Awakened by the cock-crow, (a sermon, a calamity, a sick bed, or a
providential escape) the Christian pilgrim sets out in the morning
twilight, while yet the truth (the νομος τελειος ὁ της ἑλευθεριας)
is below the horizon. Certain necessary _consequences_
of his past life and his present undertaking will be _seen_ by the
refraction of its light: more will be apprehended and conjectured. The
phantasms, that had predominated during the hours of darkness, are
still busy. Though they no longer present themselves as distinct
forms, they yet remain as formative motions in the pilgrim's soul,
unconscious of its own activity and overmastered by its own
workmanship. Things take the signature of thought. The shapes of the
recent dream become a _mould_ for the objects in the distance; and
these again give an outwardness and a sensation of reality to the
shapings of the dream. The bodings inspired by the long habit of
selfishness, and self-seeking cunning, though they are now commencing
the process of their purification into that fear which is the
_beginning_ of wisdom, and which, as such, is ordained to be our guide
and safeguard, till the sun of love, the perfect law of liberty, is
fully arisen--these bodings will set the fancy at work, and haply, for
a time, transform the mists of dim and imperfect knowledge into
determinate superstitions. But in either case, whether seen clearly or
dimly, whether beholden or only imagined, the _consequences_,
contemplated in their bearings on the individual's inherent[33]
desire of happiness and dread of pain, become _motives_: and (unless
all distinction in the words be done away with, and either prudence or
virtue be reduced to a superfluous synonyme, a redundancy in all the
languages of the civilized world), these motives, and the acts and
forbearances directly proceeding from them, fall under the head of
PRUDENCE, as belonging to one or other of its four very distinct
species.
I. It may be a prudence, that stands in opposition to a higher moral
life, and tends to preclude it, and to prevent the soul from ever
arriving at the hatred of sin for its own exceeding sinfulness (Rom.
vii. 13): and this is an EVIL PRUDENCE.
II. Or it may be a _neutral_ prudence, not incompatible with spiritual
growth: and to this we may, with especial propriety, apply the words
of our Lord, "What is not _against_ us is for us." It is therefore an
innocent, and (being such) a proper, and COMMENDABLE PRUDENCE.
III. Or it may lead and be subservient to a higher principle than
itself. The mind and conscience of the individual may be reconciled to
it, in the foreknowledge of the higher principle, and with a yearning
towards it that implies a foretaste of future freedom. The enfeebled
convalescent is reconciled to his crutches, and thankfully makes use
of them, not only because they are necessary for his immediate
support, but likewise, because they are the means and conditions of
EXERCISE; and by exercise, of establishing, _gradatim paulatim_, that
strength, flexibility, and almost spontaneous obedience of the
muscles, which the idea and cheering presentiment of health hold out
to him. He finds their _value_ in their present necessity, and their
_worth_ as they are the instruments of finally superseding it. This is
a faithful, a WISE PRUDENCE, having indeed, its birth-place in the
world, and the _wisdom of this world_ for its father; but naturalized
in a better land, and having the wisdom from above for its sponsor and
spiritual parent. To steal a dropt feather from the spicy nest of the
Phœnix, (the fond humour, I mean, of the mystic divines and
allegorizers of Holy Writ,) it is the _son of Terah from Ur of the
Chaldees_, who gives a tithe of all to the King of Righteousness,
without father, without mother, without descent, (Νομος αυτονομος),
and receives a blessing on the remainder.
IV. Lastly, there is a prudence that co-exists with morality, as
morality co-exists with the spiritual life: a prudence that is the
organ of both, as the understanding is to the reason and the will, or
as the lungs are to the heart and brain. This is A HOLY PRUDENCE, the
steward faithful and discreet, (οικονομος πιστος και φρονιμος, Luke
xii. 42), the "eldest servant" in the family of faith, _born in the
house_, and "made the ruler over his lord's household."
Let not, then, I entreat you, my purpose be misunderstood; as if, in
_distinguishing_ virtue from prudence, I wished to divide the one from
the other. True morality is hostile to that prudence only, which is
preclusive of true morality. The teacher, who _subordinates_ prudence
to virtue, cannot be supposed to _dispense_ with it; and he who
teaches the proper connexion of the one with the other, does not
depreciate the lower in any sense; while by making it a link of the
same chain with the higher, and receiving the same influence, he
raises it.
In general, Morality may be compared to the consonant, Prudence to the
vowel. The former cannot be _uttered_ (reduced to practice) but by
means of the latter.
[33] The following extract from Leighton's 'Theological Lectures,'
sect. II. may serve as a comment on this sentence:
"The human mind, however stunned and weakened by the fall, still
retains some faint idea of the good it has lost; a kind of languid
sense of its misery and indigence, with affections suitable to these
obscure notions. This at least is beyond all doubt and indisputable,
that all men wish well to themselves; nor can the mind divest itself
of this propensity, without divesting itself of its being. This is
what the schoolmen mean, when in their manner of expression they say,
that 'the will (voluntas, _not_ arbitrium) is carried towards
happiness not simply as _will_, but as _nature_."
I venture to remark that this position, if not more _certainly_ would
be more _evidently_ true, if instead of _beatitudo_, the word
_indolentia_ (that is, freedom from pain, negative happiness) had been
used. But this depends on the exact meaning attached to the term
_self_, of which more in another place. One conclusion, however,
follows inevitably from the preceding position, namely, that this
propensity can never be legitimately made the _principle_ of morality,
even because it is no part or appurtenance of the moral will; and
because the proper object of the moral principle is to limit and
control this propensity, and to determine in what it _may_ be, and in
what it _ought_ to be gratified; while it is the business of
philosophy to instruct the understanding, and the office of religion
to convince the whole man, that otherwise than as a _regulated_, and
of course therefore a _subordinate_, end, this propensity, innate and
inalienable though it be, can never be realized or fulfilled.