

conferred on them; and that 'per figuram causce pro effecto', 'sins'

here mean diseases, seems to me more than probable. At all events, the

text surely does not mean that the salvation of a repentant and

believing Christian depends upon the will of a priest in absolution.

Ib. p. 161.

And again, they are able to absolve and make a human creature free and

loose from all his sins, if in case he repenteth and believeth in

Christ; and on the contrary, they are able to detain all his sina, if

he doth not repent and believeth not in Christ.

In like manner if he sincerely repent and believe, his sins are

forgiven, whether the minister absolve him or not. Now if M + 5 =5, and

5-M = 5, M = O. If he be impenitent and unbelieving, his sins are

detained, no doubt, whether the minister do or do not detain them.

Ib. p. 163.

Adam was created of God in such sort righteous, as that he became of a

righteous an unrighteous person; as Paul himself argueth, and withall

instructeth himself, where he saith, The law is not given for a

righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient.

This follows from the very definition or idea of righteousness;-it is

itself the law;--[Greek: pas gàr díkais autonomos.]

Ib.

The Scripture saith, God maketh the ungodly righteous; there he

calleth us all, one with another, despairing and wicked wretches; for

what will an ungodly creature not dare to accomplish, if he may but

have occasion, place, and opportunity?

That is with a lust within correspondent to the temptation from without.

A Christian's conscience, methinks, ought to be a 'Janus bifrons',--a

Gospel-face retrospective, and smiling through penitent tears on the

sins of the past, and a Moses-face looking forward in frown and menace,

frightening the harlot will into a holy abortion of sins conceived but

not yet born, perchance not yet quickened. The fanatic Antinomian

reverses this; for the past he requires all the horrors of remorse and

despair, till the moment of assurance; thenceforward, he may do what he

likes, for he cannot sin.

Ib. p. 165.

All natural inclinations (said Luther) are either against or without

God; therefore none are good. We see that no man is so honest as to

marry a wife, only thereby to have children, to love and to bring them

up in the fear of God.

This is a very weak instance. If a man had been commanded to marry by

God, being so formed as that no sensual delight accompanied, and refused

to do so, unless this appetite and gratification were added,--then

indeed!

Chap. X. p. 168, 9.

Ah Lord God (said Luther), why should we any way boast of our

free-will, as if it were able to do anything in divine and spiritual

matters were they never so small? * * * I confess that mankind hath a

free-will, but it is to milk kine, to build houses, &c., and no

further: for so long as a man sitteth well and in safety, and sticketh

in no want, so long he thinketh he hath a free-will which is able to

do something; but, when want and need appeareth, that there is neither

to eat nor to drink, neither money nor provision, where is then the

free will? It is utterly lost, and cannot stand when it cometh to the

pinch. But faith only standeth fast and sure, and seeketh Christ.

Luther confounds free-will with efficient power, which neither does nor

can exist save where the finite will is one with the absolute Will. That

Luther was practically on the right side in this famous controversy, and

that he was driving at the truth, I see abundant reason to believe. But

it is no less evident that he saw it in a mist, or rather as a mist with

dissolving outline; and as he saw the thing as a mist, so he ever and

anon mistakes a mist for the thing. But Erasmus and Saavedra were

equally indistinct; and shallow and unsubstantial to boot. In fact, till

the appearance of Kant's 'Kritiques' of the pure and of the practical

Reason the problem had never been accurately or adequately stated, much

less solved.

26 June, 1826.

Ib. p. 174.

Loving friends, (said Luther) our doctrine that free-will is dead and

nothing at all is grounded powerfully in Holy Scripture.

It is of vital importance for a theological student to understand

clearly the utter diversity of the Lutheran, which is likewise the

Calvinistic, denial of free-will in the unregenerate, and the doctrine

of the modern Necessitarians and ('proh pudor!') of the later

Calvinists, which denies the proper existence of will altogether. The

former is sound, Scriptural, compatible with the divine justice, a new,

yea, a mighty motive to morality, and, finally, the dictate of common

sense grounded on common experience. The latter the very contrary of all

these.

Chap. xii. p. 187.

This is now (said Luther), the first instruction concerning the law;

namely, that the same must be used to hinder the ungodly from their

wicked and mischievous intentions. For the Devil, who is an Abbot and

a Prince of this world, driveth and allureth people to work all manner

of sin and wickedness; for which cause God hath ordained magistrates,

elders, schoolmasters, laws, and statutes, to the end, if they cannot

do more, yet at least that they may bind the claws of the Devil, and

to hinder him from raging and swelling so powerfully (in those which

are his) according to his will and pleasure.

And (said Luther), although thou hadst not committed this or that sin,

yet nevertheless, thou art an ungodly creature, &c. but what is done

cannot he undone, he that hath stolen, let him henceforward steal no

more.

Secondly, we use the law spiritually, which is done in this manner;

that it maketh the transgressions greater, as Saint Paul saith; that

is, that it may reveal and discover to people their sins, blindness,

misery, and ungodly doings wherein they were conceived and born;

namely, that they are ignorant of God, and are his enemies, and

therefore have justly deserved death, hell, God's judgments, his

everlasting wrath and indignation. Saint Paul, (said Luther),

expoundeth such spiritual offices and works of the law with many words.

Rom. vii.

Nothing can be more sound or more philosophic than the contents of these

two paragraphs. They afford a sufficient answer to the pretence of the

Romanists and Arminians, that by the law St. Paul meant only the

ceremonial law.

Ib. p. 189.

And if Moses had not cashiered and put himself out of his office, and

had not taken it away with these words, (where he saith, 'The Lord thy

God will raise up unto thee another prophet out of thy brethren; Him

shall thou hear'. (Deut. xviii.)) who then at any time would or could

have believed the Gospel, and forsaken Moses?

If I could be persuaded that this passage (Deut. xviii. 15-19.)

primarily referred to Christ, and that Christ, not Joshua and his

successors, was the prophet here promised; I must either become a

Unitarian psilanthrophist, and join Priestley and Belsham,--or abandon

to the Jews their own Messiah as yet to come, and cling to the religion

of John and Paul, without further reference to Moses than to Lycurgus,

Solon and Numa; all of whom in their different spheres no less prepared

the way for the coming of the Lord, 'the desire of the nations'.

Ib. p. 190.

It is therefore most evident (said Luther), that the law can but only

help us to know our sins, and to make us afraid of death. Now sins and

death are such things as belong to the world, and which are therein.

Both in Paul and Luther, (names which I can never separate),--not indeed

peculiar to these, for it is the same in the Psalms, Ezekiel, and

throughout the Scriptures, but which I feel most in Paul and Luther,

--there is one fearful blank, the wisdom or necessity of which I do not

doubt, yet cannot help groping and straining after like one that stares

in the dark; and this is Death. The law makes us afraid of death. What

is death?--an unhappy life? Who does not feel the insufficiency of this

answer? What analogy does immortal suffering bear to the only death

which is known to us?

Since I wrote the above, God has, I humbly trust, given me a clearer

light as to the true nature of the 'death' so often mentioned in the

Scriptures.

Ib.

It is (said Luther), a very hard matter: yea, an impossible thing for

thy human strength, whosoever thou art (without God's assistance) that

(at such a time when Moses setteth upon thee with his law, and

fearfully affrighteth thee, accuseth and condemneth thee, threateneth

thee with God's wrath and death) thou shouldest as then be of such a

mind; namely, as if no law nor sin had ever been at any time:--I say,

it is in a manner a thing impossible, that a human creature should

carry himself in such a sort, when he is and feeleth himself assaulted

with trials and temptations, and when the conscience hath to do with

God, as then to think no otherwise, than that from everlasting nothing

hath been, but only and alone Christ, altogether grace and deliverance.

Yea, verily, Amen and Amen! For this short heroic paragraph contains the

sum and substance, the heighth and the depth of all true philosophy.

Most assuredly right difficult it is for us, while we are yet in the

narrow chamber of death, with our faces to the dusky falsifying

looking-glass that covers the scant end-side of the blind passage from

floor to ceiling,--right difficult for us, so wedged between its walls

that we cannot turn round, nor have other escape possible but by walking

backward, to understand that all we behold or have any memory of having

ever beholden, yea, our very selves as seen by us, are but shadows, and

when the forms that we loved vanish, impossible not to feel as if they

were real.

Ib. p. 197.

Nothing that is good proceedeth out of the works of the law, except

grace be present; for what we are forced to do, the same goeth not

from the heart, neither is acceptable.

A law supposes a law-giver, and implies an actuator and executor, and

consequently rewards and punishments publicly announced, and distinctly

assigned to the deeds enjoined or forbidden; and correlatively in the

subjects of the law, there are supposed, first, assurance of the being,

the power, the veracity and seeingness of the law-giver, in whom I here

comprise the legislative, judicial and executive functions; and

secondly, self-interest, desire, hope and fear. Now from this view, it

is evident that the deeds or works of the Law are themselves null and

dead, deriving their whole significance from their attachment or

alligation to the rewards and punishments, even as this diversely shaped

and ink colored paper has its value wholly from the words or meanings,

which have been arbitrarily connected therewith; or as a ladder, or

flight of stairs, of a provision-loft, or treasury. If the architect or

master of the house had chosen to place the store-room or treasury on

the ground floor, the ladder or steps would have been useless. The life

is divided between the rewards and punishments on the one hand, and the

hope and fear on the other: namely, the active life or excitancy belongs

to the former, the passive life or excitability to the latter. Call the

former the afficients, the latter the affections, the deeds being merely

the signs or impresses of the former, as the seal, on the latter as the

wax. Equally evident is it, that the affections are wholly formed by the

deeds, which are themselves but the lifeless unsubstantial shapes of the

actual forms ('formæ formantes'), namely, the rewards and punishments.

Now contrast with this the process of the Gospel. There the affections

are formed in the first instance, not by any reference to works or

deeds, but by an unmerited rescue from death, liberation from slavish

task-work; by faith, gratitude, love, and affectionate contemplation of

the exceeding goodness and loveliness of the Saviour, Redeemer,

Benefactor: from the affections flow the deeds, or rather the affections

overflow in the deeds, and the rewards are but a continuance and

continued increase of the free grace in the state of the soul and in the

growth and gradual perfecting of that state, which are themselves gifts

of the same free grace, and one with the rewards; for in the kingdom of

Christ which is the realm of love and inter-community, the joy and grace

of each regenerated spirit becomes double, and thereby augments the joys

and the graces of the others, and the joys and graces of all unite in

each;--Christ, the head, and by his Spirit the bond, or unitive 'copula'

of all, being the spiritual sun whose entire image is reflected in every

individual of the myriads of dew-drops. While under the Law, the all was

but an aggregate of subjects, each striving after a reward for himself,

--not as included in and resulting from the state,--but as the

stipulated wages of the task-work, as a loaf of bread may be the pay or

bounty promised for the hewing of wood or the breaking of stones!

Ib.

He (said Luther), that will dispute with the Devil, &c.

Queries.

I. Abstractedly from, and independently of, all sensible substances, and

the bodies, wills, faculties, and affections of men, has the Devil,

or would the Devil have, a personal self-subsistence? Does he, or

can he, exist as a conscious individual agent or person? Should the

answer to this query be in the negative: then--

II. Do there exist finite and personal beings, whether with composite

and decomponible bodies, that is, embodied, or with simple and

indecomponible bodies, (which is all that can be meant by

disembodied as applied to finite creatures), so eminently wicked, or

wicked and mischievous in so peculiar a kind, as to constitute a

distinct 'genus' of beings under the name of devils?

III. Is this second 'hypothesis' compatible with the acts and functions

attributed to the Devil in Scripture? O! to have had these three

questions put by Melancthon to Luther, and to have heard his reply!

Ib. p. 200.

If (said Luther) God should give unto us a strong and an unwavering

faith, then we should he proud, yea also, we should at last contemn

Him. Again, if he should give us the right knowledge of the law, then

we should be dismayed and fainthearted, we should not know which way

to wind ourselves.

The main reason is, because in this instance, the change in the relation

constitutes the difference of the things. A. considered as acting 'ab

extra' on the selfish fears and desires of men is the Law: the same A:

acting 'ab intra' as a new nature infused by grace, as the mind of

Christ prompting to all obedience, is the Gospel. Yet what Luther says

is likewise very true. Could we reduce the great spiritual truths or

ideas of our faith to comprehensible conceptions, or (for the thing

itself is impossible) fancy we had done so, we should inevitably be

'proud vain asses.'

Ib. p. 203.

And as to know his works and actions, is not yet rightly to know the

Gospel, (for thereby we know not as yet that he hath overcome sin

death and the Devil); even so likewise, it is not as yet to know the

Gospel, when we know such doctrine and commandments, but when the

voice soundeth, which saith, Christ is thine own with life, with

doctrine, with works, death, resurrection, and with all that he hath,

doth and may do.

Most true.

Ib. p. 205.

The ancient Fathers said: 'Distingue tempora et concordabis

Scripturas'; distinguish the times; then may we easily reconcile the

Scriptures together.

Yea! and not only so, but we shall reconcile truths, that seem to repeal

this or that passage of Scripture, with the Scriptures. For Christ is

with his Church even to the end.

Ib.

I verily believe, (said Luther) it (the abolition of the Law) vexed to

the heart the beloved St. Paul himself before his conversion.

How dearly Martin Luther loved St. Paul! How dearly would St. Paul have

loved Martin Luther! And how impossible, that either should not have

done so!

Ib.

In this case, touching the distinguishing the Law from the Gospel, we

must utterly expel all human and natural wisdom, reason, and

understanding.

All reason is above nature. Therefore by reason in Luther, or rather in

his translator, you must understand the reasoning faculty:--that is,

the logical intellect, or the intellectual understanding. For the

understanding is in all respects a medial and mediate faculty, and has

therefore two extremities or poles, the sensual, in which form it is St.

Paul's [Greek: phrónaema sarkòs]; and the intellectual pole, or the

hemisphere (as it were) turned towards the reason. Now the reason ('lux

idealis seu spiritualis') shines down into the understanding, which

recognizes the light, 'id est, lumen a luce spirituali quasi alienigenum

aliquid', which it can only comprehend or describe to itself by

attributes opposite to its own essential properties. Now these latter

being contingency, and (for though the immediate objects of the

understanding are 'genera et species', still they are particular 'genera

et species') particularity, it distinguishes the formal light ('lumen')

(not the substantial light, 'lux') of reason by the attributes of the

necessary and the universal; and by irradiation of this 'lumen' or

'shine' the understanding becomes a conclusive or logical faculty. As

such it is [Greek: Lógos anthrôpinos].

Ib. 206.

When Satan saith in thy heart, God will not pardon thy sins, nor be

gracious unto thee, I pray (said Luther) how wilt thou then, as a poor

sinner, raise up and comfort thyself, especially when other signs of

God's wrath besides do beat upon thee, as sickness, poverty, &c. And

that thy heart beginneth to preach and say, Behold, here thou livest

in sickness, thou art poor and forsaken of every one, &c.

Oh! how true, how affectingly true is this! And when too Satan, the

tempter, becomes Satan the accuser, saying in thy heart:--"This sickness

is the consequence of sin, or sinful infirmity, and thou hast brought

thyself into a fearful dilemma; thou canst not hope for salvation as

long as thou continuest in any sinful practice, and yet thou canst not

abandon thy daily dose of this or that poison without suicide. For the

sin of thy soul has become the necessity of thy body, daily tormenting

thee, without yielding thee any the least pleasurable sensation, but

goading thee on by terror without hope. Under such evidence of God's

wrath how canst thou expect to be saved?" Well may the heart cry out,

"Who shall deliver me from the 'body of this death',--from this death

that lives and tyrannizes in my body?" But the Gospel answers--"There is

a redemption from the body promised; only cling to Christ. Call on him

continually with all thy heart, and all thy soul, to give thee strength,

and be strong in thy weakness; and what Christ doth not see good to

relieve thee from, suffer in hope. It may be better for thee to be kept

humble and in self-abasement. The thorn in the flesh may remain and yet

the grace of God through Christ prove sufficient for thee. Only cling to

Christ, and do thy best. In all love and well-doing gird thyself up to

improve and use aright what remains free in thee, and if thou doest

ought aright, say and thankfully believe that Christ hath done it for

thee." O what a miserable despairing wretch should I become, if I

believed the doctrines of Bishop Jeremy Taylor in his Treatise on

Repentance, or those I heard preached by Dr.----; if I gave up the

faith, that the life of Christ would precipitate the remaining dregs of

sin in the crisis of death, and that I shall rise in purer capacity of

Christ; blind to be irradiated by his light, empty to be possessed by

his fullness, naked of merit to be clothed with his righteousness!

Ib. p. 207.

The nobility, the gentry, citizens, and farmers, &c. are now become so

haughty and ungodly, that they regard no ministers nor preachers; and

(said Luther) if we were not holpen somewhat by great princes and

persons, we could not long subsist: therefore Isaiah saith well,

'And kings shall be their nurses', &c.

Corpulent nurses too often, that overlay the babe; distempered nurses,

that convey poison in their milk!

Chap. XIII. p. 208.

Philip Melancthon said to Luther, The opinion of St. Austin of

justification (as it seemeth) was more pertinent, fit and convenient

when he disputed not, than it was when he used to speak and dispute;

for thus he saith, We ought to censure and hold that we are justified

by faith, that is by our regeneration, or by being made new creatures.

Now if it be so, then we are not justified only by faith, but by all

the gifts and virtues of God given unto us. Now what is your opinion

Sir? Do you hold that a man is justified by this regeneration, as is

St. Austin's opinion?

Luther answered and said, I hold this, and am certain, that the true

meaning of the Gospel and of the Apostle is, that we are justified

before God 'gratis', for nothing, only by God's mere mercy, wherewith

and by reason whereof, he imputeth righteousness unto us in Christ.

True; but is it more than a dispute about words? Is not the regeneration

likewise 'gratis', only by God's mere mercy? We, according to the

necessity of our imperfect understandings, must divide and distinguish.

But surely justification and sanctification are one act of God, and only

different perspectives of redemption by and through and for Christ. They

are one and the same plant, justification the root, sanctification the

flower; and (may I not venture to add?) transubstantiation into Christ

the celestial fruit.

Ib. p. 210-11. Melancthon's sixth reply.

Sir! you say Paul was justified, that is, was received to everlasting

life, only for mercy's sake. Against which, I say, if the piece-meal

or partial cause, namely our obedience, followeth not; then we are not

saved, according to these words, 'Woe is me if I preach not the

Gospel'. 1. Cor. ix.

Luther's answer.

No piecing or partial cause (said Luther) approacheth thereupto: for

faith is powerful continually without ceasing; otherwise, it is no

faith. Therefore what the works are, or of what value, the same they

are through the honor and power of faith, which undeniably is the sun

or sun-beam of this shining.

This is indeed a difficult question; and one, I am disposed to think,

which can receive its solution only by the idea, or the act and fact of

justification by faith self-reflected. But, humanly considered, this

position of Luther's provokes the mind to ask, is there no receptivity

of faith, considered as a free gift of God, prerequisite in the

individual? Does faith commence by generating the receptivity of itself?

If so, there is no difference either in kind or in degree between the

receivers and the rejectors of the word, at the moment preceeding this

reception or rejection; and a stone is a subject as capable of faith as

a man. How can obedience exist, where disobedience was not possible?

Surely two or three texts from St. Paul, detached from the total

'organismus' of his reasoning, ought not to out-weigh the plain fact,

that the contrary position is implied in, or is an immediate consequent

of, our Lord's own invitations and assurances. Every where a something

is attributed to the will. [2]

Chap. XIII. p. 211.

To conclude, a faithful person is a new creature, a new tree.

Therefore all these speeches, which in the law are usual, belong not

to this case; as to say 'A faithful' person must do good works.

Neither were it rightly spoken, to say the sun shall shine: a good

tree shall bring forth good fruit, &c. For the sun 'shall' not shine,

but it doth shine by nature unbidden, it is thereunto created.

This important paragraph is obscure by the translator's ignorance of the

true import of the German 'soll', which does not answer to our 'shall;'

but rather to our 'ought', that is, 'should' do this or that,--is under

an obligation to do it.

Ib. p. 213.

And I, my loving Brentius, to the end I may better understand this

case, do use to think in this manner, namely, as if in my heart were

no quality or virtue at all, which is called faith, and love, (as the

Sophists do speak and dream thereof), but I set all on Christ, and

say, my 'formalis justitia', that is, my sure, my constant and

complete righteousness (in which is no want nor failing, but is, as

before God it ought to be) is Christ my Lord and Saviour.

Aye! this, this is indeed to the purpose. In this doctrine my soul can

find rest. I hope to be saved by faith, not by my faith, but by the

faith of Christ in me.

Ib. p. 214.

The Scripture nameth the faithful a people of God's saints. But here

one may say; the sins which daily we commit, do offend and anger God;

how then can we be holy?

'Answer'. A mother's love to her child is much stronger than are the

excrements and scurf thereof. Even so God's love towards us is far

stronger than our filthiness and uncleanness.

Yea, one may say again, we sin without ceasing, and where sin is,

there the holy Spirit is not: therefore we are not holy, because the

holy Spirit is not in us, who maketh holy.

'Answer'. (John xvi. 14.) Now where Christ is, there is the holy

Spirit. The text saith plainly, 'The holy Ghost shall glorify me, &c.'

Now Christ is in the faithful (although they have and feel sins, do

confess the same, and with sorrow of heart do complain thereover);

therefore sins do not separate Christ from those that believe.

All in this page is true, and necessary to be preached. But O! what need

is there of holy prudence to preach it aright, that is, at right times

to the right ears! Now this is when the doctrine is necessary and thence

comfortable; but where it is not necessary, but only very comfortable,

in such cases it would be a narcotic poison, killing the soul by

infusing a stupor or counterfeit peace of conscience. Where there are no

sinkings of self-abasement, no griping sense of sin and worthlessness,

but perhaps the contrary, reckless confidence and self-valuing for good

qualities supposed an overbalance for the sins,--there it is not

necessary. In short, these are not the truths, that can be preached

[Greek: eukaírôs akaírôs], _in season and out of season_. In declining

life, or at any time in the hour of sincere humiliation, these truths

may be applied in reference to past sins collectively; but a Christian

must not, a true however infirm Christian will not, cannot, administer

them to himself immediately after sinning; least of all immediately

before. We ought fervently to pray thus:--"Most holy and most merciful

God! by the grace of thy holy Spirit make these promises profitable to

me, to preserve me from despairing of thy forgiveness through Christ my

Saviour! But O! save me from presumptuously perverting them into a

pillow for a stupified conscience! Give me grace so to contrast my sin

with thy transcendant goodness and long-suffering love, as to hate it

with an unfeigned hatred for its own exceeding sinfulness."

Ib. p. 219-20.

Faith is, and consisteth in, a person's understanding, but hope

consisteth in the will. * * Faith inditeth, distinguisheth and

teacheth, and it is the knowledge and acknowledgment. * * Faith

fighteth against error and heresies, it proveth, censureth and judgeth

the spirits and doctrines. * * Faith in divinity is the wisdom and

providence, and belongeth to the doctrine. * * Faith is the

'dialectica', for it is altogether wit and wisdom.

Luther in his Postills discourseth far better and more genially of faith

than in these paragraphs. Unfortunately, the Germans have but one word

for faith and belief--'Glaube', and what Luther here says, is spoken of

belief. Of faith he speaks in the next article but one.

Ib. p. 226.

"That regeneration only maketh God's children.

"The article of our justification before God (said Luther) is, as it

useth to be with a son which is born an heir of all his father's

goods, and cometh not thereunto by deserts."

I will here record my experience. Ever when I meet with the doctrine of

regeneration and faith and free grace simply announced--"So it

is!"--then I believe; my heart leaps forth to welcome it. But as soon as

an explanation nation or reason is added, such explanations, namely, and

reasonings as I have any where met with, then my heart leaps back again,

recoils, and I exclaim, Nay! Nay! but not so.

25th of September, 1819.

Ib. p. 227.

"Doctor Carlestad (said Luther) argueth thus: True it is that faith

justifieth, but faith is a work of the first commandment; therefore it

justifieth as a work. Moreover all that the Law commandeth, the same

is a work of the Law. Now faith is commanded, therefore faith is a

work of the Law. Again, what God will have the same is commanded: God

will have faith, therefore faith is commanded."

"St. Paul (said Luther) speaketh in such sort of the law, that he

separateth it from the promise, which is far another thing than the

law. The law is terrestrial, but the promise is celestial.

"God giveth the law to the end we may thereby be roused up and made

pliant; for the commandments do go and proceed against the proud and

haughty, which contemn God's gifts; now a gift or present cannot be a

commandment."

"Therefore we must answer according to this rule, 'Verba sunt

accipienda secundum subjectam materiam.' * * St. Paul calleth that the

work of the law, which is done and acted through the knowledge of the

law by a constrained will without the holy Spirit; so that the same is

a work of the law, which the law earnestly requireth and strictly will

have done; it is not a voluntary work, but a forced work of the rod."

And wherein did Carlestad and Luther differ? Not at all, or essentially

and irreconcilably, according as the feeling of Carlestad was. If he

meant the particular deed, the latter; if the total act, the agent

included, then the former.

Chap. XIV. p. 230.

"The love towards the neighbour (said Luther) must be like a pure

chaste love between bride and bridegroom, where all faults are

connived at, covered and borne with, and only the virtues regarded."

In how many little escapes and corner-holes does the sensibility, the

fineness, (that of which refinement is but a counterfeit, at best but a

reflex,) the geniality of nature appear in this 'son of thunder!' O for

a Luther in the present age! Why, Charles! [3] with the very handcuffs

of his prejudices he would knock out the brains (nay, that is

impossible, but,) he would split the skulls of our 'Cristo-galli',

translate the word as you like:--French Christians, or coxcombs!

Ib. p. 231-2.

"Let Witzell know, (said Luther) that David's wars and battles, which

he fought, were more pleasing to God than the fastings and prayings of

the best, of the honestest, and of the holiest monks and friars; much

more than the works of our new ridiculous and superstitious friars."

A cordial, rich and juicy speech, such as shaped itself into, and lived

anew in, the Gustavus Adolphuses.

Chap. XV. p. 233-4.

"God most certainly heareth them that pray in faith, and granteth when

and how he pleaseth, and knoweth most profitable for them. We must

also know, that when our prayers tend to the sanctifying of his name,

and to the increase and honor of his kingdom (also that we pray

according to his will) then most certainly he heareth. But when we

pray contrary to these points, then we are not heard; for God doth

nothing against his Name, his kingdom, and his will."

Then (saith the understanding, [Greek: Tò phrónaema sarkòs]) what doth

prayer effect? If A--prayer = B., and A + prayer = B, prayer = O. The

attempt to answer this argument by admitting its invalidity relatively

to God, but asserting the efficacy of prayer relatively to the pray-er

or precant himself, is merely staving off the objection a single step.

For this effect on the devout soul is produced by an act of God. The

true answer is, prayer is an idea, and 'ens spirituale', out of the

cognizance of the understanding.

The spiritual mind receives the answer in the contemplation of the idea,

life as 'deitas diffusa'. We can set the life in efficient motion, but

not contrary to the form or type. The errors and false theories of great

men sometimes, perhaps most often, arise out of true ideas falsified by

degenerating into conceptions; or the mind excited to action by an

inworking idea, the understanding works in the same direction according

to its kind, and produces a counterfeit, in which the mind rests.

This I believe to be the case with the scheme of emanation in Plotinus.

God is made a first and consequently a comparative intensity, and matter

the last; the whole thence finite; and thence its conceivability. But we

must admit a gradation of intensities in reality.

Chap. XVI. p. 247.

"When governors and rulers are enemies to God's word, then our duty is

to depart, to sell and forsake all we have, to fly from one place to

another, as Christ commandeth; we must make and prepare no uproars nor

tumults by reason of the Gospel, but we must suffer all things."

Right. But then it must be the lawful rulers; those in whom the

sovereign or supreme power is lodged by the known laws and constitution

of the country. Where the laws and constitutional liberties of the

nation are trampled on, the subjects do not lose, and are not in

conscience bound to forego, their right of resistance, because they are

Christians, or because it happens to be a matter of religion, in which

their rights are violated. And this was Luther's opinion. Whether, if a

Popish Czar shall act as our James II. acted, the Russian Greekists

would be justified in doing with him what the English Protestants

justifiably did with regard to James, is a knot which I shall not

attempt to cut; though I guess the Russians would, by cutting their

Czar's throat.

Ib.

'But no man will do this, except he be so sure of his doctrine and

religion, as that, although I myself should play the fool, and should

recant and deny this my doctrine and religion (which God forbid), he

notwithstanding therefore would not yield, but say, "If Luther, or an

angel from heaven, should teach otherwise, _Let him be accursed_."'

Well and nobly said, thou rare black swan! This, this is the Church.

Where this is found, there is the Church of Christ, though but twenty in

the whole of the congregation; and were twenty such in two hundred

different places, the Church would be entire in each. Without this no

Church.

Ib. p. 248.

"And he sent for one of his chiefest privy councillors, named Lord

John _Von Minkwitz_, and said unto him; 'You have heard my father say,

(running with him at tilt) that to sit upright on horseback maketh a

good tilter. If therefore it be good and laudable in temporal tilting

to sit upright; how much more is it now praiseworthy in God's cause to

sit, to stand, and to go uprightly and just!'"

Princely. So Shakspeare would have made a Prince Elector talk. The

metaphor is so grandly in character.

Chap. XVII. p. 249.

"_Signa sunt subinde facta, minora; res autem et facta subinde

creverunt_."

A valuable remark. As the substance waxed, that is, became more evident,

the ceremonial sign waned, till at length in the Eucharist the 'signum'

united itself with the 'significatum', and became consubstantial. The

ceremonial sign, namely, the eating the bread and drinking the wine,

became a symbol, that is, a solemn instance and exemplification of the

class of mysterious acts, which we are, or as Christians should be,

performing daily and hourly in every social duty and recreation. This is

indeed to re-create the man in and by Christ. Sublimely did the Fathers

call the Eucharist the extension of the Incarnation: only I should have

preferred the perpetuation and application of the Incarnation.

Ib.

A bare writing without a seal is of no force.

Metaphors are sorry logic, especially metaphors from human and those too

conventional usages to the ordinances of eternal wisdom.

Ib. p. 250.

Luther said, "No. A Christian is wholly and altogether sanctified. * *

We must take sure hold on Baptism by faith, as then we shall be, yea,

already are, sanctified. In this sort David nameth himself holy."

A deep thought. Strong meat for men. It must not be offered for milk.

Chap. XXI. p. 276.

Then I will declare him openly to the Church, and in this manner I

will say: "Loving friends, I declare unto you, how that N. N. hath

been admonished: first, by myself in private, afterwards also by two

chaplains, thirdly, by two aldermen and churchwardens, and those of

the assembly: yet notwithstanding he will not desist from his sinful

kind of life. Wherefore I earnestly desire you to assist and aid me,

to kneel down with me, and let us pray against him, and deliver him

over to the Devil."

Luther did not mean that this should be done all at once; but that a day

should be appointed for the congregation to meet for joint consultation,

and according to the resolutions passed to choose and commission such

and such persons to wait on the offender, and to exhort, persuade and

threaten him in the name of the congregation: then, if after due time

allowed, this proved fruitless, to kneel down with the minister, &c.

Surely, were it only feasible, nothing could be more desirable. But

alas! it is not compatible with a Church national, the congregations of

which are therefore not gathered nor elected, or with a Church

established by law; for law and discipline are mutually destructive of

each other, being the same as involuntary and voluntary penance.

Chap. xxii. p. 290.

Wicliffe and Huss opposed and assaulted the manner of life and

conversation in Popedom. But I chiefly do oppose and resist their

doctrine; I affirm roundly and plainly that they teach not aright.

Thereto am I called. I take the goose by the neck, and set the knife

to the throat. When I can maintain that the Pope's doctrine is false,

(which I have proved and maintained), then I will easily prove and

maintain that their manner of life is evil.

This is a remark of deep insight: 'verum vere Lutheranum'.

Ib. p. 291.

Ambition and pride (said Luther), are the rankest poison in the Church

when they are possessed by preachers. Zuinglius thereby was misled,

who did what pleased himself * * * He wrote, "Ye honorable and good

princes must pardon me, in that I give you not your titles; for the

glass windows are as well illustrious as ye."

One might fancy, in the Vision-of-Mirza style, that all the angry,

contemptuous, haughty expressions of good and zealous men, gallant

staff-officers in the army of Christ, formed a rick of straw and

stubble, which at the last day is to be divided into more or fewer

haycocks, according to the number of kind and unfeignedly humble and

charitable thoughts and speeches that had intervened, and that these

were placed in a pile, leap-frog fashion, in the narrow road to the gate

of Paradise; and burst into flame as the zeal of the individual

approached,--so that he must leap over and through them. Now I cannot

help thinking, that this dear man of God, heroic Luther, will find more

opportunities of showing his agility, and reach the gate in a greater

sweat and with more blisters 'a parte post' than his brother hero,

Zuinglius. I guess that the comments of the latter on the Prophets will

be found almost sterile in these tiger-lilies and brimstone flowers of

polemic rhetoric, compared with the controversy of the former with our

Henry VIII., his replies to the Pope's Bulls, and the like.

By the by, the joke of the 'glass windows' is lost in the translation.

The German for illustrious is 'durchlauchtig', that is, transparent or

translucent.

Ib.

When we leave to God his name, his kingdom and will, then will he also

give unto us our daily bread, and will remit our sins, and deliver us

from the devil and all evil. Only his honor he will have to himself.

A brief but most excellent comment on the Lord's Prayer.

Ib. p. 297.

There was never any that understood the Old Testament so well as St.

Paul, except only John the Baptist.

I cannot conjecture what Luther had in his mind when he made this

exception.

Chap. XXVII. p. 335.

I could wish (said Luther) that the Princes and States of the Empire

would make an assembly, and hold a council and a union both in

doctrine and ceremonies, so that every one might not break in and run

on with such insolency and presumption according to his own brains, as

already is begun, whereby many good hearts are offended.

Strange heart of man! Would Luther have given up the doctrine of

justification by faith alone, had the majority of the Council decided in

favor of the Arminian scheme? If not, by what right could he expect

OEcolampadius or Zuinglius to recant their convictions respecting the

Eucharist, or the Baptists theirs on Infant Baptism, to the same

authority? In fact, the wish expressed in this passage must be

considered as a mere flying thought shot out by the mood and feeling of

the moment, a sort of conversational flying-fish that dropped as soon as

the moisture of the fins had evaporated. The paragraph in p. 336, of

what Councils ought to order, should be considered Luther's genuine

opinion.

Ib. p. 337.

The council of Nice, held after the Apostles' time, (said Luther) was

the very best and purest; but soon after in the time of the Emperor

Constantine, it was weakened by the Arians.

What Arius himself meant, I do not know: what the modern Arians teach, I

utterly condemn; but that the great council of Ariminum was either Arian

or heretical I could never discover, or descry any essential difference

between its decisions and the Nicene; though I seem to find a serious

difference of the pseudo-Athanasian Creed from both. If there be a

difference between the Councils of Nicea and Ariminum, it perhaps

consists in this;--that the Nicene was the more anxious to assert the

equal Divinity in the Filial subordination; the Ariminian to maintain

the Filial subordination in the equal Divinity. In both there are three

self-subsistent and only one self-originated:--which is the substance

of the idea of the Trinity, as faithfully worded as is compatible with

the necessary inadequacy of words to the expression of ideas, that is,

spiritual truths that can only be spiritually discerned. [4]

18th August, 1826.

Chap. XXVIII. p. 347.

God's word a Lord of all Lords.

Luther every where identifies the living Word of God with the written

word, and rages against Bullinger, who contended that the latter is the

word of God only as far as and for whom it is the vehicle of the former.

To this Luther replies: "My voice, the vehicle of my words, does not

cease to be my voice, because it is ignorantly or maliciously

misunderstood." Yea! (might Bullinger have rejoined) the instance were

applicable and the argument valid, if we were previously assured that

all and every part of the Old and New Testament is the voice of the

divine Word. But, except by the Spirit, whence are we to ascertain this?

Not from the books themselves; for not one of them makes the pretension

for itself, and the two or three texts, which seem to assert it, refer

only to the Law and the Prophets, and no where enumerate the books that

were given by inspiration: and how obscure the history of the formation

of the Canon, and how great the difference of opinion respecting its

different parts, what scholar is ignorant?

Chap. XXIX. p. 349.

'Patres, quamquam sæpe errant, tamen venerandi propter testimonium

fidei.'

Although I learn from all this chapter, that Luther was no great

Patrician, (indeed he was better employed), yet I am nearly, if not

wholly of his mind respecting the works of the Fathers. Those which

appear to me of any great value are valuable chiefly for those articles

of Christian Faith which are, as it were, 'ante Christum' JESUM, namely,

the Trinity, and the primal Incarnation spoken of by John i, 10. But in

the main I should perhaps go even farther than Luther; for I cannot

conceive any thing more likely than that a young man of strong and

active intellect, who has no fears, or suffers no fears of worldly

prudence to cry, Halt! to him in his career of consequential logic, and

who has been 'innutritus et juratus' in the Grotio-Paleyan scheme of

Christian evidence, and who has been taught by the men and books, which

he has been bred up to regard as authority, to consider all inward

experiences as fanatical delusions;--I say, I can scarcely conceive such

a young man to make a serious study of the Fathers of the first four or

five centuries without becoming either a Romanist or a Deist. Let him

only read Petavius and the different Patristic and Ecclesiastico

-historical tracts of Semler, and have no better philosophy than that of

Locke, no better theology than that of Arminius and Bishop Jeremy

Taylor, and I should tremble for his belief. Yet why tremble for a

belief which is the very antipode of faith? Better for such a man to

precipitate himself on to the utmost goal: for then perhaps he may in

the repose of intellectual activity feel the nothingness of his prize,

or the wretchedness of it; and then perhaps the inward yearning after a

religion may make him ask;--"Have I not mistaken the road at the outset?

Am I sure that the Reformers, Luther and the rest collectively, were

fanatics?"

Ib. p. 351.

'Take no care what ye shall eat'. As though that commandment did not

hinder the carping and caring for the daily bread.

For 'caring,' read, 'anxiety!' 'Sit tibi curæ, non autem solicitudini,

panis quotidianus'.

Ib. p. 351.

Even so it was with Ambrose: he wrote indeed well and purely, was more

serious in writing than Austin, who was amiable and mild. * * *

Fulgentius is the best poet, and far above Horace both with sentences,

fair speeches and good actions; he is well worthy to be ranked and

numbered with and among the poets.

'Der Teufel'! Surely the epithets should be reversed. Austin's

mildness--the 'durus pater infantum'! And the 'super'-Horatian

effulgence of Master Foolgentius! O Swan! thy critical cygnets are but

goslings.

N.B. I have, however, since I wrote the above, heard Mr. J. Hookham

Frere speak highly of Fulgentius.

Ib. p. 352.

For the Fathers were but men, and to speak the truth, their reputes

and authorities did undervalue and suppress the books and writings of

the sacred Apostles of Christ.

We doubtless find in the writings of the Fathers of the second century,

and still more strongly in those of the third, passages concerning the

Scriptures that seem to say the same as we Protestants now do. But then

we find the very same phrases used of writings not Apostolic, or with no

other difference than what the greater name of the authors would

naturally produce; just as a Platonist would speak of Speusippus's

books, were they extant, compared with those of later teachers of

Platonism;--'He was Plato's nephew-had seen Plato--was his appointed

successor, &c.' But in inspiration the early Christians, as far as I can

judge, made no generic difference, let Lardner say what he will. Can he

disprove that it was declared heretical by the Church in the second

century to believe the written words of a dead Apostle in opposition to

the words of a living Bishop, seeing that the same spirit which guided

the Apostles dwells in and guides the Bishops of the Church? This at

least is certain, that the later the age of the writer, the stronger the

expression of comparative superiority of the Scriptures; the earlier, on

the other hand, the more we hear of the 'Symbolum', the 'Regula Fidei',

the Creed.

Chap. XXXII. p. 362.

The history of the Prophet Jonas is so great that it is almost

incredible; yea, it soundeth more strange than any of the poets'

fables, and (said Luther) if it stood not in the Bible, I should take

it for a lie.

It is quite wonderful that Luther, who could see so plainly that the

book of Judith was an allegoric poem, should have been blind to the book

of Jonas being an apologue, in which Jonah means the Israelitish nation.

Ib. p. 364.

For they entered into the garden about the hour at noon day, and

having appetites to eat, she took delight in the apple; then about two

of the clock, according to our account, was the fall.

Milton has adopted this notion in the Paradise Lost--not improbably from

this book.

Ib. p. 365.

David made a Psalm of two and twenty parts, in each of which are eight

verses, and yet in all is but one kind of meaning, namely, he will

only say, Thy law or word is good.

I have conjectured that the 119th Psalm might have been a form of

ordination, in which a series of candidates made their prayers and

profession in the open Temple before they went to the several synagogues

in the country.

Ib.

But (said Luther) I say, he did well and right thereon: for the office

of a magistrate is to punish the guilty and wicked malefactors. He

made a vow, indeed, not to punish him, but that is to be understood,

so long as David lived.

O Luther! Luther! ask your own heart if this is not Jesuit morality.

Chap. XXXIII. v. 367.

I believe (said Luther) the words of our Christian belief were in such

sort ordained by the Apostles, who were together, and made this sweet

'Symbolum' so briefly and comfortable.

It is difficult not to regret that Luther had so superficial a knowledge

of Ecclesiastical antiquities: for example, his belief in this fable of

the Creed having been a 'picnic' contribution of the twelve Apostles,

each giving a sentence. Whereas nothing is more certain than that it was

the gradual product of three or four centuries.

Chap. XXXIV. p. 369.

An angel (said Luther) is a spiritual creature created by God without

a body for the service of Christendom, especially in the office of the

Church.

What did Luther mean by a body? For to me the word seemeth capable of

two senses, universal and special:--first, a form indicating to A. B. C.

&c., the existence and finiteness of some one other being

'demonstrative' as 'hic', and 'disjunctive' as 'hic et non ille'; and in

this sense God alone can be without body: secondly, that which is not

merely 'hic distinctive', but 'divisive'; yea, a product divisible from

the producent as a snake from its skin, a precipitate and death of

living power; and in this sense the body is proper to mortality, and to

be denied of spirits made perfect as well as of the spirits that never

fell from perfection, and perhaps of those who fell below mortality,

namely, the devils.

But I am inclined to hold that the Devil has no one body, nay, no body

of his own; but ceaselessly usurps or counterfeits bodies; for he is an

everlasting liar, yea, the lie which is the colored shadow of the

substance that intercepts the truth.

Ib. p. 370.

The devils are in woods, in waters, in wildernesses, and in dark pooly

places, ready to hurt and prejudice people, &c.

"The angel's like a flea,

The devil is a bore;--"

No matter for that! quoth S.T.C.

I love him the better therefore.

Yes! heroic Swan, I love thee even when thou gabbiest like a goose; for

thy geese helped to save the Capitol.

Ib. p. 371.

I do verily believe (said Luther) that the day of judgment draweth

near, and that the angels prepare themselves for the fight and combat,

and that within the space of a few hundred years they will strike down

both Turk and Pope into the bottomless pit of hell.

Yea! two or three more such angels as thyself, Martin Luther, and thy

prediction would be, or perhaps would now have been, accomplished.

Chap. XXXV. p. 388.

Cogitations of the understanding do produce no melancholy, but the

cogitations of the will cause sadness; as, when one is grieved at a

thing, or when one doth sigh and complain, there are melancholy and

sad cogitations, but the understanding is not melancholy.

Even in Luther's lowest imbecilities what gleams of vigorous good sense!

Had he understood the nature and symptoms of indigestion together with

the detail of subjective seeing and hearing, and the existence of

mid-states of the brain between sleeping and waking, Luther would have

been a greater philosopher; but would he have been so great a hero? I

doubt it. Praised be God whose mercy is over all his works; who bringeth

good out of evil, and manifesteth his wisdom even in the follies of his

servants, his strength in their weakness!

Ib. p. 389.

Whoso prayeth a Psalm shall be made thoroughly warm.

'Expertus credo'.

19th Aug. 1826.

I have learnt to interpret for myself the imprecating verses of the

Psalms of my inward and spiritual enemies, the old Adam and all his

corrupt menials; and thus I am no longer, as I used to be, stopped or

scandalized by such passages as vindictive and anti-Christian.

Ib.

The Devil (said Luther) oftentimes objected and argued against me the

whole cause which, through God's grace, I lead. He objecteth also

against Christ. But better it were that the Temple brake in pieces

than that Christ should therein remain obscure and hid.

Sublime!

Ib.

In Job are two chapters concerning 'Behemoth' the whale, that by

reason of him no man is in safety. * * These are colored words and

figures whereby the Devil is signified and showed.

A slight mistake of brother Martin's. The 'Behemoth' of Job is beyond a

doubt neither whale nor devil, but, I think, the hippopotamus; who is

indeed as ugly as the devil, and will occasionally play the devil among

the rice-grounds; but though in this respect a devil of a fellow, yet on

the whole he is too honest a monster to be a fellow of devils. 'Vindiciæ

Behemoticæ'.

Chap. XXXVI. p. 390.

'Of Witchcraft'.

It often presses on my mind as a weighty argument in proof of at least a

negative inspiration, an especial restraining grace, in the composition

of the Canonical books, that though the writers individually did (the

greater number at least) most probably believe in the objective reality

of witchcraft, yet no such direct assertions as these of Luther's, which

would with the vast majority of Christians have raised it into an

article of faith, are to be found in either Testament. That the 'Ob' and

'Oboth' of Moses are no authorities for this absurd superstition, has

been unanswerably shewn by Webster. [5]

Chap. XXXVII. p. 398.

To conclude, (said Luther), I never yet knew a troubled and perplexed

man, that was right in his own wits.

A sound observation of great practical utility. Edward Irving should be

aware of this in dealing with conscience-troubled (but in fact

fancy-vexed) women.

Ib.

It was not a thorn in the flesh touching the unchaste love he bore

towards Tecla, as the Papists dream.

I should like to know how high this strange legend can be traced. The

other tradition that St. Paul was subject to epileptic fits, has a less

legendary character. The phrase 'thorn in the flesh' is scarcely

reconcilable with Luther's hypothesis, otherwise than as doubts of the

objectivity of his vision, and of his after revelations may have been

consequences of the disease, whatever that might be.

Ib. p. 399.

Our Lord God doth like a printer, who setteth the letters backwards;

we see and feel well his setting, but we shall see the print yonder in

the life to come.

A beautiful simile. Add that even in this world the lives, especially

the autobiographies, of eminent servants of Christ, are like the

looking-glass or mirror, which, reversing the types, renders them

legible to us.

Ib. p. 403.

'Indignus sum, sed dignus fui--creari a Deo', &c. Although I am

unworthy, yet nevertheless 'I have been' worthy, 'in that I am'

created of God, &c.

The translation does not give the true sense of the Latin. It should be

'was' and 'to be'. The 'dignus fui' has here the sense of 'dignum me

habuit Deus'. See Herbert's little poem in the Temple:

Sweetest Saviour, if my soul

Were but worth the having,

Quickly should I then control

Any thought of waving;

But when all my care and pains

Cannot give the name of gains

To thy wretch so full of stains,

What delight or hope remains?

Ib. p. 404.

The chiefest physic for that disease (but very hard and difficult it

is to be done) is, that they firmly hold such cogitations not to be

theirs, but that most sure and certain they come of the Devil.

More and more I understand the immense difference between the

Faith-article of 'the Devil' ([Greek: tou Ponaeroù]) and the

superstitious fancy of devils: 'animus objectivus dominationem in'

[Greek: tòn Eimì] 'affectans'; [Greek: oútos tò méga órganon Diabólou

hypárchei].

Chap. XLIV. p. 431.

I truly advise all those (said Luther) who earnestly do affect the

honor of Christ and the Gospel, that they would be enemies to Erasmus

Roterodamus, for he is a devaster of religion. Do but read only his

dialogue 'De Peregrinatione', where you will see how he derideth and

flouteth the whole religion, and at last concludeth out of single

abominations, that he rejecteth religion, &c.

Religion here means the vows and habits of the religious or those bound

to a particular life;--the monks, friars, nuns, in short, the regulars

in contradistinction from the laity and the secular Clergy.

Ib. p. 432.

Erasmus can do nothing but cavil and flout, he cannot confute. If

(said Luther) I were a Papist, so could I easily overcome and beat

him. For although he flouteth the Pope with his ceremonies, yet he

neither hath confuted nor overcome him; no enemy is beaten nor

overcome with mocking, jeering, and flouting.

Most true; but it is an excellent pioneer and an excellent 'corps de

reserve', cavalry for pursuit, and for clearing the field of battle, and

in the first use Luther was greatly obliged to Erasmus. But such utter

unlikes cannot but end in dislikes, and so it proved between Erasmus and

Luther. Erasmus, might the Protestants say, wished no good to the Church

of Rome, and still less to our party: it was with him 'Rot her and Dam

us'!

Chap. XLVIII. p. 442.

David's example is full of offences, that so holy a man, chosen of

God, should fall into such great abominable sins and blasphemies;

when as before he was very fortunate and happy, of whom all the

bordering kingdoms were afraid, for God was with him.

If any part of the Old Testament be typical, the whole life and

character of David, from his birth to his death, are eminently so. And

accordingly the history of David and his Psalms, which form a most

interesting part of his history, occupies as large a portion of the Old

Testament as all the others. The type is two-fold-now of the Messiah,

now of the Church, and of the Church in all its relations, persecuted,

victorious, backsliding, penitent. N.B. I do not find David charged with

any vices, though with heavy crimes. So it is with the Church. Vices

destroy its essence.

Ib.

The same was a strange kind of offence (said Luther) that the world

was offended at him who raised the dead, who made the blind to see,

and the deaf to hear, &c.

Our Lord alluded to the verse that immediately follows and completes his

quotations from Isaiah. [6] I, Jehovah, will come and do this. That he

implicitly declared himself the Jehovah, the Word,--this was the

offence.

Chap. XLIX. p. 443.

God wills, may one say, that we should serve him freewillingly, but he

that serveth God out of fear of punishment of hell, or out of a hope

and love of recompence, the same serveth and honoreth God not freely;

therefore such a one serveth God not uprightly nor truly.

_Answer_. This argument (said Luther) is Stoical, &c.

A truly wise paragraph. Pity it was not expounded. God will accept our

imperfections, where their face is turned toward him, on the road to the

glorious liberty of the Gospel.

Chap. L. p. 446.

It is the highest grace and gift of God to have an honest, a

God-fearing, housewifely consort, &c. But God thrusteth many into the

state of matrimony before they be aware and rightly bethink

themselves.

The state of matrimony (said Luther) is the chiefest state in the

world after religion, &c.

Alas! alas! this is the misery of it, that so many wed and so few are

Christianly married! But even in this the analogy of matrimony to the

religion of Christ holds good: for even such is the proportion of

nominal to actual Christians;--all _christened_, how few baptized! But

in true matrimony it is beautiful to consider, how peculiarly the

marriage state harmonizes with the doctrine of justification by free

grace through faith alone. The little quarrels, the imperfections on

both sides, the occasional frailties, yield to the one thought,--there

is love at the bottom. If sickness or other sorer calamity visit me, how

would the love then blaze forth! The faults are there, but they are not

imprinted. The prickles, the acrid rind, the bitterness or sourness, are

transformed into the ripe fruit, and the foreknowledge of this gives the

name and virtue of the ripe fruit to the fruit yet green on the bough.

Ib. p. 447.

The causers and founders of matrimony are chiefly God's commandments,

&c. It is a state instituted by God himself, visited by Christ in

person, and presented with a glorious present; for God said, 'It is

not good that the man should be alone': therefore the wife should be a

help to the husband, to the end that human generations may be

increased, and children nurtured to God's honour, and to the profit of

people and countries; also to keep our bodies in sanctification.

(Add) and in mutual reverence, our spirits in a state of love and

tenderness; and our imaginations pure and tranquil.

In a word, matrimony not only preserveth human generations so that the

same remain continually, but it preserveth the generations human.

Ib. p. 450.

In the synod at Leipzig the lawyers concluded that secret contractors

should be punished with banishment and be disinherited. Whereupon

(said Luther) I sent them word that I would not allow thereof, it were

too gross a proceeding, &c. But nevertheless I hold it fitting, that

those which in such sort do secretly contract themselves, ought

sharply to be reproved, yea, also in some measure severely punished.

What a sweet union of prudence and kind nature! Scold them sharply, and

perhaps let them smart a while for their indiscretion and disobedience;

and then kiss and make it up, remembering that young folks will be young

folks, and that love has its own law and logic.

Chap. LIX. p. 481.

The presumption and boldness of the sophists and School-divines is a

very ungodly thing, which some of the Fathers also approved of and

extolled; namely of spiritual significations in the Holy Scripture,

whereby she is pitifully tattered and torn in pieces. It is an apish

work in such sort to juggle with Holy Scripture: it is no otherwise

than if I should discourse of physic in this manner: the fever is a

sickness, rhubarb is the physic. The fever signified! the sins

--rhubarb is Jesus Christ, &c.

Who seeth not here (said Luther) that such significations are mere

juggling tricks? _Even so_ and after the same manner are they deceived

that say, Children ought to be baptized again, because they had not

faith.

For the life of me, I cannot find the 'even so' in this sentence. The

watchman cries, 'half-past three o'clock.' Even so, and after the same

manner, the great Cham of Tartary has a carbuncle on his nose.

Chap. LX. p. 483.

George in the Greek tongue, is called a 'builder', that buildeth

countries and people with justice and righteousness, &c.

A mistake for a tiller or boor, from 'Bauer', 'bauen'. The latter hath

two senses, to build and to bring into cultivation.

Chap. LXX. p. 503.

I am now advertised (said Luther) that a new astrologer is risen, who

presumeth to prove that the earth moveth and goeth about, not the

firmament, the sun and moon, nor the stars; like as when one who

sitteth in a coach or in a ship and is moved, thinketh he sitteth

still and resteth, but the earth and the trees go, run, and move

themselves. Therefore thus it goeth, when we give up ourselves to our

own foolish fancies and conceits. This fool will turn the whole art of

astronomy upside-down, but the Scripture sheweth and teacheth him

another lesson, when Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not

the earth.

There is a similar, but still more intolerant and contemptuous anathema

of the Copernican system in Sir Thomas Brown, almost two centuries later

than Luther.

Though the problem is of no difficult solution for reflecting minds, yet

for the reading many it would be a serviceable work, to bring together

and exemplify the causes of the extreme and universal credulity that

characterizes sundry periods of history (for example, from A.D. 1400 to

A.D. 1650): and credulity involves lying and delusion--for by a seeming

paradox liars are always credulous, though credulous persons are not

always liars; although they most often are.

It would be worth while to make a collection of the judgments of eminent

men in their generation respecting the Copernican or Pythagorean scheme.

One writer (I forget the name) inveighs against it as Popery, and a

Popish stratagem to reconcile the minds of men to Transubstantiation and

the Mass. For if we may contradict the evidence of our senses in a

matter of natural philosophy, 'a fortiori', or much more, may we be

expected to do so in a matter of faith.

In my Noetic, or Doctrine and Discipline of Ideas = 'logice, Organon'--I

purpose to select some four, five or more instances of the sad effects

of the absence of ideas in the use of words and in the understanding of

truths, in the different departments of life; for example, the word

'body', in connection with resurrection-men, &c.--and the last

instances, will (please God!) be the sad effects on the whole system of

Christian divinity. I must remember Asgill's book. [7]

Religion necessarily, as to its main and proper doctrines, consists of

ideas, that is, spiritual truths that can only be spiritually discerned,

and to the expression of which words are necessarily inadequate, and

must be used by accommodation. Hence the absolute indispensability of a

Christian life, with its conflicts and inward experiences, which alone

can make a man to answer to an opponent, who charges one doctrine as

contradictory to another,--"Yes! it is a contradiction in terms; but

nevertheless so it is, and both are true, nay, parts of the same

truth."--But alas! besides other evils there is this,--that the Gospel

is preached in fragments, and what the hearer can recollect of the sum

total of these is to be his Christian knowledge and belief. This is a

grievous error. First, labour to enlighten the hearer as to the essence

of the Christian dispensation, the grounding and pervading idea, and

then set it forth in its manifold perspective, its various stages and

modes of manifestation. In this as in almost all other qualities of a

preacher of Christ, Luther after Paul and John is the great master. None

saw more clearly than he, that the same proposition, which, addressed to

a Christian in his first awakening out of the death of sin was a most

wholesome, nay, a necessary, truth, would be a most condemnable

Antinomian falsehood, if addressed to a secure Christian boasting and

trusting in 'his' faith--yes, in 'his' own faith, instead of the faith

of Christ communicated to him.

I cannot utter how dear and precious to me are the contents of pages

197-199, to line 17, of this work, more particularly the section headed:

How we ought to carry ourselves towards the Law's accusations.

Add to these the last two sections of p. 201. [8] the last touching St.

Austin's opinion [9] especially. Likewise, the first half of p. 202.

[10] But indeed the whole of the 12th chapter 'Of the Law and the

Gospel' is of inestimable value to a serious and earnest minister of the

Gospel. Here he may learn both the orthodox faith, and a holy prudence

in the time and manner of preaching the same.

July, 1829.

[Footnote 1: 'Doctoris Martini Lutheri Colloquia Mensalia:' or Dr.

Martin Luther's Divine Discourses at his Table, &c. Collected first

together by Dr. Antonius Lauterbach, and afterwards disposed into

certain common-places by John Aurifaber, Doctor in Divinity. Translated

by Capt. Henry Bell. 'Folio' London, 1652.]

[Footnote 2: N. B. I should not have written the above note in my

present state of light;--not that I find it false, but that it may have

the effect of falsehood by not going deep enough. July, 1829.]

[Footnote 3: Charles Lamb.--Ed.]

[Footnote 4:

"Out of the number of 400, there were but 80 Arians at the utmost. The

other 320 and more were really orthodox men, induced by artifices to

subscribe a Creed which they understood in a good sense, but which,

being worded in general terms, was capable of being perverted to a bad

one."

'Waterland, Vindication', &c., c. vi.--'Ed'.]

[Footnote 5: The Displaying of supposed Witchcraft, &c. London. 'folio'.

1677. 'Ed'.]

[Footnote 6: Isaiah xxxv. 4. lxi 1. Ed. Luke iv. 18, 19.]

[Footnote 7:

"An argument proving that, according to the covenant of eternal life,

revealed in the Scriptures, man may be translated from hence, without

passing through death, although the human nature of Christ himself

could not be thus translated, till he had passed through death."

See 'Table Talk. 2nd Edit'. p. 127. 'Ed'.]

[Footnote 8: We must preach the Law (said Luther) for the sakes of the

evil and wicked, &c.]

[Footnote 9: The opinion of St. Austin is (said Luther) that the Law

which through human strength, natural understanding and wisdom is

fulfilled, justifieth not, &c.]

[Footnote 10: Whether we should preach only of God's grace and mercy or

not. From "Philip Melancthon demanded of Luther"--to "yet we must press

through, and not suffer ourselves to recoil."]

* * * * *

NOTES ON THE LIFE OF ST. TERESA. 1812. [1]

Pref. Part I. p. 51. Letter of Father Avila to Mother Teresa de Jesu.

Persons ought to beseech our Lord not to conduct them by the way of

seeing; but that the happy sight of him and of his saints be reserved

for heaven; and that, here he would conduct them in the plain, beaten

road, &c. * * But if, doing all this, the visions continue, and the

soul reaps profit thereby, &c.

In what other language could a young woman check while she soothed her

espoused lover, in his too eager demonstrations of his passion? And yet

the art of the Roman priests,--to keep up the delusion as serviceable,

yet keep off those forms of it most liable to detection, by medical

commentary!

Life, Part I. Chap. IV. p. 15.

But our Lord began to regale me so much by this way, that he

vouchsafed me the favor to give me quiet prayer; and sometimes it came

so far as to arrive at union; though I understood neither the one nor

the other, nor how much they both deserve to be prized. But I believe

it would have been a great deal of happiness for me to have understood

them. True it is, that this union rested with me for so short a time,

that perhaps it might arrive to be but as of an 'Ave Maria'; yet I

remained with so very great effects thereof, that with not being then

so much as twenty years old, methought I found the whole world under

my feet.

Dreams, the soul herself forsaking;

Fearful raptures; childlike mirth.

Silent adorations, making

A blessed shadow of this earth!

Ib. Chap. V. p. 24.

I received also the blessed Sacrament with many tears; though yet, in

my opinion, they were not shed with that sense and grief, for only my

having offended God, which might have served to save my soul; if the

error into which I was brought by them who told me that some things

were not mortal sins, (which afterward I saw plainly that they were)

might not somewhat bestead me. *** Methinks, that without doubt my

soul might have run a hazard of not being saved, if I had died then.

Can we wonder that some poor hypochondriasts and epileptics have

believed themselves possessed by, or rather to be the Devil himself, and

so spoke in this imagined character, when this poor afflicted spotless

innocent could be so pierced through with fanatic pre-conceptions, as to

talk in this manner of her mortal sins, and their probable eternal

punishment;--and this too, under the most fervent sense of God's love

and mercy!

Ib. p. 43.

True it is, that I am both the most weak, and the most wicked of any

living.

What is the meaning of these words, that occur so often in the works of

great saints? Do they believe them literally? Or is it a specific

suspension of the comparing power and the memory, vouchsafed them as a

gift of grace?--a gift of telling a lie without breach of veracity--a

gift of humility indemnifying pride.

Ib. Chap. VIII. p. 44.

I have not without cause been considering and reflecting upon this

life of mine so long, for I discern well enough that nobody will have

gust to look upon a thing so very wicked.

Again! Can this first sentence be other than madness or a lie? For

observe, the question is not, whether Teresa was or was not positively

very wicked; but whether according to her own scale of virtue she was

most and very wicked comparatively. See post Chap. X. p. 57-8.

That relatively to the command 'Be ye perfect even as your Father in

Heaven is perfect', and before the eye of his own pure reason, the best

of men may deem himself mere folly and imperfection, I can easily

conceive; but this is not the case in question. It is here a comparison

of one man with all others of whom he has known or heard;--'ergo', a

matter of experience; and in this sense it is impossible, without loss

of memory and judgment on the one hand, or of veracity and simplicity on

the other. Besides, of what use is it? To draw off our conscience from

the relation between ourselves and the perfect ideal appointed for our

imitation, to the vain comparison of one individual self with other men!

Will their sins lessen mine, though they were greater? Does not every

man stand or fall to his own Maker according to his own being?

Ib. p. 45.

I see not what one thing there is of so many as are to be found in the

whole world, wherein there is need of a greater courage than to treat

of committing treason against a king, and to know that he knows it

well, and yet never to go out of his presence. For howsoever it be

very true that we are always in the presence of God; yet methinks that

they who converse with him in prayer are in his presence after a more

particular manner; for they are seeing then that he sees them; whereas

others may, perhaps, remain some days in his presence, yet without

remembering that he looks upon them.

A very pretty and sweet remark: truth in new feminine beauty!

'In fine'.

How incomparably educated was Teresa for a mystic saint, a mother of

transports and fusions of spirit!

1. A woman;

2. Of rank, and reared delicately;

3. A Spanish lady;

4. With very pious parents and sisters;

5. Accustomed in early childhood to read "with most believing heart" all

the legends of saints, martyrs, Spanish martyrs, who fought against the

Moors;

6. In the habit of privately (without the knowledge of the superstitious

Father) reading books of chivalry to her mother, and then all night to

herself.

7. Then her Spanish sweet-hearting, doubtless in the true Oroondates

style--and with perfect innocence, as far as appears; and this giving of

audience to a dying swain through a grated window, on having received a

lover's messages of flames and despair, with her aversion at fifteen or

sixteen years of age to shut herself up for ever in a strict nunnery,

appear to have been those mortal sins, of which she accuses herself,

added, perhaps to a few warm fancies of earthly love;

8. A frame of exquisite sensibility by nature, rendered more so by a

burning fever, which no doubt had some effect upon her brain, as she was

from that time subject to frequent fainting fits and 'deliquia':

9. Frightened at her Uncle's, by reading to him Dante's books of Hell

and Judgment, she confesses that she at length resolved on nunhood

because she thought it could not be much worse than Purgatory--and that

purgatory here was a cheap expiation for Hell for ever;

10. Combine these (and I have proceeded no further than the eleventh

page of her life) and think, how impossible it was, but that such a

creature, so innocent, and of an imagination so heated, and so well

peopled should often mistake the first not painful, and in such a frame,

often pleasurable approaches to 'deliquium' for divine raptures; and

join the instincts of nature acting in the body of a mind unconscious of

them, in the keenly sensitive body of a mind so loving and so innocent,

and what remains to be solved which the stupidity of most and the

roguery of a few would not simply explain?

11. One source it is almost criminal to have forgotten, and which p. 12.

of the first Part brought back to my recollection; I mean, the

effects--so super-sensual that they may easily and most venially pass

for supernatural, so very glorious to human nature that, though in truth

they are humanity itself in the contradistinguishing sense of that awful

word, it is yet no wonder that, conscious of the sore weaknesses united

in one person with this one nobler nature we attribute them to a

divinity out of us, (a mistake of the sensuous imagination in its

misapplication of space and place, rather than a misnomer of the thing

itself, for it is verily [Greek: ho theòs en haemin ho oikeios theós],)

the effects, I mean, of the moral force after conquest, the state of the

whole being after the victorious struggle, in which the will has

preserved its perfect freedom by a vehement energy of perfect obedience

to the pure or practical reason, or conscience. Thence flows in upon and

fills the soul 'that peace which passeth understanding', a state

affronted and degraded by the name of pleasure, injured and

mis-represented even by that of happiness, the very corner stone of that

morality which cannot even in thought be distinguished from religion,

and which seems to mean religion as long as the instinctive craving, dim

and dark though it may be, of the moral sense after this unknown state

(known only by the bitterness where it is not) shall remain in human

nature! Under all forms of positive or philosophic religion, it has

developed itself, too glorious an attribute of man to be confined to any

name or sect; but which, it is but truth and historical fact to say, is

more especially fostered and favoured by Christianity; and its frequent

appearance even under the most selfish and unchristian forms of

Christianity is a stronger evidence of the divinity of that religion,

than all the miracles of Brahma and Veeshnou could afford, even though

they were supported with tenfold the judicial evidence of the Gospel

miracles. [2]

[Footnote 1: The works of the Holy Mother St. Teresa of Jesus Foundress

of the Reformation of the Discalced Carmelites. Divided into two parts.

Translated into English. MDCLXXV. Ed.]

[Footnote 2: London 1685.]

* * * * *

NOTES ON BURNET'S LIFE OF BISHOP BEDELL. [1]

1810.

P. 12.-14.

Here I must add a passage, concerning which I am in doubt whether it

reflected more on the sincerity, or on the understanding of the

English Ambassador. The breach between the Pope and the Republic was

brought very near a crisis, &c.

These pages contain a weak and unhandsome attack on Wotton, who

doubtless had discovered that the presentation of the Premonition

previously to the reconciliation as publicly completed, but after it had

been privately agreed on, between the Court of Rome and the Senate of

Venice, would embarrass the latter: whereas, delivered as it was, it

shewed the King's and his minister's zeal for Protestantism, and yet

supplied the Venetians with an answer not disrespectful to the king.

Besides, what is there in Wotton's whole life (a man so disinterested,

and who retired from all his embassies so poor) to justify the remotest

suspicion of his insincerity? What can this word mean less or other than

that Sir H. W. was either a crypt-Papist, or had received a bribe from

the Romish party? Horrid accusations!--Burnet was notoriously rash and

credulous; but I remember no other instance in which his zeal for the

Reformation joined with his credulity has misled him into so gross a

calumny. It is not to be believed, that Bedell gave any authority to

such an aspersion of his old and faithful friend and patron, further

than that he had related the fact, and that he and the minister differed

in opinion as to the prudence of the measure recommended. How laxly too

the story is narrated! The exact date of the recommendation by Father

Paul and the divines should have been given;--then the date of the

public annunciation of the reconciliation between the Pope and Venetian

Republic; and lastly the day on which Wotton did present the book;--for

even this Burnet leaves uncertain.

P. 26.

It is true he never returned and changed his religion himself, but his

son came from Spain into Ireland, when Bedell was promoted to the

Bishopric of Kilmore there, and told him, that his father commanded

him to thank him for the pains he was at in writing it. He said, it

was almost always lying open before him, and that he had heard him

say, "He was resolved to save one." And it seems he instructed his son

in the true religion, for he declared himself a Protestant on his

coming over.

Southey has given me a bad character of this son of the unhappy convert

to the Romish Church. He became, it seems, a spy on the Roman Catholics,

availing himself of his father's character among them, a crime which

would indeed render his testimony null and more than null; it would be a

presumption of the contrary. It is clear from his letters to Bedell that

the convert was a very weak man. I owe to him, however, a complete

confirmation of my old persuasion concerning Bishop Hall, whom from my

first perusal of his works I have always considered as one of the blots

(alas! there are too many) of the biography of the Church of England; a

self-conceited, coarse-minded, persecuting, vulgar priest, and (by way

of 'anti-climax') one of the first corrupters of and epigrammatizers of

our English prose style. It is not true, that Sir Thomas Brown was the

prototype of Dr. Johnson, who imitated him only as far as Sir T. B.

resembles the majority of his predecessors; that is, in the pedantic

preference of Latin derivations to Saxon words of the very same force.

In the balance and construction of his periods Dr. Johnson has followed

Hall, as any intelligent reader will discover by an attentive comparison.

P. 158.

Yea, will some man say, "But that which marreth all is the opinion of

merit and satisfaction." Indeed that is the School doctrine, but the

conscience enlightened to know itself, will easily act that part of

the Publican, 'who smote his breast, and said, God be merciful to me a

sinner'.

Alas! so far from this being the case with ninety nine out of one

hundred in Spain, Italy, Sicily, and Roman Catholic Germany, it is the

Gospel tenets that are the true School doctrine, that is confined to

books and closets of the learned among them.

P. 161.

And the like may be conceived here, since, especially, the idolatry

practised under the obedience of mystical Babylon is rather in false

and will-worship of the true God, and rather commended as profitable

than enjoined as absolutely necessary, and the corruptions there

maintained are rather in a superfluous addition than retraction in any

thing necessary to salvation.

This good man's charity jarring with his love and tender recollections

of Father Paul, Fulgentio, and the Venetian divines, has led him to a

far, far too palliative statement of Roman idolatry. Not what the Pope

has yet ventured to thunder forth from his Anti-Sinai, but what he and

his satellites, the Regulars, enforce to the preclusion of all true

worship, in the actual practice, life-long, of an immense majority in

Spain, Italy, Bavaria, Austria, &c. &c.--this must determine the point.

What they are themselves,--not what they would persuade Protestants is

their essentials or Faith,--this is the main thing.

P. 164.

I answer, under correction of better judgments, they have the ministry

of reconciliation by the communion which is given at their Ordination,

being the same which our Saviour left in his Church:--'whose sins ye

remit, they are remitted, whose sins ye retain, they are retained'.

Could Bishop Bedell believe that the mere will of a priest could have

any effect on the everlasting weal or woe of a Christian! Even to the

immediate disciples and Apostles could the text (if indeed it have

reference to sins in our sense at all,) mean more than this,--Whenever

you discover, by the spirit of knowledge which I will send unto you,

repentance and faith, you shall declare remission of sins; and the sins

shall be remitted;-and where the contrary exists, your declaration of

exclusion from bliss shall be fulfilled? Did Christ say, that true

repentance and actual faith would not save a soul, unless the priest's

verbal remission was superadded?

'In fine.'

If it were in my power I would have this book printed in a convenient

form, and distributed through every house, at least, through every

village and parish throughout the kingdom. A volume of thought and of

moral feelings, the offspring of thought, crowd upon me, as I review the

different parts of this admirable man's life and creed. Only compare his

conduct to James Wadsworth (probably some ancestral relative of my

honoured friend, William Wordsworth: for the same name in Yorkshire,

from whence his father came, is pronounced Wadsworth) with that of the

far, far too highly rated, Bishop Hall; his letter to Hall tenderly

blaming his (Hall's) bitterness to an old friend mistaken, and then his

letter to that friend defending Hall! What a picture of goodness! I

confess, in all Ecclesiastical History I have read of no man so

spotless, though of hundreds in which the biographers have painted them

as masters of perfection: but the moral tact soon feels the truth.

[Footnote 1: In one of the volumes of this work used by the Editor for

ascertaining the references, the following note is written by a former

owner.

"October 12, 1788. Begged of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary to take my

salvation on herself, and obtain it for Saint Hyacinthe's sake; to

whom she has promised to grant any thing, or never to refuse any thing

begged for his sake."

It would be very interesting to know how far the feeling expressed in

this artless effusion coexisted with a faith in the atonement and

mediation of the one Lord Jesus Christ.--Ed.]

* * * * *

NOTES ON BAXTER'S LIFE OF HIMSELF.

1820. [1]

Among the grounds for recommending the perusal of our elder writers,

Hooker--Taylor--Baxter--in short almost any of the folios composed from

Edward VI. to Charles II. I note:

1. The overcoming the habit of deriving your whole pleasure passively

from the book itself, which can only be effected by excitement of

curiosity or of some passion. Force yourself to reflect on what you read

paragraph by paragraph, and in a short time you will derive your

pleasure, an ample portion of it, at least, from the activity of your

own mind. All else is picture sunshine.

2. The conquest of party and sectarian prejudices, when you have on the

same table before you the works of a Hammond and a Baxter, and reflect

how many and momentous their points of agreement, how few and almost

childish the differences, which estranged and irritated these good men.

Let us but imagine what their blessed spirits now feel at the retrospect

of their earthly frailties, and can we do other than strive to feel as

they now feel, not as they once felt? So will it be with the disputes

between good men of the present day; and if you have no other reason to

doubt your opponent's goodness than the point in dispute, think of

Baxter and Hammond, of Milton and Taylor, and let it be no reason at

all.

3. It will secure you from the idolatry of the present times and

fashions, and create the noblest kind of imaginative power in your soul,

that of living in past ages; wholly devoid of which power, a man can

neither anticipate the future, nor even live a truly human life, a life

of reason in the present.

4. In this particular work we may derive a most instructive lesson, that

in certain points, as of religion in relation to law, the 'medio

tutissimus ibis' is inapplicable. There is no 'medium' possible; and all

the attempts, as those of Baxter, though no more required than "I

believe in God through Christ," prove only the mildness of the

proposer's temper, but as a rule would be equal to nothing, at least

exclude only the two or three in a century that make it a matter of

religion to declare themselves Atheists, or else be just as fruitful a

rule for a persecutor as the most complete set of articles that could be

framed by a Spanish Inquisition.

For to 'believe,' must mean to believe aright--and 'God' must mean the

true God--and 'Christ' the Christ in the sense and with the attributes

understood by Christians who are truly Christians. An established Church

with a Liturgy is a sufficient solution of the problem 'de jure

magistratus'. Articles of faith are in this point of view superfluous;

for is it not too absurd for a man to hesitate at subscribing his name

to doctrines which yet in the more awful duty of prayer and profession

he dares affirm before his Maker! They are therefore in this sense

merely superfluous;--not worth re-enacting, had they ever been done away

with;--not worth removing now that they exist.

5. The characteristic contradistinction between the speculative

reasoners of the age before the Revolution, and those since, is this:

--the former cultivated metaphysics, without, or neglecting, empirical

psychology the latter cultivate a mechanical psychology to the neglect

and contempt of metaphysics. Both therefore are almost equi-distant from

pure philosophy. Hence the belief in ghosts, witches, sensible replies

to prayer, and the like, in Baxter and in a hundred others. See also

Luther's Table Talk.

6. The earlier part of this volume is interesting as materials for

medical history. The state of medical science in the reign of Charles I.

was almost incredibly low.

The saddest error of the theologians of this age is, [Greek: hos émoige

dokei], the disposition to urge the histories of the miraculous actions

and incidents, in and by which Christ attested his Messiahship to the

Jewish eye-witnesses, in fulfilment of prophecies, which the Jewish

Church had previously understood and interpreted as marks of the

Messiah, before they have shewn what and how excellent the religion

itself is including the miracles as for us an harmonious part of the

internal or self-evidence of the religion. Alas! and even when our

divines do proceed to the religion itself as to a something which no man

could be expected to receive except by a compulsion of the senses, which

by force of logic only is propagated from the eye witnesses to the

readers of the narratives in 1820--(which logic, namely, that the

evidence of a miracle is not diminished by lapse of ages, though this

includes loss of documents and the like; which logic, I say, whether it

be legitimate or not, God forbid that the truth of Christianity should

depend on the decision!)--even when our divines do proceed to the

religion itself, on what do they chiefly dwell? On the doctrines

peculiar to the religion? No! these on the contrary are either evaded or

explained away into metaphors, or resigned in despair to the next world

where faith is to be swallowed up in certainty.

But the worst product of this epidemic error is, the fashion of either

denying or undervaluing the evidence of a future state and the survival

of individual consciousness, derived from the conscience, and the holy

instinct of the whole human race. Dreadful is this:--for the main force

of the reasoning by which this scepticism is vindicated consists in

reducing all legitimate conviction to objective proof: whereas in the

very essence of religion and even of morality the evidence, and the

preparation for its reception, must be subjective;--'Blessed are they

that have not seen and yet believe'. And dreadful it appears to me

especially, who in the impossibility of not looking forward to

consciousness after the dissolution of the body ('corpus phoenomenon',)

have through life found it (next to divine grace.) the strongest and

indeed only efficient support against the still recurring temptation of

adopting, nay, wishing the truth of Spinoza's notion, that the survival

of consciousness is the highest prize and consequence of the highest

virtue, and that of all below this mark the lot after death is

self-oblivion and the cessation of individual being. Indeed, how a

Separatist or one of any other sect of Calvinists, who confines

Redemption to the comparatively small number of the elect, can reject

this opinion, and yet not run mad at the horrid thought of an

innumerable multitude of imperishable self-conscious spirits

everlastingly excluded from God, is to me inconceivable.

Deeply am I persuaded of Luther's position, that no man can worthily

estimate, or feel in the depth of his being, the Incarnation and

Crucifixion of the Son of God who is a stranger to the terror of

immortality as ingenerate in man, while it is yet unquelled by the faith

in God as the Almighty Father.

Book I. Part I. p. 2.

But though my conscience would trouble me when I sinned, yet divers

sins I was addicted to, and oft committed against my conscience; which

for the warning of others I will confess here to my shame.

1. I was much addicted when I feared correction to lie, that I might

scape.

2. I was much addicted to the excessive gluttonous eating of apples

and pears, &c.

3. To this end, and to concur with naughty boys that gloried in evil,

I have oft gone into other men's orchards, and stolen their fruit,

when I had enough at home, &c.

There is a childlike simplicity in this account of his sins of his

childhood which is very pleasing.

Ib. p. 5, 6.

And the use that God made of books, above ministers, to the benefit of

my soul made me somewhat excessively in love with good books; so that

I thought I had never enough, but scraped up as great a treasure of

them as I could. * * * It made the world seem to me as a carcase that

had neither life nor loveliness; and it destroyed those ambitious

desires after literate fame which were the sin of my childhood. * * *

And for the mathematics, I was an utter stranger to them, and never

could find in my heart to divert any studies that way. But in order to

the knowledge of divinity, my inclination was most to logic and

metaphysics, with that part of physics which treateth of the soul,

contenting myself at first with a slighter study of the rest: and

there had my labour and delight.

What a picture of myself!

Ib. p. 22.

In the storm of this temptation I questioned awhile whether I were

indeed a Christian or an Infidel, and whether faith could consist with

such doubts as I was conscious of.

One of the instances of the evils arising from the equivoque between

faith and intellectual satisfaction or insight. The root of faith is in

the will. Faith is an oak that may be a pollard, and yet live.

Ib.

The being and attributes of God were so clear to me, that he was to my

intellect what the sun is to my eye, by which I see itself and all

things.

Even so with me;--but, whether God was existentially as well as

essentially intelligent, this was for a long time a sore combat between

the speculative and the moral man.

Ib. p. 23.

Mere Deism, which is the most plausible competitor with Christianity,

is so turned out of almost all the whole world, as if Nature made its

own confession, that without a Mediator it cannot come to God.

Excellent.

Ib.

All these assistances were at hand before I came to the immediate

evidences of credibility in the sacred oracles themselves.

This is as it should be; that is, the evidence 'a priori', securing the

rational probability; and then the historical proofs of its reality.

Pity that Baxter's chapters in 'The Saints' Rest' should have been one

and the earliest occasion of the inversion of this process, the fruit of

which is the Grotio-Paleyan religion, or 'minimum' of faith; the maxim

being, 'quanto minus tanto melius'.

Ib. p. 24.

And once all the ignorant rout were raging mad against me for

preaching the doctrine of Original Sin to them, and telling them that

infants, before regeneration, had so much guilt and corruption as made

them loathsome in the eyes of God.

No wonder;--because the babe would perish without the mother's milk, is

it therefore loathsome to the mother? Surely the little ones that Christ

embraced had not been baptized. And yet 'of such is the Kingdom of

Heaven'.

Ib. p. 25.

Some thought that the King should not at all be displeased and

provoked, and that they were not bound to do any other justice, or

attempt any other reformation but what they could procure the King to

be willing to. And these said, when you have displeased and provoked

him to the utmost, he will be your King still. * * * The more you

offend him, the less you can trust him; and when mutual confidence is

gone, a war is beginning. * * * And if you conquer him, what the

better are you? He will still be King. You can but force him to an

agreement; and how quickly will he have power and advantage to violate

that which he is forced to, and to be avenged on you all for the

displeasure you have done him! He is ignorant of the advantages of a

King that cannot foresee this.

This paragraph goes to make out a case in justification of the Regicides

which Baxter would have found it difficult to answer. Certainly a more

complete exposure of the inconsistency of Baxter's own party cannot be.

For observe, that in case of an agreement with Charles all those

classes, which afterwards formed the main strength of the Parliament and

ultimately decided the contest in its favour, would have been

politically inert, with little influence and no actual power,--I mean

the Yeomanry, and the Citizens of London: while a vast majority of the

Nobles and landed Gentry, who sooner or later must have become the

majority in Parliament, went over to the King at once. Add to these the

whole systematized force of the High Church Clergy and all the rude

ignorant vulgar in high and low life, who detested every attempt at

moral reform,--and it is obvious that the King could not want

opportunities to retract and undo all that he had conceded under

compulsion. But that neither the will was wanting, nor his conscience at

all in the way, his own advocate Clarendon and others have supplied

damning proofs.

Ib. p. 27.

And though Parliaments may draw up Bills for repealing laws, yet hath

the King his negative voice, and without his consent they cannot do

it; which though they acknowledge, yet did they too easily admit of

petitions against the Episcopacy and Liturgy, and connived at all the

clamors and papers which were against them.

How so? If they admitted the King's right to deny, they must admit the

subject's right to entreat.

Ib.

Had they endeavoured the ejection of lay-chancellors, and the reducing

of the dioceses to a narrower compass, or the setting up of a

subordinate discipline, and only the correcting and reforming of the

Liturgy, perhaps it might have been borne more patiently.

Did Baxter find it so himself--and when too he had the formal and

recorded promise of Charles II. for it?

Ib.

But when the same men (Ussher, Williams, Morton, &c.) saw that greater

things were aimed at, and episcopacy itself in danger, or _their

grandeur and riches at least_, most of them turned against the

Parliament.

This, and in this place, is unworthy of Baxter. Even he, good man, could

not wholly escape the jaundice of party.

Ib. p. 34.

They said to this;--that as all the courts of justice do execute their

sentences in the King's name, and this by his own law, and therefore

by his authority, so much more might his Parliament do.

A very sound argument is here disguised in a false analogy, an

inapplicable precedent, and a sophistical form. Courts of justice

administer the total of the supreme power retrospectively, involved in

the name of the most dignified part. But here a part, as a part, acts as

the whole, where the whole is absolutely requisite,--that is, in passing

laws; and again as B. and C. usurp a power belonging to A. by the

determination of A. B. and C. The only valid argument is, that Charles

had by acts of his own ceased to be a lawful King.

Ib. p. 40.

And that the authority and person of the King were inviolable, out of

the reach of just accusation, judgment, or execution by law; as having

no superior, and so no judge.

But according to Grotius, a king waging war against the lawful

copartners of the 'summa potestas' ceases to be their king, and if

conquered forfeits to them his former share. And surely if Charles had

been victor, he would have taken the Parliament's share to himself. If

it had been the Parliament, and not a mere faction with the army, that

tried and beheaded Charles, I do not see how any one could doubt the

lawfulness of the act, except upon very technical grounds.

Ib. p. 41.

For if once legislation, the chief act of government, be denied to any

part of government at all, and affirmed to belong to the people as

such, who are no governors, all government will hereby be overthrown.

Here Baxter falls short of the subject, and does not see the full

consequents of his own prior, most judicious, positions. Legislation in

its high and most proper sense belongs to God only. A people declares

that such and such they hold to be laws, that is, God's will.

Ib. p. 47.

In Cornwall Sir Richard Grenvill, having taken many soldiers of the

Earl of Essex's army, sentenced about a dozen to be hanged. When they

had hanged two or three, the rope broke which should have hanged the

next. And they sent for new ropes so oft to hang him, and all of them

still broke, that they durst go no further, but saved all the rest.

The soldiers, doubtless, contrived this from the aversion natural to

Englishmen of killing an enemy in cold blood; and because they foresaw

that there would be Tit for Tat.

Ib. p. 59.

It is easy to see from Baxter's own account, that his party ruined their

own cause and that of the kingdom by their tenets concerning the right

and duty of the civil magistrate to use the sword against such as were

not of the same religion with themselves.

Ib. p. 62.

They seem not to me to have answered satisfactorily to the main

argument fetched from the Apostle's own government, with which Saravia

had inclined me to some Episcopacy before: though miracles and

infallibility were Apostolical temporary privileges, yet Church

government is an ordinary thing to be continued. And therefore as the

Apostles had successors as they were preachers, I see not but that

they must have successors as Church governors.

Was not Peter's sentence against Ananias an act of Church government?

Therefore though Church government is an ordinary thing in some form or

other, it does not follow that one particular form is an ordinary thing.

For the time being the Apostles, as heads of the Church, did what they

thought best; but whatever was binding on the Church universal and in

all times they delivered as commands from Christ. Now no other command

was delivered but that all things should conduce to order and

edification.

Ib. p. 66.

And therefore how they could refuse to receive the King, till he

consented to take the Covenant, I know not, unless the taking of the

Covenant had been a condition on which he was to receive his crown by

the laws or fundamental constitutions of the kingdom, which none

pretendeth. Nor know I by what power they can add anything to the

Coronation Oath or Covenant, which by his ancestors was to be taken,

without his own consent.

And pray, how and by whom were the Coronation Oaths first imposed? The

Scottish nation in 1650 had the same right to make a bargain with the

claimant of their throne as their ancestors had. It is strange that

Baxter should not have seen that his objections would apply to our

'Magna Charta'. So he talks of the "fundamental constitutions," just as

if these had been aboriginal or rather 'sans' origin, and not as indeed

they were extorted and bargained for by the people. But throughout it is

plain that Baxter repeated, but never appropriated, the distinction

between the King as the executive power, and as the individual

functionary. What obligation lay on the Scottish Parliament and Church

to consult the man Charles Stuart's personal likes and dislikes? The

Oath was to be taken by him as their King. Doubtless, he equally

disliked the whole Protestant interest; and if the Tories and Church of

England Jacobites of a later day had recalled James II., would Baxter

have thought them culpable for imposing on him an Oath to preserve the

Protestant Church of England and to inflict severe penalties on his own

Church-fellows?

Ib. p. 71.

And some men thought it a very hard question, whether they should

rather wish the continuance of a usurper that will do good, or the

restoration of a rightful governor whose followers will do hurt.

And who shall dare unconditionally condemn those who judged the former

to be the better alternative? Especially those who did not adopt

Baxter's notion of a 'jus divinum' personal and hereditary in the

individual, whose father had broken the compact on which the claim

rested.

Ib. p. 75.

One Mrs. Dyer, a chief person of the Sect, did first bring forth a

monster, which had the parts of almost all sorts of living creatures,

some parts like man, but most ugly and misplaced, and some like

beasts, birds and fishes, having horns, fins and claws; and at the

birth of it the bed shook, and the women present fell a vomiting, and

were fain to go forth of the room.

This babe of Mrs. Dyer's is no bad emblem of Richard Baxter's own

credulity. It is almost an argument on his side, that nothing he

believed is more strange and inexplicable than his own belief of them.

Ib. p. 76.

The third sect were the Ranters. These also made it their business, as

the former, to set up the light of nature under the name of Christ in

men, and to dishonour and cry down the Church, &c.

But why does Baxter every where assert the identity of the new light

with the light of nature? Or what does he mean exclusively by the

latter? The source must be the same in all lights as far as it is light.

Ib. p. 77.

And that was the fourth sect, the Quakers; who were but the Ranters

turned from horrid profaneness and blasphemy to a life of extreme

austerity on the other side.

Observe the _but_.

Ib.

Their doctrine is to be seen in Jacob Behmen's books by him that hath

nothing else to do, than to bestow a great deal of time to understand

him that was not willing to be easily understood, and to know that his

bombasted words do signify nothing more than before was easily known

by common familiar terms.

This is not in all its parts true. It is true that the first principles

of Behmen are to be found in the writings of the Neo-Platonists after

Plotinus, and (but mixed with gross impieties) in Paracelsus;--but it is

not true that they are easily known, and still less so that they are

communicable in common familiar terms. But least of all is it true that

there is nothing original in Behmen.

Ib.

The chiefest of these in England are Dr. Pordage and his family.

It is curious that Lessing in the Review, which he, Nicolai, and

Mendelssohn conducted under the form of Letters to a wounded Officer,

joins the name of Pordage with that of Behmen. Was Pordage's work

translated into German?

Ib. p. 79.

Also the Socinians made some increase by the ministry of one Mr.

Biddle, sometimes schoolmaster in Gloucester; who wrote against the

Godhead of the Holy Ghost, and afterwards of Christ; whose followers

inclined much to mere Deism.

For the Socinians till Biddle retained much of the Christian religion,

for example, Redemption by the Cross, and the omnipresence of Christ as

to this planet even as the Romanists with their Saints. Luther's

obstinate adherence to the ubiquity of the Body of Christ and his or

rather its real presence in and with the bread was a sad furtherance to

the advocates of Popish idolatry and hierolatry.

Ib. p. 80.

Many a time have I been brought very low, and received the sentence of

death in myself, when my poor, honest, praying neighbours have met,

and upon their fasting and earnest prayers I have been recovered. Once

when I had continued weak three weeks, and was unable to go abroad,

the very day that they prayed for me, being Good Friday, I recovered,

and was able to preach, and administer the Sacrament the next Lord's

Day, and was better after it, &c.

Strange that the common manuals of school logic should not have secured

Baxter from the repeated blunder of 'Cum hoc, ergo, propter hoc'; but

still more strange that his piety should not have revolted against

degrading prayer into medical quackery.

Before the Revolution of 1688, metaphysics ruled without experimental

psychology, and in these curious paragraphs of Baxter we see the effect:

since the Revolution experimental psychology without metaphysics has in

like manner prevailed, and we now feel the result. In like manner from

Plotinus to Proclus, that is, from A. D. 250 to A. D. 450, philosophy

was set up as a substitute for religion: during the dark ages religion

superseded philosophy, and the consequences are equally instructive. The

great maxim of legislation, intellectual or political, is 'Subordinate,

not exclude'. Nature in her ascent leaves nothing behind, but at each

step subordinates and glorifies:--mass, crystal, organ, sensation,

sentience, reflection.

Ib. p. 82.

Another time, as I sat in my study, the weight of my greatest folio

books brake down three or four of the highest shelves, when I sat

close under them, and they fell down every side me, and not one of

them hit me, save one upon the arm; whereas the place, the weight, the

greatness of the books was such, and my head just under them, that it

was a wonder they had not beaten out my brains, &c.

[Greek: Méga biblíon méga kakón.]

Ib. p. 84.

For all the pains that my infirmities ever brought upon me were never

half so grievous an affliction to me, as the unavoidable loss of my

time, which they occasioned. I could not bear, through the weakness of

my stomach, to rise before seven o'clock in the morning, &c.

Alas! in how many respects does my lot resemble Baxter's; but how much

less have my bodily evils been; and yet how very much greater an

impediment have I suffered them to be! But verily Baxter's labours seem

miracles of supporting grace. Ought I not therefore to retract the note

p. 80? I waver.

Ib. p. 87.

For my part, I bless God, who gave me even under a Usurper, whom I

opposed, such liberty and advantage to preach his Gospel with success,

which I cannot have under a King to whom I have sworn and performed

true subjection and obedience; yea, which no age since the Gospel came

into this land did before possess, as far as I can learn from history.

Sure I am that when it became a matter of reputation and honour to be

godly, it abundantly furthered the successes of the ministry. Yea, and

I shall add this much more for the sake of posterity, that as much as

I have said and written against licentiousness in religion, and for

the magistrate's power in it, and though I think that land most happy,

whose rulers use their authority for Christ as well as for the civil

peace; yet in comparison of the rest of the world, I shall think that

land happy that hath but bare liberty to be as good as they are

willing to be; and if countenance and maintenance be but added to

liberty, and tolerated errors and sects be but forced to keep the

peace, and not to oppose the substantials of Christianity, I shall not

hereafter much fear such toleration, nor despair that truth will bear

down adversaries.

What a valuable and citable paragraph! Likewise it is a happy instance

of the force of a cherished prejudice in an honest mind--practically

yielding to the truth, but yet with a speculative, "Though I still

think, &c."

Ib. p. 128.

Among truths certain in themselves, all are not equally certain unto

me; and even of the mysteries of the Gospel I must needs say, with Mr.

Richard Hooker, that whatever some may pretend, the subjective

certainty cannot go beyond the objective evidence. * * * Therefore I

do more of late than ever discern the necessity of a methodical

procedure in maintaining the doctrine of Christianity. * * * My

certainty that I am a man is before my certainty that there is a God.

* * * My certainty that there is a God is greater than my certainty

that he requireth love and holiness of his creature, &c.

There is a confusion in this paragraph, which asks more than a marginal

note to disentangle. Briefly, the process of acquirement is confounded

with the order of the truths when acquired. A tinder spark gives light

to an Argand's lamp: is it therefore more luminous?

Ib. p. 129.

And when I have studied hard to understand some abstruse admired book,

as 'de Scientia Dei, de Providentia circa malum, de Decretis, de

Prædeterminatione, de Libertate creaturæ', &c. I have but attained the

knowledge of human imperfection, and to see that the author is but a

man as well as I.

On these points I have come to a resting place. Let such articles, as

are either to be recognized as facts, for example, sin or evil having

its origination in a will; and the reality of a responsible and (in

whatever sense freedom is presupposed in responsibility,) of a free will

in man;--or acknowledged as laws, for example, the unconditional

bindingness of the practical reason;--or to be freely affirmed as

necessary through their moral interest, their indispensableness to our

spiritual humanity, for example, the personeity, holiness, and moral

government and providence of God;--let these be vindicated from

absurdity, from self-contradiction, and contradiction to the pure

reason, and restored to simple incomprehensibility. He who seeks for

more, knows not what he is talking of; he who will not seek even this is

either indifferent to the truth of what he professes to believe, or he

mistakes a general determination not to disbelieve for a positive and

especial faith, which is only our faith as far as we can assign a reason

for it. O! how impossible it is to move an inch to the right or the left

in any point of spiritual and moral concernment, without seeing the

damage caused by the confusion of reason with the understanding.

Ib. p. 181.

My soul is much more afflicted with the thoughts of the miserable

world, and more drawn out in desire of their conversion than

heretofore. I was wont to look but little further than England in my

prayers, as not considering the state of the rest of the world;--or if

I prayed for the conversion of the Jews, that was almost all. But now

as I better understand the care of the world, and the method of the

Lord's Prayer, so there is nothing in the world that lieth so heavy

upon my heart, as the thought of the miserable nations of the earth.

I dare not not condemn myself for the languid or dormant state of my

feelings respecting the Mohammedan and Heathen nations; yet know not in

what degree to condemn. The less culpable grounds of this languor are,

first, my utter ignorance of God's purposes with respect to the

Heathens; and second, the strong conviction, I have that the conversion

of a single province of Christendom to true practical Christianity would

do more toward the conversion of Heathendom than an army of

Missionaries. Romanism and despotic government in the larger part of

Christendom, and the prevalence of Epicurean principles in the

remainder;--these do indeed lie heavy on my heart.

Ib. p. 135.

Therefore I confess I give but halting credit to most histories that

are written, not only against the Albigenses and Waldenses, but

against most of the ancient heretics, who have left us none of their

own writings, in which they speak for themselves; and I heartily

lament that the historical writings of the ancient schismatics and

heretics, as they were called, perished, and that partiality suffered

them not to survive, that we might have had more light in the Church

affairs of those times, and been better able to judge between the

Fathers and them.

It is greatly to the credit of Baxter that he has here anticipated those

merits which so long after gave deserved celebrity to the name and

writings of Beausobre and Lardner, and still more recently in this

respect of Eichhorn, Paulus and other Neologists.

Ib. p. 136.

And therefore having myself now written this history of myself,

notwithstanding my protestation that I have not in anything wilfully

gone against the truth, I expect no more credit from the reader than

the self-evidencing light of the matter, with concurrent rational

advantages from persons, and things, and other witnesses, shall

constrain him to.

I may not unfrequently doubt Baxter's memory, or even his competence, in

consequence of his particular modes of thinking; but I could almost as

soon doubt the Gospel verity as his veracity.

Book I. Part II. p.139.

The following Book of this Work is interesting and most instructive as

an instance of Syncretism, and its Epicurean 'clinamen', even when it

has been undertaken from the purest and most laudable motives, and from

impulses the most Christian, and yet its utter failure in its object,

that of tending to a common centre. The experience of eighteen centuries

seems to prove that there is no practicable 'medium' between a Church

comprehensive (which is the only meaning of a Catholic Church visible)

in which A. in the North or East is allowed to advance officially no

doctrine different from what is allowed to B. in the South or West;--and

a co-existence of independent Churches, in none of which any further

unity is required but that between the minister and his congregation,

while this again is secured by the election and continuance of the

former depending wholly on the will of the latter.

Perhaps the best state possible, though not the best possible state, is

where both are found, the one established by maintenance, the other by

permission; in short that which we now enjoy. In such a state no

minister of the former can have a right to complain, for it was at his

own option to have taken the latter; 'et volenti nulla fit injuria'. For

an individual to demand the freedom of the independent single Church

when he receives £500 a year for submitting to the necessary

restrictions of the Church General, is impudence and Mammonolatry to

boot.

Ib. p. 141.

They (the Erastians) misunderstood and injured their brethren,

supposing and affirming them to claim as from God a coercive power

over the bodies or purses of men, and so setting up 'imperium in

imperio'; whereas all temperate Christians (at least except Papists)

confess that the Church hath no power of force, but only to manage

God's word unto men's consciences.

But are not the receivers as bad as the thief? Is it not a poor evasion

to say:--"It is true I send you to a dungeon there to rot, because you

do not think as I do concerning some point of faith;--but this only as a

civil officer. As a divine I only tenderly entreat and persuade you!"

Can there be fouler hypocrisy in the Spanish Inquisition than this?

Ib. p. 142.

That hereby they (the Diocesan party) altered the ancient species of

Presbyters, to whose office the spiritual government of their proper

folks as truly belonged, as the power of preaching and worshiping God

did.

I could never rightly understand this objection of Richard Baxter's.

What power not possessed by the Rector of a parish, would he have wished

a parochial Bishop to have exerted? What could have been given by the

Legislature to the latter which might not be given to the former? In

short Baxter's plan seems to do away Archbishops--[Greek: koinoì

epískopoi]--but for the rest to name our present Rectors and Vicars

Bishops. I cannot see what is gained by his plan. The true difficulty is

that Church discipline is attached to an Establishment by this world's

law, not to the form itself established: and his objections from

paragraph 5 to paragraph 10 relate to particular abuses, not to

Episcopacy itself.

Ib. p. 143.

But above all I disliked that most of them (the Independents) made the

people by majority of votes to be Church governors in

excommunications, absolutions, &c., which Christ hath made an act of

office; and so they governed their governors and themselves.

Is not this the case with the Houses of Legislature? The members taken

individually are subjects; collectively governors.

Ib. p. 177.

The extraordinary gifts of the Apostles, and the privilege of being

eye and ear witnesses to Christ, were abilities which they had for the

infallible discharge of their function, but they were not the ground

of their power and authority to govern the Church. * * * 'Potestas

clavium' was committed to them only, not to the Seventy.

I wish for a proof, that all the Apostles had any extraordinary gifts

which none of the LXX. had. Nay as an Episcopalian of the Church of

England, I hold it an unsafe and imprudent concession, tending to weaken

the governing right of the Bishops. But I fear that as the law and right

of patronage in England now are, the question had better not be stirred;

lest it should be found that the true power of the keys is not, as with

the Papists, in hands to which it is doubtful whether Christ committed

them exclusively; but in hands to which it is certain that Christ did

not commit them at all.

Ib. p. 179.

It followeth not a mere Bishop may have a multitude of Churches,

because an Archbishop may, who hath many Bishops under him.

What then does Baxter quarrel about? That our Bishops take a humbler

title than they have a right to claim;--that being in fact Archbishops,

they are for the most part content to be styled as one of the brethren!

Ib. p. 185.

I say again, No Church, no Christ; for no body, no head; and if no

Christ then, there is no Christ now.

Baxter here forgets his own mystical regenerated Church. If he mean

this, it is nothing to the argument in question; if not, then he must

assert the monstrous absurdity of, No unregenerate Church, no Christ.

Ib. p. 188.

Or if they would not yield to this at all, we might have communion

with them as Christians, without acknowledging them for Pastors.

Observe the inconsistency of Baxter. No Pastor, no Church; no Church, no

Christ; and yet he will receive them as Christians: much to his honor as

a Christian, but not much to his credit as a logician.

Ib. p. 189.

We are agreed that as some discovery of consent on both parts (the

pastors and people) is necessary to the being of the members of a

political particular Church: so that the most express declaration of

that consent is the most plain and satisfactory dealing, and most

obliging, and likest to attain the ends.

In our Churches, especially in good livings, there is such an

overflowing fullness of consent on the part of the Pastor as supplies

that of the people altogether; nay, to nullify their declared dissent.

Ib. p. 194.

By the establishment of what is contained in these twelve propositions

or articles following, the Churches in these nations may have a holy

communion, peace and concord, without any wrong to the consciences or

liberties of Presbyterians, Congregational, Episcopal, or any other

Christians.

Painfully instructive are these proposals from so wise and peaceable a

divine as Baxter. How mighty must be the force of an old prejudice when

so generally acute a logician was blinded by it to such palpable

inconsistencies! On what ground of right could a magistrate inflict a

penalty, whereby to compel a man to hear what he might believe dangerous

to his soul, on which the right of burning the refractory individual

might not be defended as well?

Ib. p. 198.

To which ends * * I think that this is all that should be required of

any Church or member ordinarily to be professed: In general I do

believe all that is contained in the sacred canonical Scriptures, and

particularly I believe all explicitly contained in the ancient Creed,

&c.

To a man of sense, but unstudied in the context of human nature, and

from having confined his reading to the writers of the present and the

last generation unused to live in former ages, it must seem strange that

Baxter should not have seen that this test is either all or nothing. And

the Creed! Is it certain that the so called Apostles' Creed was more

than the mere catechism of the Catechumens? Was it the Baptismal Creed

of the Eastern or Western Church, especially the former? The only test

really necessary, in my opinion, is an established Liturgy.

Ib. p. 201.

As reverend Bishop Ussher hath manifested that the Western Creed, now

called the Apostles' (wanting two or three clauses that now are in it)

was not only before the Nicene Creed, but of much further antiquity,

that no beginning of it below the Apostles' days can be found.

Remove these two or three clauses, and doubtless the substance of the

remainder must have been little short of the Apostolic age. But so is

one at least of the writings of Clement. The great question is: Was this

the Baptismal Symbol, the 'Regula Fidei', which it was forbidden to put

in writing;--or was it not the Christian A. B. C. of the 'Catechumeni'

previously to their Baptismal initiation into the higher mysteries, to

the 'strong meat' which was not for babes'? [2]

Ib. p. 203.

Not so much for my own sake as others; lest it should offend the

Parliament, and open the mouths of our adversaries, that we cannot

ourselves agree in fundamentals; and lest it prove an occasion for

others to sue for a universal toleration.

That this apprehension so constantly haunted, so powerfully actuated,

even the mild and really tolerant Baxter, is a strong proof of my old

opinion,--that the dogma of the right and duty of the civil magistrate

to restrain and punish religious avowals by him deemed heretical,

universal among the Presbyterians and Parliamentary Churchmen, joined

with the persecuting spirit of the Presbyterians,--was the main cause of

Cromwell's despair and consequent unfaithfulness concerning a

Parliamentary Commonwealth.

Ib. p. 222.

I tried, when I was last with you, to revive your reason by proposing

to you the infallibility of the common senses of all the world; and I

could not prevail though you had nothing to answer that was not

against common sense. And it is impossible any thing controverted can

be brought nearer you, or made plainer than to be brought to your eyes

and taste and feeling; and not yours only, but all men's else. Sense

goes before faith. Faith is no faith but upon supposition of sense and

understanding: if therefore common sense be fallible, faith must needs

be so.

This is one of those two-edged arguments, which not indeed began, but

began to be fashionable, just before and after the Restoration. I was

half converted to Transubstantiation by Tillotson's common senses

against it; seeing clearly that the same grounds 'totidem verbis et

syllabis' would serve the Socinian against all the mysteries of

Christianity. If the Roman Catholics had pretended that the phenomenal

bread and wine were changed into the phenomenal flesh and blood, this

objection would have been legitimate and irresistible; but as it is, it

is mere sensual babble. The whole of Popery lies in the assumption of a

Church, as a numerical unit, infallible in the highest degree, inasmuch

as both which is Scripture, and what Scripture teaches, is infallible by

derivation only from an infallible decision of the Church. Fairly

undermine or blow up this: and all the remaining peculiar tenets of

Romanism fall with it, or stand by their own right as opinions of

individual Doctors.

An antagonist of a complex bad system,--a system, however,

notwithstanding--and such is Popery,--should take heed above all things

not to disperse himself. Let him keep to the sticking place. But the

majority of our Protestant polemics seem to have taken for granted that

they could not attack Romanism in too many places, or on too many

points;--forgetting that in some they will be less strong than in

others, and that if in any one or two they are repelled from the

assault, the feeling of this will extend itself over the whole. Besides,

what is the use of alleging thirteen reasons for a witness's not

appearing in Court, when the first is that the man had died since his

'subpoena'? It is as if a party employed to root up a tree were to set

one or two at that work, while others were hacking the branches, and

others sawing the trunk at different heights from the ground.

N. B. The point of attack suggested above in disputes with the Romanists

is of special expediency in the present day: because a number of pious

and reasonable Roman Catholics are not aware of the dependency of their

other tenets on this of the infallibility of their Church decisions, as

they call them, but are themselves shaken and disposed to explain it

away. This once fixed, the Scriptures rise uppermost, and the man is

already a Protestant, rather a genuine Catholic, though his opinions

should remain nearer to the Roman than the Reformed Church.

Ib.

_But methinks yet I should have hope of reviving your charity. You

cannot be a Papist indeed, but you must believe that out of their

Church (that is out of the Pope's dominions) there is no salvation;

and consequently no justification and charity, or saving grace. And is

it possible you can so easily believe your religious father to be in

hell; your prudent, pious mother to be void of the love of God, and in

a state of damnation, &c._

This argument 'ad affectum' is beautifully and forcibly stated; but yet

defective by the omission of the point;--not for unbelief or misbelief

of any article of faith, but simply for not being a member of this

particular part of the Church of Christ. For it is possible that a

Christian might agree in all the articles of faith with the Roman

doctors against those of the Reformation, and yet if he did not

acknowledge the Pope as Christ's vicar, and held salvation possible in

any other Church, he is himself excluded from salvation! Without this

great distinction Lady Ann Lindsey might have replied to Baxter:--"So

might a Pagan orator have said to a convert from Paganism in the first

ages of Christianity; so indeed the advocates of the old religion did

argue. What! can you bear to believe that Numa, Camillus, Fabricius, the

Scipios, the Catos, that Cicero, Seneca, that Titus and the Antonini,

are in the flames of Hell, the accursed objects of the divine hatred?

Now whatever you dare hope of these as heathens, we dare hope of you as

heretics."

Ib. p. 224.

_But this is not the worst. You consequently anathematize_ all Papists

by your sentence: for heresies by your own sentence cut off men from

heaven: but Popery is a bundle of heresies: therefore it cuts off men

from heaven. The minor I prove, &c.

This introduction of syllogistic form in a letter to a young Lady is

whimsically characteristic.

Ib. p. 225.

You say, the Scripture admits of no private interpretation. But you

abuse yourself and the text with a false interpretation of it in these

words. An interpretation is called private either as to the subject

person, or as to the interpreter. You take the text to speak of the

latter, when the context plainly sheweth you that it speaks of the

former. The Apostle directing them to understand the prophecies of the

Old Testament, gives them this caution;--that none of these Scriptures

that are spoken of Christ the public person must be interpreted as

spoken of David or other private person only, of whom they were

mentioned but as types of Christ, &c.

It is strange that this sound and irrefragable argument has not been

enforced by the Church divines in their controversies with the modern

Unitarians, as Capp, Belsham and others, who refer all the prophetic

texts of the Old Testament to historical personages of their time,

exclusively of all double sense.

Ib. p. 226.

As to what you say of Apostles still placed in the Church:--when any

shew us an immediate mission by their communion, and by miracles,

'tongues', and a spirit of revelation and infallibility prove

themselves Apostles, we shall believe them.

This is another of those two-edged arguments which Baxter and Jeremy

Taylor imported from Grotius, and which have since become the universal

fashion among Protestants. I fear, however, that it will do us more hurt

by exposing a weak part to the learned Infidels than service in our

combat with the Romanists. I venture to assert most unequivocally that

the New Testament contains not the least proof of the 'linguipotence' of

the Apostles, but the clearest proofs of the contrary: and I doubt

whether we have even as decisive a victory over the Romanists in our

Middletonian, Farmerian, and Douglasian dispute concerning the miracles

of the first two centuries and their assumed contrast 'in genere' with

those of the Apostles and the Apostolic age, as we have in most other of

our Protestant controversies.

N.B. These opinions of Middleton and his more cautious followers are no

part of our real Church doctrine. This passion for law Court evidence

began with Grotius.

Ib. p. 246.

We conceived there needs no more to be said for justifying the

imposition of the ceremonies by law established than what is contained

in the beginning--of this Section.... Inasmuch as lawful authority

hath already determined the ceremonies in question to be decent and

orderly, and to serve to edification: and consequently to be agreeable

to the general rules of the Word.

To a self-convinced and disinterested lover of the Church of England, it

gives an indescribable horror to observe the frequency, with which the

Prelatic party after the Restoration appeal to the laws as of equal

authority with the express words of Scripture;--as if the laws, by them

appealed to, were other than the vindictive determinations of their own

furious partizans;--as if the same appeals might not have been made by

Bonner and Gardiner under Philip and Mary! Why should I speak of the

inhuman sophism that, because it is silly in my neighbour to break his

egg at the broad end when the Squire and the Vicar have declared their

predilection for the narrow end, therefore it is right for the Squire

and the Vicar to hang and quarter him for his silliness:--for it comes

to that.

Ib. p. 248.

To you it is indifferent before your imposition: and therefore you may

without any regret of your own consciences forbear the imposition, or

persuade the law makers to forbear it. But to many of those that

dissent from you, they are sinful, &c.

But what is all this, good worthy Baxter, but saying and unsaying? If

they are not indifferent, why did you previously concede them to be

such? In short nothing can be more pitiably weak than the conduct of the

Presbyterian party from the first capture of Charles I. Common sense

required, either a bold denial that the Church had power in ceremonies

more than in doctrines, or that the Parliament was the Church, since it

is the Parliament that enacts all these things;--or if they admitted the

authority lawful and the ceremonies only, in their mind, inexpedient,

good God! can self-will more plainly put on the cracked mask of tender

conscience than by refusal of obedience? What intolerable presumption,

to disqualify as ungodly and reduce to null the majority of the country,

who preferred the Liturgy, in order to force the long winded vanities of

bustling God-orators on those who would fain hear prayers, not spouting!

Ib. p. 249.

The great controversies between the hypocrite and the true Christian,

whether we should be serious in the practice of the religion which we

commonly profess, hath troubled England more than any other;--none

being more hated and divided as Puritans than those that will make

religion their business, &c.

Had not the Governors had bitter proofs that there are other and more

cruel vices than swearing and careless living;--and that these were

predominant chiefly among such as made their religion their business?

Ib.

And whereas you speak of opening a gap to Sectaries for private

conventicles, and the evil consequents to the state, we only desire

you to avoid also the cherishing of ignorance and profaneness, and

_suppress all Sectaries_, and spare not, in a way that will not

suppress the means of knowledge and godliness.

The present company, that is, our own dear selves, always excepted.

Ib. p. 250.

Otherwise the poor undone Churches of Christ will no more believe you

in such professions than we believed that those men intended the

King's just power and greatness, who took away his life.

Or who, like Baxter, joined the armies that were showering cannon balls

and bullets around his inviolable person! Whenever by reading the

Prelatical writings and histories, I have had an over dose of

anti-Prelatism in my feelings, I then correct it by dipping into the

works of the Presbyterians, and their fellows, and so bring myself to

more charitable thoughts respecting the Prelatists, and fully subscribe

to Milton's assertion, that "Presbyter was but Old Priest writ large."

Ib. p. 254.

The apocryphal matter of your lessons in Tobit, Judith, Bel and the

Dragon, &c., is scarce agreeable to the word of God.

Does not Jude refer to an apocryphal book?

Ib.

Our experience unresistibly convinceth us that a continued prayer doth

more to help most of the people, and carry on their desires, than

turning almost every petition into a distinct prayer; and making

prefaces and conclusions to be near half the prayers.

This now is the very point I most admire in our excellent Liturgy. To

any particular petition offered to the Omniscient, there may be a

sinking of faith, a sense of its superfluity; but to the lifting up of

the soul to the Invisible and there fixing it on his attributes, there

can be no scruple.

Ib. p. 257.

The not abating of the impositions is the carting off of many hundreds

of your brethren out of the ministry, and of many thousand Christians

out of your communion; but the abating of the impositions will so

offend you as to silence or excommunicate none of you at all. For

example, we think it a sin to subscribe, or swear canonical obedience,

or use the transient image of the Cross in Baptism, and therefore

these must cast us out, &c.

As long as independent single Churches, or voluntarily synodical were

forbidden and punishable by penal law, this argument remained

irrefragable. The imposition of such trifles under such fearful threats

was the very bitterness of spiritual pride and vindictiveness;--after

the law passed by which things became as they now are, it was a mere

question of expediency for the National Church to determine in relation

to its own comparative interests. If the Church chose unluckily, the

injury has been to itself alone.

It seems strange that such men as Baxter should not see that the use of

the ring, the surplice and the like, are indifferent according to his

own confession, yea, mere trifles, in comparison with the peace of the

Church; but that it is no trifle, that men should refuse obedience to

lawful authority in matters indifferent, and prefer the sin of schism to

offending their taste and fancy. The Church did not, upon the whole,

contend for a trifle, nor for an indifferent matter, but for a principle

on which all order in society must depend. Still this is true only,

provided the Church enacts no ordinances that are not necessary or at

least plainly conducive to order or (generally) to the ends for which it

is a Church. Besides, the point which the King had required them to

consider was not what ordinances it was right to obey, but what it was

expedient to enact or not to enact.

Ib. p. 269.

That the Pastors of the respective parishes may be allowed not only

publicly to preach, but personally to catechize or otherwise instruct

the several families, admitting none to the Lord's Table that have not

personally owned their Baptismal covenant by a credible profession of

faith and obedience; and to admonish and exhort the scandalous, in

order to their repentance: to hear the witnesses and the accused

party, and to appoint fit times and places for these things, and to

deny such persons the communion of the Church in the holy Eucharist,

that remain impenitent, or that wilfully refuse to come to their

Pastors to be instructed, or to answer such probable accusations; and

to continue such exclusion of them till they have made a credible

profession of repentance, and then to receive them again to the

communion of the Church;--provided there be place for due appeals to

superior power.

Suppose only such men Pastors as are now most improperly, whether as

boast or as sneer, called Evangelical, what an insufferable tyranny

would this introduce! Who would not rather live in Algiers? This alone

would make this minute history of the ecclesiastic factions invaluable,

that it must convince all sober lovers of independence and moral

self-government, how dearly we ought to prize our present Church

Establishment with all its faults.

Ib. p. 272.

Therefore we humbly crave that your Majesty will here declare, that it

is your Majesty's pleasure that none be punished or troubled for not

using the Book of Common Prayer, till it be effectually reformed by

divines of both persuasions equally deputed thereunto.

The dispensing power of the Crown not only acknowledged, but earnestly

invoked! Cruel as the conduct of Laud and that of Sheldon to the

Dissentients was, yet God's justice stands clear towards them; for they

demanded that from others, which they themselves would not grant. They

were to be allowed at their own fancies to denounce the ring in

marriage, and yet impowered to endungeon, through the magistrate, the

honest and peaceable Quaker for rejecting the outward ceremony of water

in Baptism, as seducing men to take it as a substitute for the spiritual

reality;--though the Quakers, no less than themselves, appealed to

Scripture authority--the Baptist's own contrast of Christ's with the

water Baptism.

Ib. p. 273.

We are sure that kneeling in any adoration at all, in any worship, on

any Lord's Day in the year, or any week day between Easter and

Pentecost, was not only disused, but forbidden by General Councils,

&c.--and therefore that kneeling in the act of receiving is a novelty

contrary to the decrees and practice of the Church for many hundred

years after the Apostles.

Was not this because kneeling was the agreed sign of sorrow and personal

contrition, which was not to be introduced into the public worship on

the great day and the solemn seasons of the Church's joy and

thanksgiving? If so, Baxter's appeal to this usage is a gross sophism, a

mere pun.

Ib. p. 308.

Baxter's Exceptions to the Common Prayer Book.

1. Order requireth that we begin with reverent prayer to God for his

acceptance and assistance, which is not done.

Enunciation of God's invitations, and promises in God's own words, as in

the Common Prayer Book, much better.

2. That the Creed and Decalogue containing the faith, in which we

profess to assemble for God's worship, and the law which we have

broken by our sins, should go before the confession and Absolution;

or at least before the praises of the Church; which they do not.

Might have deserved consideration, if the people or the larger number

consisted of uninstructed 'catechumeni', or mere candidates for

Church-membership. But the object being, not the first teaching of the

Creed and Decalogue, but the lively reimpressing of the same, it is much

better as it is.

3. The Confession omitteth not only original sin, but all actual sin

as specified by the particular commandments violated, and almost

all the aggravations of those sins.... Whereas confession, being

the expression of repentance, should be more particular, as

repentance itself should be.

Grounded, on one of the grand errors of the whole Dissenting party,

namely, the confusion of public common prayer, praise, and instruction,

with domestic and even with private devotion. Our Confession is a

perfect model for Christian communities.

4. When we have craved help for God's prayers, before we come to them,

we abruptly put in the petition for speedy deliverance--('O God,

make speed to save us: O Lord make haste to help us',) without any

intimation of the danger that we desire deliverance from, and

without any other petition conjoined.

5. It is disorderly in the manner, to sing the Scripture in a plain

tune after the manner of reading.

6. ('The Lord be with you. And with thy spirit',) being petitions

for divine assistance, come in abruptly in the midst or near the

end of morning prayer: And ('Let us pray'.) is adjoined when we

were before in prayer.

Mouse-like squeak and nibble.

7. ('Lord have mercy upon us: Christ have mercy upon us: Lord have

mercy upon us'.) seemeth an affected tautology without any special

cause or order here; and the Lord's Prayer is annexed that was

before recited, and yet the next words are again but a repetition

of the aforesaid oft repeated general ('O Lord, shew thy mercy upon

us'.)

Still worse. The spirit in which this and similar complaints originated

has turned the prayers of Dissenting ministers into irreverent

preachments, forgetting that tautology in words and thoughts implies no

tautology in the music of the heart to which the words are, as it were,

set, and that it is the heart that lifts itself up to God. Our words and

thoughts are but parts of the enginery which remains with ourselves; and

logic, the rustling dry leaves of the lifeless reflex faculty, does not

merit even the name of a pulley or lever of devotion.

8. The prayer for the King ('O Lord, save the King'.) is without any

order put between the foresaid petition and another general request

only for audience. ('And mercifully hear us when we call upon

thee').

A trifle, but just.

9. The second Collect is intituled ('For Peace'.) and hath not a word

in it of petition for peace, but only 'for defence in assaults of

enemies', and that we 'may not fear their power'. And the prefaces

('in knowledge of whom standeth', &c. and 'whose service', &c.)

have no more evident respect to a petition for peace than to any

other. And the prayer itself comes in disorderly, while many

prayers or petitions are omitted, which according both to the

method of the Lord's Prayer, and the nature of the things, should

go before.

10. The third Collect intituled ('For Grace'.) is disorderly, &c....

And thus the main parts of prayer, according to the rule of the

Lord's Prayer and our common necessities, are omitted.

Not wholly unfounded: but the objection proceeds on an arbitrary and (I

think) false assumption, that the Lord's Prayer was universally

prescriptive in form and arrangement.

12. The Litany ... omitteth very many particulars, ... and it is

exceeding disorderly, following no just rules of method. Having

begged pardon of our sins, and deprecated vengeance, it proceedeth

to evil in general, and some few sins in particular, and thence to

a more particular enumeration of judgments; and thence to a

recitation of the parts of that work of our redemption, and thence

to the deprecation of judgments again, and thence to prayers for

the King and magistrates, and then for all nations, and then for

love and obedience, &c.

The very points here objected to as faults I should have selected as

excellencies. For do not the duties and temptations occur in real life

even so intermingled? The imperfection of thought much more of language,

so singly successive, allows no better representation of the close

neighbourhood, nay the co-inherence of duty in duty, desire in desire.

Every want of the heart pointing Godward is a chili agon that touches at

a thousand points. From these remarks I except the last paragraph of s.

12:

(As to the prayer for Bishops and Curates and the position of the

General Thanksgiving, &c.)

which are defects so palpable and so easily removed, that nothing but

antipathy to the objectors could have retained them.

13. The like defectiveness and disorder is in the Communion Collects

for the day.... There is no more reason why it should be appropriate

to that day than another, or rather be a common petition for all days,

&c.

I do not see how these supposed improprieties, for want of

appropriateness to the day, could be avoided without risk of the far

greater evil of too great appropriation to particular Saints and days as

in Popery. I am so far a Puritan that I think nothing would have been

lost, if Christmas day and Good Friday had been the only week days made

holy days, and Easter the only Lord's day especially distinguished. I

should also have added Whitsunday; but that it has become unmeaning

since our Clergy have, as I grieve to think, become generally Arminian,

and interpreting the descent of the Spirit as the gift of miracles and

of miraculous infallibility by inspiration have rendered it of course of

little or no application to Christians at present. Yet how can Arminians

pray our Church prayers collectively on any day? Answer. See a 'boa

constrictor' with an ox or deer. What they do swallow, proves so

astounding a dilatability of gullet, that it would be unconscionable

strictness to complain of the horns, antlers, or other indigestible

non-essentials being suffered to rot off at the confines, [Greek: hérkos

hodóntôn]. But to write seriously on so serious a subject, it is

mournful to reflect that the influence of the systematic theology then

in fashion with the anti-Prelatic divines, whether Episcopalians or

Presbyterians, had quenched all fineness of mind, all flow of heart, all

grandeur of imagination in them; while the victorious party, the

Prelatic Arminians, enriched as they were with all learning and highly

gifted with taste and judgment, had emptied revelation of all the

doctrines that can properly be said to have been revealed, and thus

equally caused the extinction of the imagination, and quenched the life

in the light by withholding the appropriate fuel and the supporters of

the sacred flame. So that, between both parties, our transcendant

Liturgy remains like an ancient Greek temple, a monumental proof of the

architectural genius of an age long departed, when there were giants in

the land.

Ib. p. 337.

As I was proceeding, Bishop Morley interrupted me according to his

manner, with vehemency crying out * * The Bishop interrupted me again

* * I attempted to speak, and still he interrupted me * * Bishop

Morley went on, talking louder than I, &c.

The Bishops appear to have behaved insolently enough. Safe in their

knowledge of Charles's inclinations, they laughed in their sleeves at

his commission. Their best answer would have been to have pressed the

anti-impositionists with their utter forgetfulness of the possible, nay,

very probable differences of opinion between the ministers and their

congregations. A vain minister might disgust a sober congregation with

his 'extempore' prayers, or his open contempt of their kneeling at the

Sacrament, and the like. Yet by what right if he acts only as an

individual? And then what an endless source of disputes and preferences

of this minister or of that!

Ib. p. 341.

The paper offered by Bishop Cosins.

1. That the question may be put to the managers of the division,

Whether there be anything in the doctrine, or discipline, or the

Common Prayer, or ceremonies, contrary to the word of God; and if

they can make any such appear; let them be satisfied.

2. If not, let them propose what they desire in point of expediency,

and acknowledge it to be no more.

This was proposed, doubtless, by one of your sensible men; it is so

plain, so plausible, shallow, 'nihili, nauci, pili, flocci-cal'. Why,

the very phrase "contrary to the word of God" would take a month to

define, and neither party agree at last. One party says:

The Church has power from God's word to order all matters of order so as

shall appear to them to conduce to decency and edification: but

ceremonies respect the orderly performance of divine service: ergo, the

Church has power to ordain ceremonies: but the Cross in baptizing is a

ceremony; ergo, the Church has power to prescribe the crossing in

Baptism. What is rightfully ordered cannot be rightfully withstood:--but

the crossing, &c., is rightfully ordered:--'ergo', the crossing cannot

be rightfully omitted.

To this, how easily would the other party reply;

1. That a small number of Bishops could not be called the Church:

2. That no one Church had power or pretence from God's word to prescribe

concerning mere matters of outward decency and convenience to other

Churches or assemblies of Christian people:

3. That the blending an unnecessary and suspicious, if not

superstitious, motion of the hand with a necessary and essential act

doth in no wise respect order or propriety:

Lastly, that to forbid a man to obey a direct command of God because he

will not join with it an admitted mere tradition of men, is contrary to

common sense, no less than to God's word, expressly and by breach of

charity, which is the great end and purpose of God's word. Besides;

might not the Pope and his shavelings have made the same proposition to

the Reformers in the reign of Edward VI., in respect to the greater part

of the idle superfluities which were rejected by the Reformers, only as

idle and superfluous, and for that reason contrary to the spirit of the

Gospel, though few, if any, were in the direct teeth of a positive

prohibition? Above all, an honest policy dictates that the end in view

being fully determined, as here for instance, the preclusion of

disturbance and indecorum in Christian assemblies, every addition to

means, already adequate to the securing of that end, tends to frustrate

the end, and is therefore evidently excluded from the prerogatives of

the Church, (however that word may be interpreted) inasmuch as its power

is confined to such ceremonies and regulations as conduce to order and

general edification. In short it grieves me to think that the Heads of

the most Apostolical Church in Christendom should have insisted on three

or four trifles, the abolition of which could have given offence to none

but such as from the baleful superstition that alone could attach

importance to them effectually, it was charity to offend;-when all the

rest of Baxter's objections might have been answered so triumphantly.

Ib. p. 343.

Answer to the foresaid paper.

8. That none may be a preacher, that dare not subscribe that there is

nothing in the Common Prayer Book, the Book of Ordination, and the 39

Articles, that is contrary to the word of God.

I think this might have been left out as well as the other two articles

mentioned by Baxter. For as by the words "contrary to the word of God"

in Cosins's paper, it was not meant to declare the Common Prayer Book

free from all error, the sense must have been, that there is not

anything in it in such a way or degree contrary to God's word, as to

oblige us to assign sin to those who have overlooked it, or who think

the same compatible with God's word, or who, though individually

disapproving the particular thing, yet regard that acquiescence as an

allowed sacrifice of individual opinion to modesty, charity, and zeal

for the peace of the Church. For observe that this eighth instance is

additional to, and therefore not inclusive of, the preceding seven:

otherwise it must have been placed as the first, or rather as the whole,

the seven following being motives and instances in support and

explanation of the point.

Ib. p. 368.

Let me mediate here between Baxter and the Bishops: Baxter had taken for

granted that the King had a right to promise a revision of the Liturgy,

Canons and regiment of the Church, and that the Bishops ought to have

met him and his friends as diplomatists on even ground. The Bishops

could not with discretion openly avow all they meant; and it would be

bigotry to deny that the spirit of compromise had no indwelling in their

feelings or intents. But nevertheless it is true that they thought more

in the spirit of the English Constitution than Baxter and his

friends.--"This," thought they, "is the law of the land, 'quam nolumus

mutari'; and it must be the King with and by the advice of his

Parliament, that can authorize any part of his subjects to take the

question of its repeal into consideration. Under other circumstances a

King might bring the Bishops and the Heads of the Romish party together

to plot against the law of the land. No! we would have no other secret

Committees but of Parliamentary appointment. We are but so many

individuals. It is in the Legislature that the congregations, the party

most interested in this cause, meet collectively by their

representatives."--Lastly, let it not be overlooked, that the root of

the bitterness was common to both parties,--namely, the conviction of

the vital importance of uniformity;--and this admitted, surely an

undoubted majority in favor of what is already law must decide whose

uniformity it is to be.

Ib. p. 368.

We must needs believe that when your Majesty took our consent to a

Liturgy to be a foundation that would infer our concord, you meant not

that we should have no concord but by consenting to this Liturgy

without any considerable alteration.

This is forcible reasoning, but which the Bishops could fairly leave for

the King to answer;--the contract tacit or expressed, being between him

and the anti-Prelatic Presbytero-Episcopalian party, to which neither

the Bishops nor the Legislature had acceded or assented. If Baxter and

Calamy were so little imbued with the spirit of the Constitution as to

consider Charles II. as the breath of their nostrils, and this dread

sovereign Breath in its passage gave a snort or a snuffle, or having led

them to expect a snuffle surprised them with a snort, let the reproach

be shared between the Breath's fetid conscience and the nostrils'

nasoductility. The traitors to the liberty of their country who were

swarming and intriguing for favor at Breda when they should have been at

their post in Parliament or in the Lobby preparing terms and

conditions!--Had all the ministers that were afterwards ejected and the

Presbyterian party generally exerted themselves, heart and soul, with

Monk's soldiers, and in collecting those whom Monk had displaced, and,

instead of carrying on treasons against the Government 'de facto' by

mendicant negociations with Charles, had taken open measures to confer

the sceptre on him as the Scotch did,--whose stern and truly loyal

conduct has been most unjustly condemned,--the schism in the Church

might have been prevented and the Revolution of 1688 superseded.

N.B. In the above I speak of the Bishops as men interested in a

litigated estate. God forbid, I should seek to justify them as

Christians.

Ib. p. 369.

'Quære'. Whether in the 20th Article these words are not

inserted;--'Habet Ecclesia auctoritatem in controversiis fidei'.

Strange, that the evident antithesis between power in respect of

ceremonies, and authority in points of faith, should have been

overlooked!

Ib.

Some have published, That there is a proper sacrifice in the Lord's

Supper, to exhibit Christ's death in the 'post-fact', as there was a

sacrifice to prefigure it in the Old Law in the 'ante-fact', and

therefore that we have a true altar, and not only metaphorically so

called.

Doubtless a gross error, yet pardonable, for to errors nearly as gross

it was opposed.

Ib.

Some have maintained that the Lord's Day is kept merely by

ecclesiastical constitution, and that the day is changeable.

Where shall we find the proof of the contrary?--at least, if the

position had been worded thus: The moral and spiritual obligation of

keeping the Lord's Day is grounded on its manifest necessity, and the

evidence of its benignant effects in connection with those conditions of

the world of which even in Christianized countries there is no reason to

expect a change, and is therefore commanded by implication in the New

Testament, so clearly and by so immediate a consequence, as to be no

less binding on the conscience than an explicit command. A., having

lawful authority, expressly commands me to go to London from Bristol.

There is at present but one safe road: this therefore is commanded by

A.; and would be so, even though A. had spoken of another road which at

that time was open.

Ib. p. 370.

Some have broached out of Socinus a most uncomfortable and desperate

doctrine, that late repentance, that is, upon the last bed of

sickness, is unfruitful, at least to reconcile the penitent to God.

This no doubt refers to Jeremy Taylor's work on Repentance, and is but

too faithful a description of its character.

Ib. p. 373.

A little after the King was beheaded, Mr. Atkins met this priest in

London, and going into a tavern with him, said to him in his familiar

way, "What business have you here? I warrant you come about some

roguery or other." Whereupon the priest told it him as a great secret,

that there were thirty of them here in London, who by instructions

from Cardinal Mazarine, did take care of such affairs, and had sat in

council, and debated the question, whether the King should be put to

death or not;--and that it was carried in the affirmative, and there

were but two voices for the negative, which was his own and another's;

and that for his part, he could not concur with them, as foreseeing

what misery this would bring upon his country. Mr. Atkins stood to

the truth of this, but thought it a violation of the laws of

friendship to name the man.

Richard Baxter was too thoroughly good for any experience to make him

worldly wise; else, how could he have been simple enough to suppose,

that Mazarine would leave such a question to be voted 'pro' and 'con',

and decided by thirty emissaries in London! And, how could he have

reconciled Mazarine's having any share in Charles's death with his own

masterly account, pp. 98, 99, 100? Even Cromwell, though he might have

prevented, could not have effected, the sentence. The regicidal judges

were not his creatures. Consult the Life of Colonel Hutchinson upon this.

Ib. p. 374.

Since this, Dr. Peter Moulin hath, in his Answer to 'Philanax

Anglicus', declared that he is ready to prove, when authority will

Call him to it, that the King's death, and the change of the

government, was first proposed both to the Sorbonne, and to the Pope

with his Conclave, and consented to and concluded for by both.

The Pope in his Conclave had about the same influence in Charles's fate

as the Pope's eye in a leg of mutton. The letter intercepted by Cromwell

was Charles's death-warrant. Charles knew his power; and Cromwell and

Ireton knew it likewise, and knew that it was the power of a man who was

within a yard's length of a talisman, only not within an arm's length,

but which in that state of the public mind, could he but have once

grasped it, would have enabled him to blow up Presbyterian and

Independent both. If ever a lawless act was defensible on the principle

of self-preservation, the murder of Charles might be defended. I suspect

that the fatal delay in the publication of the 'Icon Basilike' is

susceptible of no other satisfactory explanation. In short it is absurd

to burthen this act on Cromwell and his party, in any special sense. The

guilt, if guilt it was, was consummated at the gates of Hull; that is,

the first moment that Charles was treated as an individual, man against

man. Whatever right Hampden had to defend his life against the King in

battle, Cromwell and Ireton had in yet more imminent danger against the

King's plotting. Milton's reasoning on this point is unanswerable: and

what a wretched hand does Baxter make of it!

Ib. p. 375.

But if the laws of the land appoint the nobles, as next the King, to

assist him in doing right, and withhold him from doing wrong, then be

they licensed by man's law, and so not prohibited by God's, to

interpose themselves for the safety of equity and innocency, and by

all lawful and needful means to procure the Prince to be reformed, but

in no case deprived, where the sceptre is inherited! So far Bishop

Bilson.

Excellent! O, by all means preserve for him the benefit of his rightful

heir-loom, the regal sceptre; only lay it about his shoulders, till he

promises to handle it, as he ought! But what if he breaks his promise

and your head? or what if he will not promise? How much honester would

it be to say, that extreme cases are 'ipso nomine' not generalizable,

--therefore not the subjects of a law, which is the conclusion 'per

genus singuli in genere inclusi'. Every extreme case must be judged by

and for itself under all the peculiar circumstances. Now as these are

not foreknowable, the case itself cannot be predeterminable. Harmodius

and Aristogiton did not justify Brutus and Cassius: but neither do

Brutus and Cassius criminate Harmodius and Aristogiton. The rule applies

till an extreme case occurs; and how can this be proved? I answer, the

only proof is success and good event; for these afford the best

presumption, first, of the extremity, and secondly, of its remediable

nature--the two elements of its justification. To every individual it is

forbidden. He who attempts it, therefore, must do so on the presumption

that the will of the nation is in his will: whether he is mad or in his

senses, the event can alone determine.

Ib. p. 398.

The governing power and obligation over the flock is essential to the

office of a Pastor or Presbyter as instituted by Christ.

There is, [Greek: hôs émoige dokei], one flaw in Baxter's plea for his

Presbyterian form of Church government, that he uses a metaphor, which,

inasmuch as it is but a metaphor, agrees with the thing meant in some

points only, as if it were commensurate 'in toto', and virtually

identical. Thus, the Presbyter is a shepherd as far as the watchfulness,

tenderness, and care, are to be the same in both; but it does not follow

that the Presbyter has the same sole power and exclusive right of

guidance; and for this reason,--that his flock are not sheep, but men;

not of a natural, generic, or even constant inferiority of judgment; but

Christians, co-heirs of the promises, and therein of the gifts of the

Holy Spirit, and of the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. How then

can they be excluded from a share in Church Government? The words of

Christ, if they may be transferred from their immediate application to

the Jewish Synagogue, suppose the contrary;--and that highest act of

government, the election of the officers and ministers of the Church,

was confessedly exercised by the congregations including the Presbyters

and Arch-presbyter or Bishop, in the primitive Church. The question,

therefore, is:--Is a national Church, established by law, compatible

with Christianity? If so, as Baxter held, the representatives (King,

Lords, and Commons,) are or may be representatives of the whole people

as Christians as well as civil subjects;--and their voice will then be

the voice of the Church, which every individual, as an individual,

themselves as individuals, and, 'a fortiori', the officers and

administrators appointed by them, are bound to obey at the risk of

excommunication, against which there would be no appeal, but to the

heavenly Cæsar, the Lord and Head of the universal Church. But whether

as the accredited representatives and plenipotentiaries of the national

Church, they can avail themselves of their conjoint but distinct

character, as temporal legislators, to superadd corporal or civil

penalties to the spiritual sentence in points peculiar to Christianity,

as heretical opinions, Church ceremonies, and the like, thus destroying

'discipline', even as wood is destroyed by combination with fire;--this

is a new and difficult question, which yet Baxter and the Presbyterian

divines, and the Puritans of that age in general, not only answered

affirmatively, but most zealously, not to say furiously, affirmed with

anathemas to the assertors of the negative, and spiritual threats to the

magistrates neglecting to interpose the temporal sword. In this respect

the present Dissenters have the advantage over their earlier

predecessors; but on the other hand they utterly evacuate the Scriptural

commands against schism; take away all sense and significance from the

article respecting the Catholic Church; and in consequence degrade the

discipline itself into mere club-regulations or the by-laws of different

lodges;--that very discipline, the capability of exercising which in its

own specific nature without superinduction of a destructive and

transmutual opposite, is the fairest and firmest support of their cause.

20th October, 1829.

Ib. p. 401.

That sententially it must be done by the Pastor or Governor of that

particular Church, which the person is to be admitted into, or cast

out of.

This most arbitrary appropriation of the words of Christ, and of the

apostles, John and Paul, by the Clergy to themselves exclusively, is the

[Greek: prôton pseudos], the fatal error which has practically excluded

Church discipline from among Protestants in all free countries. That it

is retained, and an efficient power, among the Quakers, and only in that

Sect, who act collectively as a Church,--who not only have no proper

Clergy, but will not allow a division of majority and minority, nor a

temporary president,--seems to supply an unanswerable confirmation of

this my assertion, and a strong presumption for the validity of my

argument. The Wesleyan Methodists have, I know, a discipline, and the

power is in their consistory,--a general conclave of priests cardinal

since the death of Pope Wesley. But what divisions and secessions this

has given rise to; what discontents and heart-burnings it still

occasions in their labouring inferior ministers, and in the classes, is

no less notorious, and may authorize a belief that as the Sect

increases, it will be less and less effective; nay, that it has

decreased; and after all, what is it compared with the discipline of the

Quakers?--Baxter's inconsistency on this subject would be inexplicable,

did we not know his zealotry against Harrington, the Deists and the

Mystics;--so that, like an electrified pith-ball, he is for ever

attracted towards their tenets concerning the pretended perfecting of

spiritual sentences by the civil magistrate, but he touches only to fly

off again. "Toleration! dainty word for soul-murder! God grant that my

eye may never see a toleration!" he exclaims in his book against

Harrington's Oceana.

Ib. p. 405.

As for the democratical conceit of them that say that the Parliament

hath their governing power, as they are the people's representatives,

and so have the members of the convocation, though those represented

have no governing power themselves, it is so palpably

self-contradicting, that I need not confute it.

Self-contradicting according to Baxter's sense of the words "represent"

and "govern." But every rational adult has a governing power: namely,

that of governing himself.

Ib. p. 412.

That though a subject ought to take an oath in the sense of his rulers

who impose it, as far as he can understand it; yet a man that taketh

an oath from a robber to save his life is not always bound to take it

in the imposer's sense, if he take it not against the proper sense of

the words.

This is a point, on which I have never been able to satisfy myself.--The

only safe conclusion I have been able to draw, being the folly,

mischief, and immorality of all oaths but judicial ones,--and those no

farther excepted than as they are means of securing a deliberate

consciousness of the presence of the Omniscient Judge. The inclination

of my mind is at this moment, to the principle that an oath may deepen

the guilt of an act sinful in itself, but cannot be detached from the

act; it being understood that a perfectly voluntary and self-imposed

oath is itself a sin. The man who compels me to take an oath by putting

a pistol to my ear has in my mind clearly forfeited all his right to be

treated as a moral agent. Nay, it seems to be a sin to act so as to

induce him to suppose himself such. Contingent consequences must be

excluded; but would, I am persuaded, weigh in favour of annulling on

principle an oath sinfully extorted. But I hate casuistry so utterly,

that I could not without great violence to my feelings put the case in

all its bearings. For example:--it is sinful to enlarge the power of

wicked agents; but to allow them to have the power of binding the

conscience of those, whom they have injured, is to enlarge the power,

&c. Again: no oath can bind to the perpetration of a sin; but to

transfer a sum of money from its rightful owner to a villain is a sin,

&c. and twenty other such. But the robber may kill the next man!

Possibly: but still more probably, many, who would be robbers if they

could obtain their ends without murder, would resist the temptation if

no extenuations of guilt were contemplated;--and one murder is more

effective in rousing the public mind to preventive measures, and by the

horror it strikes, is made more directly preventive of the tendency,

than fifty civil robberies by contract.

Ib. p. 435.

That the minister be not bound to read the Liturgy himself, if

another, by whomsoever, be procured to do it; so be it he preach not

against it.

Wonderful, that so good and wise a man as Baxter should not have seen

that in this the Church would have given up the best, perhaps the only

efficient, preservative of her Faith. But for our blessed and truly

Apostolic and Scriptural Liturgy, our churches' pews would long ago have

been filled by Arians and Socinians, as too many of their desks and

pulpits already are.

Part III. p. 59.

As also to make us take such a poor suffering as this for a sign of

true grace, instead of faith, hope, love, mortification, and a

heavenly mind; and that the loss of one grain of love was worse than a

long imprisonment.

Here Baxter confounds his own particular case, which very many would

have coveted, with the sufferings of other prisoners on the same

score;--sufferings nominally the same, but with few, if any, of Baxter's

almost flattering supports.

Ib. p. 60.

It would trouble the reader for me to reckon up the many diseases and

dangers for these ten years past, in or from which God hath delivered

me; though it be my duty not to forget to be thankful. Seven months

together I was lame with a strange pain in one foot, twice delivered

from a bloody flux; a spurious cataract in my eye, with incessant webs

and networks before it, hath continued these eight years, * * * so

that I have rarely one hour's or quarter of an hour's ease. Yet

through God's mercy I was never one hour melancholy, &c.

The power of the soul, by its own act of will, is, I admit, great for

any one occasion or for a definite time, yea, it is marvellous. But of

such exertions and such an even frame of spirit, as Baxter's were, under

such unremitting and almost unheard-of bodily derangements and pains as

his, and during so long a life, 1 do not believe a human soul capable,

unless substantiated and successively potentiated by an especial divine

grace.

Ib. p. 65.

The reasons why I make no larger a profession necessary than the Creed

and Scriptures, are, because if we depart from this old sufficient

Catholic rule, we narrow the Church, and depart from the old

Catholicism.

Why then any Creed? This is the difficulty. If you put the Creed as in

fact, and not by courtesy, Apostolic, and on a parity with Scripture,

having, namely, its authority in itself, and a direct inspiration of the

framers, inspired 'ad id tempus et ad eam rem', on what ground is this

to be done, without admitting the binding power of tradition in the very

sense of the term in which the Church of Rome uses it, and the

Protestant Churches reject it? That it is the sum total made by

Apostolic contributions, each Apostle casting, as into a helmet, a

several article as his [Greek: symbolon], is the tradition; and this is

holden as a mere legendary tale by the great majority of learned

divines. That it is simply the Creed of the Western Church is affirmed

by many Protestant divines, and some of these divines of our Church. Its

comparative simplicity these divines explain by the freedom from

heresies enjoyed by the Western Church, when the Eastern Church had been

long troubled therewith. Others, again, and not unplausibly, contend

that it was the Creed of the Catechumens preparatory to the Baptismal

profession of faith, which other was a fuller comment on the union of

the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, into whose name (or power) they

were baptised. That the Apostles' Creed received additions after the

Apostolic age, seems almost certain; not to mention the perplexing

circumstance that so many of the Latin Fathers, who give almost the

words of the Apostolic Creed, declare it forbidden absolutely to write

or by any material form to transmit the 'Canon Fidei', or 'Symbolum' or

'Regula Fidei', the Creed [Greek: kat' hexocháen], by analogy of which

the question whether such a book was Scripture or not, was to be tried.

With such doubts how can the Apostles' Creed be preferred to the Nicene

by a consistent member of the Reformed Catholic Church?

Ib. p. 67.

They think while you (the Independents) seem to be for a stricter

discipline than others, that your way or usual practice tendeth to

extirpate godliness out of the land, by taking a very few that can

talk more than the rest, and making them the Church, &c.

Had Baxter had as judicious advisers among his theological, as he had

among his legal, friends; and had he allowed them equal influence with

him; he would not, I suspect, have written this irritating and too

egometical paragraph. But Baxter would have disbelieved a prophet who

had foretold that almost the whole orthodoxy of the Non-conformists

would he retained and preserved by the Independent congregations in

England, after the Presbyterian had almost without exception become,

first, Arian, then Socinian, and finally Unitarian: that is, the

'demi-semi-quaver' of Christianity, Arminianism being taken for the

'semi-breve'.

Ib. p. 69.

After this I waited on him (Dr. John Owen) at London again, and he

came once to me to my lodgings, when I was in town near him. And he

told me that he received my chiding letter and perceived that I

suspected his reality in the business; but he was so hearty in it that

I should see that he really meant as he spoke, concluding in these

words, "You shall see it, and my practice shall reproach your

diffidence" * * *. About a month after I went to him again, and he had

done nothing, but was still hearty for the work. And to be short, I

thus waited on him time after time, till my papers had been near a

year and a quarter in his hand, and then I advised him to return them

to me, which he did, with these words, "I am still a well-wisher to

those mathematics;"--without any other words about them, or ever

giving me any more exception against them. And this was the issue of

my third attempt for union with the Independents.

Dr. Owen was a man of no ordinary intellect. It would be interesting to

have his conduct in this point, seemingly so strange, in some measure

explained: The words "those mathematics" look like an innuendo, that

Baxter's scheme of union, by which all the parties opposed to the

Prelatic Church were to form a rival Church, was, like the mathematics,

true indeed, but true only in the idea, that is, abstracted from the

subject matter. Still there appears a very chilling want of

open-heartedness on the part of Owen, produced perhaps by the somewhat

overly and certainly most ungracious resentments of Baxter. It was odd

at least to propose concord in the tone and on the alleged ground of an

old grudge.

Ib.

I have been twenty-six years convinced that dichotomizing will not do

it, but that the divine Trinity in Unity hath expressed itself in the

whole frame of nature and morality * * *. But he, Mr. George Lawson,

had not hit on the true method of the 'vestigia Trinitatis', &c.

Among Baxter's philosophical merits, we ought not to overlook, that the

substitution of Trichotomy for the old and still general plan of

Dichotomy in the method and disposition of Logic, which forms so

prominent and substantial an excellence in Kant's Critique of the Pure

Reason, of the Judgment, and the rest of his works, belongs originally

to Richard Baxter, a century before Kant;--and this not as a hint, but

as a fully evolved and systematically applied principle. Nay, more than

this:--Baxter grounded it on an absolute idea presupposed in all

intelligential acts: whereas Kant takes it only as a fact in which he

seems to anticipate or suspect some yet deeper truth latent, and

hereafter to be discovered.

On recollection, however, I am disposed to consider 'this' alone as

Baxter's peculiar claim, I have not indeed any distinct memory of

Giordano Bruno's 'Logice Venatrix Veritatis'; but doubtless the

principle of Trichotomy is necessarily involved in the Polar Logic,

which again is the same with the Pythagorean 'Tetractys', that is, the

eternal fountain or source of nature; and this being sacred to

contemplations of identity, and prior in order of thought to all

division, is so far from interfering with Trichotomy as the universal

form of division (more correctly of distinctive distribution in logic)

that it implies it. 'Prothesis' being by the very term anterior to

'Thesis' can be no part of it. Thus in

'Prothesis'

'Thesis' 'Antithesis'

'Synthesis'

we have the Tetrad indeed in the intellectual and intuitive

contemplation, but a Triad in discursive arrangement, and a Tri-unity in

result. [3]

Ib. p. 144.

Seeing the great difficulties that lie in the way of increasing

charities so as to meet the increase of population, or even so as to

follow it, and the manifold desirableness of parish Churches, with the

material dignity that in a right state of Christian order would attach

to them, as compared with meeting-houses, chapels, and the like--all

more or less 'privati juris', I have often felt disposed to wish that

the large majestic Church, central to each given parish, might have been

appropriated to Public Prayer, to the mysteries of Baptism and the

Lord's Supper, and to the 'quasi sacramenta', Marriage, Penance,

Confirmation, Ordination, and to the continued reading aloud, or

occasional chanting, of the Scriptures during the intervals of the

different Services, which ought to be so often performed as to suffice

successively for the whole population; and that on the other hand the

chapels and the like should be entirely devoted to teaching and

expounding.

Ib. p. 153.

And I proved to him that Christianity was proved true many years

before any of the New Testament was written, and that so it may be

still proved by one that doubted of some words of the Scripture; and

therefore the true order is, to try the truth of the Christian

religion first, and the perfect verity of the Scriptures afterwards.

With more than Dominican virulence did Goeze, Head Pastor of the

Lutheran Church at Hamburg, assail the celebrated Lessing for making and

supporting the same position as the pious Baxter here advances.

This controversy with Goeze was in 1778, nearly a hundred years after

Baxter's writing this.

Ib. p. 155.

And within a few days Mr. Barnett riding the circuit was cast by his

horse, and died in the very fall. And Sir John Medlicote and his

brother, a few weeks after, lay both dead in his house together.

This interpreting of accidents and coincidences into judgments is a

breach of charity and humility, only not universal among all sects and

parties of this period, and common to the best and gentlest men in all;

we should not therefore bring it in charge against any one in

particular. But what excuse shall be made for the revival of this

presumptuous encroachment on the divine prerogative in our days?

Ib. p. 180.

Near this time my book called A Key for Catholics, was to be

reprinted. In the preface to the first impression I had mentioned with

praise the Earl of Lauderdale. * * * I thought best to prefix an

epistle to the Duke, in which I said not a word of him but truth. * *

* But the indignation that men had against the Duke made some blame

me, as keeping up the reputation of one whom multitudes thought very

ill of; whereas I owned none of his faults, and did nothing that I

could well avoid for the aforesaid reasons. Long after this he

professed his kindness to me, and told me I should never want while he

was able, and humbly entreated me to accept twenty guineas from him,

which I did.

This would be a curious proof of the slow and imperfect intercourse of

communication between Scotland and London, if Baxter had not been

particularly informed of Lauderdale's horrible cruelties to the Scotch

Covenanters:--and if Baxter did know them, he surely ran into a greater

inconsistency to avoid the appearance of a less. And the twenty guineas!

they must have smelt, I should think, of more than the earthly brimstone

that might naturally enough have been expected in gold or silver, from

his palm. I would as soon have plucked an ingot from the cleft of the

Devil's hoof.

[Greek: Taut' élegon períthumos egô gàr mísei en ísô Laudérdalon échô

kaì kerkokerônucha Satan.]

Ib. p. 181.

About that time I had finished a book called Catholic Thoughts; in

which I undertake to prove that besides things unrevealed, known to

none, and ambiguous words, there is no considerable difference between

the Arminians and Calvinists, except some very tolerable difference in

the point of perseverance.

What Arminians? what Calvinists?--It is possible that the guarded

language and positions of Arminius himself may be interpreted into a

"very tolerable" compatibility with the principles of the milder

Calvinists, such as Archbishop Leighton, that true Father of the Church

of Christ. But I more than doubt the possibility of even approximating

the principles of Bishop Jeremy Taylor to the fundamental doctrines of

Leighton, much more to those of Cartwright, Twiss, or Owen.

Ib. p. 186.

Bishop Barlow told my friend that got my papers for him, that he could

hear of nothing that we judged to be sin, but mere inconveniences.

When as above seventeen years ago, we publicly endeavoured to prove

the sinfulness even of many of the old impositions.

Clearly an undeterminable controversy; inasmuch as there is no

centra-definition possible of sin and inconvenience in religion: while

the exact point, at which an inconvenience, becoming intolerable, passes

into sin, must depend on the state and the degree of light, of the

individual consciences to which it appears or becomes intolerable.

Besides, a thing may not be only indifferent in itself, but may be

declared such by Scripture, and on this indifference the Scripture may

have rested a prohibition to Christians to judge each other on the

point. If yet a Pope or Archbishop should force this on the consciences

of others, for example, to eat or not to eat animal food, would he not

sin in so doing? And does Scripture permit me to subscribe to an

ordinance made in direct contempt of a command of Scripture?

If it were said,--In all matters indifferent and so not sinful you must

comply with lawful authority:--must I not reply, But you have yourself

removed the indifferency by your injunction? Look in Popish countries

for the hideous consequences of the unnatural doctrine--that the Priest

may go to Hell for sinfully commanding, and his parishioners go with him

for not obeying that command.

Ib. p. 191.

About this time died my dear friend Mr. Thomas Gouge, of whose life

you may see a little in Mr. Clark's last book of Lives:--a wonder of

sincere industry in works of charity. It would make a volume to recite

at large the charity he used to his poor parishioners at Sepulchre's,

before he was ejected and silenced for non-conformity, &c.

I cannot express how much it grieves me, that our Clergy should still

think it fit and expedient to defend the measures of the High Churchmen

from Laud to Sheldon, and to speak of the ejected ministers, Calamy,

Baxter, Gouge, Howe, and others, as schismatics, factionists, fanatics,

or Pharisees:--thus to flatter some half-dozen dead Bishops, wantonly

depriving our present Church of the authority of perhaps the largest

collective number of learned and zealous, discreet and holy, ministers

that one age and one Church was ever blest with; and whose authority in

every considerable point is in favor of our Church, and against the

present Dissenters from it. And this seems the more impolitic, when it

must be clear to every student of the history of these times, that the

unmanly cruelties inflicted on Baxter and others were, as Bishops Ward,

Stillingfleet, and others saw at the time, part of the Popish scheme of

the Cabal, to trick the Bishops and dignified Clergy into rendering

themselves and the established Church odious to the public by laws, the

execution of which the King, the Duke, Arlington, and the Popish priests

directed towards the very last man that the Bishops themselves (the

great majority at least) would have molested.

Appendix II. p. 37.

If I can prove that it hath been the universal practice of the Church

'in nudum apertum caput manus imponere', doth it follow that this is

essential, and the contrary null?

How likewise can it be proved that the imposition of hands in Ordination

did not stand on the same ground as the imposition of hands in sickness;

that is, the miraculous gifts of the first preachers of the Gospel? All

Protestants admit that the Church retained several forms so originated,

after the cessation of the originating powers, which were the substance

of these forms.

Ib.

If you think not only imposition to be essential, but also that

nothing else is essential, or that all are true ministers that are

ordained by a lawful Bishop per 'manuum impositionem', then do you

egregiously 'tibi ipsi imponere'.

Baxter, like most scholastic logicians, had a sneaking affection for

puns. The cause is,--the necessity of attending to the primary sense of

words, that is, the visual image or general relation expressed, and

which remains common to all the after senses, however widely or even

incongruously differing from each other in other respects. For the same

reason, schoolmasters are commonly punsters. "I have indorsed your Bill,

Sir," said a pedagogue to a merchant, meaning he had flogged his son

William.--My old master the Rev. James Bowyer, the 'Hercules furens' of

the phlogistic sect, but else an incomparable teacher,--used to

translate, 'Nihil in intellectu quod non prius in sensu',--first

reciting the Latin words, and observing that they were the fundamental

article of the Peripatetic school,--"You must flog a boy, before you can

make him understand;"--or, "You must lay it in at the tail before you

can get it into the head."

Ib. p. 45.

Then, that the will must follow the practical intellect whether right

or wrong,--that is no precept, but the nature of the soul in its

acting, because that the will is 'potentia cæca, non nata ad

intelligendum, sed ad volendum vel nolendum intellectum'.

This is the main fault in Baxter's metaphysics, that he so often

substantiates distinctions into dividuous self-subsistents. As

here;--for a will not intelligent is no will.

Appendix. III. p. 55.

And for many ages no other ordinarily baptised but infants. If Christ

had no Church then, where was his wisdom, his love, and his power?

What was become of the glory of his redemption, and his Catholic

Church, that was to continue to the end?

But the Antipoedo-Baptists would deny any such consequences as

applicable to them, who are to act according to the circumstances, in

which God, who ordains his successive manifestations in due

correspondence with other lights and states of things, has placed them.

He does not exclude from the Church of Christ (say they) those whom we

do not accept into the communion of our particular Society, any more

than the House of Lords excludes Commoners from being Members of

Parliament. And we do this because--we think that such promiscuous

admission would prolong an error which would be deadly to us, though not

to you who interpret the Scriptures otherwise.

'In fine.'

There are two senses in which the words, 'Church of England,' may be

used;--first, with reference to the idea of the Church as an estate of

this Christian Realm, protesting against the Papal usurpation,

comprising, first, the interests of a permanent learned class, that is,

the Clergy;--secondly, those of the proper, that is, the infirm poor,

from age or sickness;--and thirdly, the adequate proportional

instruction of all in all classes by public prayer, recitation of the

Scriptures, by expounding, preaching, catechizing, and schooling, and

last, not least, by the example and influence of a pastor and a

schoolmaster placed as a germ of civilization and cultivation in every

parish throughout the land. To this idea, the Reformed Church of England

with its marriable and married Clergy would have approximated, if the

revenues of the Church, as they existed at the death of Henry VII., had

been rightly transferred by his successor;--transferred, I mean, from

reservoirs, which had by degeneracy on the one hand, and progressive

improvement on the other, fallen into ruin, and in which those revenues

had stagnated into contagion or uselessness,--transferred from what had

become public evils to their original and inherent purpose of public

benefits, instead of being sacrilegiously alienated by a transfer to

private proprietors. That this was impracticable, is historically true;

but no less true is it philosophically, that this impracticability,

arising wholly from moral causes, (namely, the loose manners and corrupt

principles of a great majority in all classes during the dynasty of the

Tudors,) does not prevent this wholesale sacrilege, from deserving the

character of the "first and deadliest wound inflicted on the

Constitution of the kingdom; which term, in the body politic, as in

bodies natural, expresses not only what is and has been evolved, but

likewise whatever is potentially contained in the seminal principle of

the particular body, and which would in its due time have appeared but

for emasculation in its infancy. This, however, is the first sense of

the words, Church of England. [4]

The second is the Church of England as now by law established, and by

practice of the law actually existing. That in the first sense it is the

object of my admiration and the earthly 'ne plus ultra' of my religious

aspirations, it were superfluous to say: but I may be allowed to express

my conviction, that on our recurring to the same ends and objects, (the

restoration of a national and circulating property in counterpoise of

individual possession, disposable and heritable) though in other forms

and by other means perhaps, the decline or progress of this country

depends. In the second sense of the words I can sincerely profess, that

I love and honour the Church of England, comparatively, beyond any other

Church established or unestablished now existing in Christendom; and it

is wholly in consequence of this deliberate and most affectionate filial

preference, that I have read this work, and Calamy's historical

writings, with so deep and so melancholy an interest. And I dare avow

that I cannot but regard as an ignorant bigot every man who (especially

since the publicity and authentication of the contents of the Stuart

Papers, Memoirs and Life of James II. &c.) can place the far later

furious High Church compilations and stories of Walker and others in

competition with the veracity and general verity of Baxter and Calamy;

or can forget that the great body of Non-conformists to whom these great

and good men belonged, were not dissenters from the established Church

willingly, but an orthodox and numerous portion of the Church. Omitting

then the wound received by religion generally under Henry VIII., and the

shameless secularizations clandestinely effected during the reigns of

Elizabeth and the first James, I am disposed to consider the three

following as the grand evil epochs of our present Church. First, The

introduction and after-predominance of Latitudinarianism under the name

of Arminianism, and the spirit of a conjoint Romanism and Socinianism at

the latter half or towards the close of the reign of James I. in the

persons of Montague, Laud, and their confederates. Second, The ejection

of the two thousand ministers after the Restoration, with the other

violences in which the Churchmen made themselves the dupes of Charles,

James, the Jesuits, and the French Court. (See the Stuart Papers

'passim'). It was this that gave consistence and enduring strength to

Schism in this country, prevented the pacation of Ireland, and prepared

for the separation of America at a far too early period for the true

interest of either country. Third, The surrender by the Clergy of the

right of taxing themselves, and the Jacobitical follies that combined

with the former to put it in the power of the Whig party to deprive the

Church of her Convocation,--a bitter disgrace and wrong, to which most

unhappily the people were rendered indifferent by the increasing

contrast of the sermons of the Clergy with the Articles and Homilies of

the Church itself,--but a wrong nevertheless which already has avenged,

and will sooner or later be seen to avenge, itself on the State and the

governing classes that continue this boast of a short-sighted policy;

the same policy which in our own days would have funded the property of

the Church, and, by converting the Clergy into salaried dependents on

the Government 'pro tempore', have deprived the Establishment of its

fairest honor, that of being neither enslaved to the court, nor to the

congregations; the same policy, alas! which even now pays and patronizes

a Board of Agriculture to undermine all landed property by a succession

of false, shallow, and inflammatory libels against tithes.

These are my weighed sentiments: and fervently desiring, as I do, the

perpetuity and prosperity of the established Church, zealous for its

rights and dignity, preferring its forms, believing its Articles of

Faith, and holding its Book of Common Prayer and its translation of the

Scriptures among my highest privileges as a Christian and an Englishman,

I trust that I may both entertain and avow these sentiments without

forfeiting any part of my claim to the name of a faithful member of the

Church of England.

June 1820.

N. B. As to Warburton's Alliance of the Church and State, I object to

the title (Alliance), and to the matter and mode of the reasoning. But

the inter-dependence of the Church and the State appears to me a truth

of the highest practical importance. Let but the temporal powers protect

the subjects in their just rights as subjects merely: and I do not know

of any one point in which the Church has the right or the necessity to

call in the temporal power as its ally for any purpose exclusively

ecclesiastic. The right of a firm to dissolve its partnership with any

one partner, breach of contract having been proved, and publicly to

announce the same, is common to all men as social beings.

I spoke above of "Romanism." But call it, if you like, Laudism, or

Lambethism in temporalities and ceremonials, and of Socinianism in

doctrine, that is, a retaining of the word but a rejecting or

interpreting away of the sense and substance of the Scriptural

Mysteries. This spirit has not indeed manifested itself in the article

of the Trinity, since Waterland gave the deathblow to Arianism, and so

left no alternative to the Clergy, but the actual divinity or mere

humanity of our Lord; and the latter would be too impudent an avowal for

a public reader of our Church Liturgy: but in the articles of original

sin, the necessity of regeneration, the necessity of redemption in order

to the possibility of regeneration, of justification by faith, and of

prevenient and auxiliary grace,--all I can say with sincerity is, that

our orthodoxy seems so far in an improving state, that I can hope for

the time when Churchmen will use the term Arminianism to express a habit

of belief opposed not to Calvinism, or the works of Calvin, but to the

Articles of our own Church, and to the doctrine in which all the first

Reformers agreed.

Note--that by Latitudinarianism, I do not mean the particular tenets of

the divines so called, such as Dr. H. More, Cudworth and their compeers,

relative to toleration, comprehension, and the general belief that in

the greater number of points then most controverted, the pious of all

parties were far more nearly of the same mind than their own

imperfections, and the imperfection of language allowed them to see: I

mean the disposition to explain away the articles of the Church on the

pretext of their inconsistency with right reason;--when in fact it was

only an incongruity with a wrong understanding, the faculty which St.

Paul calls [Greek: phrónaema sarkòs], the rules of which having been all

abstracted from objects of sense, (finite in time and space,) are

logically applicable to objects of the sense alone. This I have

elsewhere called the spirit of Socinianism, which may work in many whose

tenets are anti-Socinian.

Law is--'conclusio per regulam generis singulorum in genere isto

inclusorum'. Now the extremes 'et inclusa' are contradictory terms.

Therefore extreme cases are not capable subjects of law 'a priori', but

must proceed on knowledge of the past, and anticipation of the future,

and the fulfilment of the anticipation is the proof, because the only

possible determination, of the accuracy of the knowledge. In other words

the agents may be condemned or honored according to their intentions,

and the apparent source of their motives; so we honor Brutus, but the

extreme case itself is tried by the event.

[Footnote 1: 'Relliquiæ Baxterianæ': or Mr. Richard Baxter's Narrative

of the most memorable passages of his life and times. Published from his

manuscript, by Matthew Sylvester.--London, 'folio'. 1699.]

[Footnote 2: See Hooker E. P. V. xviii. 3. Vol. II. p. 80. Keble. Ed.]

[Footnote 3: See Table Talk, p. 162. 2nd edit. Ed.]

[Footnote 4: See the Church and State, p. 73, 3rd edit.--Ed.]

* * * * *

NOTES ON LEIGHTON. [1]

Surely if ever work not in the sacred Canon might suggest a belief of

inspiration,--of something more than human,--this it is. When Mr. Elwyn

made this assertion, I took it as the hyperbole of affection: but now I

subscribe to it seriously, and bless the hour that introduced me to the

knowledge of the evangelical, apostolical Archbishop Leighton.

April 1814.

Next to the inspired Scriptures--yea, and as the vibration of that once

struck hour remaining on the air, stands Leighton's Commentary on the

1st Epistle of St. Peter.

Comment Vol. I. p. 2.

--their redemption and salvation by Christ Jesus; that inheritance of

immortality bought by his blood for them, and the evidence and

stability of their right and title to it.

By the blood of Christ I mean this. I contemplate the Christ,

1;--As 'Christus agens', the Jehovah Christ, the Word:

2;--As 'Christus patiens', The God Incarnate.

In the former he is 'relative ad intellectum humanum, lux lucifica, sol

intelligibilis: relative ad existentiam humanam, anima animans, calor

fovens'. In the latter he is 'vita vivificans, principium spiritualis,

id est, veræ reproductionis in vitam veram'. Now this principle, or 'vis

vitæ vitam vivificans', considered in 'forma passiva, assimilationem

patiens', at the same time that it excites the soul to the vital act of

assimilating--this is the Blood of Christ, really present through faith

to, and actually partaken by, the faithful. Of this the body is the

continual product, that is, a good life-the merits of Christ acting on

the soul, redemptive.

Ib. pp. 13-15.

Of their sanctification: 'elect unto obedience', &c.

That the doctrines asserted in this and the two or three following pages

cannot be denied or explained away, without removing (as the modern

Unitarians), or (as the Arminians) unsettling and undermining, the

foundations of the Faith, I am fully convinced; and equally so, that

nothing is gained by the change, the very same logical consequences

being deducible from the tenets of the Church Arminians;--scarcely more

so, indeed, from those which they still hold in common with Luther,

Zuinglius, Calvin, Knox, and Cranmer and the other Fathers of the

Reformation in England, and which are therefore most unfairly entitled

Calvinism--than from those which they have attempted to substitute in

their place. Nay, the shock given to the moral sense by these

consequences is, to my feelings, aggravated in the Arminian doctrine by

the thin yet dishonest disguise. Meantime the consequences appear to me,

in point of logic, legitimately concluded from the terms of the

premisses. What shall we say then? Where lies the fault? In the original

doctrines expressed in the premisses? God forbid. In the particular

deductions, logically considered? But these we have found legitimate.

Where then? I answer in deducing any consequences by such a process, and

according to such rules. The rules are alien and inapplicable; the

process presumptuous, yea, preposterous. The error, [Greek: to prôton

pseudos], lies in the false assumption of a logical deducibility at all,

in this instance.

First:--because the terms from which the conclusion must be

drawn-('termini in majore præmissi, a quibus scientialiter et

scientifice demonstrandum erat') are accommodations and not

scientific--that is, proper and adequate, not 'per idem', but 'per quam

maxime simile', or rather 'quam maxime dissimile':

Secondly;--because the truths in question are transcendant, and have

their evidence, if any, in the ideas themselves, and for the reason; and

do not and cannot derive it from the conceptions of the understanding,

which cannot comprehend the truths, but is to be comprehended in and by

them, ('John' i. 5.):

Lastly, and chiefly;--because these truths, as they do not originate in

the intellective faculty of man, so neither are they addressed primarily

to our intellect; but are substantiated for us by their correspondence

to the wants, cravings, and interests of the moral being, for which they

were given, and without which they would be devoid of all meaning,--'vox

et præterea nihil'. The only conclusions, therefore, that can be drawn

from them, must be such as are implied in the origin and purpose of

their revelation; and the legitimacy of all conclusions must be tried by

their consistency with those moral interests, those spiritual

necessities, which are the proper final cause of the truths and of our

faith therein. For some of the faithful these truths have, I doubt not,

an evidence of reason; but for the whole household of faith their

certainty is in their working. Now it is this, by which, in all cases,

we know and determine existence in the first instance. That which works

in us or on us exists for us. The shapes and forms that follow the

working as its results or products, whether the shapes cognizable by

sense or the forms distinguished by the intellect, are after all but the

particularizations of this working; its proper names, as it were, as

John, James, Peter, in respect of human nature. They are all derived

from the relations in which finite beings stand to each other; and are

therefore heterogeneous and, except by accommodation, devoid of meaning

and purpose when applied to the working in and by which God makes his

existence known to us, and (we may presume to say) especially exists for

the soul in whom he thus works. On these grounds, therefore, I hold the

doctrines of original sin, the redemption therefrom by the Cross of

Christ, and change of heart as the consequent; without adopting the

additions to the doctrines inferred by one set of divines, the modern

Calvinists, or acknowledging the consequences burdened on the doctrines

by their antagonists. Nor is this my faith fairly liable to any

inconvenience, if only it be remembered that it is a spiritual working,

of which I speak, and a spiritual knowledge,--not through the 'medium'

of image, the seeking after which is superstition; nor yet by any

sensation, the watching for which is enthusiasm, and the conceit of its

presence fanatical distemperature. "Do the will of the Father, and ye

shall 'know' it."

We must distinguish the life and the soul; though there is a certain

sense in which the life may be called the soul; that is, the life is the

soul of the body. But the soul is the life of the man, and Christ is the

life of the soul. Now the spirit of man, the spirit subsistent, is

deeper than both, not only deeper than the body and its life, but deeper

than the soul; and the Spirit descendent and supersistent is higher than

both. In the regenerated man the height and the depth become one--the

Spirit communeth with the spirit--and the soul is the 'inter-ens', or

'ens inter-medium' between the life and the spirit;--the 'participium',

not as a compound, however, but as a 'medium indifferens'--in the same

sense in which heat may be designated as the indifference between light

and gravity. And what is the Reason?--The spirit in its presence to the

understanding abstractedly from its presence in the will,--nay, in many,

during the negation of the latter. The spirit present to man, but not

appropriated by him, is the reason of man:--the reason in the process of

its identification with the will is the spirit.

Ib. pp. 63-4.

Can we deny that it is unbelief of those things that causeth this

neglect and forgetting of them? The discourse, the tongue of men and

angels cannot beget divine belief of the happiness to come; only He

that gives it, gives faith likewise to apprehend it, and lay hold upon

it, and upon our believing to be filled with joy in the hopes of it.

Most true, most true!

Ib. p. 68.

In spiritual trials that are the sharpest and most fiery of all, when

the furnace is within a man, when God doth not only shut up his

loving-kindness from its feeling, but seems to shut it up in hot

displeasure, when he writes bitter things against it; yet then to

depend upon him, and wait for his salvation, this is not only a true,

but a strong and very refined faith indeed, and the more he smites,

the more to cleave to him. * * * Though I saw, as it were, his hand

lifted up to destroy me, yet from that same hand would I expect

salvation.

Bless God, O my soul, for this sweet and strong comforter! It is the

honey in the lion.

Ib. p. 75.

This natural men may discourse of, and that very knowingly, and give a

kind of natural credit to it as to a history that may be true; but

firmly to believe that there is divine truth in all these things, and

to have a persuasion of it stronger than of the very things we see

with our eyes; such an assent as this is the peculiar work of the

Spirit of God, and is certainly saving faith.

'Lord I believe: help thou my unbelief!' My reason acquiesces, and I

believe enough to fear. O, grant me the belief that brings sweet hope!

Ib. p. 76.

Faith * * causes the soul to find all that is spoken of him in the

word, and his beauty there represented, to be abundantly true, makes

it really taste of his sweetness, and by that possesses the heart more

strongly with his love, persuading it of the truth of those things,

not by reasons and arguments, but by an inexpressible kind of

evidence, that they only know that have it.

Either this is true, or religion is not religion; that is, it adds

nothing to our human reason; 'non religat'. Grant it, grant it me, O

Lord!

Ib. pp. 104-5.

This sweet stream of their doctrine did, as the rivers, make its own

banks fertile and pleasant as it ran by, and flowed still forward to

after ages, and by the confluence of more such prophecies grew greater

as it went, till it fell in with the main current of the Gospel in the

New Testament, both acted and preached by the great Prophet himself,

whom they foretold to come, and recorded by his Apostles and

Evangelists, and thus united into one river, clear as crystal. This

doctrine of salvation in the Scriptures hath still refreshed the city

of God, his Church under the Gospel, and still shall do so, till it

empty itself into the ocean of eternity.

In the whole course of my studies I do not remember to have read so

beautiful an allegory as this; so various and detailed, and yet so just

and natural.

Ib. p. 121.

There is a truth in it, that all sin arises from some kind of

ignorance * * *. For were the true visage of sin seen at a full light,

undressed and unpainted, it were impossible, while it so appeared,

that any one soul could be in love with it, but would rather flee from

it as hideous and abominable.

This is the only (defect, shall I say? No, but the only) omission I have

felt in this divine Writer--for him we understand by feeling,

experimentally--that he doth not notice the horrible tyranny of habit.

What the Archbishop says, is most true of beginners in sin; but this is

the foretaste of hell, to see and loathe the deformity of the wedded

vice, and yet still to embrace and nourish it.

Ib. p. 122.

He calls those times wherein Christ was unknown to them, 'the times of

their ignorance'. Though the stars shine never so bright, and the moon

with them in its full, yet they do not, altogether, make it day: still

it is night till the sun appear.

How beautiful, and yet how simple, and as it were unconscious of its own

beauty!

Ib. p. 124.

You were running to destruction in the way of sin, and there was a

voice, together with the Gospel preaching to your ear, that spake into

your heart, and called you back from that path of death to the way of

holiness, which is the only way of life. He hath severed you from the

mass of the profane world, and picked you out to be jewels for

himself.

O, how divine! Surely, nothing less than the Spirit of Christ could have

inspired such thoughts in such language. Other divines,--Donne and

Jeremy Taylor for instance,--have converted their worldly gifts, and

applied them to holy ends; but here the gifts themselves seem unearthly.

Ib. p. 138.

As in religion, so in the course and practice of men's lives, the

stream of sin runs from one age to another, and every age makes it

greater, adding somewhat to what it receives, as rivers grow in their

course by the accession of brooks that fall into them; and every man

when he is born, falls like a drop into this main current of

corruption, and so is carried down it, and this by reason of its

strength, and his own nature, which willingly dissolves into it, and

runs along with it.

In this single period we have religion, the spirit,--philosophy, the

soul,--and poetry, the body and drapery united;--Plato glorified by St.

Paul; and yet coming as unostentatiously as any speech from an innocent

girl of fifteen.

Ib. p. 158.

The chief point of obedience is believing; the proper obedience to

truth is to give credit to it.

This is not quite so perspicuous and single-sensed as Archbishop

Leighton's sentences in general are. This effect is occasioned by the

omission of the word "this," or "divine," or the truth "in Christ." For

truth in the ordinary and scientific sense is received by a spontaneous,

rather than chosen by a voluntary, act; and the apprehension of the same

(belief) supposes a position of congruity rather than an act of

obedience. Far otherwise is it with the truth that is the object of

Christian faith: and it is this truth of which Leighton is speaking.

Belief indeed is a living part of this faith; but only as long as it is

a living part. In other words, belief is implied in faith; but faith is

not necessarily implied in belief. 'The devils believe.'

Ib. p. 166.

Hence learn that true conversion is not so slight a work as we

commonly account it. It is not the outward change of some bad customs,

which gains the name of a reformed man in the ordinary dialect; it is

new birth and being, and elsewhere called 'a new creation. Though it

be but a change in qualities', yet it is such a one, and the qualities

so far distant from what they before were, &c.

I dare not affirm that this is erroneously said; but it is one of the

comparatively few passages that are of service as reminding me that it

is not the Scripture that I am reading. Not the qualities merely, but

the root of the qualities is trans-created. How else could it be a

birth,--a creation?

Ib. p. 170.

This natural life is compared, even by natural men, to the vainest

things, and scarce find they things light enough to express it vain;

and as it is here called grass, so they compare the generations of men

to the leaves of trees. * * * 'Man that is born of a woman is of few

days, and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower and is cut

down. Job' xiv. 1, 2. Psalm xc. 12; xxxix. 4.

It is the fashion to decry scholastic distinctions as useless

subtleties, or mere phantoms--'entia logica, vel etiam verbalia solum'.

And yet in order to secure a safe and Christian interpretation to these

and numerous other passages of like phrase and import in the Old

Testament, it is of highest concernment that we should distinguish the

personeity or spirit, as the source and principle of personality, from

the person itself as the particular product at any one period, and as

that which cannot be evolved or sustained but by the co-agency of the

system and circumstances in which the individuals are placed. In this

latter sense it is that 'man' is used in the Psalms, in Job, and

elsewhere--and the term made synonymous with flesh. That which

constitutes the spirit in man, both for others and itself, is the real

man; and to this the elements and elementary powers contribute its bulk

([Greek: tò] 'videri et tangi') wholly, and its phenomenal form in part,

both as co-efficients, and as conditions. Now as these are under a law

of vanity and incessant change,--[Greek: tà màe ónta, all' aèi

ginómena],--so must all be, to the production and continuance of which

they are indispensable. On this hangs the doctrine of the resurrection

of the body, as an essential part of the doctrine of immortality;--on

this the Scriptural (and only true and philosophical) sense of the soul,

'psyche' or life, as resulting from the continual assurgency of the

spirit through the body;--and on this the begetting of a new life, a

regenerate soul, by the descent of the divine Spirit on the spirit of

man. When the spirit by sanctification is fitted for an incorruptible

body, then shall it be raised into a world of incorruption, and a

celestial body shall burgeon forth thereto, the germ of which had been

implanted by the redeeming and creative Word in this world. Truly hath

it been said of the elect:--They fall asleep in earth, but awake in

heaven. So St. Paul expressly teaches: and as the passage (1. 'Cor'. xv.

35--54,) was written for the express purpose of rectifying the notions

of the converts concerning the Resurrection, all other passages in the

New Testament must be interpreted in harmony with it. But John,

likewise,--describing the same great event, as subsequent to, and

contra-distinguished from, the partial or millennary Resurrection--which

(whether we are to understand the Apostle symbolically or literally) is

to take place in the present world,--beholds 'a new earth' and 'a new

heaven' as antecedent to, or coincident with, the appearance of the New

Jerusalem,--that is, the state of glory, and the resurrection to life

everlasting. The old earth and its heaven had passed away from the face

of Him on the throne, at the moment that it gave up the dead. 'Rev'.

xx.-xxi.

Ib. pp. 174-5.

'But the word of the Lord endureth for ever.'

And with respect to those learned men that apply the text to God, I

remember not that this 'abiding for ever' is used to express God's

eternity in himself.

No; nor is it here used for that purpose; but yet I cannot doubt but

that either the Word, [Greek: Ho Lógos en archae], or the Divine

promises in and through the incarnate Word, with the gracious influences

proceeding from him, are here meant--and not the written [Greek:

rháemata] or Scriptures.

Ib. p. 194.

If any one's head or tongue should grow apace, and all the rest stand

at a stay, it would certainly make him a monster; and they are no

other that are knowing and discovering Christians, and grow daily in

that, but not at all in holiness of heart and life, which is the

proper growth of the children of God.

Father in heaven, have mercy on me! Christ, Lamb of God, have mercy on

me! Save me, Lord, or I perish! Alas! I am perishing.

Ib. p. 200.

A well-furnished table may please a man, while he hath health and

appetite; but offer it to him in the height of a fever, how unpleasant

it would be then! Though never so richly decked, it is then not only

useless, but hateful to him. But the kindness and love of God is then

as seasonable and refreshing to him, as in health, and possibly more.

To the regenerate;--but to the conscious sinner a source of terrors

insupportable.

Ib. p. 211.

These things hold likewise in the other stones of this building,

chosen before time: all that should be of this building are

fore-ordained in God's purpose, all written in that book beforehand,

and then in due time they are chosen, by actual calling, according to

that purpose, hewed out and severed by God's own hand from the quarry

of corrupt nature;--dead stones in themselves, as the rest, but made

living by his bringing them to Christ, and so made truly precious',

and accounted precious by him that hath made them so.

Though this is not only true, but a most important truth, it would yet

have been well to have obviated the apparent carnal consequences.

Ib. p. 216.

All sacrifice is not taken away; but it is changed from the offering

of those things formerly in use, to spiritual sacrifices. Now these

are every way preferable; they are easier and cheaper to us, and yet

more precious and acceptable to God.

Still understand,--to the regenerate. To others, they are not only not

easy and cheap, but unpurchaseable and impossible too. O God have mercy

upon me!

Ib. p. 229.

Though I be beset on all hands, be accused by the Law, and mine own

conscience, and by Satan, and have nothing to answer for myself; yet

here I will stay, for I am sure in him there is salvation, and no

where else.

"Here I _will_ stay." But alas! the poor sinner has forfeited the powers

of willing; miserable wishing is all he can command. O, the dreadful

injury of an irreligious education! To be taught our prayers, and the

awful truths of religion, in the same tone in which we are taught the

Latin Grammar,--and too often inspiring the same sensations of weariness

and disgust!

Vol. II. p. 242.

And thus are reproaches mentioned amongst the sufferings of Christ in

the Gospel, and not as the least; the railings and mockings that were

darted at him, and fixed to the Cross, are mentioned more than the

very nails that fixed him. And ('Heb'. xii. 2,) the 'shame' of the

Cross, though he was above it, and despised it, yet that shame added

much to the burden of it.

I understand Leighton thus: that though our Lord felt it not as 'shame',

nor was wounded by the revilings of the people in the way of any

correspondent resentment or sting, which yet we may be without blame,

yet he suffered from the same as sin, and as an addition to the guilt of

his persecutors, which could not but aggravate the burden which he had

taken on himself, as being sin in its most devilish form.

Ib. p. 293.

This therefore is mainly to be studied, that the seat of humility be

the heart. Although it will be seen in the carriage yet as little as

it can * * *. And this I would recommend as a safe way: ever let thy

thoughts concerning thyself be below what thou utterest; and what thou

seest needful or fitting to say to thy own abasement, be not only

content (which most are not) to be taken at thy word, and believed to

be such by them that hear thee, but be desirous of it; and let that be

the end of thy speech, to persuade them, and gain it of them, that

they really take thee for as worthless a man as thou dost express

thyself.

Alas! this is a most delicate and difficult subject: and the safest way,

and the only safe general rule is the silence that accompanies the

inward act of looking at the contrast in all that is of our own doing

and impulse! So may praises be made their own antidote.

Vol. III. p. 20. Serm. I.

'They shall see God'. What this is we cannot tell you, nor can you

conceive it: but walk heavenwards in purity, and long to be there,

where you shall know what it means: 'for you shall know him as he is'.

We say; "Now I see the full meaning, force and beauty of a passage,--we

see them through the words." Is not Christ the Word--the substantial,

consubstantial Word, [Greek: ho ôn eis tòn kólpon tou patrós],--not as

our words, arbitrary; nor even as the words of Nature phenomenal merely?

If even through the words a powerful and perspicuous author--(as in the

next to inspired Commentary of Archbishop Leighton,--for whom God be

praised!)--I identify myself with the excellent writer, and his thoughts

become my thoughts: what must not the blessing be to be thus identified

first with the Filial Word, and then with the Father in and through Him?

Ib. p. 63. Serm. V.

In this elementary world, light being (as we hear,) the first visible,

all things are seen by it, and it by itself. Thus is Christ, among

spiritual things, in the elect world of his Church; all things are

'made manifest by the light', says the Apostle, 'Eph'. v. 13, speaking

of Christ as the following verse doth evidently testify. It is in his

word that he shines, and makes it a directing and convincing light, to

discover all things that concern his Church and himself, to be known

by its own brightness. How impertinent then is that question so much

tossed by the Romish Church, "How know you the Scriptures (say they)

to be the word of God, without the testimony of the Church?" I would

ask one of them again, How they can know that it is daylight, except

some light a candle to let them see it? They are little versed in

Scripture that know not that it is frequently called light; and they

are senseless that know not that light is seen and known by itself.

'If our Gospel be hid', says the Apostle, 'it is hid to them that

perish': the god of this world having blinded their minds against the

light of the glorious Gospel, no wonder if such stand in need of a

testimony. A blind man knows not that it is light at noon-day, but by

report: but to those that have eyes, light is seen by itself.

On the true test of the Scriptures. Oh! were it not for my manifold

infirmities, whereby I am so all unlike the white-robed Leighton, I

could almost conceit that my soul had been an emanation from his! So

many and so remarkable are the coincidences, and these in parts of his

works that I could not have seen--and so uniform the congruity of the

whole. As I read, I seem to myself to be only thinking my own thoughts

over again, now in the same and now in a different order.

Ib. p. 68.

The Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews calls him (Christ) [Greek:

apaúgasma], 'the brightness of his Father's glory, and the character

of his person', (i. 3.) And under these expressions lies that

remarkable mystery of the Son's eternal relation to the Father, which

is rather humbly to be adored, than boldly to be explained, either by

God's perfect understanding of his own essence, or by any other

notion.

Certainly not by a transfer of a notion, and this too a notion of a

faculty itself but notional and limitary, to the Supreme Reality. But

there are ideas which are of higher origin than the notions of the

understanding, and by the irradiation of which the understanding itself

becomes a human understanding. Of such 'veritates verificæ' Leighton

himself in other words speaks often. Surely, there must have been an

intelligible propriety in the terms, 'Logos', Word, 'Begotten before all

creation',--an adequate idea or 'icon', or the Evangelists and Apostolic

penmen would not have adopted them. They did not invent the terms; but

took them and used them as they were taken and applied by Philo and both

the Greek and Oriental sages. Nay, the precise and orthodox, yet

frequent, use of these terms by Philo, and by the Jewish authors of that

traditionalæ wisdom,--degraded in after times, but which in its purest

parts existed long before the Christian æra,--is the strongest extrinsic

argument against the Arians, Socinians, and Unitarians, in proof that

St. John must have meant to deceive his readers, if he did not use them

in the known and received sense. To a Materialist indeed, or to those

who deny all knowledges not resolvable into notices from the five

senses, these terms as applied to spiritual beings must appear

inexplicable or senseless. But so must spirit. To me, (why do I say to

me?) to Bull, to Waterland, to Gregory Nazianzen, Basil, Athanasius,

Augustine, the terms, Word and generation, have appeared admirably, yea,

most awfully pregnant and appropriate;--but still as the language of

those who know that they are placed with their backs to substances--and

which therefore they can name only from the correspondent shadows--yet

not (God forbid!) as if the substances were the same as the

shadows;--which yet Leighton supposed in this his censure,--for if he

did not, he then censures himself and a number of his most beautiful

passages. These, and two or three other sentences,--slips of human

infirmity,--are useful in reminding me that Leighton's works are not

inspired Scripture.

'Postscript'.

On a second consideration of this passage, and a revisal of my marginal

animadversion--yet how dare I apply such a word to a passage written by

a minister of Christ so clearly under the especial light of the divine

grace as was Archbishop Leighton?--I am inclined to think that Leighton

confined his censure to the attempts to "explain" the Trinity,--and this

by "notions,"--and not to the assertion of the adorable acts implied in

the terms both of the Evangelists and Apostles, and of the Church before

as well as after Christ's ascension; nor to the assent of the pure

reason to the truths, and more than assent to, the affirmation of the

ideas.

Ib. p. 73.

This fifth Sermon, excellent in parts, is yet on the whole the least

excellent of Leighton's works,--and breathes less of either his own

character as a man, or the character of his religious philosophy. The

style too is in many places below Leighton's ordinary style--in some

places even turbid, operose, and catechrestic;--for example,--"to

trample on smilings with one foot and on frownings with the other."

Ib. p. 77. Serm. VI.

Leighton, I presume, was acquainted with the Hebrew Language, but he

does not appear to have studied it much. His observation on the 'heart',

as used in the Old Testament, shews that he did not know that the

ancient Hebrews supposed the heart to be the seat of intellect, and

therefore used it exactly as we use the head.

Ib. p. 104. Serm. VII.

This seventh Sermon is admirable throughout, Leighton throughout. O what

a contrast might be presented by publishing some discourse of some Court

divine, (South for instance,) preached under the same state of affairs,

and printing the two in columns!

Ib. p. 107. Serm. VIII.

In all love three things are necessary; some goodness in the object,

either true and real, or apparent and seeming to be so; for the soul,

be it ever so evil, can affect nothing but which it takes in some way

to be good.

This assertion in these words has been so often made, from Plato's times

to ours, that even wise men repeat it without perhaps much examination

whether it be not equivocal--or rather (I suspect) true only in that

sense in which it would amount to nothing--nothing to the purpose at

least. This is to be regretted--for it is a mischievous equivoque, to

make 'good' a synonyme of 'pleasant,' or even the 'genus' of which

pleasure is a 'species'. It is a grievous mistake to say, that bad men

seek pleasure because it is good. No! like children they call it good

because it is pleasant. Even the useful must derive its meaning from the

good, not 'vice versa'.

Postscript.

The lines in p. 107, noted by me, are one of a myriad instances to prove

how rash it is to quote single sentences or assertions from the

correctest writers, without collating them with the known system or

express convictions of the author. It would be easy to cite fifty

passages from Archbishop Leighton's works in direct contradiction to the

sentence in question--which he had learnt in the schools when a lad, and

afterwards had heard and met with so often that he was not aware that he

had never sifted its real purport. This eighth Sermon is another most

admirable discourse.

Ib. Serm. IX. p. 12.

The reasonable creature, it is true, hath more liberty in its actions,

freely choosing one thing and rejecting another; yet it cannot be

denied, that in acting of that liberty, their choice and refusal

[A] follow the sway of their nature and condition.

[A] I would fain substitute for 'follow,' the words, 'are most often

determined, and always affected, by.' I do not deny that the will

follows the nature; but then the nature itself is a will.

Ib.

As the angels and glorified souls, (their nature being perfectly holy

and unalterably such,) they cannot sin; they can delight in nothing

but obeying and praising that God, in the enjoyment of whom their

happiness consisteth.

If angels be other than spirits made perfect, or, as Leighton writes,

"glorified souls,"--the "unalterable by nature" seems to me rashly

asserted.

Ib.

The mind, [Greek: phrónaema]. Some render it the prudence or wisdom of

the flesh. Here you have it, the carnal mind; but the word signifies,

indeed, an act of the mind, rather than either the faculty itself, or

the habit of prudence in it, so as it discovers what is the frame of

both those.

I doubt. [Greek: Phrónaema] signifies an act: and so far I agree with

Leighton. But [Greek: phrónaema sarkòs] is 'the flesh' (that is, the

natural man,) in the act or habitude of minding--but those acts, taken

collectively, are the faculty--the understanding.

How often have I found reason to regret, that Leighton had not clearly

made out to himself the diversity of reason and the understanding!

Ib. Serm. XV. p. 196.

A narrow enthralled heart, fettered with the love of lower things, and

cleaving to some particular sins, or but some one, and that secret,

may keep foot a while in the way of God's commandments, in some steps

of them; but it must give up quickly, is not able to run on to the end

of the goal.

One of the blessed privileges of the spiritual man (and such Leighton

was,) is a piercing insight into the diseases of which he himself is

clear. [Greek: Eléaeson Kyrie!]

Ib. Serm. XVI. p. 204.

Know you not that the redeemed of Christ and He are one? They live one

life, Christ lives in them, and if 'any man hath not the Spirit of

Christ, he is none of his', as the Apostle declares in this chapter.

So then this we are plainly to tell you, and consider it; you that

will not let go your sins to lay hold on Christ, have as yet no share

in him.

But on the other side: the truth is, that when souls are once set upon

this search, they commonly wind the notion too high, and subtilize too

much in the dispute, and so entangle and perplex themselves, and drive

themselves further off from that comfort that they are seeking after;

such measures and marks they set to themselves for their rule and

standard; and unless they find those without all controversy in

themselves, they will not believe that they have an interest in

Christ, and this blessed and safe estate in him.

To such I would only say, Are you in a willing league with any known

sin? &c.

An admirable antidote for such as, too sober and sincere to pass off

feverous sensations for spiritualities, have been perplexed by Wesley's

assertions--that a certainty of having been elected is an indispensable

mark of election. Whitfield's ultra-Calvinism is Gospel gentleness and

Pauline sobriety compared with Wesley's Arminianism in the outset of his

career. But the main and most noticeable difference between Leighton and

the modern Methodists is to be found in the uniform selfishness of the

latter. Not "Do you wish to love God?" "Do you love your neighbour?" "Do

you think, 'O how dear and lovely must Christ be!'"--but--"Are you

certain that Christ has saved 'you'; that he died for 'you--you--you

--yourself'?" on to the end of the chapter. This is Wesley's doctrine.

Lecture IX. vol. IV. p. 96.

For that this was his fixed purpose, Lucretius not only vows, but also

boasts of it, and loads him (Epicurus) with ill-advised praises, for

endeavouring through the whole course of his philosophy to free the

minds of men from all the bonds and ties of religion.

But surely in this passage 'religio' must be rendered superstition, the

most effectual means for the removal of which Epicurus supposed himself

to have found in the exclusion of the 'gods many and lords many', from

their imagined agency in all the 'phænomena' of nature and the events

of history, substituting for these the belief in fixed laws, having in

themselves their evidence and necessity. On this account, in this

passage at least, Lucretius praises his master.

Ib. p. 105.

They always seemed to me to act a very ridiculous part, who contend,

that the effect of the divine decree is absolutely irreconcilable with

human liberty; because the natural and necessary liberty of a rational

creature is to act or choose from a rational motive, or spontaneously,

and of purpose: but who sees not, that, on the supposition of the most

absolute decree, this liberty is not taken away, but rather

established and confirmed? For the decree is, 'that such an one shall

make choice of, or do some particular thing freely. And whoever

pretends to deny, that whatever is done or chosen, whether good or

indifferent, is so done or chosen, or, at least, may be so, espouses

an absurdity.'

I fear, I fear, that this is a sophism not worthy of Archbishop

Leighton. It seems to me tantamount to saying--"I force that man to do

so or so without my forcing him." But however that may be, the following

sentences are more precious than diamonds. They are divine.

Ib. Lect. XI. p. 113.

For that this world, compounded of so many and such heterogeneous

parts, should proceed, by way of natural and necessary emanation, from

that one first, present, and most simple nature, nobody, I imagine,

could believe, or in the least suspect * * *. But if he produced all

these things freely, * * how much more consistent is it to believe,

that this was done in time, than to imagine it was from eternity!

It is inconceivable how any thing can be created in time; and production

is incompatible with interspace.

Ib. Lect. XV. p. 152.

The Platonists divide the world into two, the sensible and

intellectual world * * *. According to this hypothesis, those parables

and metaphors, which are often taken from natural things to illustrate

such as are divine, will not be similitudes taken entirely at

pleasure; but are often, in a great measure, founded in nature, and

the things themselves.

I have asserted the same thing, and more fully shown wherein the

difference consists of symbolic and metaphorical, in my first Lay

Sermon; and the substantial correspondence of the genuine Platonic

doctrine and logic with those of Lord Bacon, in my Essays on Method, in

the Friend. [2]

Ib. Lect. XIX. p. 201.

Even the philosophers give their testimony to this truth, and their

sentiments on the subject are not altogether to be rejected; for they

almost unanimously are agreed, that felicity, so far as it can be

enjoyed in this life, consists solely, or at least principally, in

virtue: but as to their assertion, that this virtue is perfect in a

perfect life, it is rather expressing what were to be wished, than

describing things as they are.

And why are the philosophers to be judged according to a different rule?

On what ground can it be asserted that the Stoics believed in the actual

existence of their God-like perfection in any individual? or that they

meant more than this--"To no man can the name of the Wise be given in

its absolute sense, who is not perfect even as his Father in heaven is

perfect!"

Ib. Lect. XXI. p. 225.

In like manner, if we suppose God to be the first of all beings, we

must, unavoidably, therefrom conclude his unity. As to the ineffable

Trinity subsisting in this Unity, a mystery discovered only by the

Sacred Scriptures, especially in the New Testament, where it is more

clearly revealed than in the Old, let others boldly pry into it, if

they please, while we receive it with our humble faith, and think it

sufficient for us to admire and adore.

But surely it having been revealed to us, we may venture to say,--that a

positive unity, so far from excluding, implies plurality, and that the

Godhead is a fulness, [Greek: plaeroma].

Ib. Lect. XXIV. p. 245.

Ask yourselves, therefore, 'what you would be at', and with what

dispositions you come to this most sacred table?

In an age of colloquial idioms, when to write in a loose slang had

become a mark of loyalty, this is the only L'Estrange vulgarism I have

met with in Leighton.

Ib. Exhortation to the Students, p. 252.

Study to acquire such a philosophy as is not barren and babbling, but

solid and true; not such a one as floats upon the surface of endless

verbal controversies, but one that enters into the nature of things;

for he spoke good sense that said, "The philosophy of the Greeks was a

mere jargon, and noise of words."

If so, then so is all philosophy: for what system is there, the elements

and outlines of which are not to be found in the Greek schools? Here

Leighton followed too incautiously the Fathers.

[Footnote 1: Works of Leighton, 4 vols. 8vo. London 1819. Ed.]

[Footnote 2: 'Statesman's Manual', p. 230. 2nd edit. Friend, III. 3d

edit. Ed.]

* * * * *

NOTES ON SHERLOCK'S VINDICATION OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. [1]

Sect. I. p. 3.

Some new philosophers will tell you that the notion of a spirit or an

immaterial substance is a contradiction; for by substance they

understand nothing but matter, and then an immaterial substance is

immaterial matter, that is, matter and no matter, which is a

contradiction; but yet this does not prove an immaterial substance to

be a contradiction, unless they could first prove that there is no

substance but matter; and that they cannot conceive any other

substance but matter, does not prove that there is no other.

Certainly not: but if not only they, but Dr. Sherlock himself and all

mankind, are incapable of attaching any sense to the term substance, but

that of matter,--then for us it would be a contradiction, or a

groundless assertion. Thus: By 'substance' I do not mean the only notion

we can attach to the word; but a somewhat, I know not what, may, for

aught I know, not be contradictory to spirit! Why should we use the

equivocal word, 'substance' (after all but an 'ens logicum'), instead of

the definite term 'self-subsistent?' We are equally conscious of mind,

and of that which we call 'body;' and the only possible philosophical

questions are these three:

1. Are they co-ordinate as agent and re-agent;

2. Or is the one subordinate to the other, as effect to cause, and which

is the cause or ground, which the effect or product;

3. Or are they co-ordinate, but not inter-dependent, that is, 'per

harmonium præstabilitam'.

Ib. p. 4.

Now so far as we understand the nature of any being, we can certainly

tell what is contrary and contradictious to its nature; as that

accidents should subsist without 'their subject', &c.

That accidents should subsist (rather, exist) without a subject, may be

a contradiction, but not that they exist without this or that subject.

The words 'their subject' are 'a petitio principii'.

Ib.

These and such like are the manifest absurdities and contradictions of

Transubstantiation; and we know that they are so, because we know the

nature of a body, &c.

Indeed! Were I either Romanist or Unitarian, I should desire no better

than the admission of body having an 'esse' not in the 'percipi', and

really subsisting, ([Greek: autò tò chraema]) as the supporter of its

accidents. At all events, the Romanist, declaring the accidents to be

those ordinarily impressed on the senses ([Greek: tà phaínomena kaì

aísthaeta]) by bread and wine, does at the same time declare the flesh

and blood not to be the [Greek: phaínomena kaì aísthaeta] so called, but

the [Greek: noúmena kaì autà tà chráemata]. There is therefore no

contradiction in the terms, however reasonless the doctrine may be, and

however unnecessary the interpretation on which it is pretended. I

confess, had I been in Luther's place, I would not have rested so much

of my quarrel with the Papists on this point; nor can I agree with our

Arminian divines in their ridicule of Transubstantiation. The most

rational doctrine is perhaps, for some purposes, at least, the 'rem

credimus, modum nescimus'; next to that, the doctrine of the

Sacramentaries, that it is 'signum sub rei nomine', as when we call a

portrait of Caius, Caius. But of all the remainder, Impanation,

Consubstantiation, and the like, I confess that I should prefer the

Transubstantiation of the Pontifical doctors.

Ib. p. 6.

The proof of this comes to this one point, that we may have sufficient

evidence of the being of a thing whose nature we cannot conceive and

comprehend: he who will not own this, contradicts the sense and

experience of mankind; and he who confesses this, and yet rejects the

belief of that which he has good evidence for, merely because he

cannot conceive it, is a very absurd and senseless infidel.

Here again, though a zealous believer of the truth asserted, I must

object to the Bishop's logic. None but the weakest men have objected to

the Tri-unity merely because the 'modus' is above their comprehension:

for so is the influence of thought on muscular motion; so is life

itself; so in short is every first truth of necessity; for to comprehend

a thing, is to know its antecedent and consequent. But they affirm that

it is against their reason. Besides, there seems an equivocation in the

use of 'comprehend' and 'conceive' in the same meaning. When a man tells

me, that his will can lift his arm, I conceive his meaning; though I do

not comprehend the fact, I understand 'him'. But the Socinians say;--We

do not understand 'you'. We cannot attach to the word 'God,' more than

three possible meanings; either,

1. A person, or self-conscious being;

2. Or a thing;

3. Or a quality, property, or attribute.

If you take the first, then you admit the contradiction; if either of

the latter two, you have not three Persons and one God, but three

Persons having equal shares in one thing, or three with the same

attributes, that is, three Gods. Sherlock does not meet this.

Let me repeat the difficulty, if possible, more clearly. The argument of

the philosophic Unitarians, as Wissowatius, who, mistaken as they were,

are not to be confounded with their degenerate successors, the

Priestleyans and Belshamites, may be thus expressed. By the term, God,

we can only conceive you to suppose one or other of three meanings.

1. Either you understand by it a person, in the common sense of an

intelligent or self-conscious being;--or,

2. a thing with its qualities and properties;--or,

3. certain powers and attributes, comprised under the word nature.

If we suppose the first, the contradiction is manifest, and you

yourselves admit it, and therefore forbid us so to interpret your words.

For if by God you mean Person, then three Persons and one God, would be

the same as three Persons and one Person. If we take the second as your

meaning, as an infinite thing is an absurdity, we have three finite

Gods, like Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto, who shared the universe between

them. If the latter, we have three Persons with the same attributes;

--and if a Person with infinite attributes be what we mean by God, then

we have either three Gods, or involve the contradiction above mentioned.

It is unphilosophic, by admission of all philosophers, they add, to

multiply causes beyond the necessity. Now if there are three Persons of

infinite and the same attributes, dismiss two, and you lose nothing but

a numerical phantom."

The answer to this must commence by a denial of the premisses 'in toto':

and this both Bull and Waterland have done most successfully. But I very

much doubt, whether Sherlock on his principles could have evaded the

Unitarian logic. In fact it is scarcely possible to acquit him

altogether of a 'quasi-Tritheism'.

Sect. II. p. 13.

'For like as we are compelled by the Christian verity to acknowledge

every Person by himself to be God and Lord';--

(That is, by especial revelation.)

'So are we forbidden by the Catholic religion to say, There are three

Gods, or three Lords.'

That is, by the religion contained in, and given in accompaniment with,

the universal reason, 'the light that lighteth every man that cometh

into the world'.

Ib. p. 14.

This Creed (Athanasian) does not pretend to explain how there are

three Persons, each of which is God, and yet but One God, (of which

more hereafter,) but only asserts the thing, that thus it is, and thus

it must be if we believe a Trinity in Unity; which should make all

men, who would be thought neither Arians nor Socinians, more cautious

how they express the least dislike of the Athanasian Creed, which must

either argue, that they condemn it, before they understand it, or that

they have some secret dislike to the doctrine of the Trinity.

The dislike commonly felt is not of the doctrine of the Trinity, but of

the positive anathematic assertion of the everlasting perdition of all

and of each who doubt the same;--an assertion deduced from Scripture

only by a train of captious consequences, and equivocations. Thus, A.:

"I honour and admire Caius for his great learning." B.: "The knowledge

of the Sanscrit is an important article in Caius's learning." A.: "I

have been often in his company, and have found no reason for believing

this." B.: "O! then you deny his learning, are envious, and Caius's

enemy." A.: "God forbid! I love and admire him. I know him for a

transcendant linguist in the Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and modern European

languages;--and with or without the Sanscrit, I look up to him, and rely

on his erudition in all cases, in which I am concerned. And it is this

perfect trust, this unfeigned respect, that is the appointed criterion

of Caius's friends and disciples, and not their full acquaintance with

each and all particulars of his superiority." Thus without Christ, or in

any other power but that of Christ, and (subjectively) of faith in

Christ, no man can be saved; but does it follow, that no man can have

Christian faith who is ignorant or erroneous as to any one point of

Christian theology? Will a soul be condemned to everlasting perdition

for want of logical 'acumen' in the perception of consequences?--If he

verily embrace Christ as his Redeemer, and unfeignedly feel in himself

the necessity of Redemption, he implicitly holds the Divinity of Christ,

whatever from want or defect of logic may be his notion 'explicite'.

Ib. p. 18.

'But the whole three Persons are co-eternal, and co-equal'. And yet

this we must acknowledge to be true, if we acknowledge all three

Persons to be eternal, for in eternity there can be no 'afore, or

after other'.

It must, however, be considered as a serious defect in a Creed, if

excluding subordination, without mentioning any particular form, it

gives no hint of any other form in which it admits it. The only 'minus'

admitted by the Athanasian Creed is the inferiority of Christ's Humanity

to the Divinity generally; but both Scripture and the Nicene Creed teach

a subordination of the Son to the Father, independent of the Incarnation

of the Son. Now this is not inserted, and therefore the denial in the

assertion 'none is greater or less than another', is universal, and a

plain contradiction of Christ speaking of Himself as the co-eternal Son;

'My Father is greater than I'. Speaking of himself as the co-eternal

Son, I say;--for how superfluous would it have been, a truism how

unworthy of our Lord, to have said in effect, that "a creature is less

than God!" And after all, Creeds assuredly are not to be imposed 'ad

libitum'--a new Creed, or at least a new form and choice of articles and

expressions, at the pleasure of individuals. Now where is the authority

of the Athanasian Creed? In what consists its necessity? If it be the

same as the Nicene, why not be content with the Nicene? If it differs,

how dare we retain both? [2] If the Athanasian does not say more or

different, but only differs by omission of a necessary article, then to

impose it, is as absurd as to force a mutilated copy on one who has

already the perfect original. Lastly, it is not enough that an abstract

contains nothing which may not by a chain of consequences be deduced

from the books of the Evangelists and Apostles, in order for it to be a

Creed for the whole Christian Church. For a Creed is or ought to be a

'syllepsis' of those primary fundamental truths that are, as it were,

the starting-post, from which the Christian must commence his

progression. The full-grown Christian needs no other Creed than the

Scriptures themselves. Highly valuable is the Nicene Creed; but it has

its chief value as an historical document, proving that the same texts

in Scripture received the same interpretation, while the Greek was a

living language, as now.

Sect. III. p. 23.

If what he says is true: 'He that errs in a question of faith, after

having used reasonable diligence to be rightly informed, is in no

fault at all'; how comes an atheist, or an infidel, a Turk, or a Jew,

to be in any fault? Does our author think that no atheist or infidel,

no unbelieving Jew or heathen, ever used reasonable diligence to be

rightly informed? * * * If you say, he confines this to such points as

have always been controverted in the churches of God, I desire to know

a reason why he thus confines it? For does not his reason equally

extend to the Christian Faith itself, as to those points which have

been controverted in Christian Churches?

And the Notary might ask in his turn: "Do you believe that the

Christians either of the Greek or of the Western Church will be damned,

according as the truth may be respecting the procession of the Holy

Ghost? or that either the Sacramentary or the Lutheran? or again, the

Consubstantiationist, or the Transubstantiationist? If not, why do you

stop here? Whence this sudden palsy in the limbs of your charity? Again,

does this eternal damnation of the individual depend on the supposed

importance of the article denied? Or on the moral state of the

individual, on the inward source of this denial? And lastly, who

authorized either you, or the pseudo-Athanasius, to interpret Catholic

faith by belief, arising out of the apparent predominance of the grounds

for, over those against, the truth of the positions asserted; much more,

by belief as a mere passive acquiescence of the understanding? Were all

damned who died during the period when 'totus fere mundus factus est

Arianus', as one of the Fathers admits? Alas! alas! how long will it be

ere Christians take the plain middle road between intolerance and

indifference, by adopting the literal sense and Scriptural import of

heresy, that is, wilful error, or belief originating in some perversion

of the will; and of heretics, (for such there are, nay, even orthodox

heretics), that is, men wilfully unconscious of their own wilfulness, in

their limpet-like adhesion to a favourite tenet?"

Ib. p. 26.

All Christians must confess, that there is no other name given under

heaven whereby men can be saved, but only the name of Christ.

Now this is a most awful question, on which depends whether Christ was

more than Socrates; for to bring God from heaven to reproclaim the Ten

Commandments, is 'too too' ridiculous. Need I say I incline to Sherlock?

But yet I cannot give to faith the meaning he does, though I give it

all, and more than all, the power. But if that Name, as power, saved the

Jewish Church before they knew the Name, as name, how much more now, if

only the will be not guiltily averse? Any miracle does in kind as truly

bring God from heaven as the Incarnation, which the Socinians wholly

forget, as in other points. They receive without scruple what they have

learned without examination, and then transfer to the first article

which they do look into, all the difficulties that belong equally to the

former: as the Simonidean doubts concerning God to the Trinity, and the

like.

Ib. p. 27.

The Eclectic Neo-Platonists (Sallustius and others,) justified their

Polytheism on much the same pretext as is in fact involved in the

language of this page; [Greek: polloì mèn en dè mia theótaeti]. This

indeed seems to me decisive in favour of Waterland's scheme against this

of Sherlock's;--namely, that in the latter we find no sufficient reason

why in the nature of things this intermutual consciousness might not be

possessed by thirty instead of three. It seems a strange confounding

[Greek: hetéron genéôn] to answer, "True; but the latter only happens to

be the fact!"--just as if we were speaking of the number of persons in

the Privy Council.

Ib. p. 28.

'Notes'. By keeping this faith 'whole and undefiled', must be meant

that a man should believe and profess it without adding to it or

taking from it. * * * First, for adding. What if an honest plain man,

because he is a Christian and a Protestant, should think it necessary

to add this article to the Athanasian Creed;--'I believe the Holy

Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be a divine, infallible and

complete rule both for faith and manners'. I hope no Protestant would

think a man damned for such addition; and if so, then this Creed of

Athanasius is at least an unnecessary rule of faith.

'Answer'. That is to say, it is an addition to the Catholic Faith to

own the Scriptures to be the rule of faith; as if it were an addition

to the laws of England to own the original records of them in the

Tower.

This Notary manages his cause most weakly, and Sherlock 'fibs' him like

a scientific pugilist. But he himself exposes weak parts, as in p. 27.

The objection to the Athanasian Creed urged by better men than the

Notary, yea, by divines not less orthodox than Sherlock himself, is

this: not that this Creed adds to the Scriptures, but that it adds to

the original 'Symbolum Fidei', the 'Regula', the 'Canon', by which,

according to the greater number of the 'ante'-Nicene Fathers, the books

of the New Testament were themselves tried and determined to be

Scripture. Now this 'Symbolum' was to bring together all that must be

believed, even by the babes in faith, or to what purpose was it made?

Now, say they, the Nicene Creed is really nothing more than a verbal

explication of the common Creed, but the clause in the Athanasian

('which faith', &c.), however fairly deduced from Scripture, is not

contained in the Creed, or selection of certain articles of Faith from

the Scriptures, or not at least from those preachings and narrations, of

which the New Testament Scriptures are the repository. Might not a

Papist plead equally in support of the Creed of Pope Pius: "The new

articles are deduced from Scripture; that is, in our opinion, and that

most expressly in our Lord's several and solemn addresses to St. Peter."

So again Sherlock's answer to this paragraph from the Notes is

evasive,--for it is very possible, nay, it is, and has been the case,

that a man may believe in the facts and doctrines contained in the New

Testament, and yet not believe the Holy Scripture to be either divine,

infallible, or complete.

Sect. IV. p. 50.

We know not what the substance of an infinite mind is, nor how such

substances as have no parts or extension can touch each other, or be

thus externally united; but we know the unity of a mind or spirit

reaches as far as its self-consciousness does, for that is one spirit,

which knows and feels itself, and its own thoughts and motions, and if

we mean this by 'circum-incession', three persons thus intimate to

each other are numerically one.

The question still returns; have these three infinite minds, at once

self-conscious and conscious of each other's consciousness, always the

very same thoughts? If so, this mutual consciousness is unmeaning, or

derivative; and the three do not cease to be three because they are

three sames. If not, then there is Tritheism evidently.

Ib. p. 64.

St. Paul tells us, 1 Cor. ii. 10. 'That the Spirit searcheth all

things, yea the deep things of God'. So that the Holy Spirit knows all

that is in God, even his most deep and secret counsels, which is an

argument that he is very intimate with him; but this is not all: it is

the manner of knowing, which must prove this consciousness of which I

speak: and that the Apostle adds in the next verse, that the Spirit of

God knows all that is in God, just as the spirit of a man knows all

that is in man: that is, not by external revelation or communication

of this knowledge, but by self-consciousness, by an internal

sensation, which is owing to an essential unity. 'For what man knoweth

the things of a man, save the spirit of a man which is in him; even so

the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God.'

It would be interesting, if it were feasible, to point out the epoch at

which the text mode of arguing in polemic controversy became

predominant; I mean by single texts without any modification by the

context. I suspect that it commenced, or rather that it first became the

fashion, under the Dort or systematic theologians, and during the so

called Quinquarticular Controversy. This quotation from St. Paul is a

striking instance:--for St. Paul is speaking of the holy spirit of which

true spiritual Christians are partakers, and by which or in which those

Christians are enabled to search all things, even the deep things of

God. No person is here spoken of, but reference is made to the

philosophic principle, that can only act immediately, that is,

interpenetratively, as two globules of quicksilver, and co-adunatively.

Now, perceiving and knowing were considered as immediate acts relatively

to the objects perceived and known:--'ergo', the 'principium sciendi'

must be one (that is, homogeneous or consubstantial) with the

'principium essendi quoad objectum cognitum'. In order therefore for a

man to understand, or even to know of, God, he must have a god-like

spirit communicated to him, wherewith, as with an inward eye, which is

both eye and light, he sees the spiritual truths. Now I have no

objection to his calling this spirit a 'person,' if only the term

'person' be so understood as to permit of its being partaken of by all

spiritual creatures, as light and the power of vision are partaken of by

all seeing ones. But it is too evident that Sherlock supposes the

Father, as Father, to possess a spirit, that is, an intellective

faculty, by which he knows the Spirit, that is, the third co-equal

Person; and that this Spirit, the Person, has a spirit, that is, an

intellective faculty, by which he knows the Father; and the 'Logos' in

like manner relatively to both. So too, the Father has a 'logos' with

which he distinguishes the 'Logos';--and the 'Logos' has a 'logos', and

so on: that is to say, there are three several though not severed triune

Gods, each being the same position three times 'realiter positum', as

three guineas from the same mint, supposing them to differ no more than

they appear to us to differ;--but whether a difference wholly and

exclusively numerical is a conceivable notion, except under the

predicament of space and time; whether it be not absurd to affirm it,

where interspace and interval cannot be affirmed without absurdity--this

is the question; or rather it is no question.

Ib. p. 68.

Nor do we divide the substance, but unite these three Persons in one

numerical essence: for we know nothing of the unity of the mind, but

self-consciousness, as I showed before; and therefore as the

self-consciousness of every Person to itself makes them distinct

Persons, so the mutual consciousness of all three divine Persons to

each other makes them all but one infinite God: as far as

consciousness reaches, so far the unity of a spirit extends, for we

know no other unity of a mind or spirit, but consciousness.

But this contradicts the preceding paragraph, in which the Father is

self-conscious that he is the Father and not the Son, and the Son that

he is not the Father, and that the Father is not he. Now how can the

Son's being conscious that the Father is conscious that he is not the

Son, constitute a numerical unity? And wherein can such a consciousness

as that attributed to the Son differ from absolute certainty? Is not God

conscious of every thought of man;--and would Sherlock allow me to

deduce the unity of the divine consciousness with the human? Sherlock's

is doubtless a very plain and intelligible account of three Gods in the

most absolute intimacy with each other, so that they are all as one; but

by no means of three persons that are one God. I do not wonder that

Waterland and the other followers of Bull were alarmed.

Ib. p. 72.

Even among men it is only knowledge that is power. Human power, and

human knowledge, as that signifies a knowledge how to do anything, are

commensurate; whatever human skill extends to, human power can effect:

nay, every man can do what he knows how to do, if he has proper

instruments and materials to do it with.

This proves that perfect knowledge supposes perfect power: and that they

are one and the same. "If he have proper instruments:"--does not this

show that the means are supposed co-present with the knowledge, not the

same with it?

Ib.

For it is nothing but thought which moves our bodies, and all the

members of them, which are the immediate instruments of all human

force and power: excepting mechanical motions which do not depend upon

our wills, such as the motion of the heart, the circulation of the

blood, the concoction of our meat and the like. All voluntary motions

are not only directed but caused by thought: and so indeed it must be,

or there could be no motion in the world; for matter cannot move

itself, and therefore some mind must be the first mover, which makes

it very plain, that infinite truth and wisdom is infinite and almighty

power.

Even this, though not ill-conceived, is inaccurately expressed.

Ib. p. 81.

There is no contradiction that three infinite minds should be

absolutely perfect in wisdom, goodness, justice and power; for these

are perfections which may be in more than one, as three men may all

know the same things, and be equally just and good: but three such

minds cannot be absolutely perfect without being mutually conscious to

each other, as they are to themselves.

Will any man in his senses affirm, that my knowledge is increased by

saying "all" three times following? Is it not mere repetition in time?

If the Son has thoughts which the Father, as the Father, could not have

but for his interpenetration of the Son's consciousness, then I can

understand it; but then these are not three Absolutes, but three modes

of perfection constituting one Absolute; and by what right Sherlock

could call the one Father, more than the other, I cannot see.

Ib. p. 88.

And yet if we consider these three divine Persons as containing each

other in themselves, and essentially one by a mutual consciousness,

this pretended contradiction vanishes: for then the Father is the one

true God, because the Father has the Son and the Holy Spirit in

himself: and the Son may he called the one true God, because the Son

has the Father and the Holy Ghost in himself, &c.

Nay, this is to my understanding three Gods, and Sherlock seems to have

brought in the material phantom of a thing or substance.

Ib. p. 97.

But if these three distinct Persons are not separated, but essentially

united unto one, each of them may be God, and all three but one God:

for if these three Persons,--each of whom [Greek: monadikôs], as it is

in the Creed, singly by himself, not separately from the other divine

Persons, is God and Lord, are essentially united into one, there can

be but one God and one Lord; and how each of these persons is God, and

all of them but one God, by their mutual consciousness, I have already

explained.

--"That is,--if the three Persons are not three;"--so might the Arian

answer, unless Sherlock had shown the difference of separate and

distinct relatively to mind. "For what other separation can be conceived

in mind but distinction? Distinction may be joined with imperfection, as

ignorance, or forgetfulness; and so it is in men:--and if this be called

separation by a metaphor from bodies, then the conclusion would be that

in the Supreme Mind there is distinction without imperfection; and then

the question is, whence comes plurality of Persons? Can it be conceived

other than as the result of imperfection, that is, finiteness?

Ib. p. 98.

Thus each Divine Person is God, and all of them but the same one God;

as I explained it before.

O no! asserted it.

Ib. p. 98-9.

This one supreme God is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, a Trinity in

Unity, three Persons and one God. Now Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,

with all their divine attributes and perfections (excepting their

personal properties, which the Schools call the 'modi subsistendi',

that one is the Father, the other the Son, and the other the Holy

Ghost, which cannot be communicated to each other) are whole and

entire in each Person by a mutual consciousness; each feels the other

Persons in himself, all their essential wisdom, power, goodness,

justice, as he feels himself, and this makes them essentially one, as

I have proved at large.

Will not the Arian object, "You admit the 'modus subsistendi' to be a

divine perfection, and you affirm that it is incommunicable. Does it not

follow therefore, that there are perfections which the All-perfect does

not possess?" This would not apply to Bishop Bull or Waterland.

Sect. V. p. 102.

St. Austin in his sixth book of the Trinity takes notice of a common

argument used by the orthodox fathers against the Arians, to prove the

co-eternity of the Son with the Father, that if the Son be the Wisdom

and Power of God, as St. Paul teaches (1 'Cor'. i.) and God was never

without his Wisdom and Power, the Son must he co-eternal with the

Father. * * * But this acute Father discovers a great inconvenience in

this argument, for it forces us to say that the Father is not wise,

but by that Wisdom which he begot, not being himself Wisdom as the

Father: and then we must consider whether the Son himself, as he is

God of God, and Light of Light, may be said to be Wisdom of Wisdom, if

God the Father be not Wisdom, but only begets Wisdom.

The proper answer to Augustine is, that the Son and Holy Ghost are

necessary and essential, not contingent: and that 'his' argument has a

still greater inconvenience, as shewn in note p. 98.

Ib. pp. 110-113.

But what makes St. Gregory dispute thus nicely, and oppose the common

and ordinary forms of speech? Did he in good earnest believe that

there is but one man in the world? No, no! he acknowledged as many men

as we do; a great multitude who had the same human nature, and that

every one who had a human nature was an individual man, distinguished

and divided from all other individuals of the same nature. What makes

him so zealous then against saying, that Peter, James and John are

three men? Only this; that he says man is the name of nature, and

therefore to say there are three men is the same as to say, there are

three human natures of a different kind; for if there are three human

natures, they must differ from each other, or they cannot be three;

and so you deny Peter, James, and John to be [Greek: homooúsioi], or

of the same nature; and for the same reason we must say that though

the Father be God, the Son God, and the Holy Ghost God, yet there are

not three Gods, but [Greek: mía theótaes], one Godhead and Divinity.

Sherlock struggles in vain, in my opinion at least, to clear these

Fathers of egregious logomachy, whatever may have been the soundness of

their faith, spite of the quibbles by which they endeavoured to evince

its rationality. The very change of the terms is suspicious. "Yes! we

might say three Gods" (it would be answered,) "as we say and ought to

say three men: for man and humanity, [Greek: ánthropôs] and [Greek:

ánthrôpótaes] are not the same terms;--so if the Father be God, the Son

God, and the Holy Ghost God, there would be three Gods, though not

[Greek: treis theótaetes],--that is, three Godheads."

Ib. p. 115-16.

Gregory Nyssen tells us that [Greek: theòs] is [Greek: theatàes] and

[Greek: éphoros], the inspector and governor of the world, that is, it

is a name of energy, operation and power; and if this virtue, energy,

and operation be the very same in all the Persons of the Trinity,

Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, then they are but one God, but one power

and energy. * * * The Father does nothing by himself, nor the Son by

himself, nor the Holy Ghost by himself; but the whole energy and

operation of the Deity relating to creatures begins with the Father,

passes to the Son, and from Father and Son to the Holy Spirit; the

Holy Spirit does not act anything separately; there are not three

distinct operations, as there are three Persons, [Greek: allà mìa tìs

gínetai agathou Bouláematos kínaesis kaì diakósmaesis];--but one

motion and disposition of the good will, which passes through the

whole Trinity from Father to Son, and to the Holy Ghost, and this is

done [Greek: achrónos kaì adiarétôs], without any distance of time, or

propagating the motion from one to the other, but by one thought, as

it is in one numerical mind and spirit, and therefore, though they are

three Persons, they are but one numerical power and energy.

But this is either Tritheism or Sabellianism; it is hard to say which.

Either the [Greek: Boúlaema] subsists in the Son, and in the Holy Ghost,

and not merely passes through them, and then there would be three

numerical [Greek: Bouláemata], as well as three numerical Persons:

'ergo', [Greek: treis theoì àe theataí] (according to Gregory Nyssen's

shallow and disprovable etymology), which would be Tritheism: or [Greek:

hén ti gínetai Boúlaema], and then the Son and Holy Ghost are but terms

of relation, which is Sabellianism. But in fact this Gregory and the

others were Tritheists in the mode of their conception, though they did

not wish to be so, and refused even to believe themselves such.

Gregory Nyssen, Cyril of Alexandria, Maximus and Damascen were charged

with "a kind of Tritheism" by Petavius and Dr. Cudworth, who, according

to Sherlock, have "mistaken their meaning." See pp. 106-9, of this

"Vindication."

Ib. p. 117.

For I leave any man to judge, whether this [Greek: mía kínaesis

Bouláematos], this one single motion of will, which is in the same

instant in Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, can signify anything else but

a mutual consciousness, which makes them numerically one, and as

intimate to each other, as every man is to himself, as I have already

explained it.

Is not God conscious to all my thoughts, though I am not conscious of

God's? Would Sherlock endure that I should infer: 'ergo', God is

numerically one with me, though I am not numerically one with God? I

have never seen, but greatly wish to see, Waterland's controversial

tracts against Sherlock. Again: according to Sherlock's conception, it

would seem to follow that we ought to make a triad of triads, or an

ennead.

1. Father--Son--Holy Ghost.

2. Son--Father--Holy Ghost.

3. Holy Ghost--Son--Father.

Else there is an 'x' in the Father which is not in the Son, a 'y' in the

Son which is not in the Father, and a 'z' in the Holy Ghost which is in

neither: that is, each by himself is not total God.

Ib. p. 120.

But however he might be mistaken in his philosophy, he was not in his

divinity; for he asserts a numerical unity of the divine nature, not a

mere specific unity, which is nothing but a logical notion, nor a

collective unity, which is nothing but a company who are naturally

many: but a true subsisting numerical unity of nature; and if the

difficulty of explaining this, and his zeal to defend it, forced him

upon some unintelligible niceties, to prove that the same numerical

human nature too is but one in all men, it is hard to charge him with

teaching, that there are three independent and co-ordinate Gods,

because we think he has not proved that Peter, James, and John, are

but one man. This will make very foul work with the Fathers, if we

charge them with all those erroneous conceits about the Trinity, which

we can fancy in their inconvenient ways of explaining that venerable

mystery, especially when they compare that mysterious unity with any

natural unions.

So that after all this obscuration of the obscure, Sherlock ends by

fairly throwing up his briefs, and yet calls out, "Not guilty!

'Victoria'!" And what is this but to say: These Fathers did indeed

involve Tritheism in their mode of defending the Tri-personality; but

they were not Tritheists:--though it would be far more accurate to say,

that they were Tritheists, but not so as to make any practical breach of

the Unity;--as if, for instance, Peter, James, and John had three silver

tickets, by shewing one of which either or all three would have the same

thing as if they had shewn all three tickets, and 'vice versa', all

three tickets could produce no more than each one; each corresponding to

the whole.

Ib.

I am sure St. Gregory was so far from suspecting that he should be

charged with Tritheism upon this account, that he fences against

another charge of mixing and confounding the 'Hypostases' or Persons,

by denying any difference or diversity of nature, [Greek: hôs ek tou

màe déchesthai tàen katà physin diaphoràn, míxin tina tôn hypostáseôn

kaì anakúklaesin kataskeúzonta], which argues that he thought he had

so fully asserted the unity of the divine essence, that some might

suspect he had left but one Person, as well as one nature in God.

This is just what I have said, p. 116. Whether Sabellianism or

Tritheism, I observed is hard to determine. Extremes meet.

Ib. p. 121.

Secondly, to this 'homo-ousiotes' the Fathers added a numerical unity

of the divine essence. This Petavius has proved at large by numerous

testimonies, even from those very Fathers, whom he before accused for

making God only collectively one, as three men are one man; such as

Gregory Nyssen, St. Cyril, Maximus, Damascen; which is a

demonstration, that however 'he might mistake' their explication of

it, from the unity of human nature, they were far enough from

Tritheism, or one collective God.

This is most uncandid. Sherlock, even to be consistent with his own

confession, § 1. p. 120, ought to have said, "However he might mistake

their 'intention', in consequence of their inconvenient and

unphilosophical explication;" which mistake, in fact, consisted in

taking them at their word.

Ib.

Petavius greatly commends Boethius's explication of this mystery,

which is the very same he had before condemned in Gregory Nyssen, and

those other Fathers.--That Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are one God,

not three Gods: 'hujus conjunctionis ratio est indifferentia': that

is, such a sameness of nature as admits of no difference or variety,

or an exact 'homo-ousiotes', as he explains it. * * Those make a

difference, who augment and diminish, as the Arians do; who

distinguish the Trinity into different natures, as well as Persons, of

different worth and excellency, and thus divide and multiply the

Trinity into a plurality of Gods. 'Principium enim pluralitatis

alteritas est. Præter alteritatem enim nec pluralitas quid sit

intelligi potest'.

Then if so, what becomes of the Persons? Have the Persons attributes

distinct from their nature;--or does not their common nature constitute

their common attributes? 'Principium enim, &c.'

Ib. p. 124.

That the Fathers universally acknowledged that the operation of the

whole Trinity, 'ad extra', is but one, Petavius has proved beyond all

contradiction; and hence they conclude the unity of the divine nature

and essence; for every nature has a virtue and energy of its own; for

nature is a principle of action, and if the energy and operation be

but one, there can be but one nature; and if there be two distinct and

divided operations, if either of them can act alone without the other,

there must be two divided natures.

Then it was not the Son but the whole Trinity that was crucified: for

surely this was an operation 'ad extra'.

Ib. p. 126.

But to do St. Austin right, though he do not name this consciousness,

yet he explains this Trinity in Unity by examples of mutual

consciousness. I named one of his similitudes before, of the unity of

our understanding, memory, and will, 'which' are all conscious to each

other; that we remember what we understand and will; we understand

what we remember and will; and what we will we remember and

understand; and therefore all these three faculties do penetrate and

comprehend each other.

'Which'! The 'man' is self-conscious alike when he remembers, wills, and

understands; but in what sense is the generic term "memory" conscious to

the generic word "will?" This is mere nonsense. Are memory,

understanding, and volition persons,--self-subsistents? If not, what are

they to the purpose? Who doubts that Jehovah is consciously powerful,

consciously wise, consciously good; and that it is the same Jehovah, who

in being omnipotent, is good and wise; in being wise, omnipotent and

good; in being good, is wise and omnipotent? But what has all this to do

with a distinction of Persons? Instead of one Tri-unity we might have a

mille-unity. The fact is, that Sherlock, and (for aught I know) Gregory

Nyssen, had not the clear idea of the Trinity, positively; but only a

negative Arianism.

Ib. p. 127.

He proceeds to shew that this unity is without all manner of confusion

and mixture, * * for the mind that loves, is in the love. * * * And

the knowledge of the mind which knows and loves itself, is in the

mind, and in its love, because it loves itself, knowing, and knows

itself loving: and thus also two are in each, for the mind which knows

and loves itself, with its knowledge is in love, and with its love is

in knowledge.

Then why do we make tri-personality in unity peculiar to God?

The doctrine of the Trinity (the foundation of all rational theology, no

less than the precondition and ground of the rational possibility of the

Christian Faith, that is, the Incarnation and Redemption), rests

securely on the position,--that in man 'omni actioni præit sua propria

passio; Deus autem est actus purissimus sine ulla potentialitate'. As

the tune produced between the breeze and Eolian harp is not a

self-subsistent, so neither memory, nor understanding, nor even love in

man: for he is a passive as well as active being: he is a patible agent.

But in God this is not so. Whatever is necessarily of him, (God of God,

Light of Light), is necessarily all act; therefore necessarily

self-subsistent, though not necessarily self-originated. This then is

the true mystery, because the true unique; that the Son of God has

origination without passion, that is, without ceasing to be a pure act:

while a created entity is, as far as it is merely creaturely and

distinguishable from the Creator, a mere 'passio' or recipient. This

unicity we strive, not to 'express', for that is impossible; but to

designate, by the nearest, though inadequate, analogy,--'Begotten'.

Ib. p. 133.

As for the Holy Ghost, whose nature is represented to be love, I do

not indeed find in Scripture that it is any where said, that the Holy

Ghost is that mutual love, wherewith Father and Son love each other:

but this we know, that there is a mutual love between Father and Son:

'the Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his

hands'.--John iii. 35. 'And the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him

all things that himself doeth'.-John v. 20; and our Saviour himself

tells us, 'I love the Father'.--John xiv. 31. And I shewed before,

that love is a distinct act, 'and therefore in God must be a person:

for there are no accidents nor faculties in God.'

This most important, nay, fundamental truth, so familiar to the elder

philosophy, and so strongly and distinctly enunciated by Philo Judæus,

the senior and contemporary of the Evangelists, is to our modern divines

darkness and a sound.

Sect. VI. pp. 147-8.

Yes; you'll say, that there should be three Persons, each of which is

God, and yet but one God, is a contradiction: but what principle of

natural reason does it contradict?

Surely never did argument vertiginate more! I had just acceded to

Sherlock's exposition of the Trinity, as the Supreme Being, his reflex

act of self-consciousness and his love, all forming one supreme mind;

and now he tells me, that each is the whole Supreme Mind, and denies

that three, each 'per se' the whole God, are not the same as three Gods!

I grant that division and separation are terms inapplicable, yet surely

three distinct though undivided Gods, are three Gods. That the Father,

Son, and Holy Ghost, are the one true God, I fully believe; but not

Sherlock's exposition of the doctrine. Nay, I think it would have been

far better to have worded the mystery thus:--The Father together with

his Son and Spirit, is the one true God.

"Each 'per se' God." This is the [Greek: prôton méga pseudos] of

Sherlock's scheme. Each of the three is whole God, because neither is,

or can be 'per se'; the Father himself being 'a se', but not 'per se'.

Ib. p. 149.

For it is demonstrable that if there be three Persons and one God,

each Person must be God, and yet there cannot be three distinct Gods,

but one. For if each Person be not God, all three cannot be God,

unless the Godhead have Persons in it which are not God.

Three persons having the same nature are three persons;--and if to

possess without limitation the divine nature, as opposed to the human,

is what we mean by God, why then three such persons are three Gods, and

will bethought so, till Gregory Nyssen can persuade us that John, James,

and Peter, each possessing the human nature, are not three men. John is

a man, James is a man, and Peter is a man: but they are not three men,

but one man!

Ib. p. 150.

I affirm, that natural reason is not the rule and measure of

expounding Scripture, no more than it is of expounding any other

writing. The true and only way to interpret any writing, even the

Scriptures themselves, is to examine the use and propriety of words

and phrases, the connexion, scope, and design of the text, its

allusion to ancient customs and usages, or disputes. For there is no

other good reason to be given for any exposition, but that the words

signify so, and the circumstances of the place, and the apparent scope

of the writer require it.

This and the following paragraph are excellent. 'O si sic omnia'!

Ib. p. 153.

Reconcile men to the doctrine (of the Trinity), and the Scripture is

plain without any farther comment. This I have now endeavoured; and I

believe our adversaries will talk more sparingly of absurdities and

contradictions for the future, and they will lose the best argument

they have against the orthodox expositions of Scripture.

Good doctor! you sadly over-rated both your own powers, and the docility

of your adversaries. If so clear a head and so zealous a Trinitarian as

Dr. Waterland could not digest your exposition, or acquit it of

Tritheism, little hope is there of finding the Unitarians more

persuadable.

Ib. p. 154.

Though Christ be God himself, yet if there be three Persons in the

Godhead, the equality and sameness of nature does not destroy the

subordination of Persons: a Son is equal to his Father by nature, but

inferior to him as his Son: if the Father, as I have explained it, be

original mind and wisdom, the Son a personal, subsisting, but reflex

image of his Father's wisdom, though their eternal wisdom be equal and

the same, yet the original is superior to the image, the Father to the

Son.

But why? We men deem it so, because the image is but a shadow, and not

equal to the original; but if it were the same in all perfections, how

could that, which is exactly the same, be less? Again, God is all

Being:--consequently there can nothing be added to the idea, except what

implies a negation or diminution of it. If one and the same Being is

equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead, but inferior as man; then

it is + 'm-x', which is not = + 'm'. But of two men I may say, that they

are equal to each other. A. = + courage-wisdom. B. = + wisdom-courage.

Both wise and courageous; but A. inferior in wisdom, B. in courage. But

God is all-perfect.

Ib. p. 156.

So born before all creatures, as [Greek: prôtótokos] also signifies,

'that by him were all things created'.

'All things were created by him, and for him, and he is before all

things', (which is the explication of [Greek: pôrtótokos pásaes

ktíseos], begotten before the whole creation', and therefore no part

of the creation himself.)

This is quite right. Our version should here be corrected. [Greek:

Prôto] or [Greek: prótaton] is here an intense comparative,--'infinitely

before'.

Ib. p. 159.

That he 'being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal

with God', &c.--Phil. ii. 8, 9.

I should be inclined to adopt an interpretation of the unusual phrase

[Greek: hárpagmon] somewhat different both from the Socinian and the

Church version:--"who being in the form of God did not 'think equality

with God a thing to be seized with violence', but made, &c."

Ib. p. 160.

Is a mere creature a fit lieutenant or representative of God in

personal or prerogative acts of government and power? Must not every

being be represented by one of his own kind, a man by a man, an angel

by an angel, in such acts as are proper to their natures? and must not

God then be represented by one who is God? Is any creature capable of

the government of the world? Does not this require infinite wisdom and

infinite power? And can God communicate infinite wisdom and infinite

power to a creature or a finite nature? That is, can a creature be

made a true and essential God?

This is sound reasoning. It is to be regretted that Sherlock had not

confined himself to logical comments on the Scripture, instead of

attempting metaphysical solutions.

Ib. pp. 161-3.

I find little or nothing to 'object to' in this exposition, from pp.

161-163 inclusively, of 'Phil'. ii. 8, 9. And yet I seem to feel, as if

a something that should have been prefixed, and to which all these

considerations would have been excellent seconds, were missing. To

explain the Cross by the necessity of sacrificial blood, and the

sacrificial blood as a type and 'ante'-delegate or pre-substitute of the

Cross, is too like an 'argumentum in circulo'.

Ib. p. 164.

And though Christ be the eternal Son of God, and the natural Lord and

heir of all things, yet 'God hath' in this 'highly exalted him' and

given 'him a name which is above every name, that at' (or in [Greek:

en]) 'the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven',

&c.--Phil. ii. 9, 10, 11.

Never was a sublime passage more debased than by this rendering of

[Greek: en] by 'at', instead of 'in';--'at' the 'phenomenon', instead of

'in' the 'noumenon'. For such is the force of 'nomen', name, in this and

similar passages, namely, 'in vera et substantiali potestate Jesu': that

is, [Greek: en lógô kaì dià lógou], the true 'noumenon' or 'ens

intelligibile' of Christ. To bow at hearing the 'cognomen' may become a

universal, but it is still only a non-essential, consequence of the

former. But the debasement of the idea is not the worst evil of this

false rendering;--it has afforded the pretext and authority for

un-Christian intolerance.

Ib. p. 168.

'The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment to the

Son'.--John v. 22. Should the Father judge the world he 'must' judge

as the maker and sovereign of the world, by the strict rules of

righteousness and justice, and then how could any sinner be saved?

(Why? Is mercy incompatible with righteousness? How then can the Son be

righteous?)

But he has committed judgment to the Son, as a mediatory king, who

judges by the equity and chancery of the Gospel.

This article required exposition incomparably more than the simple

doctrine of the Trinity, plain and evident 'simplici intuitu', and

rendered obscure only by diverting the mental vision by terms drawn from

matter and multitude. In the Trinity all the 'Hows'? may and should be

answered by 'Look'! just as a wise tutor would do in stating the fact of

a double or treble motion, as of a ball rolling north ward on the deck

of a ship sailing south, while the earth is turning from west to east.

And in like manner, that is, 'per intuitum intellectualem', must all the

mysteries of faith be contemplated;--they are intelligible 'per se',

not discursively and 'per analogiam'. For the truths are unique, and may

have shadows and types, but no analogies. At this moment I have no

intuition, no intellectual diagram, of this article of the commission of

all judgment to the Son, and therefore a multitude of plausible

objections present themselves, which I cannot solve--nor do I expect to

solve them till by faith I see the thing itself.--Is not mercy an

attribute of the Deity, as Deity, and not exclusively of the Person of

the Son? And is not the authorizing another to judge by equity and mercy

the same as judging so ourselves? If the Father can do the former, why

not the latter?

Ib. p. 171.

And therefore now it is given him to have life in himself, as the

Father hath life in himself, as the original fountain of all life, by

whom the Son himself lives: all life is derived from God, either by

eternal generation, or procession, or creation; and thus Christ hath

life in himself also; to the new creation he is the fountain of life:

'he quickeneth whom he will'.

The truths which hitherto had been metaphysical, then began to be

historical. The Eternal was to be manifested in time. Hence Christ came

with signs and wonders; that is, the absolute, or the anterior to cause

and effect, manifested itself as a 'phenomenon' in time, but with the

predicates of eternity;--and this is the only possible definition of a

miracle 'in re ipsa', and not merely 'ad hominem', or 'ad ignorantiam'.

Ib. p. 177.

His next argument consists in applying such things to the divinity of

our Saviour as belong to his humanity; 'that he increased in wisdom,

&c.:--that he knows not the day of judgment';--which he evidently

speaks of himself as man: as all the ancient Fathers confess. In St.

Mark it is said, 'But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no,

not the angels that are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father'.

St. Matthew does not mention the Son: 'Of that day and hour knoweth no

man, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only'.

How much more politic, as well as ingenuous, it had been to have

acknowledged the difficulty of this text. So far from its being evident,

the evidence would be on the Arian side, were it not that so many

express texts determine us to the contrary.

Ib.

Which shows that the Son in St. Matthew is included in the [Greek:

oudeìs] none, or no man, and therefore concerns him only as a man: for

the Father 'includes the whole Trinity', and therefore includes the

Son, who seeth whatever his Father doth.

This is an 'argumentum in circulo', and 'petitio rei sub lite'. Why is

he called the Son in 'antithesis' to the Father, if it meant, "no not

the Christ, except in his character of the co-eternal Son, included in

the Father?" If it "concerned him only as a man," why is he placed after

the angels? Why called the 'Son' simply, instead of the Son of Man, or

the Messiah?

Ib.

[Greek: Oudeìs] is not [Greek: oudeìs anthrôpôn], but, 'no one': as in

John i. 18. 'No one hath seen God at any time'; that is, he is by

essence invisible.

This most difficult text I have not seen explained satisfactorily. I

have thought that the [Greek: ággeloi] must here be taken in the primary

sense of the word, namely, as messengers, or missionary Prophets: Of

this day knoweth no one, not the messengers or revealers of God's

purposes now in heaven, no, not the Son, the greatest of Prophets,--that

is, he in that character promised to declare all that in that character

it was given to him to know.

Ib. p. 186.

When St. Paul calls the Father the One God, he expressly opposes it to

the many gods of the heathens. 'For though there be that are called

gods, &c. but to us, there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all

things; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by

him': where the 'one God' and 'one Lord and Mediator' is opposed to

the many gods and many lords or mediators which were worshipped by the

heathens.

But surely the 'one Lord' is as much distinguished from the 'one God',

as both are contradistinguished from the 'gods many and lords many' of

the heathens. Besides 'the Father' is not the term used in that age in

distinction from the gods that are no gods; but [Greek: Ho epì pántôn

theós].

Ib. p. 222.

'The Word was with God'; that is, it was not yet in the world, or not

yet made flesh; but with God.--'John' i. 1. So that to be 'with God',

signifies nothing but not to be in the world.

_'The Word was with God.'_

Grotius does say, that this was opposed to the Word's being made

flesh, and appearing in the world: but he was far enough from thinking

that these words have only a negative sense: * * * for he tells us

what the positive sense is, that with God is [Greek: parà tô patrí],

with the Father, * * and explains it by what Wisdom says, 'Prov'. vii.

30. 'Then I was by him, &c.' which he does not think a 'prosopopoeia',

but spoken of a subsisting person.

But even this is scarcely tenable even as Greek. Had this been St.

John's meaning, surely he would have said, [Greek: en theô], not [Greek:

pròs tòn theón], in the nearest proximity that is not confusion. But it

is strange, that Sherlock should not have seen that Grotius had a

hankering toward Socinianism, but, like a 'shy cock', and a man of the

world, was always ready to unsay what he had said.

[Footnote 1: A Vindication of the Doctrine of the Holy and ever Blessed

Trinity and the Incarnation of the Son of God, occasioned by the Brief

Notes on the Creed of St Athanasius, and the Brief History of the

Unitarians, or Socinians. and containing an answer to both. By Wm.

Sherlock, London. 8vo. 1690.]

[Footnote 2: The third General Council, that at Ephesus in 431, decreed

"that it should not be lawful for any man to publish or compose

another Faith or Creed than that which was defined by the Nicene

Council."

Ed.]

* * * * *

NOTES ON WATERLAND'S VINDICATION OF CHRIST'S DIVINITY. [1]

'In initio'.

It would be no easy matter to find a tolerably competent individual who

more venerates the writings of Waterland than I do, and long have done.

But still in how many pages do I not see reason to regret, that the

total idea of the 4=3=1,--of the adorable Tetractys, eternally

self-manifested in the Triad, Father, Son, and Spirit,--was never in its

cloudless unity present to him. Hence both he and Bishop Bull too often

treat it as a peculiarity of positive religion, which is to be cleared

of all contradiction to reason, and then, thus negatively qualified, to

be actually received by an act of the mere will; 'sit pro ratione

voluntas'. Now, on the other hand, I affirm, that the article of the

Trinity is religion, is reason, and its universal 'formula'; and that

there neither is, nor can be, any religion, any reason, but what is, or

is an expansion of the truth of the Trinity; in short, that all other

pretended religions, pagan or 'pseudo'-Christian (for example,

Sabellian, Arian, Socinian), are in themselves Atheism; though God

forbid, that I should call or even think the men so denominated

Atheists. I affirm a heresy often, but never dare denounce the holder a

heretic.

On this ground only can it be made comprehensible, how any honest and

commonly intelligent man can withstand the proofs and sound logic of

Bull and Waterland, that they failed in the first place to present the

idea itself of the great doctrine which they so ably advocated. Take my

self, S.T.C. as a humble instance. I was never so befooled as to think

that the author of the fourth Gospel, or that St. Paul, ever taught the

Priestleyan Psilanthropism, or that Unitarianisn (presumptuously, nay,

absurdly so called), was the doctrine of the New Testament generally.

But during the sixteen months of my aberration from the Catholic Faith,

I presumed that the tenets of the divinity of Christ, the Redemption,

and the like, were irrational, and that what was contradictory to reason

could not have been revealed by the Supreme Reason. As soon as I

discovered that these doctrines were not only consistent with reason,

but themselves very reason, I returned at once to the literal

interpretation of the Scriptures, and to the Faith.

As to Dr. Samuel Clarke, the fact is, every generation has its one or

more over-rated men. Clarke was such in the reign of George I.; Dr.

Johnson eminently so in that of George III.; Lord Byron being the star

now in the ascendant.

In every religious and moral use of the word, God, taken absolutely,

that is, not as a God, or the God, but as God, a relativity, a

distinction in kind 'ab omni quod non est Deus', is so essentially

implied, that it is a matter of perfect indifference, whether we assert

a world without God, or make God the world. The one is as truly Atheism

as the other. In fact, for all moral and practical purposes they are the

same position differently expressed; for whether I say, God is the

world, or the world is God, the inevitable conclusion, the sense and

import is, that there is no other God than the world, that is, there is

no other meaning to the term God. Whatever you may mean by, or choose to

believe of, the world, that and that alone you mean by, and believe of,

God. Now I very much question whether in any other sense Atheism, that

is, speculative Atheism, is possible. For even in the Lucretian, the

coarsest and crudest scheme of the Epicurean doctrine, a hylozism, a

potential life, is clearly implied, as also in the celebrated 'lene

clinamen' becoming actual. Desperadoes articulating breath into a

blasphemy of nonsense, to which they themselves attach no connected

meaning, and the wickedness of which is alone intelligible, there may

be; but a La Place, or a La Grand, would, and with justice, resent and

repel the imputation of a belief in chance, or of a denial of law,

order, and self-balancing life and power in the world. Their error is,

that they make them the proper and underived attributes of the world. It

follows then, that Pantheism is equivalent to Atheism, and that there is

no other Atheism actually existing, or speculatively conceivable, but

Pantheism. Now I hold it demonstrable that a consistent Socinianism,

following its own consequences, must come to Pantheism, and in ungodding

the Saviour must deify cats and dogs, fleas and frogs. There is, there

can be, no 'medium' between the Catholic Faith of Trinal Unity, and

Atheism disguised in the self-contradicting term, Pantheism;--for every

thing God, and no God, are identical positions.

Query I. p. 1.

'The Word was God'.--John i. 1. 'I am the Lord, and there is none

else; there is no God besides me'.--Is. xiv. 5, &c.

In all these texts the 'was', or 'is', ought to be rendered positively,

or objectively, and not as a mere connective: 'The Word Is God', and

saith, 'I Am the Lord; there is no God besides me', the Supreme Being,

'Deitas objectiva'. The Father saith, 'I Am in that I am,--Deitas

subjectiva'.

Ib. p. 2.

Whether all other beings, besides the one Supreme God, be not excluded

by the texts of Isaiah (to which many more might be added), and

consequently, whether Christ can be God at all, unless He be the same

with the Supreme God?

The sum of your answer to this query is, that the texts cited from

Isaiah, are spoken of one Person only, the Person of the Father, &c.

O most unhappy mistranslation of 'Hypostasis' by Person! The Word is

properly the only Person.

Ib. p. 3.

Now, upon your hypothesis, we must add; that even the Son of God

himself, however divine he may be thought, is really no God at all in

any just and proper sense. He is no more than a nominal God, and

stands excluded with the rest. All worship of him, and reliance upon

him, will be idolatry, as much as the worship of angels, or men, or of

the gods of the heathen would be. God the Father he is God, and he

only, and 'him only shall thou serve'. This I take to be a clear

consequence from your principles, and unavoidable.

Waterland's argument is absolutely unanswerable by a worshipper of

Christ. The modern 'ultra'-Socinian cuts the knot.

Query II. p. 43.

And therefore he might as justly bear the style and title of 'Lord

God, God of Abraham', &c. while he acted in that capacity, as he did

that of 'Mediator, Messiah, Son of the Father', &c. after that he

condescended to act in another, and to discover his personal relation.

And why, then, did not Dr. Waterland,--why did not his great

predecessor in this glorious controversy, Bishop Bull,--contend for a

revisal of our established version of the Bible, but especially of the

New Testament? Either the unanimous belief and testimony of the first

five or six centuries, grounded on the reiterated declarations of John

and Paul, and the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, were erroneous,

or at best doubtful;--and then why not wipe them off; why these

references to them?--or else they were, as I believe, and both Bull and

Waterland believed, the very truth; and then why continue the

translation of the Hebrew into English at second-hand through the

'medium' of the Septuagint? Have we not adopted the Hebrew word,

Jehovah,? Is not the [Greek: Kyrios], or Lord, of the LXX. a Greek

substitute, in countless instances, for the Hebrew Jehovah? Why not then

restore the original word, and in the Old Testament religiously render

Jehovah by Jehovah, and every text of the New Testament, referring to

the Old, by the Hebrew word in the text referred to? Had this been done,

Socinianism would have been scarcely possible in England.

Why was not this done?--I will tell you why. Because that great truth,

in which are contained all treasures of all possible knowledge, was

still opaque even to Bull and Waterland;--because the Idea itself--that

'Idea Idearum', the one substrative truth which is the form, manner, and

involvent of all truths,--was never present to either of them in its

entireness, unity, and transparency. They most ably vindicated the

doctrine of the Trinity, negatively, against the charge of positive

irrationality. With equal ability they shewed the contradictions, nay,

the absurdities, involved in the rejection of the same by a professed

Christian. They demonstrated the utterly un-Scriptural and

contra-Scriptural nature of Arianism, and Sabellianism, and Socinianism.

But the self-evidence of the great Truth, as a universal of the

reason,--as the reason itself--as a light which revealed itself by its

own essence as light--this they had not had vouchsafed to them.

Query XV. p. 225-6.

The pretence is, that we equivocate in talking of eternal generation.

All generation is necessarily [Greek: ánarchón ti], without dividuous

beginning, and herein contradistinguished from creation.

Ib. p. 226.

True, it is not the same with human generation.

Not the same 'eodem modo', certainly; but it is so essentially the same

that the generation of the Son of God is the transcendent, which gives

to human generation its right to be so called. It is in the most proper,

that is, the fontal, sense of the term, generation.

Ib.

You have not proved that all generation implies beginning; and what is

more, cannot.

It would be difficult to disprove the contrary. Generation with a

beginning is not generation, but creation. Hence we may see how

necessary it is that in all important controversies we should predefine

the terms negatively, that is, exclude and preclude all that is not

meant by them; and then the positive meaning, that is, what is meant by

them, will be the easy result,--the post-definition, which is at once

the real definition and impletion, the circumference and the area.

Ib. p. 227-8.

It is a usual thing with many, (moralists may account for it), when

they meet with a difficulty which they cannot readily answer,

immediately to conclude that the doctrine is false, and to run

directly into the opposite persuasion;--not considering that they may

meet with much more weighty objections there than before; or that they

may have reason sufficient to maintain and believe many things in

philosophy and divinity, though they cannot answer every question

which may be started, or every difficulty which may be raised against

them.

O, if Bull and Waterland had been first philosophers, and then divines,

instead of being first, manacled, or say articled clerks of a guild;--if

the clear free intuition of the truth had led them to the Article, and

not the Article to the defence of it as not having been proved to be

false,--how different would have been the result! Now we feel only the

inconsistency of Arianism, not the truth of the doctrine attacked.

Arianism is confuted, and in such a manner, that I will not reject the

Catholic Faith upon the Arian's grounds. It may, I allow, be still true.

But that it is true, because the Arians have hitherto failed to prove

its falsehood, is no logical conclusion. The Unitarian may have better

luck; or if he fail, the Deist.

Query XVI. p. 234.

But God's 'thoughts are not our thoughts'.

That is, as I would interpret the text;--the ideas in and by which God

reveals himself to man are not the same with, and are not to be judged

by, the conceptions which the human understanding generalizes from the

notices of the senses, common to man and to irrational animals, dogs,

elephants, beavers, and the like, endowed with the same senses.

Therefore I regard this paragraph, p. 223-4, as a specimen of admirable

special pleading 'ad hominem' in the Court of eristic Logic; but I

condemn it as a wilful resignation or temporary self-deposition of the

reason. I will not suppose what my reason declares to be no position at

all, and therefore an impossible sub-position.

Ib. p. 235.

Let us keep to the terms we began with; lest by the changing of words

we make a change of ideas, and alter the very state of the question.

This misuse, or rather this 'omnium-gatherum' expansion and consequent

extenuation of the word, Idea and Ideas, may be regarded as a calamity

inflicted by Mr. Locke on the reigns of William III. Queen Anne, and the

first two Georges.

Ib. p. 237.

Sacrifice was one instance of worship required under the Law; and it

is said;--'He that sacrificeth unto any God, save unto the Lord only,

he shall be utterly destroyed' (Exod. xxii. 20.) Now suppose any

person, considering with himself that only absolute and sovereign

sacrifice was appropriated to God by this law, should have gone and

sacrificed to other Gods, and have been convicted of it before the

judges. The apology he must have made for it, I suppose, must have run

thus: "Gentlemen, though I have sacrificed to other Gods, yet I hope

you'll observe, that I did it not absolutely: I meant not any absolute

or supreme sacrifice (which is all that the Law forbids), but relative

and inferior only. I regulated my intentions with all imaginable care,

and my esteem with the most critical exactness. I considered the other

Gods, whom I sacrificed to, as inferior only and infinitely so;

reserving all sovereign sacrifice to the supreme God of Israel." This,

or the like apology must, I presume, have brought off the criminal

with some applause for his acuteness, if your principles be true.

Either you must allow this, or you must be content to say, that not

only absolute supreme sacrifice (if there be any sense in that

phrase), but all sacrifice was by the Law appropriate to God only, &c.

&c.

How was it possible for an Arian to answer this? But it was impossible;

and Arianism was extinguished by Waterland, but in order to the increase

of Socinianism; and this, I doubt not, Waterland foresaw. He was too

wise a man to suppose that the exposure of the folly and falsehood of

one form of Infidelism would cure or prevent Infidelity. Enough, that he

made it more bare-faced--I might say, bare-breeched; for modern

Unitarianism is verily the 'sans-culotterie' of religion.

Ib. p. 239.

You imagine that acts of religious worship are to derive their

signification and quality from the intention and meaning of the

worshippers: whereas the very reverse of it is the truth.

Truly excellent. Let the Church of England praise God for her Saints--a

more glorious Kalendar than Rome can show!

Ib. p. 251.

The sum then of the case is this: If the Son could be included as

being uncreated, and very God; as Creator, Sustainer, Preserver of all

things, and one with the Father; then he might be worshipped upon

their (the Ante-Nicene Fathers') principles, but otherwise could not.

Every where in this invaluable writer I have to regret the absence of

all distinct idea of the I Am as the proper attribute of the Father; and

hence, the ignorance of the proper Jehovaism of the Son; and hence, that

while we worship the Son together with the Father, we nevertheless pray

to the Father only through the Son.

Query XVII.

And we may never be able perfectly to comprehend the relations of the

three persons, 'ad intra', amongst themselves; the ineffable order and

economy of the ever-blessed co-eternal Trinity.

"Comprehend!" No. For how can any spiritual truth be comprehended? Who

can comprehend his own will; or his own personeity, that is, his I-ship

(Ichheit'); or his own mind, that is, his person; or his own life? But

we can distinctly apprehend them. In strictness, the Idea, God, like all

other ideas rightly so called, and as contradistinguished from

conception, is not so properly above, as alien from, comprehension. It

is like smelling a sound.

Query XVIII. p. 269.

From what hath been observed, it may appear sufficiently that the

divine [Greek: Lógos] was our King and our God long before; that he

had the same claim and title to religious worship that the Father

himself had--'only not so distinctly revealed'.

Here I differ 'toto orbe' from Waterland, and say with Luther and

Zinzendorf, that before the Baptism of John the 'Logos' alone had been

distinctly revealed, and that first in Christ he declared himself a Son,

namely, the co-eternal only-begotten Son, and thus revealed the Father.

Indeed the want of the Idea of the 1=3 could alone have prevented

Waterland from inferring this from his own query II. and the texts cited

by him pp. 28-38. The Father cannot be revealed except in and through

the Son, his eternal 'exegesis'. The contrary position is an absurdity.

The Supreme Will, indeed, the Absolute Good, knoweth himself as the

Father: but the act of self-affirmation, the I Am in that I Am, is not a

manifestation 'ad extra', not an 'exegesis'.

Ib. p. 274.

This point being settled, I might allow you that, in some sense,

distinct worship commenced with the distinct title of Son or Redeemer:

that is, our blessed Lord was then first worshipped, or commanded to

be worshipped by us, under that distinct title or character; having

before had no other title or character peculiar and proper to himself,

but only what was common to the Father and him too.

Rather shall I say that the Son and the Spirit, the Word and the Wisdom,

were alone worshipped, because alone revealed under the Law. See

Proverbs, i. ii.

The passage quoted from Bishop Bull is very plausible and very eloquent;

but only 'cum multis granis salis sumend'.

Query XIX. p. 279.

That the Father, whose honour had been sufficiently secured under the

Jewish dispensation, and could not but be so under the Christian also,

&c.

Here again! This contradiction of Waterland to his own principles is

continually recurring;--yea, and in one place he involves the very

Tritheism, of which he was so victorious an antagonist, namely, that the

Father is Jehovah, the Son Jehovah, and the Spirit Jehovah;--thus making

Jehovah either a mere synonyme of God--whereas he himself rightly

renders it [Greek: Ho Ôn], which St. John every where, and St. Paul no

less, makes the peculiar name of the Son, [Greek: monogenàes uhiòs, ho

ôn eis tòn kólpon tou patrós]--; or he affirms the same absurdity, as if

had said: The Father is the Son, and the Son is the Son, and the Holy

Ghost is the Son, and yet there are not three Sons but one Son. N. B.

[Greek: Ho òn] is the verbal noun of [Greek: hos esti], not of [Greek:

egô eimí]. It is strange how little use has been made of that profound

and most pregnant text, 'John' i. 18!

Query XX. p. 302.

The [Greek: homooúsion] itself might have been spared, at least out of

the Creeds, had not a fraudulent abuse of good words brought matters

to that pass, that the Catholic Faith was in danger of being lost even

under Catholic language.

Most assuredly the very 'disputable' rendering of [Greek: homoousion] by

consubstantial, or of one substance with, not only might have been

spared, but should have been superseded. Why not--as is felt to be for

the interest of science in all the physical sciences--retain the same

term in all languages? Why not 'usia' and homoüsial, as well as

'hypostasis', hypostatic, homogeneous, heterogeneous, and the like;--or

as Baptism, Eucharist, Liturgy, Epiphany and the rest?

Query XXI. p. 303.

The Doctor's insinuating from the 300 texts, which style the Father

God absolutely, or the one God, that the Son is not strictly and

essentially God, not one God with the Father, is a strained and remote

inference of his own.

Waterland has weakened his argument by seeming to admit that in all

these 300 texts the Father, 'distinctive', is meant.

Ib. p. 316-17.

The simplicity of God is another mystery. * * When we come to inquire

whether all extension, or all plurality, diversity, composition of

substance and accident, and the like, be consistent with it, then it

is we discover how confused and inadequate our ideas are. * * To this

head belongs that perplexing question (beset with difficulties on all

sides), whether the divine substance be extended or no.

Surely, the far larger part of these assumed difficulties rests on a

misapplication either of the senses to the sense, or of the sense to the

understanding, or of the understanding to the reason;--in short, on an

asking for images where only theorems can be, or requiring theorems for

thoughts, that is, conceptions or notions, or lastly, conceptions for

ideas.

Query XXIII. p. 351.

But taking advantage of the ambiguity of the word 'hypostasis',

sometimes used to signify substance, and sometimes person, you

contrive a fallacy.

And why did not Waterland lift up his voice against this mischievous

abuse of the term 'hypostasis', and the perversion of its Latin

rendering, 'substantia' as being equivalent to [Greek: ousía]? Why

[Greek: ousía] should not have been rendered by 'essentia', I cannot

conceive. 'Est' seems a contraction of 'esset', and 'ens' of 'essens':

[Greek: ôn, ousa, ousía] = 'essens, essentis, essentia'.

Ib. p. 354.

Let me desire you not to give so great a loose to your fancy in divine

things: you seem to consider every thing under the notion of extension

and sensible images.

Very true. The whole delusion of the Anti-Trinitarians arises out of

this, that they apply the property of imaginable matter--in which A. is,

that is, can only be imagined, by exclusion of B. as the universal

predicate of all substantial being.

Ib. p. 357.

And our English Unitarians * * have been still refining upon the

Socinian scheme, * * and have brought it still nearer to Sabellianism.

The Sabellian and the Unitarian seem to differ only in this;--that what

the Sabellian calls union with, the Unitarian calls full inspiration by,

the Divinity.

Ib. p. 359.

It is obvious, at first sight, that the true Arian or Semi-Arian

scheme (which you would be thought to come up to at least) can never

tolerably support itself without taking in the Catholic principle of a

human soul to join with the Word.

Here comes one of the consequences of the Cartesian Dualism: as if

[Greek: sàrx], the living body, could be or exist without a soul, or a

human living body without a human soul! [Greek: Sàrx] is not Greek for

carrion, nor [Greek: sôma] for carcase.

Query XXIV. p. 371.

Necessary existence is an essential character, and belongs equally to

Father and Son.

Subsistent in themselves are Father, Son and Spirit: the Father only has

origin in himself.

Query XXVI. p. 412.

The words [Greek: ouch hôs genómenon] he construes thus: "not as

eternally generated," as if he had read [Greek: gennômenon], supplying

[Greek: aïdíôs] by imagination. The sense and meaning of the word

[Greek: genómenon], signifying made, or created, is so fixed and

certain in this author, &c.

This is but one of fifty instances in which the true Englishing of

[Greek: genómenos, egéneto], &c. would have prevented all mistake. It is

not 'made', but 'became'. Thus here:--begotten eternally, and not as one

that became; that is, as not having been before. The only-begotten Son

never 'became'; but all things 'became' through him.

Ib. 412.

'Et nos etiam Sermoni atque Rationi, itemque Virtuti, per quæ omnia

molitum Deum ediximus, propriam substantiam Spiritum inscribimus; cui

et Sermo insit prænuntianti, et Ratio adsit disponenti, et Virtus

perficienti. Hunc ex Deo prolatum didicimus, et prolatione generatum,

et idcirco Filium Dei et Deum dictum ex unitate substantiæ'.--Tertull.

Apol. c. 21.

How strange and crude the realism of the Christian Faith appears in

Tertullian's rugged Latin!

Ib. p. 414.

He represents Tertullian as making the Son, in his highest capacity,

ignorant of the day of judgment.

Of the true sense of the text, Mark xiii. 32., I still remain in doubt;

but, though as zealous and stedfast a Homoüsian as Bull and Waterland

themselves, I am inclined to understand it of the Son in his highest

capacity; but I would avoid the inferiorizing consequences by a stricter

rendering of the [Greek: ei màe ho Patáer]. The [Greek: monon] of St.

Matthew xxiv. 36. is here omitted. I think Waterland's a very

unsatisfying solution of this text.

Ib. p. 415.

'Exclamans quod se Deus reliquisset, &c. Habes ipsum exclamantem in

passione, Deus meus, Deus meus, ut quid me dereliquisti? Sed hæc vox

carnis et animæ, id est, hominis; nec Sermonis, nec Spiritus',

&c.--Tertull. Adv. Prax. c. 26. c. 30.

The ignorance of the Fathers, and, Origen excepted, of the Ante-Nicene

Fathers in particular, in all that respects Hebrew learning and the New

Testament references to the Old Testament, is shown in this so early

fantastic misinterpretation grounded on the fact of our Lord's

reminding, and as it were giving out aloud to John and Mary the

twenty-second Psalm, the prediction of his present sufferings and after

glory. But the entire passage in Tertullian, though no proof of his

Arianism, is full of proofs of his want of insight into the true sense

of the Scripture texts. Indeed without detracting from the inestimable

services of the Fathers from Tertullian to Augustine respecting the

fundamental article of the Christian Faith, yet commencing from the

fifth century, I dare claim for the Reformed Church of England the

honorable name of [Greek: archaspistàes] of Trinitarianism, and the

foremost rank among the Churches, Roman or Protestant: the learned

Romanist divines themselves admit this, and make a merit of the

reluctance with which they nevertheless admit it, in respect of Bishop

Bull. [2]

Ib. p. 421.

It seems to me that if there be not reasons of conscience obliging a

good man to speak out, there are always reasons of prudence which

should make a wise man hold his tongue.

True, and as happily expressed. To this, however, the honest

Anti-Trinitarian must come at last: "Well, well, I admit that John and

Paul thought differently; but this remains my opinion."

Query XXVII. p. 427.

[Greek: Ton alaethinòn kaì óntôs ónta Theòn, tòn tou Christou patéra].

--Athanas. Cont. Gent.

The just and literal rendering of the passage is this: 'The true God

who in reality is such, namely, the Father of Christ.'

The passage admits of a somewhat different interpretation from this of

Waterland's, and of equal, if not greater, force against the Arian

notion: namely, taking [Greek: tòn óntôs ónta] distinctively from

[Greek: ho ôn]--the 'Ens omnis entitatis, etiam suæ', that is, the I Am

the Father, in distinction from the 'Ens Supremum', the Son. It cannot,

however, be denied that in changing the 'formula' of the 'Tetractys'

into the 'Trias', by merging the 'Prothesis' in the 'Thesis', the

Identity in the Ipseity, the Christian Fathers subjected their

exposition to many inconveniences.

Ib. p. 432.

[Greek: Ouch ho poiaetàes tôn hólôn éstai Theòs ho tô Môsei eipôn

autòn einai Theòn Abraàm, kaì Theòn Isaàk, kaì Theòn Iakôb].--Justin

Mart. Dial. p. 180.

The meaning is, that that divine Person, who called himself God, and

was God, was not the Person of the Father, whose ordinary character is

that of maker of all things, but another divine Person, namely, God

the Son. * * It was Justin's business to shew that there was a divine

Person, one who was God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and was not the

Father; and therefore there were two divine Persons.

At all events, it was a very incautious expression on the part of

Justin, though his meaning was, doubtless, that which Waterland gives.

The same most improper, or at best, most inconvenient because equivocal

phrase, has been, as I think, interpolated into our Apostles' Creed.

Ib. p. 436.

[Greek: Taeroito d' àn, hôs ho emòs lógos, ehis mèn Theòs, eis hèn

aítion kaì Ghiou kaì Pneúmatos anapheroménôn. k.t.l.]--Greg. Naz.

Orat. 29.

We may, as I conceive, preserve (the doctrine of) one God, by

referring both the Son and Holy Ghost to one cause, &c.

Another instance of the inconvenience of the Trias compared with the

Tetractys.

[Footnote 1: A Vindication of Christ's Divinity: being a defence of some

queries relating to Dr. Clarke's scheme of the Holy Trinity, &c. By

Daniel Waterland. 2nd edit. Cambridge, 1719. Ed.]

[Footnote 2:

'Y sino ahí está el Doctor Jorge Bull Profesor de Teología, y

Presbitero de la Iglesia Anglicana, que murió Obispo de San David el

año de 1716, cuyas obras teologico--escolasticas, en folio, nada deben

á las mas alambicadas que se han estampado en Salamanca y en Coimbra;

y como los puntos que por la mayor parte trató en ellas son sobre los

misterios capitales de nuestra Santa Fé, conviene á saber, sobre el

misterio de la Trinidad, y sobre el de la Divinidad de Cristo, en los

cuales su Pseudaiglesia Anglicana no se desvia de la Catolica, en

verdad, que los manejó con tanto nervio y con tanta delicadeza, que

los teologos ortodojos mas escolastizados, como si dijéramos

electrizados, hacen grande estimacion de dichas obras. Y aun en los

dos Tratados que escribió acerca de la Justification, que es punto mas

resvaladizo, en los principios que abrazó, no se separó de los

teologos Catolicos; pero en algunas consecuencias que infirio, ya dió

bastantemente á entender la mala leche que habia mamado.'

Fray. Gerundio. ii. 7. Ed.]

* * * * *

NOTES ON WATERLAND'S IMPORTANCE OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY TRINITY.[1]

Chap. I. p. 18.

It is the property of the Divine Being to be unsearchable; and if he

were not so, he would not be divine. Must we therefore reject the most

certain truths concerning the Deity, only because they are

incomprehensible, &c.?

It is strange that so sound, so admirable a logician as Waterland,

should have thought 'unsearchable' and 'incomprehensible' synonymous, or

at least equivalent terms:--and this, though St. Paul hath made it the

privilege of the full-grown Christian, 'to search out the deep things of

God himself'.

Chap. IV. p. 111.

'The delivering over unto Satan' seems to have been a form of

excommunication, declaring the person reduced to the state of a

heathen; and in the Apostolical age it was accompanied with

supernatural or miraculous effects upon the bodies of the persons so

delivered.

Unless the passage, ('Acts' v. 1-11.) be an authority, I must doubt the

truth of this assertion, as tending to destroy the essential

spirituality of Christian motives, and, in my judgment, as

irreconcilable with our Lord's declaration, that his kingdom was 'not of

this world'. Let me be once convinced that St. Paul, with the elders of

an Apostolic Church, knowingly and intentionally appended a palsy or a

consumption to the sentence of excommunication, and I shall be obliged

to reconsider my old opinion as to the anti-Christian principle of the

Romish Inquisition.

Ib. p. 114.

'A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition,

reject; knowing that he that is such, is subverted, and sinneth, being

condemned of himself'.--Tit. iii. 10, 11.

This text would be among my minor arguments for doubting the Paulinity

of the Epistle to Titus. It seems to me to breathe the spirit of a later

age, and a more established Church power.

Ib.

Not every one that mistakes in judgment, though in matters of great

importance, in points fundamental, but he that openly espouses such

fundamental error. * * Dr. Whitby adds to the definition, the

espousing it out of disgust, pride, envy, or some worldly principle,

and against his conscience.

Whitby went too far; Waterland not far enough. Every schismatic is not

necessarily a heretic; but every heretic is virtually a schismatic. As

to the meaning of [Greek: autokatákritos], Waterland surely makes too

much of a very plain matter. What was the sentence passed on a heretic?

A public declaration that he was no longer a member of--that is, of one

faith with--the Church. This the man himself, after two public notices,

admits and involves in the very act of persisting. However confident as

to the truth of the doctrine he has set up, he cannot, after two public

admonitions, be ignorant that it is a doctrine contrary to the articles

of his communion with the Church that has admitted him; and in regard of

his alienation from that communion, he is necessarily [Greek:

autokatákritos],--though in his pride of heart he might say with the man

of old, "And I banish you."

Ib. p. 123.

--as soon as the miraculous gifts, or gift of discerning spirits,

ceased.

No one point in the New Testament perplexes me so much as these (so

called) miraculous gifts. I feel a moral repugnance to the reduction of

them to natural and acquired talents, ennobled and made energic by the

life and convergency of faith;--and yet on no other scheme can I

reconcile them with the idea of Christianity, or the particular

supposed, with the general known, facts. But, thank God! it is a

question which does not in the least degree affect our faith or

practice. I mean, if God permit, to go through the Middletonian

controversy, as soon as I can procure the loan of the books, or have

health enough to become a reader in the British Museum.

Ib. p. 126.

And what if, after all, spiritual censures (for of such only I am

speaking,) should happen to fall upon such a person, he may be in some

measure hurt in his reputation by it, and that is all. And possibly

hereupon his errors, before invincible through ignorance, may be

removed by wholesome instruction and admonition, and so he is

befriended in it, &c.

Waterland is quite in the right so far;--but the penal laws, the

temporal inflictions--would he have called for the repeal of these?

Milton saw this subject with a mastering eye,--saw that the awful power

of excommunication was degraded and weakened even to impotence by any

the least connection with the law of the State.

Ib. p. 127.

--who are hereby forbidden to receive such heretics into their houses,

or to pay them so much as common civilities. This precept of the

Apostle may he further illustrated by his own practice, recorded by

Irenaeus, who had the information at second-hand from Polycarp, a

disciple of St. John's, that St. John, once meeting with Cerinthus at

the bath, retired instantly without bathing, for fear lest the bath

should fall by reason of Cerinthus being there, the enemy to truth.

Psha! The 'bidding him God speed',--[Greek: légôn autô chaírein],--(2

'John', 11,) is a spirituality, not a mere civility. If St. John knew or

suspected that Cerinthus had a cutaneous disease, there would have been

some sense in the refusal, or rather, as I correct myself, some

probability of truth in this gossip of Irenaeus.

Ib. p. 128.

They corrupted the faith of Christ, and in effect subverted the

Gospel. That was enough to render them detestable in the eyes of all

men who sincerely loved and valued sound faith.

O, no, no, not 'them!' 'Error quidem, non tamen homo errans,

abominandus': or, to pun a little, 'abhominandus'. Be bold in denouncing

the heresy, but slow and timorous in denouncing the erring brother as a

heretic. The unmistakable passions of a factionary and a schismatic, the

ostentatious display, the ambition and dishonest arts of a sect-founder,

must be superinduced on the false doctrine, before the heresy makes the

man a heretic.

Ib. p. 129.

--the doctrine of the Nicolaitans.

Were the Nicolaitans a sect, properly so called? The word is the Greek

rendering of 'the children of Balaam;' that is, men of grossly immoral

and disorderly lives.

Ib. p. 130.

For if he who 'shall break one of the least moral commandments, and

shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven',

(Mat. v. 19,) it must be a very dangerous experiment, &c.

A sad misinterpretation of our Lord's words, which from the context most

evidently had no reference to any moral, that is, universal commandment

as such, but to the national institutions of the Jewish state, as long

as that state should be in existence; that is to say, until 'the Heaven'

or the Government, and 'the Earth' or the People or the Governed, as one

'corpus politicum', or nation, had 'passed away'. Till that time,--which

was fulfilled under Titus, and more thoroughly under Hadrian,--no Jew

was relieved from his duties as a citizen and subject by his having

become a Christian. The text, together with the command implied in the

miracle of the tribute-money in the fish's mouth, might be fairly and

powerfully adduced against the Quakers, in respect of their refusal to

pay their tithes, or whatever tax they please to consider as having an

un-Christian destination. But are they excluded from the kingdom of

heaven, that is, the Christian Church? No;--but they must be regarded

as weak and injudicious members of it.

Chap. V. p. 140.

Accordingly it may be observed, how the unbelievers caress and

compliment those complying gentlemen who meet them half way, while

they are perpetually inveighing against the stiff divines, as they

call them, whom they can make no advantage of.

Lessing, an honest and frank-hearted Infidel, expresses the same

sentiment. As long as a German Protestant divine keeps himself stiff and

stedfast to the Augsburg Confession, to the full Creed of Melancthon, he

is impregnable, and may bid defiance to sceptic and philosopher. But let

him quit the citadel, and the Cossacs are upon him.

Ib. p. 187.

And therefore it is infallibly certain, as Mr. Chillingworth well

argues with respect to Christianity in general, that we ought firmly

to believe it; because wisdom and reason require that we should

believe those things which are by many degrees more credible and

probable than the contrary.

Yes, where there are but two positions, one of which must be true. When

A. is presented to my mind with probability=5, and B. with

probability=15, I must think that B. is three times more probable than

A. And yet it is very possible that a C. may be found which will

supersede both.

Chap. VI. p. 230.

The Creed of Jerusalem, preserved by Cyril, (the most ancient perhaps

of any now extant,) is very express for the divinity of God the Son,

in these words: "And in our Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son

of God; true God, begotten of the Father before all ages, by whom all

things were made" * *. [Greek: Kaì eis henà Kyrion Iaesoun Christòn,

tòn uhiòn tou Theou monogenae, tòn ek tou patròs gennaethénta, Theòn

alaethinòn, prò pántôn tôn aiônôn, di' ohu tà pánta egéneto].

I regard this, both from its antiquity and from the peculiar character

of the Church of Jerusalem, so far removed from the influence of the

Pythagoreo-Platonic sects of Paganism, as the most important and

convincing mere fact of evidence in the Trinitarian controversy.

Ib. p. 233.

--true Son of the Father, 'invisible' of invisible, &c.

How is this reconcilable with 'John' i. 18--('no one hath seen God at

any time: the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he

hath declared him',--) or with the 'express image', asserted above.

'Invisible,' I suppose, must be taken in the narrowest sense, that is,

to bodily eyes. But then the one 'invisible' would not mean the same as

the other.

Ib. p. 236.

'Symbola certe Ecclesiæ ex ipso Ecclesiæ sensu, non ex hæreticorum

cerebello, exponenda sunt'.--Bull. Judic. Eccl. v.

The truth of a Creed must be tried by the Holy Scriptures; but the sense

of the Creed by the known sentiments and inferred intention of its

compilers.

Ib. p. 238.

The very name of Father, applied in the Creed to the first Person,

intimates the relation he bears to a Son, &c.

No doubt: but the most probable solution of the apparent want of

distinctness of explication on this article, in my humble judgment,

is--that the so-called Apostles' Creed was at first the preparatory

confession of the catechumens, the admission-ticket, as it were

('symbolum ad Baptismum'), at the gate of the Church, and gradually

augmented as heresies started up. The latest of these seems to have

consisted in the doubt respecting the entire death of Jesus on the

Cross, as distinguished from suspended animation. Hence in the fifth or

sixth century the clause--"and he descended into Hades," was

inserted;--that is, the indissoluble principle of the man Jesus, was

separated from, and left, the dissoluble, and subsisted apart in

'Scheol', or the abode of separated souls;--but really meaning no more

than 'vere mortuus est'. Jesus was taken from the Cross dead in the very

same sense in which the Baptist was dead after his beheading.

Nevertheless, well adapted as this Creed was to its purposes, I cannot

but regret the high place and precedence which by means of its title,

and the fable to which that title gave rise, it has usurped. It has, as

it appears to me, indirectly favoured Arianism and Socinianism.

Ib. p. 250.

That St. John wrote his Gospel with a view to confute Cerinthus, among

other false teachers, is attested first by Irenæus, who was a

disciple of Polycarp, and who flourished within less than a century of

St. John's time.

I have little trust and no faith in the gossip and hearsay-anecdotes of

the early Fathers, Irenæus not excepted. "Within less than a century of

St. John's time." Alas! a century in the paucity of writers and of men

of education in the age succeeding the Apostolic, must be reckoned more

than equal to five centuries since the use of printing. Suppose,

however, the truth of the Irenæan tradition;--that the Creed of

Cerinthus was what Irenæus states it to have been; and that John, at the

instance of the Asiatic Bishops, wrote his Gospel as an antidote to the

Cerinthian heresy;--does there not thence arise, in his utter silence,

an almost overwhelming argument against the Apostolicity of the

'Christopædia', both that prefixed to Luke, and that concorporated with

Matthew?

Ib. p. 257.

'In him was life, and the life was the light of men'. The same Word

was life, the [Greek: logos and zôáe], both one. There was no occasion

therefore for subtilly distinguishing the Word and Life into two Sons,

as some did.

I will not deny the possibility of this interpretation. It may be,--nay,

it is,--fairly deducible from the words of the great Evangelist: but I

cannot help thinking that, taken as the primary intention, it degrades

this most divine chapter, which unites in itself the three characters of

sublime, profound, and pregnant, and alloys its universality by a

mixture of time and accident.

Ib.

'And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness cometh not upon

it.' So I render the verse, conformable to the rendering of the same

Greek verb, [Greek: katalambánô], by our translators in another place

of this same Gospel. The Apostle, as I conceive, in this 5th verse of

his 1st chapter, alludes to the prevailing error of the Gentiles, &c.

O sad, sad! How must the philosopher have been eclipsed by the shadow of

antiquarian erudition, in order that a mind like Waterland's could have

sacrificed the profound universal import of 'comprehend' to an allusion

to a worthless dream of heretical nonsense, the mushroom of the day! Had

Waterland ever thought of the relation of his own understanding to his

reason? But alas! the identification of these two diversities--of how

many errors has it been ground and occasion!

Ib. p. 259.

'And the Word was made flesh'--became personally united with the man

Jesus; 'and dwelt among us',--resided constantly in the human nature

so assumed.

Waterland himself did but dimly see the awful import of [Greek: egéneto

sàrx],--the mystery of the alien ground--and the truth, that as the

ground such must be the life. He caused himself to 'become flesh', and

therein assumed a mortal life into his own person and unity, in order

himself to transubstantiate the corruptible into the incorruptible.

Waterland's anxiety to show the anti-heretical force of St. John's

Gospel and Epistles, has caused him to overlook their Catholicity--their

applicability to all countries and all times--their truth, independently

of all temporary accidents and errors;--which Catholicity alone it is

that constitutes their claim to Canonicity, that is, to be Canonical

inspired writings.

Ib. p. 266.

Hereupon therefore the Apostle, in defence of Christ's real humanity,

says, 'This is he that came by water and blood'.

'Water and blood,' that is 'serum' and 'crassamentum', mean simply

'blood,' the blood of the animal or carnal life, which, saith Moses, 'is

the life'. Hence 'flesh' is often taken as, and indeed is a form of, the

blood,--blood formed or organized. Thus 'blood' often includes 'flesh,'

and 'flesh' includes 'blood.' 'Flesh and blood' is equivalent to blood

in its twofold form, or rather as formed and formless. 'Water and blood'

has, therefore, two meanings in St. John, but which 'in idem

coincidunt':

1. true animal human blood, and no celestial ichor or phantom:

2. the whole sentiently vital body, fixed or flowing, the pipe and the

stream.

For the ancients, and especially the Jews, had no distinct apprehension

of the use or action of the nerves: in the Old Testament 'heart' is used

as we use 'head.' 'The fool hath said in his heart'--is in English: "the

worthless fellow ('vaurien') hath taken it into his head," &c.

Ib. p. 268.

The Apostle having said that the Spirit is truth, or essential truth,

(which was giving him a title common to God the Father and to Christ,)

&c.

Is it clear that the distinct 'hypostasis' of the Holy Spirit, in the

same sense as the only-begotten Son is hypostatically distinguished from

the Father, was a truth that formed an immediate object or intention of

St. John? That it is a truth implied in, and fairly deducible from, many

texts, both in his Gospel and Epistles, I do not, indeed I cannot,

doubt;--but only whether this article of our faith he was commissioned

to declare explicitly?

It grieves me to think that such giant 'archaspistæ' of the Catholic

Faith, as Bull and Waterland, should have clung to the intruded gloss (1

'John' v. 7), which, in the opulence and continuity of the evidences, as

displayed by their own master-minds, would have been superfluous, had it

not been worse than superfluous, that is, senseless in itself, and

interruptive of the profound sense of the Apostle.

Ib. p. 272.

He is come, come in the flesh, and not merely to reside for a time, or

occasionally, and to fly off again, but to abide and dwell with man,

clothed with humanity.

Incautiously worded at best. Compare our Lord's own declaration to his

disciples, that he had dwelt a brief while 'with' or 'among' them, in

order to dwell 'in' them permanently.

Ib. p. 286.

It is very observable, that the Ebionites rejected three of the

Gospels, receiving only St. Matthew's (or what they called so), and

that curtailed. They rejected likewise all St. Paul's writings,

reproaching him as an apostate. How unlikely is it that Justin should

own such reprobates as those were for fellow-Christians!

I dare avow my belief--or rather I dare not withhold my avowal--that

both Bull and Waterland are here hunting on the trail of an old blunder

or figment, concocted by the gross ignorance of the Gentile Christians

and their Fathers in all that respected Hebrew literature and the

Palestine Christians. I persist in the belief that, though a refuse of

the persecuted and from neglect degenerating Jew-Christians may have

sunk into the mean and carnal notions of their unconverted brethren

respecting the Messiah, no proper sect of Ebionites ever existed, but

those to whom St. Paul travelled with the contributions of the churches,

nor any such man as Ebion; unless indeed it was St. Barnabas, who in his

humility may have so named himself, while soliciting relief for the

distressed Palestine Christians;--"I am Barnabas the beggar." But I will

go further, and confess my belief that the (so-called) Ebionites of the

first and second centuries, who rejected the 'Christopædia', and whose

Gospel commenced with the baptism by John, were orthodox Apostolic

Christians, who received Christ as the Lord, that is, as Jehovah

'manifested in the flesh'. As to their rejection of the other Gospels

and of Paul's writings, I might ask:--"Could they read them?" But the

whole notion seems to rest on an anachronical misconception of the

'Evangelia'. Every great mother Church, at first, had its own Gospel.

Ib. p. 288.

To say nothing here of the truer reading ("men of your nation"), there

is no consequence in the argument. The Ebionites were Christians in a

large sense, men of Christian profession, nominal Christians, as

Justin allowed the worst of heretics to be. And this is all he could

mean by allowing the Ebionites to be Christians.

I agree with Bull in holding [Greek: apò tou hymetérou génous] the most

probable reading in the passage cited from Justin, and am by no means

convinced that the celebrated passage in Josephus is an interpolation.

But I do not believe that such men, as are here described, ever

professed themselves Christians, or were, or could have been, baptized.

Ib. p. 292.

Le Clerc would appear to doubt, whether the persons pointed to in

Justin really denied Christ's divine nature or no. It is as plain as

possible that they did.

Le Clerc is no favourite of mine, and Waterland is a prime favourite.

Nevertheless, in this instance, I too doubt with Le Clerc, and more than

doubt.

Ib. p. 338.

[Greek: Phúsei dè taes phthoras prosgenoménaes, anagkaion aen hóti

sôsai Boulómenos áe tàen phthoropoiòn ousían aphanísas touto dè ouk

aen hetérôs genésthai ei máeper hae katà phúsin zôàe proseplákae tô

tàen phthoràn dexaménô, aphanizousa mèn tàen phthoràn, athanatòn dè

tou loipou tò dexamenon diataerousa. k.t.l.]--Just. M.

Here Justin asserts that it was necessary for essential life, or life

by nature, to be united with human nature, in order to save it.

Waterland has not mastered the full force of [Greek: hàe katà phúsin

zôáe]. If indeed he had taken in the full force of the whole of this

invaluable fragment, he would never have complimented the following

extract from Irenæus, as saying the same thing "in fuller and stronger

words." Compared with the fragment from Justin, it is but the flat

common-place logic of analogy, so common in the early Fathers.

Ib. p. 340.

'Qui nude tantum hominem eum dicunt ex Joseph generatum * * moriuntur.'

'Non nude hominem'--not a mere man do I hold Jesus to have been and to

be; but a perfect man and, by personal union with the Logos, perfect

God. That his having an earthly father might be requisite to his being a

perfect man I can readily suppose; but why the having an earthly father

should be more incompatible with his perfect divinity, than his having

an earthly mother, I cannot comprehend. All that John and Paul believed,

God forbid that I should not!

Chap. VII. p. 389.

It is a sufficient reason for not receiving either them ('Arian

doctrines'), or the interpretations brought to support them, that the

ancients, in the best and purest times, either knew nothing of them,

or if they did, condemned them.

As excellent means of raising a presumption in the mind of the falsehood

of Arianism and Socinianism, and thus of preparing the mind for a docile

reception of the great idea itself--I admit and value the testimonies

from the writings of the early Fathers. But alas! the increasing

dimness, ending in the final want of the idea of this all-truths-

including truth of the Tetractys eternally manifested in the Triad;

--this, this is the ground and cause of all the main heresies from

Semi-Arianism, recalled by Dr. Samuel Clarke, to the last setting ray of

departing faith in the necessitarian Psilanthropism of Dr. Priestley.

Ib. p. 41-2, &c.

I cannot but think that Waterland's defence of the Fathers in these

pages against Barbeyrac, is below his great powers and characteristic

vigour of judgment. It is enough that they, the Fathers of the first

three centuries, were the lights of their age, and worthy of all

reverence for their good gifts. But it appears to me impossible to deny

their credulity; their ignorance, with one or two exceptions, in the

interpretation of the Old Testament; or their hardihood in asserting the

truth of whatever they thought it for the interest of the Church, and

for the good of souls, to have believed as true. A whale swallowed

Jonah; but a believer in all the assertions and narrations of Tertullian

and Irenæus would be more wonder-working than Jonah; for such a one must

have swallowed whales.

[Footnote 1: The Importance of the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity

asserted, in reply to some late pamphlets. 2nd edit. Lond. 1734.]

* * * * *

NOTES ON SKELTON.[1]

1825.

Burdy's Life of Skelton, p. 22.

She lived until she was a hundred and five. The omission of his

prayers on the morning it happened, he supposed ever after to be the

cause of this unhappy accident. So early was his mind impressed with a

lively sense of religious duty.

In anecdotes of this kind, and in the instances of eminently good men,

it is that my head and heart have their most obstinate falls out. The

question is:--To what extent the undoubted subjective truth may

legitimately influence our judgment as to the possibility of the

objective.

Ib. p. 67.

The Bishop then gave him the living of Pettigo in a wild part of the

county of Donegal, having made many removals on purpose to put him in

that savage place, among mountains, rocks, and heath, * * *. When he

got this living he had been eighteen years curate of Monaghan, and two

of Newtown-Butler, during which time he saw, as he told me, many

illiterate boys put over his head, and highly preferred in the Church

without having served a cure.

Though I have heard of one or two exceptions stated in proof that

nepotism is not yet extinct among our Prelates, yet it is impossible to

compare the present condition of the Church, and the disposal of its

dignities and emoluments with the facts recorded in this Life, without

an honest exultation.

Ib. p. 106.

He once declared to me that he would resign his living, if the

Athanasian Creed were removed from the Prayer Book; and I am sure he

would have done so.

Surely there was more zeal than wisdom in this declaration. Does the

Athanasian or rather the 'pseudo'-Athanasian Creed differ from the

Nicene, or not? If not, it must be dispensable at least, if not

superfluous. If it does differ, which of the two am I to follow;--the

profession of an anonymous individual, or the solemn decision of upwards

of three hundred Bishops convened from all parts of the Christian world?

Vol. I. p. 177-180.

No problem more difficult or of more delicate treatment than the

'criteria' of miracles; yet none on which young divines are fonder of

displaying their gifts. Nor is this the worst. Their charity too often

goes to wreck from the error of identifying the faith in Christ with the

arguments by which they think it is to be supported. But surely if two

believers meet at the same goal of faith, it is a very secondary

question whether they travelled thither by the same road of argument. In

this and other passages of Skelton, I recognize and reverence a vigorous

and robust intellect; but I complain of a turbidness in his reasoning, a

huddle in his sequence, and here and there a semblance of arguing in a

circle--from the miracle to the doctrine, and from the doctrine to the

miracle. Add to this a too little advertency to the distinction between

the evidence of a miracle for A, an eye-witness, and for B, for whom it

is the relation of a miracle by an asserted eye-witness; and again

between B, and X, Y, Z, for whom it is a fact of history. The result of

my own meditations is, that the evidence of the Gospel, taken as a

total, is as great for the Christians of the nineteenth century, as for

those of the Apostolic age. I should not be startled if I were told it

was greater. But it does not follow, that this equally holds good of

each component part. An evidence of the most cogent clearness, unknown

to the primitive Christians, may compensate for the evanescence of some

evidence, which they enjoyed. Evidences comparatively dim have waxed

into noon-day splendour; and the comparative wane of others, once

effulgent, is more than indemnified by the 'synopsis' [Greek: tou

pántos], which we enjoy, and by the standing miracle of a Christendom

commensurate and almost synonymous with the civilized world. I make this

remark for the purpose of warning the divinity student against the

disposition to overstrain particular proofs, or rest the credibility of

the Gospel too exclusively on some one favourite point. I confess, that

I cannot peruse page 179 without fancying that I am reading some Romish

Doctor's work, dated from a community where miracles are the ordinary

news of the day.

P. S. By the by, the Rev. Philip Skelton is of the true Irish breed;

that is, a brave fellow, but a bit of a bully. "Arrah, by St. Pathrick!

but I shall make cold mutton of you, Misther Arian."

Ib. p. 182.

If in this he appears to deal fairly by us, proving such things as

admit of it, by reason; and such as do not, by the authority of his

miracles, &c.

Are 'we' likely to have miracles performed or pretended before our eyes?

If not, what may all this mean? If Skelton takes for granted the

veracity of the Evangelists, and the precise verity of the Gospels, the

truth and genuineness of the miracles is included:--and if not, what

does he prove? The exact accordance of the miracles related with the

ideal of a true miracle in the reason, does indeed furnish an argument

for the probable truth of the relation. But this does not seem to be

Skelton's intention.

Ib. p. 185.

But to remedy this evil, as far as the nature of the thing will

permit, a genuine record of the true religion must be kept up, that

its articles may not be in danger of total corruption in such a sink

of opinions.

Anything rather than seek a remedy in that which Scripture itself

declares the only one. Alas! these bewilderments (the Romanists urge)

have taken place especially through and by the misuse of the Scriptures.

Whatever God has given, we ought to think necessary;--the Scriptures,

the Church, the Spirit. Why disjoin them?

Ib. p. 186.

Now a perpetual miracle, considered as the evidence of any thing, is

nonsense; because were it at first ever so apparently contrary to the

known course of nature, it must in time be taken for the natural

effect of some unknown cause, as all physical 'phænomena', if far

enough traced, always are; and consequently must fall into a level, as

to a capacity of proving any thing, with the most ordinary appearances

of nature, which, though all of them miracles, as to the primary cause

of their production, can never be applied to the proof of an

inspiration, because ordinary and common.

I doubt this, though I have no doubt that it would be pernicious. The

yearly blossoming of Aaron's rod is against Skelton, who confounds

single facts with classes of 'phænomena', and he draws his conclusion

from an arbitrary and, as seems to me, senseless definition of a

miracle.

Ib. p. 214. End of Discourse II.

Skelton appears to have confounded two errors very different in kind and

in magnitude;--that of the Infidel, against whom his arguments are with

few exceptions irrefragable; and that of the Christian, who, sincerely

believing the Law, the Prophecies, the miracles and the doctrines, all

in short which in the Scriptures themselves is declared to have been

revealed, does not attribute the same immediate divinity to all and

every part of the remainder. It would doubtless be more Christian-like

to substitute the views expressed in the next Discourse (III.); but

still the latter error is not as the former.

Ib. p. 234.

But why should not the conclusion be given up, since it is possible

Christ may have had two natures in him, so as to have been less than

the Father in respect to the one, and equal to him in respect to the

other.

I understand these words ('My Father is greater than I') of the

divinity--and of the Filial subordination, which does not in the least

encroach on the equality necessary to the unity of Father, Son, and

Spirit. Bishop Bull does the same. See too Skelton's own remarks in

Discourse V. p. 265.

Ib. p. 251.

This was necessary, because their Law was ordained by angels.

Now this is an instance of what I cannot help regarding as a

superstitious excess of reverence for single texts. We know that long

before the Epistle to the Hebrews was written, the Alexandrian Church,

which by its intercourse with Greek philosophers, chiefly Platonists,

had become ashamed of the humanities of the Hebrew Scriptures, in

defiance of those Scriptures had pretended, that it was not the Supreme

Being who gave the Law in person to Moses, but some of his angels. The

author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, arguing 'ad homines', avails

himself of this, in order to prove that on their own grounds the Mosaic

was of dignity inferior to the Christian dispensation. To get rid of

this no-difficulty in a single verse or two in the Epistles, Skelton

throws an insurmountable difficulty on the whole Mosaic history.

Ib. p. 265.

Therefore, he saith, 'I' (as a man) 'can of myself do nothing'.

Even of this text I do not see the necessity of Skelton's parenthesis

(as a man). Nay it appears to me (I confess) to turn a sublime and most

instructive truth into a truism. "But if not as the Son of God,

therefore 'a fortiori' not as the Son of man, and more especially, as

such, in all that refers to the redemption of mankind."

Ib. p. 267.

To this glory Christ, as God, was entitled from all eternity; but did

not acquire a right to it as man, till he had paid the purchase by his

blood.

I too hold this for a most important truth; but yet could wish it to

have been somewhat differently expressed; as thus:--"but did not acquire

it as man till the means had been provided and perfected by his blood."

Ib. p. 268.

If Christ in one place, ('John' xiv. 28,) says, 'My Father is greater

than I'; he must be understood of his relation to the Father as his

Son, born of a woman.

I do not see the necessity of this: does not Christ say, 'My Father and

I will come and we will dwell in you?' Nay, I dare confidently affirm

that in no one passage of St. John's Gospel is our Lord declared in any

special sense the Son of the First Person of the Trinity in reference to

his birth from a woman. And remember it is from St. John's Gospel that

the words are cited. So too the answer to Philip ought to be interpreted

by ch. i. 18. of the same Gospel.

Ib. p. 276.

I confess I do not agree with Skelton's interpretation of any of these

texts entirely. Because I hold the Nicene Faith, and revere the doctrine

of the Trinity as the fundamental article of Christianity, I apply to

Christ as the Second Person, almost all the texts which Skelton explains

of his humanity. At all events 1 consider 'the first-born of every

creature' as a false version of the words, which (as the argument and

following verse prove) should be rendered 'begotten before', (or rather

'superlatively before'), 'all that was created or made; for by him' they

were made.

Ib.

'Of that day, and that hour knoweth no man, no not the angels which

are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.'

I cannot explain myself here; but I have long thought that our Saviour

meant in these words [Greek: ainíttein tàen théotaeta ahutou]--and that

like the problem proposed by him to the Scribes, they were intended to

prepare the minds of the disciples for this awful mystery--[Greek: ei

màe ho patáer]--"unless, or if not, as the Father knows it;" while in

St. Matthew the equivalent sense is given by the omission of the [Greek:

oud' ho uhíos], and its inclusion in the Father. 'As the Father knoweth

me, so know I the Father'.

It would have been against the general rule of Scripture prophecies, and

the intention of the revelation in Christ, that the first Christians

should have been so influenced in their measures and particular actions,

as they could not but have been by a particular foreknowledge of the

express and precise time at which Jerusalem was to be destroyed. To

reconcile them to this uncertainty, our Lord first teaches them to

consider this destruction the close of one great epoch, or [Greek:

aiôn], as the type of the final close of the whole world of time, that

is, of all temporal things; and then reasons with them thus:--"Wonder

not that I should leave you ignorant of the former, when even the

highest order of heavenly intelligences know not the latter, [Greek:

oud' ho uhíos, ei màe ho patáer]; nor should I myself, but that the

Father knows it, all whose will is essentially known to me as the

Eternal Son. But even to me it is not revealably communicated." Such

seems to me the true sense of this controverted passage in Mark, and

that it is borne out by many parallel texts in St. John, and that the

correspondent text in Matthew, which omits the [Greek: oud' ho huíos],

conveys the same sense in equivalent terms, the word [Greek: emou]

including the Son in the [Greek: patàer mónos]. For to his only-begotten

Son before all time the Father showeth all things.

Ib. p. 279.

But whether we can reconcile these words to our belief of Christ's

prescience and divinity, or not, matters little to the debate about

his divinity itself; since we can so fully prove it by innumerable

passages of Scripture, too direct, express, and positive, to be

balanced by one obscure passage, from 'whence the Arian is to draw the

consequence himself, which may possibly be wrong'.

Very good.

Ib. p. 280.

'We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an

understanding that we may know him that is true; and we are in him

that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and

eternal life.'--l John v. 20. The whole connection evidently shows the

words to be spoken of Christ.

That the words comprehend Christ is most evident. All that can be fairly

concluded from 1 Cor. viii. 6, is this:--that the Apostles, Paul and

John, speak of the Father as including and comprehending the Son and the

Holy Ghost, as his Word and his Spirit; but of these as inferring or

supposing the Father, not comprehending him. Whenever, therefore,

respecting the Godhead itself, containing both deity and dominion, the

term God is distinctively used, it is applied to the Father, and Lord to

the Son.

Ib. p. 281.

But, farther, it is objected that Christ cannot be God, since God

calls him 'his servant' more than once, particularly 'Isaiah' xlii. 1.

The Prophets often speak of the anti-type, or person typified, in

language appropriate to, and suggested by, the type itself. So, perhaps,

in this passage, if, as I suppose, Hezekiah was the type immediately

present to Isaiah's imagination. However, Skelton's answer is quite

sufficient.

Ib. p. 287.

Hence it appears, that in the passage objected, (1 'Cor'. xv. 24, &c.)

Christ is spoken of purely as that Man whom 'God had highly exalted,

and to whom he had given a name which is above every name, that at the

name of Jesus every knee should bow.' (Phil. ii. 9, 10.)

I must confess that this exposition does not quite satisfy me. I cannot

help thinking that something more and deeper was meant by the Apostle;

and this must be sought for in the mystery of the Trinity itself, 'in

which' (mystery) 'all treasures of knowledge are hidden'.

Ib. p. 318.

Hence, perhaps, may be best explained what St. Peter says in the

second Epistle, after pleading a miracle. 'We have also a more sure

word of prophecy, whereunto you do well that you take heed.'

I believe that St. Peter neither said it, nor meant this; but that

[Greek: Bebaióteron] follows 'the prophetic word'. We have also the word

of prophecy more firm;--that is; we have, in addition to the evidence of

the miracles themselves, this further confirmation, that they are the

fulfilment of known prophecies.

Ib. p. 327.

Agreeable to these passages of the Prophet, St. Peter tells us ('Acts'

x. 38), 'God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and

power'.

I have often to complain that too little attention is paid by

commentators to the history and particular period in which certain

speeches were delivered, or words written. Could St. Peter with

propriety have introduced the truth to a prejudiced audience with its

deepest mysteries? Must he not have begun with the most evident facts?

Ib. Disc. VIII.

The Doctrine of the Holy Trinity vindicated.

Were I a Clergyman, the paragraphs from p. 366 to p. 370, both

inclusive, of this Discourse should form the conclusion of my Sermon on

Trinity Sunday,--whether I preached at St. James's, or in a country

village.

Ib. pp. 374-378.

As a reason why we should doubt our own judgment, it is quite fair to

remind the objector, that the same difficulty occurs in the scheme of

God's ordinary providence. But that a difficulty in a supposed article

of revealed truth is solved by the occurrence of the same or of an

equivalent difficulty in the common course of human affairs--this I find

it hard to conceive. How was the religious, as distinguished from the

moral, sense first awakened? What made the human soul feel the necessity

of a faith in God, but the apparent incongruity of certain dispensations

in this world with the idea of God, with the law written in the heart?

Is not the reconciling of these facts or 'phænomena' with the divine

attributes, one of the purposes of a revealed religion? But even this is

not a full statement of the defect complained of in this solution. A

difficulty which may be only apparent (like that other of the prosperity

of the wicked) is solved by the declaration of its reality! A difficulty

grounded on the fact of temporal and outward privations and sufferings,

is solved by being infinitely increased, that is, by the assertion of

the same principle on the determination of our inward and everlasting

weal and woe. That there is nothing in the Christian Faith or in the

Canonical Scriptures, when rightly interpreted, that requires such an

argument, or sanctions the recourse to it, I believe myself to have

proved in the Aids to Reflection. For observe that "to solve" has a

scientific, and again a religious sense, and that in the latter, a

difficulty is satisfactorily solved, as soon as its insolvibility for

the human mind is proved and accounted for.

Ib. (Disc. XIV. pp. 500-502.)

Christianity proved by Miracles.

I cannot see and never could, the purpose, or 'cui bono', of this

reasoning. To whom is it addressed? To a man who denies a God, or that

God can reveal his will to mankind? If such a man be not below talking

to, he must first be convinced of his miserable blindness respecting

these truths; for these are clearly presupposed in every proof of

miracles generally.

Again, does he admit the authenticity of the Gospels, and the veracity

of the Evangelists? Does he credit the facts there related, and as

related? If not, these points must be proved; for these are clearly

presupposed in all reasoning on the particular miracles of the Christian

dispensation. If he does, can he deny that many acts of Christ were

wonderful;--that reanimating a dead body in which putrefaction had

already commenced,--and feeding four thousand men with a few loaves and

fishes, so that the fragments left greatly exceeded the original total

quantity,--were wonderful events? Should such a man, 'compos mentis',

exist, (which I more than doubt,) what could a wise man do but

stare--and leave him? Christ wrought many wonderful works, implying

admirable power, and directed to the most merciful and beneficent ends;

and these acts were such signs of his divine mission, as rendered

inattention or obstinate averseness to the truths and doctrines which he

promulgated, inexcusable, and indeed on any hypothesis but that of

immoral dispositions and prejudices, utterly inconceivable. In what

respect, I pray, can this statement be strengthened by any reasoning

about the nature and distinctive essence of miracles 'in abstracto'?

What purpose can be answered by any pretended definition of a miracle?

If I met with a disputatious word-catcher, or logomachist, who sought to

justify his unbelief on this ground, I should not hesitate to

say--"Never mind whether it is a miracle or no. Call it what you

will;--but do you believe the fact? Do you believe that Christ did by

force of his will and word multiply instantaneously twelve loaves and a

few small fishes, into sufficient food for a hungering multitude of four

thousand men and women?" When I meet with, or from credible authority

hear of, a man who believes this fact, and yet thinks it no sign of

Christ's mission; when I can even conceive of a man in his right senses

who, believing all the facts and events related in the New Testament,

and as there related, does yet remain a Deist, I may think it time to

enter into a disquisition respecting the right definition of a miracle;

and meantime, I humbly trust that believing with my whole heart and soul

in the wonderful works of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, I shall not

forfeit my title of Christian, though I should not subscribe to this or

that divine's right definition of his 'idea' of a miracle; which word is

with me no 'idea' at all, but a general term; the common surname, as it

were, of the wonderful works wrought by the messengers of God to man in

the Patriarchal, Mosaic, and Christian dispensations.

It is to these notions and general definitions, far more than to the

facts themselves, that the arguments of Infidels apply; and from which

they derive their plausibility. Nor is this all. The Infidel imitates

the divine, and adopts the same mode of arguing, namely, by this

substantiation of mere general or collective terms. For instance, Hume's

argument (stated, by the by, before he was born, and far more forcibly,

by Dr. South, who places it in the mouth of Thomas,) [2]--reduce it to

the particular facts in question, and its whole speciousness vanishes. I

am speaking of the particular facts and actions of the Gospel; of those,

and those only. Now that I should be deceived, or the eye-witnesses have

been deceived, under all the circumstances of those miracles, with all

antecedents, accompaniments, and consequents, is quite as contrary to,

that is, unparalleled in my experience, as the return to life of a dead

man.

So again in the second paragraph of page 502, [3] the position is true

or false according to the definition of a miracle. In the narrower sense

of the term, miracle,--that is, a consequent presented to the outward

senses without an adequate antecedent, ejusdem generis,--it is not only

false but detractory from the Christian religion. It is a main, nay, an

indispensable evidence; but it is not the only, no, nor if comparison be

at all allowable, the highest and most efficient; unless, indeed, the

term evidence is itself confined to grounds of conviction offered to the

senses, but then the position is a mere truism.

There is yet another way of reasoning, which I utterly dislike; namely,

by putting imaginary cases of imaginary miracles, as Paley has done. "If

a dozen different individuals, all men of known sense and integrity,

should each independently of the other pledge their everlasting weal on

the truth, that they saw a man beheaded and quartered, and that on a

certain person's prayer or bidding, the quarters reunited, and then a

new head grew on and from out of the stump of the neck: and should the

man himself assure you of the same, shew you the junctures, and identify

himself to you by some indelible mark, with which you had been

previously acquainted,--could you withstand this evidence?" What could a

judicious man reply but--"When such an event takes place, I will tell

you; but what has this to do with the reasons for our belief in the

truth of the written records of the Old and New Testament? Why do you

fly off from the facts to a gigantic fiction,--when the possibility of

the 'If' with respect to a much less startling narration is the point in

dispute between us?"

Such and so peculiar, and to an honest mind so unmistakeable, is the

character of veracity and simplicity on the very countenance, as it

were, of the Gospel, that every remove of the inquirer's attention from

the facts themselves is a remove of his conversion. It is your business

to keep him from wandering, not to set him the example.

Never, surely, was there a more unequal writer than Skelton;--in the

discourses on the Trinity, the compeer of Bull and Waterland; and yet

the writer of these pages, 500-501! Natural magic! a stroke of art! for

example, converting the Nile into blood! And then his definition of a

miracle. Suspension of the laws of nature! suspension--laws--nature!

Bless me! a chapter would be required for the explanation of each

several word of this definition, and little less than omniscience for

its application in any one instance. An effect presented to the senses

without any adequate antecedent, 'ejusdem generis', is a miracle in the

philosophic sense. Thus: the corporeal ponderable hand and arm raised

with no other known causative antecedent, but a thought, a pure act of

an immaterial essentially invisible imponderable will, is a miracle for

a reflecting mind. Add the words, 'præter experientiam': and we have the

definition of a miracle in the popular, practical, and appropriated

sense.

Vol. III.

That all our thoughts and views respecting our Faith should be

consistent with each other, and with the attributes of God, is most

highly desirable: but when the great diversities of men's

understandings, and the unavoidable influence of circumstances on the

mind, are considered, we may hope from the Divine mercy, that the

agreement in the result will suffice; and that he who sincerely and

efficiently believes that Christ left the glory which he had with the

Father before all worlds, to become man and die for our salvation,--that

by him we may, and by him alone we can, be saved,--will be held a true

believer,--whether he interprets the words 'sacrifice,' 'purchase,'

'bargain,' 'satisfaction,' of the creditor by full payment of the

'debt,' and the like as proper and literal expressions of the redeeming

act and the cause of our salvation, as Skelton seems to have done;--or

(as I do) as figurative language truly designating the effects and

consequences of this adorable act and process.

Ib. p. 393.

But were the prospect of a better parish, in case of greater

diligence, set before him by his Bishop, on the music of such a

promise, like one bit by a 'tarantula', we should probably soon see

him in motion, and serving God, (O shameful!) for the sake of Mammon,

as if his torpid body had been animated anew by a returning soul.

Without any high-flying in Christian morality, I cannot keep shrinking

from the wish here expressed; at all events, I cannot sympathize with,

or participate in, the expectation of "an infinite advancement" from men

so motived.

Ib. p. 394.

Yet excommunication, the inherent discipline of the Church, which it

exercised under persecution, which it is still permitted to exercise

under the present establishment.

Rarely I suspect, without exposing the Clergyman to the risk of an

action for damages, or some abuse. There are few subjects that more need

investigation, yet require more vigour and soundness of judgment to be

rightly handled, than this of Christian discipline in a Church

established by law. It is indeed a most difficult and delicate problem,

and supplied Baxter with a most plausible and to me the only perplexing

of his numerous objections to our Ecclesiastical Constitution. On the

other hand, I saw clearly that he was requiring an impossibility; and

that his argument carried on to its proper consequences concluded

against all Church Establishment, not more against the National Church

of which he complained, than the one of his own clipping and shaping

which he would have substituted; consequently, every proof (and I saw

many and satisfactory proofs) of the moral and political necessity of an

Established Church, was at the same time a pledge that a deeper insight

would detect some flaw in the reasoning of the Disciplinarians. For if

A. be right and requisite, B., which is incompatible with A., cannot be

rightly required. And this it was, that first led me to the distinction

between the 'Ecclesia' and an 'Enclesia', concerning which see my Essay

on Establishment and Dissent, in which I have met the objection to my

position, that Christian discipline is incompatible with a Church

established by law, from the fact of the discipline of the Church of

Scotland. [4] Who denies that it is in the power of a legislature to

punish certain offences by ignominy, and to make the clergy magistrates

in reference to these? The question is, whether it is wise or expedient,

which it may be, or rather may have been, in Scotland, and the contrary

in England? Wise or unwise, this is not discipline, not Christian

discipline, enforced only by spiritual motives, enacted by spiritual

authority, and submitted to for conscience' sake.

Ib. p. 446.

Be this as it may, the foreknowledge and the decree were both eternal.

Here now it is a clear point that the moral actions of all accountable

agents were, with certainty, fore-known, and their doom unalterably

fixed, long before any one of them existed.

Strange that so great a man as Skelton should first affirm eternity of

both, yet in the next sentence talk of "long before." These Reflections

[5] are excellent, but here Skelton offends against his own canons. I

should feel no reluctance, moral or speculative, in accepting the

apparent necessity of both propositions, as a sufficient reason for

believing both; and the transcendancy of the subject as a sufficient

solution of their apparent incompatibility. But yet I think that another

view of the subject, not less congruous with universal reason and more

agreeable to the light of reason in the human understanding, might be

defended, without detracting from any perfection of the Divine Being.

Nay, I think that Skelton needed but one step more to have seen it.

Ib. p. 478.

'In fine.'

To what purpose were these Reflections, taken as a whole, written? I

cannot answer. To dissuade men from reasoning on a subject beyond our

faculties? Then why all this reasoning?

Vol. IV. p. 28. Deism Revealed.

'Shepherd'. Were you ever at Constantinople, Sir?

'Dechaine'. Never.

'Shep.' Yet I believe you have no more doubt there is such a city,

than that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two

right ones.

'Temp.' I am sure 1 have not.

'Dech.' Nor I; but what then?

'Shep.' Pray, Mr. Dechaine, did you see Julius Cæsar assassinated in

the Capitol?

'Dech.' A pretty question! No indeed, Sir.

'Shep.' Have you any doubts about the truth of what is told us by the

historians concerning that memorable transaction?

'Dech.' Not the least.

'Shep.' Pray, is it either self-evident or demonstrable to you, at

this time and place, that there is any such city as

Constantinople, or that there ever was such a man as Cæsar?

'Dech.' By no means.

'Shep.' And you have all you know concerning the being of either the

city, or the man, merely from the report of others, who had it

from others, and so on, through many links of tradition?

'Dech.' I have.

'Shep.' You see then, that there are certain cases, in which the

evidence of things not seen nor either sensibly or

demonstrably perceived, can justly challenge so entire an

assent, that he who should pretend to refuse it in the fullest

measure of acquiescence, would be deservedly esteemed the most

stupid or perverse of mankind.

That there is a sophism here, every one must feel in the very fact of

being 'non-plus'd' without being convinced. The sophism consists in the

instance being 'haud ejusdem generis' ([Greek: élegchos metabáseôs eis

állo génos]); and what the allogeneity is between the assurance of the

being of Madrid or Constantinople, and the belief of the fact of the

resurrection of Christ, I have shown elsewhere. The universal belief of

the 'tyrannicidium' of Julius Cæsar is doubtless a fairer instance, but

the whole mode of argument is unsound and unsatisfying. Why run off from

the fact in question, or the class at least to which it belongs? The

victory can be but accidental--a victory obtained by the unguarded

logic, or want of logical foresight of the antagonist, who needs only

narrow his positions to narrations of facts and events, in our judgment

of which we are not aided by the analogy of previous and succeeding

experience, to deprive you of the opportunity of skirmishing thus on No

Man's land. But this is Skelton's ruling passion, sometimes his

strength--too often his weakness. He must force the reader to believe:

or rather he has an antagonist, a wilful infidel or heretic always and

exclusively before his imagination; or if he thinks of the reader at

all, it is as of a partizan enjoying every hard thump, and smashing

'fister' he gives the adversary, whom Skelton hates too cordially to

endure to obtain any thing from him with his own liking. No! It must be

against his will, and in spite of it. No thanks to him--the dog could

not help himself! How much more effectual would he have found it to have

commenced by placing himself in a state of sympathy with the supposed

sceptic or unbeliever;--to have stated to him his own feelings, and the

real grounds on which they rested;--to have shown himself the difference

between the historical facts which the sceptic takes for granted and

believes spontaneously, as it were,--and those, which are to be the

subject of discussion; and this brings the question at once to the

proof. And here, after all, lies the strength of Skelton's reasoning,

which would have worked far more powerfully, had it come first and

single, and with the whole attention directed towards it.

Ib. p. 35.

'Templeton.' Surely the resurrection of Christ, or any other man,

cannot be a thing impossible with God. It is neither

above his power, nor, when employed for a sufficient

purpose, inconsistent with his majesty, wisdom, and

goodness.

This is the ever open and vulnerable part of Deism. The Deist, as a

Deist, believes, 'implicite' at least, so many and stupendous miracles

as to render his disbelief of lesser miracles, simply because they are

miraculous, gross inconsistencies. To have the battle fairly fought out,

Spinoza, or a Bhuddist, or a Burmese Gymnosoph, should be challenged.

Then, I am deeply persuaded, would the truth appear in full evidence,

that no Christ, no God,--and, conversely, if the Father, then the Son. I

can never too often repeat, that revealed religion is a pleonasm.

--Religion is revelation, and revelation the only religion.

Ib. p. 37.

'Shep.' Those believers, whose faith is to rely on the truth of the

Christian history, rest their assent on a written report made

by eye-witnesses; which report the various Churches and sects,

jealous of one another, took care to preserve genuine and

uncorrupted, at least in all material points, and all the

religious writers in every age since have amply attested.

A divine of the present day who shall undertake the demonstration of the

truth of Christianity by external evidences, or historically, must not

content himself with assuming or asserting this. He must either prove

it; or prove that such proof is not necessary. I myself should be quite

satisfied if I proved the former position in respect to the fourth

Gospel, and showed that the evidence of the other three was equivalent

to a record by an eye-witness: which would not be at all inconsistent

with my contending at the same time for the authenticity of the first

Gospel, or rather for the Catholic interpretation of the title-words

[Greek: Katà Matthaion], as the more probable opinion, which a sound

divine will neither abandon nor overload, neither place it in the

foundation, nor on the other hand suffer it to be extruded from the

wall. Believe me, there is great, very great, danger in these broad

unqualified assertions that Skelton deals in. Even though the balance of

evidence should be on his side, yet the inquirer will be unfavourably

affected by the numerous doubts and difficulties which an acquaintance

with the more modern works of Biblical criticism will pour upon him, and

for which his mind is wholly unprepared. To meet with a far weaker

evidence than we had taken it for granted we were to find, gives the

same shake to the mind, that missing a stair gives to the body.

Ib. p. 243.

'Temp.' You, Mr. Dechaine, seem to forget that God is just; and you,

Mr. Shepherd, that he is merciful

'Dech.' I insist, that, as God is merciful, he will forgive.

'Shep.' And I insist, that, as he is just, he will punish.

'Temp.' Pray Mr. Dechaine, are you able, upon the Deistical scheme to

rid yourself of this difficulty?

'Dech.' I see no difficulty in it at all. God gives us laws only for

our good, and will never suffer those laws to become a snare

to us, and the occasion of our eternal misery.

Here is the 'cardo'! The man of sense asserts that it is necessary for

the good of all, that a code of laws should exist, while yet it is

impossible that all should at all times be obeyed by each person: but

what is impossible cannot be required. Nevertheless, it may be required

that no 'iota' of any one of these laws should be wilfully and

deliberately transgressed, nor is there any one for the transgression of

which the transgressor must not hold himself punishable. "And yet" (says

our man of sense,) "what may not be said of any one point, or any one

moment, cannot be denied of the collective agency of a whole life, or

any considerable section of it. Here we find ourselves constrained by

our best feelings to praise or condemn, to reward or punish, according

as a great predominance of acts of obedience or disobedience, and a

continued love of the better, or the lusting after the worst, manifests

the maxim ('regula maxima'), the radical will and proper character of

the individual. So parents judge of their children; so schoolmasters of

their scholars; so friends of friends, and even so will God judge his

creatures, if we are to trust in our common sense, or believe the

repeated declarations in the Old Testament." And now I should be glad to

hear any satisfactory 'sensible' reply to this, or any answer that does

not fly higher than 'sense' can follow, and pierce into "the thick

clouds" of decried metaphysics! For no fair reply can be imagined, but

one which would find the root of the moral evil, the true [Greek:

ponaerón], in this very impossibility.

Ib. p. 249.

'Cunningham.' But how does all this discourse about sacrifices and the

natural light show that your faith does not ascribe

injustice to God in putting an innocent person to death

for the transgressions of the guilty?

'Shep.' Was Christ innocent?

'Cunn.' 'He was without sin.'

'Shep.' And he was put to death by the appointment and

predetermination of God?

'Cunn.' The Jews put him to death.

'Shep.' Do not evade the question. Was he not 'the Lamb slain from the

foundation of the world'? Was he not 'so delivered by the

determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, that the Jews,

having taken him, by wicked hands crucified and slew him?'

'Cunn'. And what then?

'Shep'. Nothing; but that you are to answer, as well as I, for saying

that God predetermined the death of this only innocent person.

I am less pleased with this volume than with any of the preceding. Ask

your own heart and conscience whether (for instance,) they are satisfied

with this defence 'duri per durius': or whether frightening a modest

query into silence by perverting it into an accusation of the Almighty,

by virtue of a conclusion borrowed from the Calvinistic theory of

Predestination, is not more in the spirit of Job's comforters, than

becomes a minister of the Apostolic Church of England and Ireland? Such

arguments are but edge-tools at the safest, but more often they may

rather be likened to the two-edged blade of Parysatis's knife, the one

of which was poisoned. Leave them to Calvin, or those who dare

appropriate Calvin's words, that "God's absolute will is the only rule

of his justice;"--thus dividing the divine attributes. Yet Calvin

himself distinguishes the hidden from the revealed God, even as the

Greek Fathers distinguished the [Greek: thélaema Theou], the absolute

ground of all being, from the [Greek: Boulàe tou Theou], as the cause

and disposing providence of all existence.

But I disapprove of the plan and spirit of this work, (Deism Revealed.)

The cold-hearted, worldly-minded, cunning Deist, or the coarse sensual

Infidel, is of all men the least likely to be converted; and the

conscientious, inquiring, though misled and perplexed, Sceptic will

throw aside a book at once, as not applicable to his case, which treats

every doubt as a crime, and supposes that there is no doubt at all

possible but in a bad heart and from wicked wishes. Compare this with

St. Paul's language concerning the Jews.

So again, pp. 225, &c. of this volume. Do not the plainest intuitions of

our moral and rational being confirm the positions here attributed to

the Deist, Dechaine? Are they not the same by which Melancthon

de-Calvinized, at least de-Augustinized, the heroic Luther;--those

which constitute one of the only two essential differences between the

Augsburg Confession and the Calvinistic Articles of Faith? And can

anything be more flittery and special-pleading than Skelton's

objections? And again, p. 507, "and that prayer which he (Tindal) is

reported to have used a little before his death, 'If there is a God, I

desire he may have mercy on me;'"--was it Christian-like to publish and

circulate a blind report--so improbable and disgusting, as to demand the

strongest and most unsuspicious testimony for its reception?

Ib. p. 268.

'Shep'. Pray, Mr. Dechaine, if a person, whom you knew to be an honest

and clear-sighted man, should solemnly assure you he saw a

dead man restored to life, what would you think of his

testimony?

'Dech'. As I could not possibly have as strong an assurance of his

honesty, clear-sightedness, and penetration, as of the great

improbability of the fact, I should not believe him.

'Shep'. Well; it is true he might be deceived himself, or intend to

impose on you. But in case ten such persons should all, at

different times, confirm the same report, how would this

affect you?

There is one inconvenience, not to say danger, in this argument of Mr.

Shepherd's; namely, that of its not standing in the same force, when it

comes to be repeated in the particular miraculous facts in support of

which it is adduced.

Ib. p. 281.

No other ancient book can be so well proved to have been the work of

the author it is now ascribed to, as every book of the New Testament

can be proved to have been written by him whose name it hath all along

borne.

This is true to the full extent that the defence of the divinity of our

religion needs, or perhaps permits, and I see no advantage gained by

asserting more. I must lose all power of distinction, before I can

affirm that the genuineness of the first Gospel,--that in its present

form it was written by Matthew, or is a literal translation of a Gospel

written by him,--rests on as strong external evidence as Luke's, or on

as strong internal evidence as St. John's. Sufficient that the evidence

greatly preponderates in its favor.

[Footnote 1: The complete Works of the late Rev. Philip Skelton, Rector

of Fintona. 6. vols. 8vo. London, 1824. 'Ed.']

[Footnote 2: See South's Works, vol. iii. p. 500. Clarendon edit. 1823

--Ed.]

[Footnote 3: But it will be proper to observe, that it strikes directly

at the very root of Revelation, which cannot possibly give any other

evidence of itself, as the dictate of God, but what must be drawn from

miracles, wrought to prove the divine mission of those who publish it to

the world.]

[Footnote 4: The Editor is not aware of the existence of the Essay here

mentioned. But see for the distinction of the 'Ecclesia' and 'Enclesia',

the Church and State, 3rd edit.--Ed.]

[Footnote 5: On Predestination, as far as p. 445.]

* * * * *

NOTES ON ANDREW FULLER'S CALVINISTIC AND SOCINIAN SYSTEMS EXAMINED AND

COMPARED. [1] 1807.

Letter III. p. 38.

They (the Jews) did not deny that to be God's own Son was to be equal

with the Father, nor did they allege that such an equality would

destroy the divine unity: a thought of this kind never seems to have

occurred to their minds.

In so truly excellent a book as this is, I regret that this position

should rest on an assertion. The equality of Christ would not, indeed,

destroy the unity of God the Father, considered as one Person: but,

unless we presume the Jews in question acquainted with the great truth

of the Tri-unity, we must admit that it would be considered as implying

Ditheism. Now that some among the Jews had made very near approaches,

though blended with errors, to the doctrine taught in John, c. i., we

can prove from the writings of Philo;--and the Socinians can never prove

that these Jews did not know at least of the doctrine of their schools

concerning the only-begotten Word--[Greek: Lógos monogenáes],--not as

an attribute, much less as an abstraction or personification--but as a

distinct 'Hypostasis' [Greek: symphysikáe]:-and hence it might be shown

that their offence was that the carpenter's son, the Galilean, should

call himself the [Greek: Theòs phanerós]. This might have been rendered

more than probable by the concluding sentence of Christ's answer to the

disciples of John;--'and blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended

in me' (Luke vii. 23.); which appears to have no adequate or even

tolerable meaning, unless in reference to the passage in Isaiah, (lxi.

1, 2.) prophesying that Jehovah himself would come among them, and do

the things which our Saviour states himself to have done. Thus, too, I

regret that the answer of our Lord, (John x. 34-36.) being one of the

imagined strong-holds of the Socinians, should not have been more fully

cleared up. I doubt not that Fuller's is a true interpretation; and that

no other is consistent with our Lord's various other declarations. But

the words in and by themselves admit a more plausible misinterpretation

than is elsewhere the case of Socinian displanations. In short, I think

both passages would have been better deferred to a further part of the

work.

Let me add that a mighty and comparatively new argument against the

Socinians may be most unanswerably deduced from this reply of our

Lord's, even were it considered as a mere 'argumentum ad homines':

--namely, that it was not his Messiahship that so offended the Jews, but

his Sonship; otherwise, our Saviour's language would have neither force,

motive, or object. "Even were I no more than the Messiah, in your

meanest conceptions of that character, yet after what I have done before

your eyes, nothing but malignant hearts could have prevented you from

adopting a milder interpretation of my words, when in your own

Scriptures there exists a precedent that so much more than merely

justifies me." And this I believe to be the meaning of the words as

intended to be understood by the Jews in question; though, doubtless,

Fuller's sense exists 'implicite'. No candid person would ever call it

an evasion, to prove the injustice and malignity of an accuser even from

his own grounds:--"You charge me falsely; but even were your charge

true, namely, that I am a mere man, and yet call myself the Son of God,

still it would not follow that I have been guilty of blasphemy." But as

understood by the modern Unicists, it would verily, verily, be an

evasive ambiguity, most unworthy of Christian belief concerning his

Saviour. Common charity would have demanded of him to have said:--"I am

a mere man: I do not pretend to be more; but I used the words in analogy

to the words, 'Ye are as Gods'; and I have a right to do so: for though

a mere man, I am the great Prophet and Messenger which Moses promised

you."

Letter V. p. 72.

If Dr. Priestley had formed his estimate of human virtue by that great

standard which requires love to God with all the heart, soul, mind,

and strength, and our neighbour as ourselves,--instead of representing

men by nature as having "more virtue than vice,"--he must have

acknowledged with the Scripture, that 'the whole world lieth in

wickedness--that every thought and imagination of their heart is only

evil continually'--and that 'there is none of them that doeth good, no

not one'.

To this the Unicists would answer, that by 'the whole world' is meant

all the worldly-minded;--no matter in how direct opposition to half a

score other texts! "One text at a time!" sufficient for the day is the

evil thereof!--and in this way they go on pulling out hair by hair from

the horse's tail, (say rather, dreaming that they do so,) and then

conclude with a shout that the horse never had a tail! For why? This

hair is not a tail, nor that, nor the third, and so on to the very last;

and how can all do what none of all does?--Ridiculous as this is, it is

a fair image of Socinian logic. Thank God, their plucking out is a mere

fancy;--and the sole miserable reality is the bare rump which they call

their religion;--but that is the ape's own growth.

Ib. p. 77.

First, that all punishments are designed for the good of the whole,

and less or corrective punishments for the good of the offender, is

admitted. * * God never inflicts punishment for the sake of punishing.

This is not, [Greek: hôs émoige dokei], sufficiently guarded. That all

punishments work for the good of the whole, and that the good of the

whole is included in God's design, I admit: but that this is the sole

cause, and the sole justification of divine punishment, I cannot, I dare

not, concede;--because I should thus deny the essential evil of guilt,

and its inherent incompatibility with the presence of a Being of

infinite holiness. Now, exclusion from God implies the sum and utmost of

punishment; and this would follow from the very essence of guilt and

holiness, independently of example, consequence, or circumstance.

Letter VI. p. 90.

(The systems compared as to their tendency to promote morality in

general.)

I have hitherto made no objection to, no remark on, any one part of this

Letter; for I object to the whole--not as Calvinism, but--as what Calvin

would have recoiled from. How was it that so good and shrewd a man as

Andrew Fuller should not have seen, that the difference between a

Calvinist and a Priestleyan Materialist-Necessitarian consists in

this:--The former not only believes a will, but that it is equivalent to

the 'ego ipse', to the actual self, in every moral agent; though he

believes that in human nature it is an enslaved, because a corrupt,

will. In denying free will to the unregenerated he no more denies will,

than in asserting the poor negroes in the West Indies to be slaves I

deny them to be men. Now the latter, the Priestleyan, uses the word

will,--not for any real, distinct, correspondent power, but,--for the

mere result and aggregate of fibres, motions, and sensations; in short,

it is a mere generic term with him, just as when we say, the main

current in a river.

Now by not adverting to this, and alas! misled by Jonathan Edwards's

book, Fuller has hidden from himself and his readers the damnable nature

of the doctrine--not of necessity (for that in its highest sense is

identical with perfect freedom; they are definitions each of the other);

but--of extraneous compulsion. O! even this is not adequate to the

monstrosity of the thought. A denial of all agency;--or an assertion of

a world of agents that never act, but are always acted upon, and yet

without any one being that acts;--this is the hybrid of Death and Sin,

which throughout this letter is treated so amicably! Another fearful

mistake, and which is the ground of the former, lies in conceding to the

Materialist, 'explicite et implicite', that the [Greek: noúmenon], the

'intelligibile', the 'ipseitas super sensibilis', of guilt is in time,

and of time, and, consequently, a mechanism of cause and effect;--in

other words, in confounding the [Greek: phainómena, tà rhéonta, tà màe

óntôs ónta],--all which belong to time, and cannot be even thought of

except as effects necessarily predetermined by the precedent causes,

(themselves in their turn effects of other causes),--with the

transsensual ground or actual power.

After such admissions, no other possible defence can be made for

Calvinism or any other 'ism' than the wretched recrimination: "Why,

yours, Dr. Priestley, is just as bad!"--Yea, and no wonder:--for in

essentials both are the same. But there was no reason for Fuller's

meddling with the subject at all,--metaphysically, I mean.

Ib. p. 95.

If the unconditionality of election render it unfriendly to virtue, it

must be upon the supposition of that view of things, "which attributes

more to God, and less to man," having such ascendancy; which is the

very reverse of what Dr. Priestley elsewhere teaches, and that in the

same performance.

But in both systems, as Fuller has erroneously stated his own, man is

annihilated. There is neither more nor less; it is all God; all, all are

but 'Deus infinite modificatus':--in brief, both systems are not

Spinosism, for no other reason than that the logic and logical

consequency of 10 Fullers + 10 X 10 Dr. Priestleys, piled on each other,

would not reach the calf of Spinoza's leg. Both systems of necessity

lead to Spinosism, nay, to all the horrible consequences attributed to

it by Spinoza's enemies. O, why did Andrew Fuller quit the high vantage

ground of notorious facts, plain durable common sense, and express

Scripture, to delve in the dark in order to countermine mines under a

spot, on which he had no business to have wall, tent, temple, or even

standing-ground!

[Footnote 1: The Calvinistic and Socinian Systems examined and compared,

as to their moral tendency; in a series of Letters addressed to the

friends of vital and practical religion; especially those amongst

Protestant Dissenters. By Andrew Fuller. Market Harborough. 1793.]

* * * * *

NOTES ON WHITAKER'S ORIGIN OF ARIANISM DISCLOSED. [1] 1810.

Chap. I. 4. p. 30.

'Making himself equal with God'.

Whoever reads the four verses (John v. 16-19,) attentively, judging of

the meaning of each part by the context, must needs, I think, see that

the [Greek: íson heautòn poiôn tòn Theô] (18) refers,--not to the

[Greek: paterá ídion élege tòn Theòn], (18) or the [Greek: ho patáer

mou] (17), but--to the [Greek: ergázetai, kagô ergázomai] (17). The 19th

verse, which is directly called Jesus' reply, takes no notice whatever

of the [Greek: ho patáer mou] (17), but consists wholly of a

justification of the [Greek: kagô ergázomai].

1803.

The above was written many years ago. I still think the remark

plausible, though I should not now express myself so positively. I

imagined the Jews to mean: "he has evidently used the words [Greek: ho

patáer mou]--not in the sense in which all good men may use them,

but--in a literal sense, because by the words that followed, [Greek:

ergázetai, kagô ergázomai], he makes himself equal to God." To justify

these words seemed to me to be the purport of Christ's reply.

Chap. II. 1. p. 34.

[Greek: (Philôn)--perì mèn oun tà theia kaì pátria matháemata, póson

te kaì paelíkon eisenáenektai pónon, érgô pasi daelos kaì perì tà

philósopha dè kaì eleuthéria taes éxôthen paideías oiós tis aen, oudèn

dei légein hóti kaì málista tàen katà Plátôna kaì Pythagóran ezaelôkôs

agôgàen, diénegken ápantas toùs kath' heautòn, historeitai].

Euseb. Hist. II. 4.

Philo's acquaintance with the doctrines of the heathens was known only

by historical report to Eusebius; while the writings of Philo

displayed his knowledge in the religion of the Jews.

Strange comment. Might I not, after having spoken of Dun Scotus's works,

say;--"he is reported to have surpassed all his contemporaries in

subtlety of logic:"--yet still mean no other works than those before

mentioned? Are not Philo's works full of, crowded with, Platonic and

Pythagorean philosophy? Eusebius knew from his works that he was a great

Platonic scholar; but that he was greater than any other man of his age,

he could only learn from report or history. That Virgil is a great poet

I know from his poems; but that he was the greatest of the Augustan age,

I must learn from Quinctilian and others.

Ib. p. 35.

Philo and the author of the Wisdom of Solomon,--(or rather, perhaps,

authors; for the first ten chapters form a complete work of

themselves,)--were both Cabalistico-Platonizing Jews of Alexandria. As

far as, being such, they must agree, so far they do agree; and as widely

as such men could differ, do they differ. Not only the style of the

Wisdom of Solomon is generically different from Philo's,--so much so

that I should deem it a free translation from a Hebrew original,--but

also in all the 'minutiæ' of traditional history and dogma it

contradicts Philo. Philo attributes the creation of man to angels; and

they infused the evil principle through their own imperfections. In the

Book of Wisdom, God created man spotless, and the Devil tempting him

occasioned the Fall. So the whole account of the plagues of Egypt

differs as widely as possible, even to absolute contradiction. The

origin of idolatry is explained altogether differently by Philo, and by

the Book of Wisdom. In short, so unsupported is the tradition that many

have supposed an elder Philo as the author. That the second and third

chapters allude to Christ is a groundless hypothesis. The 'just man' is

called 'the son of God', Jehovah, [Greek: pais Kyrión];--but Christ's

specific title which was deemed blasphemous by the Jews, was 'Ben

Elohim', [Greek: uhiòs tou Theou];--and the fancy that Philo was a

Christian in heart, but dared not openly profess himself such, is too

absurd. Why no traces in his latest work, or those of his middle age?

Why not the least variation in his religious or philosophical creeds in

his latter works, written long after the resurrection, from those

composed by him before, or a few years after, Christ's birth? Some of

Philo's earlier works must have been written when our Lord was in his

infancy, or at least boyhood.

In short, just take all those passages of Philo which most closely

resemble others in the Wisdom of Solomon, and contain the same or nearly

the same thoughts, and write them in opposite columns, and no doubt will

remain that Philo was not the composer of the Book of Wisdom. Philo

subtle, and with long involved periods knit together by logical

connectives: the Book of Wisdom sententious, full of parallelisms,

assertory and Hebraistic throughout. It was either composed by a man who

tried to Hebraize the Greek, or, if a translator, by one who tried to

Greecise the Hebraisms of his original--not to disguise or hide

them--but only so as to prevent them from repelling or misleading the

Greek reader. The different use of the Greek particles in the Wisdom of

Solomon, and in the works of Philo, is sufficient to confute the

hypothesis of Philo being the author. As little could it have been

written by a Christian. For it could not have been a Christian of

Palestine, from the overflowing Alexandrine Platonism;--nor a Christian

at all; for it contradicts the doctrine of the resurrection of the body,

and in no wise connects any redemptory or sacrificial virtue with the

death of his 'just man';--denies original sin in the Christian sense,

and explains the vice and virtue of mankind by the actions of the souls

of men in a state of pre-existence. No signs or miracles are referred to

in the account of 'the just man'; and that it was intended as a

generalization is evident from the change of the singular into the

plural number in the third chapter.

The result is, in my judgment, that this Book was composed by an unknown

Jew of Alexandria, either sometime before, or at the same time with,

Christ. I do not think St. Paul's parallel passages amount to any proof

of quotation or allusion;--they contain the common doctrine of the

spiritualized Judaism in the Cabala;--and yet the work could scarcely

have been written long before Christ, or it would certainly have been

quoted or mentioned by Philo, and most probably by Josephus. And this,

too, is an answer to the splendid and well-supported hypothesis of its

being a translation from a Chaldaic original, composed by Jerubbabel.

The variations of the Syriac translation,--which are so easily

explained by translating the passage into the Chaldaic, when the cause

of the mistake in the Greek or of the variation in the Syriac, is seen

at once,--are certainly startling; but they are too free; and how could

the Fathers, Jerome for example, remain ignorant of the existence of

this Chaldaic original? My own opinion is, as I said before, that the

Book was written in Greek by an Alexandrian Jew, who had formed his

style on that of the LXX., and was led still further to an imitation of

the Old Testament manner by the nature of his fiction, and as a dramatic

propriety, and yet deviated from it partly on account of the very

remoteness of his Platonic conceptions from the simplicity and poverty

of the Hebrew; and partly because of the wordy rhetoric epidemic in

Alexandria: and that it was written before the death, if not the birth,

of Christ, I am induced to believe, because I do not think it probable

that a book composed by a Jew, who had confessed Christ after the

resurrection, would so soon have been received by the Christians, and so

early placed in the very next rank to works of full inspiration.

Taken, therefore, as a work 'ante', or at least 'extra, Christum', it is

most valuable as ascertaining the opinions of the learned Jews on many

subjects, and the general belief concerning immortality, and a day of

judgment. On this ground Whitaker might have erected a most formidable

battery, that would have played on the very camp and battle-array of the

Socinians, that is, of those who consider Christ only as a teacher of

important truths.

In referring to the Cabala, I am not ignorant of the date of the oldest

Rabbinical writings which contain or refer to this philosophy, but I

coincide with Eichorn, and very many before Eichorn, that the

foundations of the Cabala were laid and well known long before Christ,

though not all the fanciful superstructure. I am persuaded that new

light might be thrown on the Apocalypse by a careful study of the Book

Sohar, and of whatever else there may be of that kind. The introduction

(i. 4,) is clearly Cabala:--the [Greek: ho ôn, kaì ho aen, kaì ho

erchómenos]= 3, and the 'seven spirits' = 10 'Sephiroth', constituting

together the 'Adam Kadmon', the second Adam of St. Paul, the incarnate

one in the Messiah.

Were it not for the silence of Philo and Josephus, which I am unable to

explain if the Wisdom of Solomon was written so long before Christ, I

might perhaps incline to believe it composed shortly after, if not

during, the persecution of the Jews in Egypt under Ptolemy Philopator.

This hypothesis would give a particular point to the bitter exposure of

idolatry, to the comparison between the sufferings of the Jews, and

those of idolatrous nations, to the long rehearsal and rhetorical

declaration of the plagues of Egypt, and to the reward of 'the just man'

after a death of martyrdom; and would besides help to explain the

putting together of the first ten chapters, and the fragment contained

in the remaining chapters. They were works written at the same time, and

by the same author: nay, I do not think it absurd to suppose, that the

chapters after the tenth were annexed by the writer himself, as a long

explanatory appendix; or, possibly, if they were once a separate work,

these nine concluding chapters were parts of a book composed during the

persecution in Egypt, the introduction and termination of which, being

personal and of local application, were afterwards omitted or expunged

in order not to give offence to the other Egyptians,--perhaps, to spare

the shame of such Jews as had apostatized through fear, and in general

not to revive heart-burnings. In modern language I should call these

chapters in their present state a Note on c. x. 15-19.

On a reperusal of this Book, I rather believe that these latter chapters

never formed part of any other work, but were composed as a sort of long

explanatory Postscript, with particular bearing on certain existing

circumstances, to which this part of the Jewish history was especially

applicable. Nay, I begin to find the silence of Philo and Josephus less

inexplicable, and to imagine that I discover the solution of this

problem in the very title of the Book. No one expects to find any but

works of authenticity enumerated in these writers; but to this a work,

calling itself the Wisdom of Solomon, both being a fiction and never

meant to pass for anything else, could make no pretensions. To have

approximated it to the Holy Books of the nation would have injured the

dignity of the Jewish Canon, and brought suspicion on the genuine works

of Solomon, while it would have exposed to a charge of forgery a

composition which was in itself only an innocent dramatic monologue. N.

B. This hypothesis possesses all the advantages, and involves none of

the absurdity of that which would attribute the 'Ecclesiasticus' to the

infamous Jason, the High Priest. More than one commentator, I find, has

suspected that the Wisdom of Solomon and the second book of Maccabees

were by the same author. I think this nothing.

Ib. p. 36.

Philo throws out a number of declarations, that shew his own and the

Jewish belief in a secondary sort of God, a God subordinate in origin

to the Father of all, yet most intimately united with him, and sharing

his most unquestionable honours.

The belief of the Alexandrian Jews who had acquired Greek philosophy, no

doubt;--but of the Palestine Jews?

Ib. 2. p. 48.

St. John also is witnessed by a heathen (Amelius,) and by one who put

him down for a barbarian, to have represented the Logos as "the Maker

of all things," as "with 'God'," and as "God." And St. John is

attested to have declared this, "not even as shaded over, but on the

contrary as placed in full view."

Stranger still. Whitaker could scarcely have read the Greek. Amelius

says, that these truths, if stripped of their allegorical dress,

([Greek: metapephrasména ek taes tou Barbárou theologías]) would be

plain;--that is, that John in an allegory, as of one particular man, had

shadowed out the creation of all things by the Logos, and the after

union of the Logos with human nature,--that is, with all men. That this

is his meaning, consult Plotinus.

Ib. 9. p. 107.

"Seest thou not," adds Philo, in the same spirit of subtilizing being

into power, and dividing the Logos into two.

Who that had even rested but in the porch of the Alexandrian philosophy,

would not rather say, 'of substantiating powers and attributes into

being?' What is the whole system from Philo to Plotinus, and thence to

Proclus inclusively, but one fanciful process of hypostasizing logical

conceptions and generic terms? In Proclus it is Logolatry run mad.

Chap. III. 1. p. 131-2.

Such would be the evidence for that divinity, to accompany the Book of

Wisdom, if we considered it to be as old as Solomon, or only as the

Son of Sirach. But I consider it to be much later than either, and

actually a work of Philo's. * * The language is very similar to

Philo's; flowing, lively and happy.

How is it possible to have read the short Hebraistic sentences of the

Book of Wisdom, and the long involved periods that characterize the

style of all Philo's known writings, and yet attribute both to one

writer? But indeed I know no instance of assertions made so audaciously,

or of passages misrepresented and even mistranslated so grossly, as in

this work of Whitaker. His system is absolute naked Tritheism.

Ib.

The righteous man is shadowed out by the author with a plain reference

to our Saviour himself. "'Let us lie in wait for the righteous'," &c.

How then could Philo have remained a Jew?

Ib. 2. p. 195.

In all effects that are voluntary, the cause must be prior to the

effect, as the father is to the son in human generation. But in all

that are necessary, the effect must be coeval with the cause; as the

stream is with the fountain, and light with the sun. Had the sun been

eternal in its duration, light would have been co-eternal with it.

A just remark; but it cuts two ways. For these necessary effects are not

really but only logically different or distinct from the cause:--the

rays of the sun are only the sun diffused, and the whole rests on the

sensitive form of material space. Take away the notion of material

space, and the whole distinction perishes.

Chap. IV. 1. p. 266.

Justin accordingly sets himself to shew, that in the beginning, before

all creatures, God generated a certain rational power out of himself.

Is it not monstrous that the Jews having, according to Whitaker, fully

believed a Trinity, one and all, but half a century or less before

Trypho, Justin should never refer to this general faith, never reproach

Trypho with the present opposition to it as a heresy from their own

forefathers, even those who rejected Christ, or rather Jesus as

Christ?--But no!--not a single objection ever strikes Mr. Whitaker, or

appears worthy of an answer. The stupidest become authentic--the most

fantastic abstractions of the Alexandrine dreamers substantial

realities! I confess this book has satisfied me how little erudition

will gain a man now-a-days the reputation of vast learning, if it be

only accompanied with dash and insolence. It seems to me impossible,

that Whitaker can have written well on the subject of Mary, Queen of

Scots, his powers of judgment being apparently so abject. For instance,

he says that the grossest moral improbability is swept away by positive

evidence:--as if positive evidence (that is, the belief I am to yield to

A. or B.) were not itself grounded on moral probabilities. Upon my word

Whitaker would have been a choice judge for Charles II. and Titus Oates.

Ib. p. 267.

Justin therefore proceeds to demonstrate it, (the pre-existence of

Christ,) asserting Joshua to have given only a temporary inheritance

to the Jews, &c.

A precious beginning of a precious demonstration! It is well for me that

my faith in the Trinity is already well grounded by the Scriptures, by

Bishop Bull, and the best parts of Plotinus, or this man would certainly

have made me either a Socinian or a Deist.

Ib. 2. p. 270.

The general mode of commencing and concluding the Epistles of St.

Paul, is a prayer of supplication for the parties, to whom they were

addressed; in which he says, 'Grace to you and peace from God our

Father, and'--from whom besides?--'the Lord Jesus Christ'; in which

our Saviour is at times invoked alone, as 'the Grace of our Lord Jesus

Christ be with you all'; and is even 'invoked' the first at times as,

'the Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the

communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all'; shews us plainly, &c.

Invoked! Surely a pious wish is not an invocation. "May good angels

attend you!" is no invocation or worship of angels. The essence of

religions adoration consists in the attributing, by an act of prayer or

praise, a necessary presence to an object--which not being

distinguishable, if the object be sensuously present, we may safely

define adoration as an acknowledgement of the actual and necessary

presence of an intelligent being not present to our senses. "May lucky

stars shoot influence on you!" would be a very foolish superstition,

--but to say in earnest! "O ye stars, I pray to you, shoot influences on

me," would be idolatry. Christ was visually present to Stephen; his

invocation therefore was not perforce an act of religious adoration, an

acknowledgment of Christ's deity.

[Footnote 1: The Origin of Arianism Disclosed. By John Whitaker, B.D.

London, 1791.]

* * * * *

NOTES ON OXLEE ON THE TRINITY AND INCARNATION. [1] 1827

Strange--yet from the date of the book of the Celestial Hierarchies of

the pretended Dionysius the Areopagite to that of its translation by

Joannes Scotus Erigena, the contemporary of Alfred, and from Scotus to

the Rev. John Oxlee in 1815, not unfrequent--delusion of mistaking

Pantheism, disguised in a fancy dress of pious phrases, for a more

spiritual and philosophic form of Christian Faith! Nay, stranger

still:--to imagine with Scotus and Mr. Oxlee that in a scheme which more

directly than even the grosser species of Atheism, precludes all moral

responsibility and subverts all essential difference of right and wrong,

they have found the means of proving and explaining, "the Christian

doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation," that is, the great and only

sufficient antidotes of the right faith against this insidious poison.

For Pantheism--trick it up as you will--is but a painted Atheism. A mask

of perverted Scriptures may hide its ugly face, but cannot change a

single feature.

Introduction, p. 4.

In the infancy of the Christian Church, and immediately after the

general dispersion which necessarily followed the sacking of Jerusalem

and Bither, the Greek and Latin Fathers had the fairest opportunity of

disputing with the Jews, and of evincing the truth of the Gospel

dispensation; but unfortunately for the success of so noble a design,

they were totally ignorant of the Hebrew Scriptures, and so wanted in

every argument that stamp of authority, which was equally necessary to

sanction the principles of Christianity, and to command the respect of

their Jewish antagonists. For the confirmation of this remark I may

appeal to the Fathers themselves, but especially to Barnabas, Justin,

and Irenæus, who in their several attempts at Hebrew learning betray

such portentous signs of ignorance and stupidity, that we are covered

with shame at the sight of their criticisms.

Mr. Oxlee would be delighted in reading Jacob Rhenferd's Disquisition on

the Ebionites and other supposed heretics among the Jewish Christians.

And I cannot help thinking that Rhenferd, who has so ably anticipated

Mr. Oxlee on this point, and in Jortin's best manner displayed the gross

ignorance of the Gentile Fathers in all matters relating to Hebrew

learning, and the ludicrous yet mischievous results thereof, has formed

a juster though very much lower opinion of these Fathers, with a few

exceptions, than Mr. Oxlee. I confess that till the light of the

twofoldness of the Christian Church dawned on my mind, the study of the

history and literature of the Church during the first three or four

centuries infected me with a spirit of doubt and disgust which required

a frequent recurrence to the writings of John and Paul to preserve me

whole in the Faith.

Prop. I. ch. i. p. 16.

The truth of the doctrine is vehemently insisted on, in a variety of

places, by the great R. Moses ben Maimon; who founds upon it the unity

of the Godhead, and ranks it among the fundamental articles of the

Jewish religion. Thus in his celebrated Letter to the Jews of

Marseilles he observes, &c.

But what is obtained by quotations from Maimonides more than from

Alexander Hales, or any other Schoolman of the same age? The metaphysics

of the learned Jew are derived from the same source, namely, Aristotle;

and his object was the same, as that of the Christian Schoolmen, namely,

to systematize the religion he professed on the form and in the

principles of the Aristotelian philosophy.

By the by, it is a serious defect in Mr. Oxlee's work, that he does not

give the age of the writers whom he cites. He cannot have expected all

his readers to be as learned as himself.

Ib. ch. iii. p. 26.

Mr. Oxlee seems too much inclined to identify the Rabbinical

interpretations of Scripture texts with their true sense; when in

reality the Rabbis themselves not seldom used those interpretations as a

convenient and popular mode of conveying their own philosophic opinions.

Neither have I been able to admire the logic so general among the

divines of both Churches, according to which if one, two, or perhaps

three sentences in any one of the Canonical books appear to declare a

given doctrine, all assertions of a different character must have been

meant to be taken metaphorically.

Ib. p. 26-7.

The Prophet Isaiah, too, clearly inculcates the spirituality of the

Godhead in the following declaration: 'But Egypt is man, and not God:

and their horses flesh, and not spirit'. (c. xxxi. 3.) * * *. In the

former member the Prophet declares that Egypt was man, and not God;

and then in terms of strict opposition enforces the sentiment by

adding, that their cavalry was flesh, and not spirit; which is just as

if he had said: 'But Egypt, which has horses in war, is only a man,

that is, flesh, and not God, who is spirit'.

Assuredly this is a false interpretation, and utterly unpoetical. It is

even doubtful whether [Hebrew: unable to transliterate. txt Ed.]

('ruach') in this place means 'spirit' in contradistinction to 'matter'

at all, and not rather air or wind. At all events, the poetic decorum,

the proportion, and the antithetic parallelism, demand a somewhat as

much below God, as the horse is below man. The opposition of 'flesh' and

'spirit' in the Gospel of St. John, who thought in Hebrew, though he

wrote in Greek, favours our common version,--'flesh and not spirit':

but the place in which this passage stands, namely, in one of the first

forty chapters of Isaiah, and therefore written long before the

Captivity, together with the majestic simplicity characteristic of

Isaiah's name gives perhaps a greater probability to the other: 'Egypt

is man, and not God; and her horses flesh, and not wind'. If Mr. Oxlee

renders the fourth verse of Psalm civ.--'He maketh spirits his

messengers', (for our version--'He maketh his angels spirits'--is

without a violent inversion senseless), this is a case in point for the

use of the word, 'spirits', in the sense of incorporeal beings. (Mr.

Oxlee will hardly, I apprehend, attribute the opinion of some later

Rabbis, that God alone and exclusively is a Spirit, to the Sacred

Writers, easy as it would be to quote a score of texts in proof of the

contrary.) I, however, cannot doubt that the true rendering of the

above-mentioned verse in the Psalms is;--'He maketh the winds his angels

or messengers, and the lightnings his ministrant servants'.

As to Mr. Oxlee's 'abstract intelligences,' I cannot but think

'abstract' for 'pure,' and even pure intelligences for incorporeal, a

lax use of terms. With regard to the point in question, the truth seems

to be this. The ancient Hebrews certainly distinguished the principle or

ground of life, understanding, and will from ponderable, visible,

matter. The former they considered and called 'spirit', and believed it

to be an emission from the Almighty Father of Spirits: the latter they

called 'body'; and in this sense they doubtless believed in the

existence of incorporeal beings. But that they had any notion of

immaterial beings in the sense of Des Cartes, is contrary to all we know

of them, and of every other people in the same degree of cultivation.

Air, fire, light, express the degrees of ascending refinement. In the

infancy of thought the life, soul, mind, are supposed to be air--'anima,

animus', that is, [Greek: ánemos], spiritus, [Greek: pneuma]. In the

childhood, they are fire, 'mens ignea, ignicula', and God himself

[Greek: pur noeròn, pur aeízôon]. Lastly, in the youth of thought, they

are refined into light; and that light is capable of subsisting in a

latent state, the experience of the stricken flint, of lightning from

the clouds, and the like, served to prove, or at least, it supplied a

popular answer to the objection;--"If the soul be light, why is it not

visible?" That the purest light is invisible to our gross sense, and

that visible light is a compound of light and shadow, were answers of a

later and more refined period. Observe, however, that the Hebrew

Legislator precluded all unfit applications of the materializing fancy

by forbidding the people to 'imagine' at all concerning God. For the ear

alone, to the exclusion of all other bodily sense, was he to be

designated, that is, by the Name. All else was for the mind--by power,

truth, wisdom, holiness, mercy.

Prop. II. ch. ii. p. 36.

I fear I must surrender my hope that Mr. Oxlee was an exception to the

rule, that the study of Rabbinical literature either finds a man

'whimmy', or makes him so. If neither the demands of poetic taste, nor

the peculiar character of oracles, were of avail, yet morality and piety

might seem enough to convince any one that this vision of Micaiah, (2

'Chron'. c. xviii. 18, &c.) was the poetic form, the veil, of the

Prophet's meaning. And a most sublime meaning it was. Mr. Oxlee should

recollect that the forms and personages of visions are all and always

symbolical.

Ib. pp. 39-40.

It will not avail us much, however, to have established their

incorporeity or spirituality, if what R. Moses affirms be true * * *.

This impious paradox * *. Swayed, however, by the authority of so

great a man, even R. David Kimchi has dilapsed into the same error,

&c.

To what purpose then are the crude metaphysics of these later Rabbis

brought forward, differing as they do in no other respect from the

theological 'dicta' of the Schoolmen, but that they are written in a

sort of Hebrew. I am far from denying that an interpreter of the

Scriptures may derive important aids from the Jewish commentators: Aben

Ezra, (about 1150) especially, was a truly great man. But of this I am

certain, that he only will be benefited who can look down upon their

works, whilst studying them;--that is, he must thoroughly understand

their weaknesses, superstitions, and rabid appetite for the marvellous

and the monstrous; and then read them as an enlightened chemist of the

present day would read the writings of the old alchemists, or as a

Linnæus might peruse the works of Pliny and Aldrovandus. If he can do

this, well;--if not, he will line his skull with cobwebs.

Ib. pp. 40, 41.

But how, I would ask, is this position to be defended? Surely not by

contradicting almost every part of the inspired volumes, in which such

frequent mention occurs of different and distinct angels appearing to

the Patriarchs and Prophets, sometimes in groups, and sometimes in

limited numbers * *. It is, indeed, so wholly repugnant to the general

tenor of the Sacred Writings, and so abhorrent from the piety of both

Jew and Christian, that the learned author himself, either forgetting

what he had before advanced, or else postponing his philosophy to his

religion, has absolutely maintained the contrary in his explication of

the Cherubim, &c.

I am so far from agreeing with Mr. Oxlee on these points, that I not

only doubt whether before the Captivity any fair proof of the existence

of Angels, in the present sense, can be produced from the inspired

Scriptures,--but think also that a strong argument for the divinity of

Christ, and for his presence to the Patriarchs and under the Law, rests

on the contrary, namely, that the Seraphim were images no less

symbolical than the Cherubim. Surely it is not presuming too much of a

Clergyman of the Church of England to expect that he would measure the

importance of a theological tenet by its bearings on our moral and

spiritual duties, by its practical tendencies. What is it to us whether

Angels are the spirits of just men made perfect, or a distinct class of

moral and rational creatures? Augustine has well and wisely observed

that reason recognizes only three essential kinds;--God, man, beast. Try

as long as you will, you can never make an Angel anything but a man with

wings on his shoulders.

Ib. ch. III. p. 58.

But this deficiency in the Mosaic account of the creation is amply

supplied by early tradition, which inculcates not only that the angels

were created, but that they were created, either on the second day,

according to R. Jochanan, or on the fifth, according to R. Chanania.

Inspired Scripture amply supplied by the Talmudic and Rabbinical

traditions!--This from a Clergyman of the Church of England!

I am, I confess, greatly disappointed. I had expected, I scarce know

why, to have had some light thrown on the existence of the Cabala in its

present form, from Ezekiel to Paul and John. But Mr. Oxlee takes it as

he finds it, and gravely ascribes this patch-work of corrupt Platonism

or Plotinism, with Chaldean, Persian, and Judaic fables and fancies, to

the Jewish Doctors, as an original, profound, and pious philosophy in

its fountain-head! The indispensable requisite not only to a profitable

but even to a safe study of the Cabala is a familiar knowledge of the

docimastic philosophy, that is, a philosophy, which has for its object

the trial and testing of the weights and measures themselves, the first

principles, definitions, postulates, axioms of logic and metaphysics.

But this is in no other way possible but by our enumeration of the

mental faculties, and an investigation of the constitution, function,

limits, and applicability 'ad quas res', of each. The application to

this subject of the rules and forms of the understanding, or discursive

logic, or even of the intuitions of the reason itself, if reason be

assumed as the first and highest, has Pantheism for its necessary

result. But this the Cabalists did: and consequently the Cabalistic

theosophy is Pantheistic, and Pantheism, in whatever drapery of pious

phrases disguised, is (where it forms the whole of a system) Atheism,

and precludes moral responsibility, and the essential difference of

right and wrong. One of the two contra-distinctions of the Hebrew

Revelation is the doctrine of positive creation. This, if not the only,

is the easiest and surest criterion between the idea of God and the

notion of a 'mens agitans molem'. But this the Cabalists evaded by their

double meaning of the term, 'nothing', namely as nought = 0, and as no

'thing'; and by their use of the term, as designating God. Thus in words

and to the ear they taught that the world was made out of nothing; but

in fact they meant and inculcated, that the world was God himself

expanded. It is not, therefore, half a dozen passages respecting the

first three 'proprietates'[2] in the Sephiroth, that will lead a wise

man to expect the true doctrine of the Trinity in the Cabalistic scheme:

for he knows that the scholastic value, the theological necessity, of

this doctrine consists in its exhibiting an idea of God, which rescues

our faith from both extremes, Cabalo-Pantheism, and Anthropomorphism. It

is, I say, to prevent the necessity of the Cabalistic inferences that

the full and distinct developement of the doctrine of the Trinity

becomes necessary in every scheme of dogmatic theology. If the first

three 'proprietates' are God, so are the next seven, and so are all ten.

God according to the Cabalists is all in each and one in all. I do not

say that there is not a great deal of truth in this; but I say that it

is not, as the Cabalists represent it, the whole truth. Spinoza himself

describes his own philosophy as in substance the same with that of the

ancient Hebrew Doctors, the Cabalists--only unswathed from the Biblical

dress.

Ib. p. 61.

Similar to this is the declaration of R. Moses ben Maimon. "For that

influence, which flows from the Deity to the actual production of

abstract intelligences flows also from the intelligences to their

production from each other in succession," &c.

How much trouble would Mr. Oxlee have saved himself, had he in sober

earnest asked his own mind, what he meant by emanation; and whether he

could attach any intelligible meaning to the term at all as applied to

spirit.

Ib. p. 65.

Thus having, by variety of proofs, demonstrated the fecundity of the

Godhead, in that all spiritualities, of whatever gradation, have

originated essentially and substantially from it, like streams from

their fountain; I avail myself of this as another sound argument, that

in the sameness of the divine essence subsists a plurality of Persons.

A plurality with a vengeance! Why, this is the very scoff of a late

Unitarian writer,--only that he inverts the order. Mr. Oxlee proves ten

trillions of trillions in the Deity, in order to deduce 'a fortiori' the

rationality of three: the Unitarian from the Three pretends to deduce

the equal rationality of as many thousands.

Ib. p. 66.

So, if without detriment to piety great things may be compared with

small, I would contend, that every intelligency, descending by way of

emanation or impartition from the Godhead, must needs be a personality

of that Godhead, from which it has descended, only so vastly unequal

to it in personal perfection, that it can form no part of its proper

existency.

Is not this to all intents and purposes ascribing partibility to God?

Indeed it is the necessary consequence of the emanation

scheme?--Unequal!--Aye, various 'wicked' personalities of the

Godhead?--How does this rhyme?--Even as a metaphor, emanation is an

ill-chosen term; for it applies only to fluids. 'Ramenta', unravellings,

threads, would be more germane.

[Footnote 1: The Christian Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation

considered and maintained on the principles of Judaism. By the Rev. John

Oxlee. London, 1815.]

[Footnote 2: That is, Intelligence or the Crown, Knowledge, Wisdom. Ed.]

* * * * *

NOTES ON A BARRISTER'S HINTS ON EVANGELICAL PREACHING. 1810. [1]

For only that man understands in deed

Who well remembers what he well can do;

The faith lives only where the faith doth breed

Obedience to the works it binds us to.

And as the Life of Wisdom hath exprest--

'If this ye know, then do it and be blest'.

LORD BROOK.

'In initio'.

There is one misconception running through the whole of this Pamphlet,

the rock on which, and the quarry out of which, the whole reasoning, is

built;--an error therefore which will not indeed destroy its efficacy as

a [Greek: mísaetron] or anti-philtre to inflame the scorn of the enemies

of Methodism, but which must utterly incapacitate it for the better

purpose of convincing the consciences or allaying the fanaticism of the

Methodists themselves; this is the uniform and gross mis-statement of

the one great point in dispute, by which the Methodists are represented

as holding the compatibility of an impure life with a saving faith:

whereas they only assert that the works of righteousness are the

consequence, not the price, of Redemption, a gift included in the great

gift of salvation;--and therefore not of merit but of imputation through

the free love of the Saviour.

Part I. p. 49.

It is enough, it seems, that all the disorderly classes of mankind,

prompted as they are by their worst passions to trample on the public

welfare, should 'know' that they are, what every one else is convinced

they are, the pests of society, and the evil is remedied. They are not

to be exhorted to honesty, sobriety, or the observance of any laws,

human or divine--they must not even be entreated to do their best.

"Just as 'absurd' would it be," we are told, "in a physician to send

away his patient, when labouring under some desperate disease, with a

recommendation to do his utmost towards his own cure, and then to come

to him to finish it, as it is in the minister of the 'Gospel' to

propose to the sinner 'to do his best', by way of healing the disease

of the soul--and then to come to the Lord Jesus to perfect his

recovery. The 'only' previous qualification is to 'know' our misery,

and the remedy is prepared." See Dr. Hawker's Works, vol. vi. p. 117.

For "know," let the Barrister substitute "feel;" that is, we know it as

we know our life; and then ask himself whether the production of such a

state of mind in a sinner would or would not be of greater promise as to

his reformation than the repetition of the Ten Commandments with

paraphrases on the same.--But why not both? The Barrister is at least as

wrong in the undervaluing of the one as the pseudo-Evangelists in the

exclusion of the other.

Ib. p. 51.

Whatever these new Evangelists may teach to the contrary, the present

state of public morals and of public happiness would assume a very

different appearance if the thieves, swindlers, and highway robbers,

would 'do their best' towards maintaining themselves by honest labour,

instead of perpetually planning new systems of fraud, and new schemes

of depredation.

That is, if these thieves had a different will--not a mere wish, however

anxious:--for this wish "the libertine" doubtless has, as described in

p. 50,--but an effective will. Well, and who doubts this? The point in

dispute is, as to the means of producing this reformation in the will;

which, whatever the Barrister may think, Christ at least thought so

difficult as to speak of it, not once or twice, but uniformly, as little

less than miraculous, as tantamount to a re-creation. This Barrister may

be likened to an ignorant but well-meaning Galenist, who writing against

some infamous quack, who lived by puffing and vending pills of mercurial

sublimate for all cases of a certain description, should have no

stronger argument than to extol 'sarsaparilla', and 'lignum vitæ', or

'senna' in contempt of all mercurial preparations.

Ib. p. 56.

Not for the revenues of an Archbishop would he exhort them to a duty

'unknown in Scripture', of adding their five talents to the five they

have received, &c.

All this is mere calumny and wilful misstatement of the tenets of

Wesley, who never doubted that we are bound to improve our 'talents',

or, on the other hand, that we are equally bound, having done so, to be

equally thankful to the Giver of all things for the power and the will

by which we improved the talents, as for the original capital which is

the object of the improvement. The question is not whether Christ will

say, 'Well done thou good and faithful servant', &c.;--but whether the

servant is to say it of himself. Now Christ has delivered as positive a

precept against our doing this as the promise can be that he will impute

it to us, if we do not impute it to our own merits.

Ib. p. 60.

The complaints of the profligacy of servants of every class, and of

the depravity of the times are in every body's hearing:--and these

Evangelical tutors--the dear Mr. Lovegoods of the day--deserve the

best attention of the public for thus instructing the ignorant

multitude, who are always ready enough to neglect their moral duties,

to despise and insult those by whom they are taught.

All this is no better than infamous slander, unless the Barrister can

prove that these depraved servants and thieves are Methodists, or have

been wicked in proportion as they were proselyted to Methodism. O folly!

This is indeed to secure the triumph of these enthusiasts.

Ib.

It must afford him (Rowland Hill) great consolation, amidst the

increasing immorality * * * that when their village Curate exhorts

them, if they have 'faith' in the doctrine of a world to come, to add

to it those 'good works' in which the sum and substance of religion

consist, he has led them to ridicule him, as 'chopping a

new-fashioned' logic.

That this is either false or nugatory, see proved in The Friend.

Ib. p. 68.

Tom Payne himself never laboured harder to root all virtue out of

society.--Mandeville nor Voltaire never even laboured so much.

Indeed!

Ib.

They were content with declaring their disbelief of a future state.

In what part of their works? Can any wise man read Mandeville's Fable of

the Bees, and not see that it is a keen satire on the inconsistency of

Christians, and so intended.

Ib. p. 71.

When the populace shall be once brought to a conviction that the

Gospel, as they are told, has neither terms nor conditions * * *, that

no sins can be too great, no life too impure, 'no offences too many or

too aggravated', to disqualify the perpetrators of them for

--salvation, &c.

Merely insert the words "sincere repentance and amendment of heart and

life, and therefore for" salvation,--and is not this truth, and Gospel

truth? And is it not the meaning of the preacher? Did any Methodist ever

teach that salvation may be attained without sanctification? This

Barrister for ever forgets that the whole point in dispute is not

concerning the possibility of an immoral Christian being saved, which

the Methodist would deny as strenuously as himself, and perhaps give an

austerer sense to the word immoral; but whether morality, or as the

Methodists would call it, sanctification, be the price which we pay for

the purchase of our salvation with our own money, or a part of the same

free gift. God knows, I am no advocate for Methodism; but for fair

statement I am, and most zealously--even for the love of logic, putting

honesty out of sight.

Ib. p. 72.

"In every age," says the moral divine (Blair), "the practice has

prevailed of substituting certain appearances of piety in the place of

the great 'duties' of humanity and mercy," &c.

Will the Barrister rest the decision of the controversy on a comparison

of the lives of the Methodists and non-Methodists? Unless he knows that

their "morality has declined, as their piety has become more ardent," is

not his quotation mere labouring--nay, absolute pioneering--for the

triumphal chariot of his enemies?

Ib. pp. 75-79.

It is but fair to select a specimen of Evangelical preaching

from one of its most celebrated and popular champions * *.

He will preface it with the solemn and woful communication of the

Evangelist John, in order to show how exactly they accord, how clearly

the doctrines of the one are deduced from the Revelation of the other,

and how justly, therefore, it assumes the exclusive title of

evangelical. 'And I saw the dead * * * and the dead were judged out of

those things which were written in the books, according to their

works. And the sea gave up the dead * * and they were judged every man

according to his works'. Rev. xx. 12, 13. Let us recall to mind the

urgent caution conveyed in the writings of Paul * * 'Be not deceived;

God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also

reap'. And let us further add * * the confirmation * * of the Saviour

himself:--'When the Son of Man shall come in his glory, * * * but the

righteous into life eternal'. Matt. xxv. 31, 'ad finem'. Let us now

attend to the Evangelical preacher, (Toplady). "The Religion of Jesus

Christ stands eminently distinguished, and essentially differenced,

from every other religion that was ever proposed to human reception,

by this remarkable peculiarity; that, look abroad in the world, and

you will find that every religion, 'except one', puts you upon 'doing

something', in order to recommend yourself to God. A Mahometan * * A

Papist * * * It is only the religion of Jesus Christ that runs counter

to all the rest, by affirming--that we are 'saved' and called with a

holy calling, 'not' according to our works, but according to the

Father's own purpose and grace, which was 'not' sold to us 'on certain

conditions to be fulfilled by ourselves', but was given us in Christ

before the world began." Toplady's Works: Sermon on James ii. 18.

'Si sic omnia'! All this is just and forcible; and surely nothing can be

easier than to confute the Methodist by shewing that his very

'no-doing', when he comes to explain it, is not only an act, a work, but

even a very severe and perseverant energy of the will. He is therefore

to be arraigned of nonsense and abuse of words rather than of immoral

doctrines.

Ib. p. 84.

The sacred volume of Holy Writ declares that 'true' (pure?) 'religion

and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the

fatherless and widow in their affliction, and to keep himself

unspotted from the world'. James i. 27

This is now at least, whatever might have been the meaning of the word

'religion' in the time of the Translators, a false version. St. James is

speaking of persons eminently zealous in those public or private acts of

worship, which we call divine service, [Greek: thraeskeía]. It should be

rendered, 'True worship', &c. The passage is a fine burst of rhetoric,

and not a mere truism; just as when we say;--"A cheerful heart is a

perpetual thanksgiving, and a state of love and resignation the truest

utterance of the Lord's Prayer." St. James opposes Christianity to the

outward signs and ceremonial observances of the Jewish and Pagan

religions. But these are the only sure signs, these are the most

significant ceremonial observances by which your Christianity is to be

made known,--'to visit the fatherless', &c. True religion does not

consist 'quoad essentiam' in these acts, but in that habitual state of

the whole moral being, which manifests itself by these acts--and which

acts are to the religion of Christ that which ablutions, sacrifices and

Temple-going were to the Mosaic religion, namely, its genuine [Greek:

thraeskeía]. That which was the religion of Moses is the ceremonial or

cult of the religion of Christ. Moses commanded all good works, even

those stated by St. James, as the means of temporal felicity; and this

was the Mosaic religion; and to these he added a multitude of symbolical

observances; and these formed the Mosaic cult, ('cultus religionis',

[Greek: thraeskeía]). Christ commands holiness out of perfect love, that

is, Christian religion; and adds to this no other ceremony or symbol

than a pure life and active beneficence; which (says St. James) are the

'true cult'. [2]

Ib. p. 86.

There is no one whose writings are better calculated to do good, (than

those of Paley) by inculcating the essential duties of common life,

and the sound truths of practical Christianity.

Indeed! Paley's whole system is reducible to this one precept:--"Obey

God, and benefit your neighbour, because you love yourself above all."

Christ has himself comprised his system in--"Love your neighbour as

yourself, and God above all." These "sound truths of practical

Christianity" consist in a total subversion, not only of Christianity,

but of all morality;--the very words virtue and vice being but lazy

synonymes of prudence and miscalculation,--and which ought to be

expunged from our vocabularies, together with Abraxas and Abracadabra,

as charms abused by superstitious or mystic enthusiasts.

Ib. p. 94.

Eventually the whole direction of the popular mind, in the affairs of

religion, will be gained into the hands of a set of ignorant fanatics

of such low origin and vulgar habits as can only serve to degrade

religion in the eyes of those to whom its influence is most wanted.

Will such persons venerate or respect it in the hands of a sect

composed in the far greater part of bigotted, coarse, illiterate, and

low-bred enthusiasts? Men who have abandoned their lawful callings, in

which by industry they might have been useful members of society, to

take upon themselves concerns the most sacred, with which nothing but

their vanity and their ignorance could have excited them to meddle.

It is not the buffoonery of the reverend joker of the Edinburgh Review;

not the convulsed grin of mortification which, sprawling prostrate in

the dirt from "the whiff and wind" of the masterly disquisition in the

Quarterly Review, the itinerant preacher would pass oft' for the broad

grin of triumph; no, nor even the over-valued distinction of miracles,

--which will prevent him from seeing and shewing the equal applicability

of all this to the Apostles and primitive Christians. We know that

Trajan, Pliny, Tacitus, the Antonines, Celsus, Lucian and the

like,--much more the ten thousand philosophers and joke-smiths of

Rome,--did both feel and apply all this to the Galilean Sect; and

yet--'Vicisti, O Galilæe'!

Ib. p. 95.

They never fail to refer to the proud Pharisee, whom they term

self-'righteous'; and thus, having greatly misrepresented his

character, they proceed to declaim on the arrogance of founding any

expectation of reward from the performance of our 'moral

duties':--whereas the plain truth is that the Pharisee was 'not

righteous', but merely arrogated to himself that character; he had

neglected all the 'moral duties' of life.

Who told the Barrister this? Not the Gospel, I am sure.

The Evangelical has only to translate these sentences into the true

statement of his opinions, in order to baffle this angry and impotent

attack; the self-righteousness of all who expect to claim salvation on

the plea of their own personal merit. "Pay to A. B. at sight--value

received by me."--To Messrs. Stone and Co. Bankers, Heaven-Gate. It is a

short step from this to the Popish. "Pay to A. B. 'or order'." Once

assume merits, and I defy you to keep out supererogation and the old

'Monte di Pietà'.

Ib. p. 97.

--and from thence occasion is taken to defame all those who strive to

prepare themselves, during this their state of trial, for that

judgment which they must undergo at that day, when they will receive

either reward or punishment, according as they shall be found to have

'merited' the one, or 'deserved' the other.

Can the Barrister have read the New Testament? Or does he know it only

by quotations?

Ib.

--a swarm of new Evangelists who are every where teaching the people

that no reliance is to be placed on holiness of life as a ground of

future acceptance.

I am weary of repeating that this is false. It is only denied that mere

acts, not proceeding from faith, are or can be holiness. As surely

(would the Methodist say) as the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son, so

surely does sanctification from redemption, and not vice versa,--much

less from self-sanctifiedness, that ostrich with its head in the sand,

and the plucked rump of its merits staring on the divine [Greek: Átae]

'venatrix'!

Ib. p. 102.

'He that doeth righteousness is righteous'. Since then it is plain

that each must 'himself' be righteous, if he be so at all, what do

they mean who thus inveigh against 'self'-righteousness, since Christ

himself declares there is no other?

Here again the whole dispute lies in the word "himself." In the outward

and visible sense both parties agree; but the Methodist calls it "the

will in us," given by grace; the Barrister calls it "our own will," or

"we ourselves." But why does not the Barrister reserve a part of his

wrath for Dr. Priestley, according to whom a villain has superior claims

on the divine justice as an innocent martyr to the grand machinery of

Providence;--for Dr. Priestley, who turns the whole dictionary of human

nature into verbs impersonal with a perpetual 'subauditur' of 'Deus' for

their common nominative case;--which said 'Deus', however, is but

another 'automaton', self-worked indeed, but yet worked, not properly

working, for he admits no more freedom or will to God than to man? The

Lutheran leaves the free will whining with a broken back in the ditch;

and Dr. Priestley puts the poor animal out of his misery!--But

seriously, is it fair or even decent to appeal to the Legislature

against the Methodists for holding the doctrine of the Atonement? Do we

not pray by Act of Parliament twenty times every Sunday 'through the

only merits of Jesus Christ'? Is it not the very nose which (of flesh or

wax) this very Legislature insists on as an indispensable qualification

for every Christian face? Is not the lack thereof a felonious deformity,

yea, the grimmest feature of the 'lues confirmata' of statute heresy?

What says the reverend critic to this? Will he not rise in wrath against

the Barrister,--he the Pamphagus of Homilitic, Liturgic, and Articular

orthodoxy,--the Garagantua, whose ravenous maw leaves not a single word,

syllable, letter, no, not one 'iota' unswallowed, if we are to believe

his own recent and voluntary manifesto? [3] What says he to this

Barrister, and his Hints to the Legislature?

Ib. p. 105.

If the new faith be the only true one, let us embrace it; but let not

those who vend these 'new articles' expect that we should choose them

with our eyes shut.

Let any man read the Homilies of the Church of England, and if he does

not call this either blunt impudence or blank ignorance, I will plead

guilty to both! New articles!! Would to Heaven some of them at least

were! Why, Wesley himself was scandalized at Luther's Commentary on the

Epistle to the Galatians, and cried off from the Moravians (the

strictest Lutherans) on that account.

Ib. p. 114.

The catalogue of authors, which this Rev. Gentleman has pleased to

specify and recommend, begins with Homer, Hesiod, the Argonautics,

Æschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Pindar, Theognis, Herodotus,

Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius, Diodorus Siculus. * * *. 'This

catalogue,' says he, 'might be considerably extended, but I study

brevity. It is only necessary for me to add that the recommendation of

these books is not to be considered as expressive of my approbation of

every particular sentiment they contain.' It would indeed be grievous

injustice if this writer's reputation should be injured by the

occasional unsoundness of opinion in writers whom it is more than

probable he may never have read, and for whose sentiments he ought no

more to be made answerable than the compiler of Lackington's

Catalogue, from which it is not unlikely that his own was abridged.

Very good.

Ib. p. 115-16.

These high-strained pretenders to godliness, who deny the power of the

sinner to help himself, take good care always to attribute his 'saving

change' to the blessed effect of some sermon preached by some one or

other of 'their' Evangelical fraternity. They always hold 'themselves'

up to the multitude as the instruments producing all those marvellous

conversions which they relate. No instance is recorded in their

Saints' Calendar of any sinner resolving, in consequence of a

reflective and serious perusal of the Scriptures, to lead a new life.

No instance of a daily perusal of the Bible producing a daily progress

in virtuous habits. No, the 'Gospel' has no such effect.--It is

always the 'Gospel Preacher' who works the miracle, &c.

Excellent and just. In this way are the Methodists to be attacked:--even

as the Papists were by Baxter, not from their doctrines, but from their

practices, and the spirit of their Sect. There is a fine passage in Lord

Bacon concerning a heresy of manner being not less pernicious than

heresy of matter.

Ib. p. 118.

But their Saints, who would stop their ears if you should mention with

admiration the name of a Garrick or a Siddons;--who think it a sin to

support such an 'infamous profession' as that through the medium of

which a Milton, a Johnson, an Addison, and a Young have laboured to

mend the heart, &c.

Whoo! See Milton's Preface to the Samson Agonistes.

Ib. p. 133.

In the Evangelical Magazine is the following article: "At----in

Yorkshire, after a handsome collection (for the Missionary Society) a

poor man, whose wages are about 28s. per week, brought a donation of

20 guineas. Our friends hesitated to receive it * * when he answered *

*--'Before I knew the grace of our Lord I was a poor drunkard: I never

could save a shilling. My family were in beggary and rags; but since

it has pleased God to renew me by his grace, we have been industrious

and frugal: we have not spent many idle shillings; and we have been

enabled to put something into the Bank; and this I freely offer to the

blessed cause of our Lord and Saviour.' This is the second donation of

this same poor man to the same amount!" Whatever these Evangelists may

think of such conduct, they ought to be ashamed of thus basely taking

advantage of this poor ignorant enthusiast, &c.

Is it possible to read this affecting story without finding in it a

complete answer to the charge of demoralizing the lower classes? Does

the Barrister really think, that this generous and grateful enthusiast

is as likely to be unprovided and poverty-stricken in his old age, as he

was prior to his conversion? Except indeed that at that time his old age

was as improbable as his distresses were certain if he did live so long.

This is singing 'Io Pæan'! for the enemy with a vengeance.

Part II. p. 14.

It behoved him (Dr. Hawker in his Letter to the Barrister) to show in

what manner a covenant can exist without terms or conditions.

According to the Methodists there is a condition,--that of faith in the

power and promise of Christ, and the virtue of the Cross. And were it

otherwise, the objection is scarcely appropriate except at the Old

Bailey, or in the Court of King's Bench. The Barrister might have framed

a second law-syllogism, as acute as his former. The laws of England

allow no binding covenant in a transfer of goods or chattels without