The first question we should put to ourselves, when we have to read a
passage that perplexes us in a work of authority, is; What does the
writer _mean_ by all this? And the second question should be, What
does he intend by all this? In the passage before us, Taylor's
_meaning_ is not quite clear. A sin is an evil which has its ground or
origin in the agent, and not in the compulsion of circumstances.
Circumstances are compulsory from the absence of a power to resist or
control them: and if this absence likewise be the effect of
Circumstance (that is, if it have been neither directly nor indirectly
caused by the agent himself) the evil _derives_ from the
circumstances; and therefore (in the Apostle's sense of the word, sin,
when he speaks of the exceeding sinfulness of sin) such _evil_ is not
_sin_; and the person who suffers it, or who is the compelled
instrument of its infliction on others, may feel _regret_, but cannot
feel _remorse_. So likewise of the word origin, original, or
originant. The reader cannot too early be warned that it is not
applicable, and, without abuse of language, can never be applied, to a
mere _link_ in a chain of effects, where each, indeed, stands in the
relation of a _cause_ to those that follow, but is at the same time
the _effect_ of all that precede. For in these cases a cause amounts
to little more than an antecedent. At the utmost it means only a
_conductor_ of the causative influence; and the old axiom, _causa
causæ causa causati_, applies, with a never-ending regress to each
several link, up the whole chain of nature. But this _is_ Nature: and
no _natural_ thing or act can be called originant, or be truly said
to have an _origin_[110] in any other. The moment we assume an origin
in nature, a true _beginning_, an actual first--that moment we rise
_above_ nature, and are compelled to assume a _supernatural_ power.
(Gen. i. 1.)
It will be an equal convenience to myself and to my readers, to let
it be agreed between us, that we will generalize the word
Circumstance, so as to understand by it, as often as it occurs in this
Comment, all and every thing not connected with the Will, past or
present, of a Free Agent. Even though it were the blood in the
chambers of his heart, or his own inmost sensations, we will regard
them as _circumstantial, extrinsic_, or _from without_.
In this sense of the word Original, and in the sense before given of
Sin, it is evident that the phrase, original sin, is a pleonasm, the
epithet not adding to the thought, but only enforcing it. For if it be
sin, it must be _original_; and a state or act, that has not its
origin in the will, may be calamity, deformity, disease, or mischief;
but a _sin_ it cannot be. It is not enough that the act appears
voluntary, or that it is intentional; or that it has the most hateful
passions or debasing appetite for its proximate cause and
accompaniment. All these may be found in a mad-house, where neither
law nor humanity permit us to condemn the actor of sin. The reason of
law declares the maniac not a free-agent; and the verdict follows of
course--Not guilty. Now mania, as distinguished from idiocy, frenzy,
delirium, hypochondria, and derangement (the last term used
specifically to express a suspension or disordered state of the
understanding or adaptive power) is the occultation or eclipse of
reason, as the power of ultimate ends. The maniac, it is well known,
is often found clever and inventive in the selection and adaptation of
means to _his_ ends; but his _ends_ are madness. He has lost his
reason. For though Reason, in finite Beings, is not the Will--or how
could the Will be opposed to the Reason?--yet it is the _condition_,
the _sine qua non_ of a _Free_-will.
We will now return to the extract from Jeremy Taylor on a theme of
deep interest in itself, and trebly important from its _bearings_. For
without just and distinct views respecting the Article of Original
Sin, it is impossible to understand aright any one of the peculiar
doctrines of Christianity. Now my first complaint is, that the
eloquent Bishop, while he admits the _fact_ as established beyond
controversy by universal experience, yet leaves us wholly in the dark
as to the main point, supplies us with no answer to the principal
question--why he names it Original Sin. It cannot be said, We know
what the Bishop _means_, and what matters the name? for the _nature_
of the fact, and in what light it should be regarded by us, depends on
the nature of our answer to the question, whether Original Sin is or
is not the right and proper designation. I can imagine the same
quantum of _sufferings_, and yet if I had reason to regard them as
symptoms of a commencing change, as pains of growth, the temporary
deformity and misproportions of immaturity, or (as in the final
sloughing of the caterpillar) the throes and struggles of the waxing
or evolving PSYCHE, I should think it no Stoical flight to doubt, how
far I was authorized to declare the Circumstance an _evil_ at all.
Most assuredly I would not express or describe the fact as an evil
having an origin in the sufferers themselves or as sin.
Let us, however, waive this objection. Let it be supposed that the
Bishop uses the word in a different and more comprehensive sense, and
that by sin he understands evil of all kind connected with or
resulting from _actions_--though I do not see how we can represent the
properties even of inanimate bodies (of poisonous substances for
instance) except as _acts_ resulting from the constitution of such
bodies. Or if this sense, though not unknown to the Mystic divines,
should be _too_ comprehensive and remote, we will suppose the Bishop
to comprise under the term sin, the evil accompanying or consequent on
_human_ actions and purposes:--though here too, I have a right to be
informed, for what reason and on what grounds Sin is thus limited to
_human_ agency? And truly, I should be at no loss to assign the
reason. But then this reason would instantly bring me back to my first
definition; and any other reason, than that the human agent is
endowed with Reason, and with a Will which can place itself either in
subjection or in opposition to his Reason--in other words, that man is
alone of all known animals a responsible creature--I neither know nor
can imagine.
Thus, then, the sense which Taylor--and with him the antagonists generally
of this Article as propounded by the first Reformers--attaches to the
words, Original Sin, needs only be carried on into its next
consequence, and it will be found to _imply_ the sense which I have
given--namely, that Sin is Evil having an _Origin_. But inasmuch as it
is _evil_, in God it cannot originate: and yet in some _Spirit_ (that
is, in some _supernatural_ power) it _must_. For in _Nature_ there is
no origin. Sin therefore is spiritual Evil: but the spiritual in man
is the Will. Now when we do not refer to any particular sins, but to
that state and constitution of the Will, which is the ground,
condition, and common Cause of all Sins; and when we would further
express the truth, that this corrupt _nature_ of the Will must in some
sense or other be considered as its own act, that the corruption must
have been self-originated;--in this case and for this purpose we may,
with no less propriety than force, entitle this dire spiritual evil
and source of all evil, that is absolutely such, Original Sin. I have
said, "the corrupt _nature_ of the Will." I might add, that the
admission of a _nature_ into a spiritual essence by its own act is a
corruption.
Such, I repeat, would be the inevitable conclusion, _if_ Taylor's
sense of the term were carried on into its immediate consequences. But
the whole of his most eloquent Treatise makes it certain that Taylor
did not carry it on: and consequently Original Sin, according to his
conception, is a calamity which being common to all men must be
supposed to result from their common nature: in other words, the
universal Calamity of Human _Nature_.
Can we wonder, then, that a mind, a heart like Taylor's should reject,
that he should strain his faculties to explain away, the belief that
this calamity, so dire in itself, should appear to the All-merciful
God a rightful cause and motive for inflicting on the wretched
sufferers a calamity infinitely more tremendous; nay, that it should
be incompatible with Divine Justice _not_ to punish it by everlasting
torment? Or need we be surprised if he found nothing that could
reconcile his mind to such a belief, in the circumstance that the acts
now _consequent_ on this calamity and either directly or indirectly
_effects_ of the same, were, five or six thousand years ago in the
instance of a certain individual and his accomplice, _anterior_ to the
calamity, and the _Cause_ or _Occasion_ of the same;--that what in all
other men is _disease_, in these two persons was _guilt_;--that what
in us is _hereditary_, and consequently _nature_, in _them_ was
_original_, and consequently _sin_? Lastly, might it not be presumed,
that so enlightened, and at the same time so affectionate, a divine,
would even fervently disclaim and reject the pretended justifications
of God grounded on flimsy analogies drawn from the imperfections of
human ordinances and human justice-courts--some of very doubtful
character even as human institutes, and all of them just only as far
as they are necessary, and rendered necessary chiefly by the weakness
and wickedness, the limited powers and corrupt passions, of mankind?
The more confidently might this be presumed of so acute and practised
a logician, as Taylor, in addition to his other extraordinary gifts,
is known to have been, when it is demonstrable that the most current
of these justifications rests on a palpable equivocation: namely, the
gross misuse of the word right.[111] An instance will explain my
meaning. In as far as, from the known frequency of dishonest or
mischievious persons, it may have been found _necessary_, in so far
is the law _justifiable_ in giving landowners the right of proceeding
against a neighbour or fellow-citizen for even a slight trespass on
that which the law has made their property:--nay, of proceeding in
sundry instances criminally and even capitally. But surely, either
there is no religion in the world, and nothing obligatory in the
precepts of the Gospel, or there are occasions in which it would be
very _wrong_ in the proprietor to exercise the _right_, which yet it
may be highly _expedient_ that he should possess. On this ground it
is, that Religion is the sustaining opposite of Law.
That Taylor, therefore, should have striven fervently against the
Article so interpreted and so vindicated, is, (for me, at least) a
subject neither of surprise nor of complaint. It is the doctrine which
he _substitutes_, it is the weakness and inconsistency betrayed in the
defence of this substitute; it is the unfairness with which he
blackens the established Article--for to give it, as it has been
caricatured by a few Ultra-Calvinists during the fever of the (so
called) Quinquarticular controversy, was in effect to blacken it--and
then imposes another scheme, to which the same objections apply with
even increased force, a scheme which seems to differ from the former
only by adding fraud and mockery to injustice; these are the things
that excite my wonder; it is of these that I complain. For what does
the Bishop's scheme amount to?--God, he tells us, required of Adam a
perfect obedience, and made it possible by endowing him "with perfect
rectitudes and super-natural heights of grace" proportionate to the
obedience which he required. As a _consequence_ of his disobedience,
Adam lost this rectitude, this perfect sanity and proportionateness of
his intellectual, moral and corporeal state, powers and impulses; and
as the _penalty_ of his crime, he was deprived of all super-natural
aids and graces. The death, with whatever is comprised in the
Scriptural sense of the word, death, began from that moment to work in
him, and this _consequence_ he conveyed to his offspring, and through
them to all his posterity, that is, to all mankind. They were _born_
diseased in mind, body and will. For what less than disease can we
call a necessity of error and a predisposition to sin and sickness?
Taylor, indeed, _asserts_, that though perfect obedience became
incomparably more difficult, it was not, however, absolutely
_impossible_. Yet he himself admits that the contrary was _universal_;
that of the countless millions of Adam's posterity, not a single
individual ever realized, or approached to the realization of, this
possibility; and (if my memory[113] does not deceive me) Taylor
himself has elsewhere exposed--and if he has not, yet Common Sense
will do it for him--the sophistry in asserting of a whole what may be
true of the whole, but--is in fact true only, of each of its component
parts. Any one may snap a horse-hair: therefore, any one may perform
the same feat with the horse's tail. On a level floor (on the hardened
sand, for instance, of a sea-beach) I chalk two parallel straight
lines, with a width of eight inches. It is _possible_ for a man, with
a bandage over his eyes, to keep within the path for two or three
paces: therefore, it is _possible_ for him to walk blindfold for two
or three leagues without a single deviation! And this _possibility_
would suffice to acquit me of _injustice_, though I had placed
man-traps within an inch of one line, and knew that there were
pit-falls and deep wells beside the other!
This _assertion_, therefore, without adverting to its discordance
with, if not direct contradiction to, the tenth and thirteenth
Articles of our Church, I shall not, I trust, be thought to rate below
its true value, if I treat it as an _infinitesimal_ possibility that
may be safely dropped in the calculation:--and so proceed with the
argument. The consequence then of Adam's crime was, by a natural
necessity, inherited by persons who could not (the Bishop affirms) in
any sense have been accomplices in the crime or partakers in the
guilt: and yet consistently with the divine holiness, it was not
possible that the same perfect obedience should not be required of
them. Now what would the idea of equity, what would the law inscribed
by the Creator in the heart of man, seem to dictate in this case?
Surely, that the supplementary aids, the super-natural graces
correspondent to a law above nature, should be increased in proportion
to the diminished strength of the agents, and the increased resistance
to be overcome by them. But no! not only the consequence of Adam's
act, but the penalty due to his crime, was perpetuated. His
descendants were despoiled or left destitute of these aids and graces,
while the obligation to perfect obedience was continued; an obligation
too, the non-fulfilment of which brought with it death and the
unutterable woe that cleaves to an immortal soul for ever alienated
from its Creator.
Observe, that all these _results_ of Adam's fall enter into Bishop
Taylor's scheme of Original Sin equally as into that of the first
Reformers. In this respect the Bishop's doctrine is the same with that
laid down in the Articles and Homilies of the Established Church. The
only difference that has hitherto appeared, consists in the aforesaid
_mathematical_ possibility of fulfilling the whole law, which in the
Bishop's scheme is affirmed to remain still in human nature, or (as it
is elsewhere expressed) in the nature of the human Will.[114] But though
it were possible to grant this existence of a power in all men, which in
no man was ever exemplified, and where the _non_-actualization of such
power is, _a priori_, so certain, that the belief or imagination of
the contrary in any individual is expressly given us by the Holy
Spirit as a test, whereby it may be known that _the truth is not in
him_, as an infallible sign of imposture or self-delusion! Though it
were possible to grant this, which, consistently with Scripture and
the principles of reasoning which we apply in all other cases, it is
not possible to grant;--and though it were possible likewise to
overlook the glaring sophistry of concluding in relation to a series
of indeterminate length, that whoever can do any one, can therefore do
all; a conclusion, the futility of which must force itself on the
common-sense of every man who understands the proposition;--still the
question will arise--Why, and on what principle of equity, were the
unoffending sentenced to be born with so fearful a disproportion of
their powers to their duties? Why were they subjected to a law, the
fulfilment of which was all but impossible, yet the penalty on the
failure tremendous? Admit that for those who had never enjoyed a
happier lot, it was no punishment to be made to inhabit a ground which
the Creator had cursed, and to have been born with a body prone to
sickness, and a soul surrounded with temptation, and having the worst
temptation within itself in its own _temptibility_;--to have the
duties of a spirit with the wants and appetites of an animal! Yet on
such imperfect Creatures, with means so scanty and impediments so
numerous, to impose the same task-work that had been required of a
Creature with a pure and entire nature, and provided with super-natural
aids--if this be not to inflict a penalty;--yet to be placed under a
law, the difficulty of obeying which is infinite, and to have momently
to struggle with this difficulty, and to live momently in hazard of
these consequences--if this be no punishment;--words have no
correspondence with thoughts, and thoughts are but shadows of each
other, shadows that own no substance for their anti-type!
Of such an outrage on common-sense, Taylor was incapable. He himself
calls it a penalty; he admits that in effect it is a punishment: nor
does he seek to suppress the question that so naturally arises out of
this admission;--on what principle of equity were the innocent
offspring of Adam _punished_ at all? He meets it, and puts-in an
answer. He states the problem, and gives his solution--namely, that
"God on Adam's account was so exasperated with mankind, that being
angry he would still continue the punishment"! "The case" (says the
Bishop) "is this: Jonathan and Michal were Saul's children. It came to
pass, that seven of Saul's issue were to be hanged: all equally
innocent, equally culpable." [_Before I quote further, I feel myself
called on to remind the reader, that these two last words were added
by Jeremy Taylor without the least grounds in Scripture, according to
which_, (2 Samuel, xxi.) _no crime was laid to their charge, no blame
imputed to them_. _Without any pretence of culpable conduct on their
part, they were arraigned as children of Saul, and sacrificed to a
point of state-expedience. In recommencing the quotation, therefore,
the reader ought to let the sentence conclude with the words--_] "all
equally innocent. David took the five sons of Michal, for she had
left him unhandsomely. Jonathan was his friend: and therefore he
spared _his_ son, Mephibosheth. Here it was indifferent as to the
guilt of the persons" (_Bear in mind, reader, that no guilt was
attached to either of them!_) "whether David should take the sons of
Michal or of Jonathan; but it is likely that as upon the kindness that
David had to Jonathan, he spared his son; so upon the just provocation
of Michal, he made that evil fall upon them, which, it may be, they
should not have suffered, if their mother had been kind. Adam was to
God, as Michal to David."[115]
This answer, this solution proceeding too from a divine so
pre-eminently gifted, and occurring (with other passages not less
startling) in a vehement refutation of the received doctrine on the
express ground of its opposition to the clearest conceptions and best
feelings of mankind--this it is that surprises me! It is of this that
I complain! The Almighty Father _exasperated_ with those, whom the
Bishop has himself in the same treatise described as "innocent and
most unfortunate"--the two things best fitted to conciliate love and
pity! Or though they did not remain innocent, yet those whose
abandonment to a mere nature, while they were left amenable to a law
above nature, he affirms to be the irresistible cause, that they one
and all _did_ sin! And this decree illustrated and justified by its
analogy to one of the worst actions of an imperfect mortal! From such
of my readers as will give a thoughtful perusal to these works of
Taylor, I dare anticipate a concurrence with the judgment which I here
transcribe from the blank space at the end of the _Deus Justificatus_
in my own copy; and which, though twenty years[116] have elapsed since
it was written, I have never seen reason to recant or modify. "This
most eloquent Treatise may be compared to a statue of Janus, with the
one face, which we must suppose fronting the Calvinistic tenet, entire
and fresh, as from the master's hand: beaming with life and force,
witty scorn on the lip, and a brow at once bright and weighty with
satisfying reason:--the other, looking toward the "something to be put
in its place," maimed, featureless, and weather-bitten into an almost
visionary confusion and indistinctness."[117]
With these expositions I hasten to contrast the _Scriptural_ article
respecting Original Sin, or the corrupt and sinful Nature of the Human
Will, and the belief which alone is required of us, as Christians. And
here the first thing to be considered, and which will at once remove a
world of error, is; that this is no tenet first introduced or imposed
by Christianity, and which, should a man see reason to disclaim the
authority of the Gospel, would no longer have any claim on his
attention. It is no perplexity that a man may get rid of by ceasing to
be a Christian, and which has no existence for a philosophic Deist. It
is a FACT, affirmed, indeed, in the Christian Scriptures alone with
the force and frequency proportioned to its consummate importance; but
a fact acknowledged in _every_ religion that retains the least
glimmering of the patriarchal faith in a God infinite, yet
_personal_--a Fact assumed or implied as the basis of every religion,
of which any relics remain of earlier date than the last and total
apostacy of the Pagan world, when the faith in the great I AM, the
_Creator_, was extinguished in the sensual Polytheism, which is
inevitably the final result of Pantheism or the worship of nature; and
the only form under which the Pantheistic scheme--that, according to
which the world is God, and the material universe itself the one only
_absolute_ Being--can exist for a people, or become the popular creed.
Thus in the most ancient books of the Brahmins, the deep sense of this
Fact, and the doctrines grounded on obscure traditions of the promised
remedy, are seen struggling, and now gleaming, now flashing, through
the mist of Pantheism, and producing the incongruities and gross
contradictions of the Brahmin Mythology: while in the rival sect--in
that most strange _phænomenon_, the religious atheism of the
Buddhists: with whom God is only universal matter considered
abstractedly from all particular forms--the Fact is placed among the
delusions natural to man, which, together with other superstitions
grounded on a supposed _essential_ difference between right and wrong,
_the sage_ is to decompose and precipitate from the _menstruum_ of
_his_ more refined apprehensions! Thus in denying the Fact, they
virtually acknowledge it.
From the remote East turn to the mythology of Lesser Asia, to the
descendants of Javan who dwelt in the tents of Shem, and possessed the
Isles. Here again, and in the usual form of an historic solution we
find the same _Fact_, and as characteristic of the human _race_,
stated in that earliest and most venerable _mythus_ (or symbolic
parable) of Prometheus--that truly wonderful Fable, in which the
characters of the rebellious Spirit and of the Divine Friend of
Mankind (Θεος φιλανθρωπος) are united in the same person; and
thus in the most striking manner noting the forced amalgamation of the
Patriarchal tradition with the incongruous scheme of Pantheism. This
and the connected tale of Io, which is but the sequel of the
Prometheus, stand alone in the Greek Mythology, in which elsewhere
both gods and men are mere powers and products of nature. And most
noticeable it is, that soon after the promulgation and spread of the
Gospel had awakened the moral sense, and had opened the eyes even of
its wiser enemies to the necessity of providing some solution of this
great problem of the Moral World, the beautiful Parable of Cupid and
Psyche was brought forward as a _rival_ FALL OF MAN: and the fact of a
moral corruption connatural with the human race was again recognized.
In the assertion of ORIGINAL SIN the Greek Mythology rose and set.
But not only was the _fact_ acknowledged of a law in the nature of man
resisting the law of God; (and whatever is placed in active and direct
oppugnancy to the good is, _ipso facto_, positive evil;) it was
likewise an acknowledged MYSTERY, and one which by the nature of the
subject must ever remain such--a problem, of which any other solution,
than the statement of the _Fact_ itself, was demonstrably
_impossible_. That it is so, the least reflection will suffice to
convince every man, who has previously satisfied himself that he is a
responsible being. It follows necessarily from the postulate of a
responsible Will. Refuse to grant this, and I have not a word to say.
Concede this and you concede all. For this is the essential attribute
of a Will, and contained in the very _idea_, that whatever determines
the Will acquires this power from a previous determination of the Will
itself. The Will is ultimately self-determined, or it is no longer a
_Will_ under the law of perfect freedom, but a _nature_ under the
mechanism of cause and effect. And if by an act, to which it had
determined itself, it has subjected itself to the determination of
nature (in the language of St. Paul, to the law of the flesh), it
receives a nature into itself, and so far it becomes a nature: and
this is a corruption of the Will and a corrupt nature. It is also a
_Fall_ of Man, inasmuch as his Will is the condition of his
personality; the ground and condition of the attribute which
constitutes him _man_. And the ground work of _personal_ Being is a
capacity of acknowledging the Moral Law (the Law of the Spirit, the
Law of Freedom, the Divine Will) as that which should, of itself,
suffice to determine the Will to a free obedience of the law, the law
working therein by its own exceeding lawfulness.[118] This, and this
alone, is _positive_ Good; good in itself, and independent of all
relations. Whatever resists, and, as a positive force, opposes _this_
in the Will is therefore evil. But an evil in the Will is an evil
Will; and as all moral evil (that is, all evil that is evil without
reference to its contingent physical consequences) is _of_ the Will,
this evil Will must have its source in the Will. And thus we might go
back from act to act, from evil to evil, _ad infinitum_, without
advancing a step.
We call an individual a _bad_ man, not because an action is contrary
to the law, but because it has led us to conclude from it some
_Principle_ opposed to the law, some private maxim, or by-law in the
Will contrary to the universal law of right reason in the conscience,
as the _ground_ of the action. But this evil principle again must be
grounded in some other principle which has been made determinant of
the Will by the Will's own self-determination. For if not, it must
have its ground in some necessity of nature, in some instinct or
propensity imposed, not acquired, another's work not our own.
Consequently, neither act nor principle could be imputed; and
relatively to the agent, not _original_, not _sin_.
Now let the grounds on which the fact of an evil inherent in the Will
is affirmable in the instance of any one man, be supposed equally
applicable in _every_ instance, and concerning all men: so that the
fact is asserted of the individual, _not_, because he has committed
this or that crime, or because he has shown himself to be _this_ or
_that_ man, but simply because he is _a_ man. Let the evil be supposed
such as to imply the impossibility of an individual's referring to any
particular time at which it might be conceived to have commenced, or
to any period of his existence at which it was not existing. Let it be
supposed, in short, that the subject stands in no relation whatever to
time, can neither be called _in_ time nor _out of_ time; but that all
relations of time are as alien and heterogeneous in this question, as
the relations and attributes of space (north or south, round or
square, thick or thin) are to our affections and moral feelings. Let
the reader suppose this, and he will have before him the precise
import of the Scriptural _doctrine_ of Original Sin; or rather of the
Fact acknowledged in all ages, and recognized but not originating, in
the Christian Scriptures.
In addition to this it will be well to remind the inquirer, that the
stedfast conviction of the existence, personality, and moral
attributes of God, is presupposed in the acceptance of the Gospel, or
required as its indispensable preliminary. It is taken for granted as
a point which the hearer had already decided for himself, a point
finally settled and put at rest: not by the removal of all
difficulties, or by any such increase of insight as enabled him to
meet every objection of the Epicurean or the sceptic with a full and
precise answer; but because he had convinced himself that it was folly
as well as presumption in so imperfect a creature to expect it; and
because these difficulties and doubts disappeared at the beam, when
tried against the weight and convictive power of the reasons in the
other scale. It is, therefore, most unfair to attack Christianity, or
any article which the Church has declared a Christian doctrine, by
arguments, which, if valid, are valid against all religion. Is there
a disputant who scorns a mere _postulate_, as the basis of any
argument in support of the Faith; who is too high-minded _to beg_ his
ground, and will take it by a strong hand? Let him fight it out with
the Atheists, or the Manichæans; but not stoop to pick up their
arrows, and then run away to discharge them at Christianity or the
Church!
The only true way is to state the doctrine, believed as well by Saul
of Tarsus, _yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against_ the
Church of Christ, as by Paul the Apostle _fully preaching the Gospel
of Christ_. A moral Evil is an evil that has its origin in a Will. An
evil common to all must have a ground common to all. But the actual
existence of moral evil we are bound in conscience to admit; and that
there is an evil common to all is a fact; and this evil must therefore
have a common ground. Now this evil ground cannot originate in the
Divine Will: it must therefore be referred to the will of man. And
this evil ground we call Original Sin. It is a _mystery_, that is, a
fact, which we see, but cannot explain; and the doctrine a truth which
we apprehend, but can neither comprehend nor communicate. And such by
the quality of the subject (namely, a responsible _Will_) it must be,
if it be truth at all.
A sick man, whose complaint was as obscure as his sufferings were
severe and notorious, was thus addressed by a humane stranger: "My
poor Friend! I find you dangerously ill, and on this account only, and
having certain information of your being so, and that you have not
wherewithal to pay for a physician, I have come to you. Respecting
your disease, indeed, I can tell you nothing, that you are capable of
understanding, more than you know already, or can only be taught by
reflection on your own experience. But I have rendered the disease no
longer irremediable. I have brought the remedy with me: and I now
offer you the means of immediate relief, with the assurance of gradual
convalescence, and a final perfect cure; nothing more being required
on your part, but your best endeavours to follow the prescriptions I
shall leave with you. It is, indeed, too probable, from the nature of
your disease, that you will occasionally neglect or transgress them.
But even this has been calculated on in the plan of your cure, and
the remedies provided, if only you are sincere and in right earnest
with yourself, and have your _heart_ in the work. Ask me not how such
a disease can be conceived possible. Enough for the present that you
know it to be real: and I come to cure the disease not to explain it."
Now, what if the patient or some of his neighbours should charge this
good Samaritan, with having given rise to the mischievous notion of an
inexplicable disease, involving the honour of the King of the
country;--should inveigh against _him_ as the author and first
introducer of the notion, though of the numerous medical works
composed ages before _his_ arrival, and by physicians of the most
venerable authority, it was scarcely possible to open a single volume
without finding some description of the disease, or some lamentation
of its malignant and epidemic character:--and, lastly, what if certain
pretended friends of this good Samaritan, in their zeal to vindicate
him against this absurd charge, should assert that he was a perfect
stranger to this disease, and boldly deny that he had ever said or
done any thing connected with it, or that implied its existence?
In this Apologue or imaginary case, reader, you have the true bearings
of Christianity on the fact and doctrine of Original Sin. The doctrine
(that is, the confession of a known fact) Christianity has only in
common with every religion, and with every philosophy, in which the
reality of a responsible Will and the _essential_ difference between
good and evil have been recognised. _Peculiar_ to the Christian
religion are the remedy and (for all purposes but those of a merely
speculative curiosity) the solution. By the annunciation of the remedy
it affords all the solution which our _moral_ interests require; and
even in that which remains, and must remain, unfathomable, the
Christian finds a new motive to walk humbly with the Lord his God.
Should a professed Believer ask you whether that, which is the ground
of responsible action in _your_ will, could in any way be responsibly
present in the Will of Adam,--answer him in these words: "_You_, Sir!
can no more demonstrate the negative, than I can conceive the
affirmative. The corruption of my will may very warrantably be spoken
of as a _consequence_ of Adam's fall, even as my birth of Adam's
existence; as a consequence, a link in the historic chain of
instances, whereof Adam is the first. But that it is _on account_ of
Adam; or that this evil principle was, _a priori_, inserted or infused
into my Will by the will of another--which is indeed a contradiction
in terms, my Will in such case being no _Will_--_this_ is nowhere
asserted in Scripture explicitly or by implication." It belongs to the
very essence of the doctrine, that in respect of Original Sin _every_
man is the adequate representative of _all_ men. What wonder, then,
that where no inward ground of preference existed, the choice should
be determined by outward relations, and that the first _in time_
should be taken as the diagram? Even in Genesis the word, Adam, is
distinguished from a proper name by an Article before it. It is _the_
Adam, so as to express the _genus_, not the individual--or rather,
perhaps, I should say, _as well as_ the individual. But that the word
with its equivalent, _the old man_, is used symbolically and
universally by St. Paul, (1 Cor. xv. 22, 45. Eph. iv. 22. Col. iii. 9.
Rom. vi. 6.) is too evident to need any proof.
I conclude with this remark. The doctrine of Original Sin concerns all
men. But it concerns Christians _in particular_ no otherwise than by
its connexion with the doctrine of Redemption; and with the Divinity
and Divine Humanity of the Redeemer as a corollary or necessary
inference from both mysteries. BEWARE OF ARGUMENTS AGAINST
CHRISTIANITY, WHICH CANNOT STOP THERE, AND CONSEQUENTLY OUGHT NOT TO
HAVE COMMENCED THERE. Something I might have added to the clearness of
the preceding views, if the limits of the work had permitted me to
clear away the several delusive and fanciful assertions respecting the
state[119] of our first parents, their wisdom, science, and angelic
faculties, assertions without the slightest ground in Scripture:--Or,
if consistently with the wants and preparatory studies of those for
whose use the volume was especially intended, I could have entered
into the momentous subject of a Spiritual Fall or Apostacy
_antecedent_ to the formation of man--a belief, the scriptural grounds
of which are few and of diverse interpretation, but which has been
almost universal in the Christian Church. Enough, however, has been
given, I trust, for the Reader to see and (as far as the subject is
capable of being understood) to understand this long controverted
Article, in the sense in which alone it is binding on his faith.
Supposing him therefore, to know the meaning of original sin, and to
have decided for himself on the fact of its actual existence, as the
antecedent ground and occasion of Christianity, we may now proceed to
Christianity itself, as the Edifice raised on this ground, that is, to
the great Constituent Article of the Faith in Christ, as the Remedy of
the Disease--The Doctrine of Redemption.
But before I proceed to this momentous doctrine let me briefly remind
the young and friendly pupil, to whom I would still be supposed to
address myself, that in the following Aphorism the word science is
used in its strict and narrowest sense. By a Science I here mean any
chain of truths which are either absolutely certain, or necessarily
true for the human mind, from the laws and constitution of the mind
itself. In neither case is our conviction derived, or capable of
receiving any addition, from outward experience, or empirical
_data_--that is, matters of fact _given_ to us through the medium of
the senses--though these _data_ may have been the occasion, or may
even be an indispensable condition, of our reflecting on the former,
and thereby becoming _conscious_ of the same. On the other hand, a
connected series of conclusions grounded on empirical _data_, in
contra-distinction from science, I beg leave (no better term
occurring) in this place and for this purpose, to denominate a scheme.
[103] It has in its consequences proved no trifling evil to the
Christian world, that Aristotle's Definitions of Nature are all
grounded on the petty and rather rhetorical than philosophical
Antithesis of Nature to Art--a conception inadequate to the demands
even of _his_ philosophy. Hence in the progress of his reasoning, he
confounds the _natura naturata_ (that is, the sum total of the facts
and phænomena of the Senses) with an hypothetical _natura naturans_, a
_Goddess_ Nature, that has no better claim to a place in any sober
system of Natural Philosophy than the Goddess _Multitudo_; yet to
which Aristotle not rarely gives the name and attributes of the
Supreme Being. The result was, that the idea of God thus identified
with this hypothetical _Nature_ becomes itself but an _hypothesis_, or
at best but a precarious inference from incommensurate premises and on
disputable principles: while in other passages, God is confounded with
(and every where, in Aristotle's _genuine_ works, _included in_) the
Universe: which most grievous error it is the great and characteristic
merit of Plato to have avoided and denounced.
[104] Take one passage among many from the posthumous Tracts (1660) of
John Smith,[105] not the least star in that bright constellation of
Cambridge men, the contemporaries of Jeremy Taylor. "While we reflect
on our idea of Reason, we know that our Souls are not it, but only
partake of it; and that we have it κατα μεθεξιν and not κατ᾽ ουσιην.
Neither can it be called a Faculty, but far rather a Light, which we
enjoy, but the Source of which is not in ourselves, nor rightly by any
individual to be denominated _mine_." This _pure_, intelligence he
then proceeds to contrast with the _Discursive_ Faculty, that is, the
Understanding.
[105] There is a Note on John Smith and his 'Select Discourses' in
Coleridge's 'Literary Remains,' 1838, v. iii. pp. 415-19.--ED.
[106] See Coleridge on Jeremy Taylor: 'Literary Remains,' 1838, v.
iii. pp. 295-334, &c.--ED.
[107] We have the assurance of Bishop Horsley, that the Church of
England does not demand the literal understanding of the document
contained in the second (from verse 8) and third Chapters of Genesis
as a point of faith, or regard a different interpretation as affecting
the orthodoxy of the interpreter; divines of the most unimpeachable
orthodoxy, and the most averse to the allegorizing of Scripture
history in general, having from the earliest ages of the Christian
Church adopted or permitted it in this instance. And indeed no
unprejudiced man can pretend to doubt, that if in any other work of
Eastern origin he met with Trees of Life and of Knowledge; talking and
conversable snakes:
Inque rei signum _serpentem serpere_ jussum;
he would want no other proofs that it was an allegory he was reading,
and intended to be understood as such. Nor, if we suppose him
conversant with Oriental works of any thing like the same antiquity,
could it surprise him to find events of true history in connexion
with, or historical personages among the actors and interlocutors of,
the parable. In the temple-language of Egypt the serpent was the
symbol of the understanding in its twofold function, namely as the
faculty of _means_ to _proximate_ or _medial_, ends, analogous to the
_instinct_ of the more intelligent animals, ant, bee, beaver, and the
like, and opposed to the practical reason, as the determinant of the
_ultimate_ end; and again, it typifies the understanding as the
discursive and logical faculty possessed individually by each
individual--the λογος εν ἑκαστω, in distinction from the νους,
that is, intuitive reason, the source of ideas and ABSOLUTE Truths,
and the principle of the necessary and the universal in our
affirmations and conclusions. Without or in contra-vention to the
reason (_i.e._ _the spiritual mind_ of St. Paul, and _the light that
lighteth every man_ of St. John) this understanding (φρονημα
σαρκος, or carnal mind) becomes the _sophistic_ principle, the wily
tempter to evil by counterfeit good; the pander and advocate of the
passions and appetites; ever in league with, and always first applying
to, the _Desire_, as the inferior nature in man, the _woman_ in our
humanity; and through the DESIRE prevailing on the WILL (the
_Man_-hood, _Vir_tus) against the command of the universal reason, and
against the light of reason in the WILL itself. This essential
inherence of an intelligential principle (φως νοερον) in the Will
(αρχη φελητικη) or rather the Will itself thus considered, the
Greeks expressed by an appropriate word βουλη. This, but little
differing from Origen's interpretation or hypothesis, is supported and
confirmed by the very old tradition of the _homo androgynus_, that is,
that the original man, the individual first created, was bi-sexual: a
chimæra, of which and of many other mythological traditions the most
probable explanation is, that they were originally symbolical _glyphs_
or sculptures, and afterwards translated into _words_, yet
_literally_, that is into the common names of the several figures and
images composing the symbol, while the symbolic _meaning_ was left to
be deciphered as before, and sacred to the initiate. As to the
abstruseness and subtlety of the conceptions, this is so far from
being an objection to this oldest _gloss_ on this venerable relic of
Semitic, not impossibly ante-diluvian, philosophy, that to those who
have carried their researches farthest back into Greek, Egyptian,
Persian, and Indian antiquity, it will seem a strong confirmation. Or
if I chose to address the sceptic in the language of the day, I might
remind him, that as alchemy went before chemistry, and astrology
before astronomy, so in all countries of civilized man have
metaphysics outrun common sense. Fortunately for us that they have so!
For from all we know of the _un_metaphysical tribes of New Holland and
elsewhere, a common sense not preceded by metaphysics is no very
enviable possession. O be not cheated, my youthful reader, by this
shallow prate! The creed of true common sense is composed of the
_results_ of scientific meditation, observation, and experiment, as
far as they are _generally_ intelligible. It differs therefore in
different countries and in every different age of the same country.
The common sense of a people is the moveable _index_ of its average
judgment and information. Without metaphysics science could have had
no language, and common sense no materials.
But to return to my subject. It cannot be denied, that the Mosaic
Narrative thus interpreted gives a just and faithful exposition of the
birth and parentage and successive moments of _phænomenal_ sin
(_peccatum phænomenon; crimen primarium et commune_), that is, of sin
as it reveals itself _in time_, and is an immediate object of
consciousness. And in this sense most truly does the Apostle assert,
that in Adam we all fell. The first human sinner is the adequate
representative of all his successors. And with no less truth may it be
said, that it is the same Adam that falls in every man, and from the
same reluctance to abandon the too dear and undivorceable Eve: and the
same EVE tempted by the same serpentine and perverted understanding,
which, framed originally to be the interpreter of the reason and the
ministering angel of the Spirit, is henceforth sentenced and bound
over to the service of the Animal Nature, its needs and its cravings,
dependent on the senses for all its materials, with the World of Sense
for its appointed sphere: _Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust
shalt thou eat all the days of thy life._ I have shown elsewhere, that
as the Instinct of the mere intelligence differs in degree not in
kind, and circumstantially, not essentially, from the _vis vitæ_, or
vital power in the assimilative and digestive functions of the stomach
and other organs of nutrition, even so the Understanding, in itself
and distinct from the Reason and Conscience, differs in degree only
from the Instinct in the animal. It is still but _a beast of the
field_, though _more subtle than any beast of the field_, and
therefore in its corruption and perversion _cursed above any_--a
pregnant word! of which, if the reader wants an exposition or
paraphrase, he may find one more than two thousand years old among the
fragments of the poet Menander. (See Cumberland's Observer, No. CL.
vol. iii. p. 289, 290.) This is the _Understanding_ which in its
_every thought_ is to be brought _under obedience to Faith_; which it
can scarcely fail to be, if only it be first subjected to the Reason,
of which spiritual Faith is even the blossoming and the fructifying
process. For it is indifferent whether I say that Faith is the
interpenetration of the Reason and the Will, or that it is at once the
Assurance and the Commencement of the approaching Union between the
Reason and the _intelligible_ realities, the _living_ and
_substantial_ truths, that are even in this life its most proper
objects.
I have thus put the reader in possession of my own opinions respecting
the narrative in Gen. ii. and iii. Εστιν ουν δη, ὡς εμοιγε δοκει,
ἱερος μυθος, αληθεστατον και αρχαιτατον φιλοσοφημα, ευσεβεσι
μεν σεβασμα, συνετοις τε φωναν· ες δε το παν ἑρμηνεως χατιζει. Or
I might ask with Augustine, Why not both? Why not at once symbol and
history? or rather how should it be otherwise? Must not of necessity
the FIRST MAN be a SYMBOL of Mankind, in the fullest force of the
word, Symbol, rightly defined--that is, a sign included in the idea,
which it represents;--an actual _part_ chosen to represent the
_whole_, as a lip with a chin prominent is a symbol of man; or a
_lower_ form or species used as the representative of a higher in the
same _kind_: thus Magnetism is the Symbol of Vegetation, and of the
vegetative and reproductive power in animals; the Instinct of the
ant-tribe, or the bee, is a symbol of the human understanding. And
this definition of the word is of great practical importance, inasmuch
as the symbolical is hereby distinguished _toto genere_ from the
allegoric and metaphorical. But, perhaps, parables, allegories, and
allegorical or typical applications, are incompatible with _inspired_
Scripture! The writings of St. Paul are sufficient proof of the
contrary. Yet I readily acknowledge, that allegorical _applications_
are one thing, and allegorical _interpretation_ another: and that
where there is no ground for supposing such a sense to have entered
into the intent and purpose of the sacred penman, they are not to be
commended. So far, indeed, am I from entertaining any predilection for
them, or any favourable opinion of the Rabbinical commentators and
traditionists, from whom the fashion was derived, that in carrying it
as far as our own Church has carried it, I follow her judgment, not my
own. But in the first place, I know but one other part of the
Scriptures not universally held to be parabolical, which, not without
the sanction of great authorities, I am disposed to regard as an
Apologue or Parable, namely, the book of Jonah; the reasons for
believing the Jewish nation collectively to be therein impersonated,
seeming to me unanswerable. Secondly, as to the Chapters now in
question--that such interpretation is at least tolerated by our
Church, I have the word of one of her most zealous champions. And
lastly it is my deliberate and conscientious conviction, that the
proofs of such having been the intention of the inspired writer or
compiler of the book of Genesis, lie on the face of the narrative
itself.
[108] Rom. v. 14. Who were they, who _had_ not _sinned after the
similitude of Adam's transgression_; and over whom, notwithstanding,
_death reigned_?
[109] Slightly altered from Jeremy Taylor's 'Deus Justificatus; or a
Vindication of the Glory of the Divine Attributes in the Question of
Original Sin, Against the Presbyterian way of Understanding it.' See
Heber's edition of Taylor's works, 1822, v. ix. pp. 315-16.--ED.
[110] This sense of the word is implied even in its metaphorical or
figurative use. Thus we may say of a _river_ that it _originates_ in
such or such a _fountain_; but the water of a _canal_ is _derived_
from such or such a river. The Power which we call Nature, may be thus
defined: A Power subject to the Law of Continuity (_lex continui; nam
in naturâ non datur saltus_) which law the human understanding, by a
necessity arising out of its own constitution, can _conceive_ only
under the form of Cause and Effect. That this _form_ (or law) of Cause
and Effect is (relatively to the world _without_, or to things as they
subsist independently of our perceptions) only a form or mode of
_thinking_; that it is a law inherent in the Understanding itself
(just as the symmetry of the miscellaneous objects seen by the
kaleidoscope inheres in, or results from, the mechanism of the
kaleidoscope itself)--this becomes evident as soon as we attempt to
apply the pre-conception directly to any operation of nature. For in
this case we are forced to represent the cause as being at the same
instant the effect, and _vice versâ_ the effect as being the cause--a
relation which we seek to express by the terms Action and Re-action;
but for which the term Reciprocal Action or the law of Reciprocity
(_Wechselwirkung_) would be both more accurate and more expressive.
These are truths which can scarcely be too frequently impressed on the
mind that is in earnest in the wish to _reflect_ aright. Nature is a
line in constant and continuous evolution. Its _beginning_ is lost in
the super-natural: and _for our understanding_, therefore, it must
appear as a continuous line without beginning or end. But where there
is no discontinuity there can be no origination, and every appearance
of origination in _nature_ is but a shadow of our own casting. It is a
reflection from our own _Will_ or Spirit. Herein, indeed, the Will
consists. This is the essential character by which WILL is _opposed_ to
Nature, as _Spirit_, and raised _above_ Nature, as _self-determining_
Spirit--this namely, that it is a power of _originating_ an act or
state.
A young friend or, as he was pleased to describe himself, _a pupil of
mine, who is beginning to learn to think_, asked me to explain by an
instance what is meant by "_originating_ an act or state." My answer
was--This morning I awoke with a dull pain, which I knew from
experience the getting up would remove; and yet by adding to the
drowsiness and by weakening or depressing the _volition (voluntas
sensorialis seu mechanica_) the very pain seemed to _hold me back_, to
fix me (as it were) to the bed. After a peevish ineffectual quarrel
with this painful disinclination, I said to myself: Let me count
twenty, and the moment I come to nineteen I will leap out of bed. So
said, and so done. Now should you ever find yourself in the same or in
a similar state, and should attend to _the goings-on_ within you, you
will learn what I mean by _originating_ an act. At the same time you
will see that it belongs _exclusively_ to the Will (_arbitrium_); that
there is nothing analogous to it in outward experiences; and that I
had, therefore, no way of explaining it but by referring you to an
_act_ of your own, and to the peculiar self-consciousness preceding
and accompanying it. As we know what Life is by _Being_, so we know
what Will is by _Acting_. That in _willing_ (replied my young friend)
we _appear_ to ourselves to constitute an actual _Beginning_ and that
this seems _unique_, and without any example in our _sensible_
experience, or in the phænomena of nature, is an undeniable _fact_.
But may it not be an illusion arising from our ignorance of the
antecedent causes? You _may_ suppose this (I rejoined):--that the soul
of every man should impose a _Lie_ on itself; and that this Lie, and
the acting on the faith of its being the most important of all truths
and the most real of all realities, should form the main
contra-distinctive character of Humanity, and the only basis of that
distinction between Things and Persons on which our whole moral and
criminal Law is grounded;--you may suppose this; I cannot, as I could
in the case of an arithmetical or geometrical proposition, render it
_impossible_ for you to suppose it. Whether you can reconcile such a
supposition with the belief of an all-wise Creator, is another
question. But, taken singly, it is doubtless in your power to suppose
this. Were it not, the belief of the contrary would be no subject of a
_command_, no part of a moral or religious _duty_. You would not,
however, suppose it _without a reason_. But all the pretexts that ever
have been or ever can be offered for this supposition, are built on
certain _notions_ of the Understanding that have been generalized from
_conceptions_; which conceptions, again, are themselves generalized or
abstracted from objects of sense. Neither the one nor the other,
therefore, have any force except in application to objects of sense
and within the sphere of sensible Experience. What but absurdity can
follow, if you decide on Spirit by the laws of Matter? if you judge
that which, if it be at all, must be _super_-sensual, by that faculty
of your mind, the very definition of which is "the faculty judging
_according_ to sense"? These then are unworthy the name of _reasons_:
they are only pretexts. But _without_ reason to contradict your own
consciousness in defiance of your own conscience, is _contrary_ to
reason. Such and such writers, you say, have made a great _sensation_.
If so, I am sorry for it; but the fact I take to be this. From a
variety of causes the more austere Sciences have fallen into
discredit, and impostors have taken advantage of the general ignorance
to give a sort of mysterious and terrific importance to a parcel of
trashy sophistry, the authors of which would not have employed
themselves more irrationally in submitting the works of Raffaelle or
Titian to canons of criticism deduced from the sense of smell. Nay,
less so. For here the objects and the organs are only disparate: while
in the other case they are absolutely diverse. I conclude this note by
reminding the reader, that my first object is to make myself
_understood_. When he is in full possession of my _meaning_, then let
him consider whether it deserves to be received as _the truth_. Had it
been my immediate purpose to make him _believe_ me as well as
_understand_ me, I should have thought it necessary to warn him that a
_finite_ Will does indeed originate an _act_, and may originate a
_state_ of being; but yet only _in_ and _for_ the Agent himself. A
finite Will _constitutes_ a true Beginning; but with regard to the
series of motions and chants by which the free act is manifested and
made _effectual_, the _finite_ Will _gives_ a beginning only by
co-incidence with that _absolute_ WILL, which is at the same time
_Infinite_ POWER! Such is the language of Religion, and of Philosophy
too in the last instance. But I express the same truth in ordinary
language when I say, that a finite Will, or the Will of a finite
free-agent, acts outwardly by confluence with the laws of nature.
[111] It may conduce to the readier comprehension of this point if I
say, that the equivoque consists in confounding the almost technical
sense of the _noun substantive_, right, (a sense most often determined
by the genitive case following, as the right of property, the right of
husbands to chastise their wives, and so forth) with the popular sense
of the _adjective_, right: though this likewise has, if not a double
sense, yet a double application;--the first, when it is used to
express the fitness of a mean to a relative end, for example, "the
_right_ way to obtain the _right_ distance at which a picture should
be examined," and the like; and the other, when it expresses a perfect
conformity and commensurateness with the immutable idea of equity, or
perfect rectitude. Hence the close connexion between the words
righteousness and _god_liness, that is, godlikeness.
I should be tempted to subjoin a few words on a predominating doctrine
closely connected with the present argument--the Paleyan principle of
GENERAL CONSEQUENCES; but the inadequacy of this Principle as a
criterion of Right and Wrong, and above all its utter unfitness as a
Moral _Guide_ have been elsewhere so fully stated ('The Friend,' vol.
ii. Essay xi.[112]), that even in again referring to the subject, I
must shelter myself under Seneca's rule, that what we cannot too
frequently think of, we cannot too often be made to recollect. It is,
however, of immediate importance to the point in discussion, that the
reader should be made to see how altogether incompatible the principle
of judging by General Consequences is with the Idea of an Eternal,
Omnipresent, and Omniscient Being;--that he should be made aware of
the absurdity of attributing _any_ form of Generalization to the
All-perfect Mind. To _generalize_ is a faculty and function of the
human understanding, and from the imperfection and limitation of the
understanding are the use and the necessity of generalizing derived.
Generalization is a Substitute for Intuition, for the power of
_intuitive_ (that is, immediate) knowledge. As a substitute, it is a
gift of inestimable value to a finite intelligence, such as _man_ in
his present state is endowed with and capable of exercising; but yet a
_substitute_ only, and an imperfect one to boot. To attribute it to
God is the grossest anthropomorphism: and grosser instances of
anthropomorphism than are to be found in the controversial writings on
Original Sin and Vicarious Satisfaction, the records of superstition
do not supply.
[112] Essay xv. p. 204, Bohn's edition.--ED.
[113] I have since this page was written, met with several passages in
the Treatise on Repentance, the Holy Living and Dying, and the Worthy
Communicant, in which the Bishop asserts without scruple the
_impossibility_ of total obedience; and on the same grounds as I have
given. [See Taylor's 'Doctrine and Practice of Repentance,' c. I. sec.
ii., "On the Possibility or Impossibility of Keeping the Precepts of
the Gospel;" Heber's ed. of the 'Works,' v. 8, p. 265.--ED.]
[114] Availing himself of the equivocal sense and (I most readily
admit) the injudicious use, of the word "free" in the--even on this
account--_faulty_ phrase, "_free only to sin_," Taylor treats the
notion of a power in the Will of determining itself to evil without an
equal power of determining itself to good, as a "_foolery_." I would
this had been the only instance in his "Deus Justificatus" of that
inconsiderate contempt so frequent in the polemic treatises of minor
divines, who will have ideas of reason, spiritual truths that can only
be spiritually discerned, translated for them into adequate
conceptions of the understanding. The great articles of Corruption and
Redemption are _propounded_ to us as spiritual mysteries; and every
interpretation, that pretends to explain them into comprehensible
notions, does by its very success furnish presumptive proof of its
failure. The acuteness and logical dexterity, with which Taylor has
brought out the falsehood or semblance of falsehood in the Calvinistic
scheme, are truly admirable. Had he next concentered his thoughts in
tranquil meditation, and asked himself: What then _is_ the truth? If a
Will _be_ at all, what must a will be?--he might, I think, have seen
that a nature in a Will implies already a _corruption_ of that Will;
that a _nature_ is as inconsistent with _freedom_ as free choice with
an incapacity of choosing aught but evil. And lastly, a free power in
a _nature_ to fulfil a law _above_ nature!--I, who love and honour
this good and great man with all the reverence that can dwell "on this
side idolatry," dare not retort on this assertion the charge of
_foolery_; but I find it a paradox as startling to my _reason_ as any
of the hard sayings of the Dort divines were to his _understanding_.
[115] Vol. ix. pp. 5, 6, Heber's edit. ['Doctrine and Practice of
Repentance,' c. vi. sec. I.--ED.]
[116] This passage appears as here in the first edition of the 'Aids,'
1825.--ED.
[117] The same, slightly different, appears in Coleridge's 'Literary
Remains,' 1838, v. iii., p. 328.--ED.
[118] If the Law worked _on_ the Will, it would be the working of an
extrinsic and alien force, and, as St. Paul profoundly argues, would
prove the Will sinful.
[119] For a specimen of these Rabbinical dotages I refer, not to the
writings of mystics and enthusiasts, but to the shrewd and witty Dr.
South, one of whose most elaborate sermons stands prominent among the
many splendid extravaganzas on this subject.